Owner Tom Gores Talks Pistons’ Future

The Pistons‘ first postseason appearance since the 2015/16 campaign ended with four straight losses, but the organization will continue to look for ways to win more games. Owner Tom Gores spoke with the media following the sweep at the hands of the Bucks, squashing any notion that Detroit will take one step back in order to two steps forward.

“I just don’t believe in the idea of whatever you want to call it — tanking or losing,” Gores said (via Rod Beard of The Detroit News). “We need a winning culture and let’s just see what happens from there. I don’t think sports is about that. You can’t get on the court and think about losing. I just don’t believe in it … I’m not going to get into that business.”

Gores said that the Pistons need to “make more progress.” Detroit won 41 games this year, up from 39 and 37 respectively over the previous two seasons.

The improvement didn’t come without a price, as team salary was close to the luxury tax this past season. The Pistons already have approximately $112MM in guaranteed salary on the books for the 2019/20 season and they will continue to search for ways to make improvements within the confines of the salary cap parameters.

“I want to win as much as all of us want to win. If I didn’t want to, it would have been easy not to win and not try to get into the playoffs. Of course, we are,” Gores said. “This has never been about our financial situation; it’s about delivering to Detroit. It’s not the way we function and we’re going to do whatever it takes to win. 

“We established good culture this year and if you look at the positives, we do have great players and Dwane did a good job navigating some of our young players with Bruce Brown, and [Luke Kennard] did great every step at a time. It’s a process.”

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