Flip's been gone since 2008. After Flip was fired Joe D hired Michael Curry as coach. Curry was not ready for prime time and Dumars fired him over the summer. So now we have Kuester.

Dumars has a lot of goodwill from his playing days and the 2004 championship.
It's also too early to judge Kuester-especially since he hasn't had a full team yet because of injuries.

But that 2004 draft really hurt us. Also Dumars has stocked the team with a lot of guys who may be versatile but don't do any one thing particularly well. Detroit is overloaded with shooting guards/combo guards (Stuckey, Rip, Gordon, Bynum, Atkins) and lacks any muscle up front. We're undersized and overpaid in the front court. We have too many guys that might be good complementary players on the right squad but aren't "go-to" type players.

But no one stays on top -or even near the top-forever and this is just our time to be in the doldrums evidently. Perhaps Joe D. can pull a trade by finding someone extra special stupid to deal with before the deadline...