Cheeks hired as Pistons Coach

[_Steve_]

Former All-Star point guard and an assistant in Oklahoma City for the past four seasons, Maurice Cheeks is getting his third shot as an NBA head coach.
With George Karl, Lionel Hollins and Brian Shaw available (to name only a few) I simply think this wasn't the best move by the Pistons. Assuming that Shaw will get a lot of support from his mentor Phil Jackson (who still prefers the big man game), he'd been the perfect fit for the Pistons in my opinion.

[NovU]

I'm interest to hear... What do our loyal Pistons fans have to say to this, if there's any. Will he help Maxiell to reach his full potential?

[Andrew]

He had a couple of decent seasons in Portland when the roster at his disposal wasn't too bad. He's got a couple of good young players to work with in Detroit, though I don't think it's a hiring that's going to inspire much excitement among Pistons fans. He'll probably do a respectable enough job with the squad he's got, until they let him go and bring in someone else to either take them to the next level or oversee another rebuilding effort.

[benji]

I haven't seen the reasoning behind it. Maybe he's going to sing the anthem with kids every game or something.

Only rumor I did see is that he's apparently highly respected by Iguodala...

I thought Frank wasn't TOO BAD, especially compared to his immediate predecessors, although I don't know if that was because they forced his hand by dumping all the veterans so he couldn't play them anymore. I have to imagine the mixed messages from above weren't helping him or Kuester though. Employing a doghouse on a young team is a dumb idea anywhere though.

And for supposedly being a good defensive coach he didn't get the team outside of Andre (and maybe Jerebko and Maxiell from time to time) to play any defense.

That said, almost all of the Pistons success this season will come from what they do in the offseason. Even Frank probably could've got this team close to the playoffs if Andre didn't get hurt and they had Calderon sooner. A full year of those two plus whatever is added through the draft and FA plus everyones continued development should bump the team up a few games anyhow.

Will have to research Cheeks a little more. He's supposed to be a players coach more than anything, which may be what a young team needs more than an unrelenting perfectionist. (Especially ones who never played the game. EDIT: Guess Kuester did actually play in the NBA for a short period, nowhere near the prominence of a Cheeks though.)