Give Tom Gores credit — how many owners would have stepped forward, addressed fans and taken questions from the media when their team had lost 25 in a row? Most would stay in the shadows and, at most, send their GM/president out there to face the fire.
Gores apologized to Pistons fans and said there would be changes to the franchise, although he did not detail what those would be or when they would happen — other than saying in the “near future” — in a lengthy conversation with Pistons beat writers. He did say coach Monty Williams (hired this past summer) was safe and implied the same was true for GM Troy Weaver. Gores apologized to fans but added that what the front office has done in recent years was create financial flexibility that will allow them to make moves, maybe at the trade deadline. Also, he has no plans to sell the team.
Here are a few quotes from Gores’ conversation with reporters. You can read the full transcript from James Edwards III at The Athletic or from Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press.
“We owe [Detroit fans] a conversation about the Pistons and where we’re at, and also just apologize for the disappointment to our fans. I’m as disappointed as anybody.”
“We require change. We’re not doing well. As far as where we’re going in getting this set of players and flexibility and all that stuff, I think that stuff and the work to get there is still there. But we have to assess what’s not working here. I’m down to Monty and I talking about rotations. I don’t normally do that. And Monty’s so good, he knows what he’s doing and he’s open to talking about it. We’re down to, ‘How do we fix things?’ We do have to change something. I can’t tell you exactly what it is; we’re diving in pretty hard. We’re probably two weeks ahead of you guys, the fans, in that our disappointment is catching up with us, too. We expected a lot more. But we have to be real in that there are some things that haven’t been working with the makeup of the team and we have to address that.”
When might that change happen?
“I think it has to be in the near future. We have to have urgency. It’s not going well. I’m apologizing to the fans. It’s not going well. It’s our job to create urgency around it. I don’t think there’s a timeline other than, as soon as possible, we have to figure out how to right the ship. The ship is not sinking, but we have to right the ship. Something’s not exactly right. We have to be honest enough with ourselves and not be stuck in a strategy. The worst leaders don’t know how to adjust. We have to navigate and adjust. Whatever strategy we had isn’t quite working.”
“We have to change some things. We’re sitting around and doing a lot of reflecting. Troy (Weaver) is, Monty (Williams) is and I am. What change could take place to make us better? We have to be careful. … We’ve taken a lot of steps to get ourselves ready for the future, and we have to be careful and make sure we don’t do anything wrong.”
Gores would not be locked down to what that change might look like.
The Pistons are 2-26 on the season and are on pace for the worst season in NBA history (based on winning percentage). They have lost 25 straight games, one short of tying the single-season NBA record for consecutive losses, three short of tying the all-time record (across two seasons). Detroit’s next two games are a home-and-home against the Brooklyn Nets, then at Boston, followed by a home game against Toronto.
