An open letter to Pelicans fans from Detroit Bad Boys: Best of luck, you’re going to need it

After New Orleans hired Joe Dumars to run the show, Dumars hired Troy Weaver to be his right-hand man.

Dear New Orleans Pelicans fans,

I am writing to you on the day the Detroit Pistons are hosting a playoff game with an opportunity to take a series lead. I am writing to you as someone who has made it through the tenures of Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver and made it to the other side.

We are sorry for what’s to come. Hiring Joe Dumars as Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations isn’t a bad thing. Or, at least it wasn’t at the turn of the last century. Dumars is responsible for contributing to all three of the Detroit Pistons ’ NBA championships – two as a player, and one as an executive. He was also the first African-American executive to lead a team to an NBA title. He spent roughly 14 years running the front office for Detroit. Half of those years were magical, building the Going to Work Pistons from the ground up. Half was an unmitigated disaster.

He then took a five-year break, roaming the league and picking up new tricks of the trade from fellow executives. In 2019, he spent a few years in Sacramento’s front office before moving to the NBA League Office in 2022. If there’s anyone who has a wealth of experience in NBA front offices, it’s Dumars.

Let’s talk about that first half of Dumars’ tenure in Detroit. His draft picks were spotty, but the later he was drafting, the better he was drafting. We’re talking late first-rounders like Tayshaun Prince, Jason Maxiell and Aaron Afflalo. In the second round, he scooped up Mehmet Okur, Amir Johnson and Kyle Singler, Jonas Jerebko, and Khris Middleton across his entire tenure. He traded for Ben Wallace, Rip Hamilton, and Rasheed Wallace. He signed Chauncey Billups, Darvin Ham, Lindsey Hunter, and Antonio McDyess as free agents. He did really well in the early-to-mid 2000s – just don’t bring up who he drafted in 2003.

The downfall started in 2008 after Dumars traded Billups to Denver for Allen Iverson. He was desperate to keep Detroit in the playoff race while creating salary cap space to build a new title contender. Dumars with money to spend proved to be a very dangerous, very bad thing. He overpaid players like Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, and Josh Smith. His drafting ability declined as he became a mainstay in the lottery. He selected Austin Daye, Greg Monroe, and Brandon Knight. This mirrored a problem early in his tenure, when his top-15 picks were Mateen Cleaves, Rodney White, Darko Milicic, Rodney Stuckey, and Austin Daye.

There is also the Zion of it all. There are indications ownership wants Dumars to move a star player, up to and including Zion, as they look to right the Pelicans ship for the future. Of all the things you can say about Dumars, he certainly aced his first star trade. He signed-and-traded star former No. 3 overall pick Grant HIll to the Orlando Magic for Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins. Wallace, of course, went on to become the best undrafted player in modern NBA history and cement the identity of Detroit’s contending run for several years.

Pistons fans will forever love Joe Dumars, but he hasn’t been a successful executive since the mid-2000s. Will he be able to build a good team 20 years later?

The answer is trending toward no considering he has already failed his first big test as a Pelicans executive. He is reportedly hiring ex-Pistons-GM Troy Weaver to be the Robin to his Batman. We’re not talking Christian Bale or Robert Pattison. We’re talking George Clooney or Adam West. The only expected outcome is comedy.

Troy Weaver spent four years as the Pistons’ GM from 2020-2024. During that time, he averaged 18.5 wins per season with a high of 23 wins in 2022. Detroit had a winning percentage of .233 during his entire tenure.

Weaver is responsible for building Detroit’s current young core. He is potentially the inverse of Joe Dumars in every way. He lived in the lottery, and it seems like he didn’t blow his picks. He selected Isaiah Stewart in 2020, Cade Cunningham in 2021, Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren in 2022, and Ausar Thompson in 2023. He did miss high on Killian Hayes and in the middle of the first round on Saddiq Bey in 2020. His second-round picks were also disasters.

Weaver lost the trust of Detroit fans due to him constantly losing on the margins of his transactions. Again the inverse of Dumars, as dangerous and bad as Joe was with money to spend, Weaver stubbornly refused to expend any money or effort putting real veterans around his young core. He believed in his draft acumen so much that he overleveraged in his thirst for picks, including multiple trades up that cost his team dearly.

He gave up a heavily-protected first round pick for Isaiah Stewart that handicapped his ability to make a big move for years. He traded contributors for a bevy of meaningless picks, and the dealt those meaningless picks like candy for meaningless returns. He lost on the margins of every deal because he was always convinced he was right about his players. He was frequently wrong.

He had an obsession with big men: Christian Wood, Mason Plumlee, Jahlil Okafor, Kelly Olynyk, Marvin Bagley, and James Wiseman. He ate the contracts of Dewayne Dedmon and DeAndre Jordan, and tried getting Bol Bol before the trade was rescinded. He tried to take immediate shortcuts by making trades with designs on stretching and waiving players (Dedmon the most egregious example) to open up cap space so he could add players to play for a bottom-2 team.

He then exhibited no patience or acumen by attaching assets to his own mistakes in Plumlee and Bagley. They were overpays at the time they were signed, everyone knew it but Weaver, and while he figured it out too late, it didn’t stop him from making matters worse by dealing them at a loss. At times, it felt like he had Smartest-Guy-in-the-Room Syndrome with him betting on his evaluation of reclamation projects like Jahlil Okafor, Josh Jackson, and James Wiseman – none of which panned out.

Weaver’s biggest acquisitions in his final summer with Detroit, when he was telling the media the Pistons were ready to be competitive on a nightly basis, were Monte Morris and Joe Harris. Morris played in six games and Harris played in 16 games – neither made a difference for the Pistons. The idea of acquiring veteran shooters was a good idea, but Trajan Langdon obviously showed he was much better at doing that this year.

When Weaver bet on himself, he lost. He wanted his guys, and he was never interested in the delayed gratification of building up assets for a brighter future. He knew he could build a winner today if only he could get the guys he was targeting. The big question for him is how much credit he deserves for picking consensus good players in the lottery? Do we credit Weaver for Cade Cunningham falling into his lap when Detroit won the lottery in 2021?

Dumars was betting on himself, too, but it was his ability to add players via free agency to build a contender. Way back in 2008, Dumars was talking about positionless basketball. That is some valuable foresight! The problem was, Dumars was adding players who were positionless because they couldn’t effectively play any position, not players who thrived by being able to play multiple positions. Ben Gordon was a point guard-sized shooting guard who couldn’t dribble or defend. Charlie Villanueva was a big man who couldn’t defend or rebound. Josh Smith was a defensive specialist (on his best days) who wanted to be Kevin Durant and caused audible cries of pain when he would shoot 3-pointers.

Is there a bright side?

Can this Dumars-Weaver pairing can actually work? It will require both playing into each other’s strengths instead of magnifying their weaknesses. They need the patience of Weaver for the long rebuild and not Dumars’ desire to add via free agency to fix problems. They need Dumars to hire folks who can identify talent lower in the draft and build a collection of contributors who can grow and maybe be consolidated one day.

They need Weaver to focus on scouting and drafting premier talent — the one thing he had some success with in Detroit. While Dumars needs to think about marginal contributors that complement young players — more Corliss Williamsons and fewer Josh Smiths. Maybe these two are a match made in heaven.

This is a big risk for New Orleans. Dumars hasn’t built a successful team for almost 20 years, and Weaver struggled in his first setting after being handed the keys to a franchise. At least Weaver isn’t driving, but I’m not sure he’s the right guy to give Dumars directions to their destination.

I wouldn’t count on a quick turnaround for the Pelicans, and the slower they plan to move the better for probably everyone involved.