Every Night - President Joe Dumars of the Detroit Pistons insists that the players play each game to the limit of their ability

Basketball Digest, March, 2001 by Perry Farrell

Joe Dumars' philosophy for the Pistons isn't quite "Bad Boys," but the future looks bright in Detroit

AS A PLAYER, JOE DUMARS WAS A great defender, a hard worker, and an unselfish contributor who didn't say much but let his play do the talking, night after night. As president of the Pistons, he's trying to shape the team in his image.

The theme is Every Night.

Every Night Dumars has promised this year's team will play hard. Every Night players will give maximum effort. Every Night Pistons fans can be proud of the team's performance, win or lose.

Every practice guys will go at it with the purpose of getting better. Players will be tough or talented, not often both.

Jerry Stackhouse, the team's best player and the only one who fits the tough and talented mold, has bought into the theme. Not surprisingly, then, so has Michael Curry and Eric Montross and Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins and Mikki Moore and Jerome Williams and John Wallace and Mateen Cleaves.

"I think the `Every Night' theme is good for the players and the fans here in Detroit," Dumars says. "What it does is gives everyone something to hang their hats on as to who we are and what we're trying to do. We want to establish ourselves as a team that's going to give it to you all the time, and that's always a good thing to sell to your players, fans. and opponents."

At the same time, Dumars knows that when a team is struggling to play .500, the only thing you can sell is the struggle. "In the absence of winning a championship, you better compete hard and give it all you have, and that's what I truly think the fans will respond to," he says. "If the fans feel that you're truly committed to winning and trying to do everything to bring their city a championship, then they will also come out and support you."

The Pistons hope to get back to the playoffs despite the loss of Grant Hill Failing that, they'd like to at least keep the team respectable until more help can arrive this summer. With Dumars expecting $10 to $12 million in salary, cap room next season, the future is bright.

"The thing you want to do is put yourself in position to be a player in the free agent market and the trade market," Dumars says. "There are some teams that are so tied down with salaries and long contracts until it's almost impossible for them to make moves, and that's a position I want to stay out of. As far as free agents are concerned, we'll continue to go after them as hard as anyone in the league."

Of course, Every Night only goes so far. Hard work is fine, but Dumars knows he needs more than just hard work to win in the NBA. "You have W have talent in this league, but without the effort we're preaching every night we're still not going to win," he says. "The best of both worlds is to have talented guys who play hard every night, but if you don't have the talent from the start, then you have to outwork your opponent."

Dumars, a successful businessman, wasn't begging to become Pistons president and doesn't need the headaches the job entails. But he is as committed to Detroit from a management standpoint as he was a player.

"I didn't need the job, but I thought this would be a great challenge, and it's an organization that I knew intimately," he rays. "I played my entire career here in Detroit [despite having] chances to leave, but I decided that this is where I wanted to be. The same thing applies with the front office. I just couldn't see myself running another team."

So while most prognosticators picked the Pistons near the basement of the Central Division, coach George Irvine and his staff went about the task of getting this group to practice hard, play hard, and provide help to Stackhouse, who has been the target of every opponent on the schedule.

"The offense will go through Jerry and defenses will adjust to him and gang up on him," Irvine says of Stackhouse. "We try to do that a lot in practice. Our second unit works hard and when we scrimmage they don't let Jerry go one-on-one. It's a constant. He's getting used to people coming at him. I think we have a lot of professional guys on this team, and I don't see them giving up or getting down on themselves if we have a bad start.

"I just want us to play the right way. We have to play defense and get out and run on offense so we don't let defenses get back and lock in on us. If we play the right way, we'll win games."

With all the turnover Stackhouse has witnessed in the past year--only five of his teammates who finished the 1999-00 season in Detroit are still Pistons--he's surprisingly optimistic about this collection of players.

"I think we have solid enough guys in here that we'll stay together," Stackhouse says. "It's easy for a team that doesn't like each other to start fragmenting when things go bad, but I just don't see that happening with this group."

Stackhouse isn't surprised that the Pistons, tabbed by some before the season as the NBA's worst team, found some success right out of the gate. "I feel good about what we've done because I think we've established what we have to do to win games," he says. "If we don't do those filings, well lose. We're not overwhelmingly talented where we can just go out and win games on our talent alone. If we play defense we score, our percentages are higher, and we don't get bogged down in one-on-one basketball and beating people off the dribble. Things just flow."