The Pistons took the Game 6 conference finals exit ramp for a third straight season, but Joe Dumars plans on mapping a far different off-season road map this time around.
It was a frank and blunt Dumars that met the media Tuesday afternoon, about five hours after thanking Flip Saunders for three years of service but telling him a fourth year wasn’t in the cards for him.
You can see the video of Dumars’ press conference on Pistons.com, but the highlights for me were these:
- Dumars saying significant change was his desire and that “everybody’s in play. There are no sacred cows here.”
- Dumars saying the last 10 minutes of Game 6, when the Pistons squandered a 10-point lead and lost going away, was “a microcosm of the last three years.”
- Dumars saying that as he walked out of The Palace after that game, he felt a “sense of calm. I’ve seen enough.”
- Dumars saying “this team became way too content and did not show up with a sense of urgency to get it done.”
He’s not promising earth-changing deals because, as he said, it takes two to tango and he’s not giving players away. But the message is clear: If Dumars has his way, the Pistons are going to look significantly different by the time they convene for training camp in October.
Check back later this afternoon for further details and analysis of Joe D’s postseason press conference on Pistons.com.
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Award-winning journalist Keith Langlois, most recently lead sports columnist at The Oakland Press, joined Pistons.com as the web site editor on October 2, 2006. Langlois, who brings over 27 years of professional sports journalism experience to Palace Sports & Entertainment, serves as Pistons.com's official beat writer and covers the team on a daily basis.