Pistons Fire Coach Flip Saunders
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In the morning, the Detroit Pistons fired Flip Saunders. By the afternoon, the players were put on notice.
“I’m not going to sit here and make Flip the scapegoat,” the president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said yesterday. “Everybody is in play.”
Dumars publicly put his entire lineup on the trading block, less than a week after the Pistons lost in the Eastern Conference final for the third straight year.
Among those available: Four players who have been together since winning the 2004 NBA title together, plus another starter who just finished his fourth season with the team.
“There are no sacred cows here,” Dumars said. “You lose that sacred-cow status when you lose three straight years.”
Messages seeking comment were left on Saunders’s cell phone. Saunders signed a four-year contract worth up to $26 million three years ago. His deal came less than a day after Detroit finalized terms of Larry Brown’s $7 million severance package after he helped them win a title and almost repeat in his two seasons.
