From The Top Down-The Detroit Pistons Are Built To Succeed

The NBA is back this week, and fans of the Detroit Pistons have reason to believe that they’ll be watching a competitive basketball team in 2015-2016. There is a real point guard in place and he’ll be running pick and rolls with a very real center. Surrounding them are a bevy of live 3-point shooters and a very real rookie-of-the-year candidate. There’s a good chance that this Pistons team breaks into the postseason for the first time since the 2008-2009 season. A playoff berth would certainly be exciting, but the most encouraging aspect to the Pistons organization has little to do with the players that they’ll run out this week. The truly encouraging aspect of this organization is how well they are built from the top down.

Tom Gores, a 1986 Michigan State graduate (and 1982 Genessee, MI High School Graduate), purchased Palace Sports & Entertainment from the Davidson family in June 2011 for $325 million. Initially, Gores made the purchase through his company, Platinum Equity, but has since become the sole owner. At the time, the Pistons alone were worth $360 million according to Forbes. Throw in the fact that Gores acquired the Pistons’ beautiful arena and two other local concert venues, and you’ve got one hell of a savvy acquisition. It’s like buying an Xbox and having Joey from Gamestop throw in 3 extra controllers and 4 new games on top of the deal.

In just over 4 years, Forbes now values the Pistons at over $800 million. Now, I’m no MBA, but a 250% increase in value on your investment is pretty good. Recognizing an investment with upwards revenue potential, negotiating a lower purchase price and applying the appropriate resources to maximize the investment’s potential is a fundamental business process that yielded Gores an Equity empire-He’s treated his purchase of Palace Sports & Entertainment no different.

In September 2011, Tom Gores hired Dennis Mannion as President of Palace Sports & Entertainment. Mannion was an excellent hire from an experience standpoint, having tenures with teams in all four major American sports leagues. After starting his career with the Phillies in 1982, Mannion would go on to have leadership roles with the Nuggets, Avalanche, Ravens and Dodgers, spanning 29 years at the professional level. Furthermore, teams that he was a part of earned 12 playoff appearances, two World Series berths, an NHL conference championship and a Super Bowl championship. Mannion’s largest impact has always been in the promoting of and marketing of his team’s brand. Not only have the Pistons lost more games than any other team in the Eastern Conference over the past five years, but they have been in the bottom five of attendance each of the past four seasons. Let’s just say that the Piston’s brand is in a rough spot. But as Harvey Dent would say-“the night is always darkest before the dawn.” The Pistons brand popularity may be sparse and spread out throughout the galaxy right now like the Rebel Alliance, but Detroit will immediately embrace the Pistons again once they are relevant. At which point you can bet that Dennis Mannion will know exactly how to get butts in seats, hats on heads and make Detroit Basketball a household brand again.

After another forgettable season in 2013-2014, Gores and his team knew that they needed someone to take charge of basketball operations. Detroit’s fanbase had just about enough of Joe Dumars’ hot and cold decision-making, so Gores let him go amicably from his President of Basketball Operations and General Manager roles. With vacancies at Head Coach, General Manager and President of B.O., Gores knew he faced decisions that would impact the Pistons for decades to come, so he consulted an expert. Kind of like how you or I might ask the advice of our techy friend to guide us through salvaging information from an old computer hard drive. Tom Gores is a lot cooler than us. His friend, Phil Jackson, knows a thing or two about what it takes to win in the NBA. Jackson agreed to assist in the search for a new coach and the other vacancies. The search ended in May 2014 with the hiring of Stan Van Gundy to be both the Head Coach and the President of Basketball Operations.

Stan Van Gundy can really coach. You may mistake him for Wario (or a rap star based on his recent bicycle photo), but the man can really coach. He’s one of only 43 coaches to have won 400 NBA games, and his .611 winning percentage is good for 28th all-time.

Van Gundy quickly selected Jeff Bower to be his General Manager. Van Gundy knew that the bulk of his time would be spent coaching, so Bower’s role would primarily deal in player/personnel decisions. On Zach Lowe’s podcast interview of Van Gundy for Grantland, Van Gundy revealed that the Pistons have the largest team of player scouts in the NBA (an unprecedented 4-5 people dedicated solely to scouting reports of existing NBA players). This served as a tremendous advantage when trade opportunities presented themselves in 2015. When the Pistons had an opportunity to acquire Reggie Jackson, they knew exactly who they were getting. When the Phoenix Suns wanted to quickly dump salary to make room for LaMarcus Aldridge (good one), the Pistons were ready to indulge them. The trade landed the Pistons their night-one starting small forward, Marcus Morris, and Reggie Bullock, who is about to play a substantial role with Jodie Meeks breaking his foot this week. That trade is starting to look like walking into Gamestop and having Joey give you a free copy of Fallout 4, two weeks before it comes out.

Stan Van Gundy has been a great hire because he has a vision and he’s sticking to it. Followers of Detroit Basketball from day one of Van Gundy’s tenure have speculated that he would build around Andre like he did Dwight in Orlando. Before we pigeonhole Van Gundy into being capable of only one successful strategy, what’s not to say that Van Gundy is simply using what he has from a talent perspective-Drummond is the Piston’s most dynamic player, why not build around him?

Whatever it is, Since Van Gundy was brought in, he has not been shy about making changes. He used the 2011 CBA’s expanded stretch provision to waive Josh Smith, after a 5-23 start to the 2014 season. This was a ballsy move to simply cut his team’s highest paid player, but Smith is an oblivious team player that Van Gundy did not see in his future plans. In fact, the only players that remain with the Pistons since Stan Van Gundy came in are Brandon Jennings, Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Certainly, Stan Van Gundy and his team have made some dynamic moves in the short amount of time they’ve been in Detroit, but the Pistons’ finest addition this offseason was not a player.

On June 5th of this year, it was announced that Tom Gores would be hiring Arn Tellem as Vice Chairman of Palace Sports & Entertainment. If the previous hires I’ve mentioned were splashy, this hire was nuclear cannon-bally. Arn Tellem is probably the most successful and prolific sports agent of all-time. He negotiated $3.5 billion in contracted deals between 2008 and when he left Wasserman Media Group and joined PS&E. His role with the organization will be the face of the management team, more or less. However, there are multiple theories on why he was truly brought in. Perhaps he’ll lead the charge in moving the Pistons down to Detroit over the next 10 years. Perhaps he’ll spearhead the establishment of a regional sports network, alleviating the stranglehold that Fox Sports has on Detroit, and broadcasting the Pistons, Tigers and Red Wings throughout the region.

No one really knows. No one really knows how Gores scored one of the most brilliant minds in the sports business to come and work for him. What is known is that Tellem is the asset of all assets to have in your front office if you’re an NBA or MLB franchise. Who knows more about how contracts should be negotiated? Who has more contacts throughout the industry than this guy? Evidence of this influence may already be popping up-Piston’s management convinced their star 22-year-old center to hold off on signing his extension until the end of the year to save about $10 million in salary cap next summer for the team. The same tactic that the Spurs employed last season with Kawhi Leonard, which allowed them to sign LaMarcus Aldridge. This may not be the direct influence of Tellem, but when Van Gundy and Bower are unsure of how to proceed in a contractual situation, does there exist a more capable person to ask than Tellem?

The Pistons look very good in the season’s early stages. I’ll be enjoying every game because there are players that provide a potentially promising future for Detroit Basketball. But make no mistake, the promise of the future of the organization is built in the foundation of the sports business experience of those in decision-making positions under Tom Gores.

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