Pistons owner Tom Gores and his partners had an active role in the search for GM Jeff Bower, as coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy told reporters, including MLive’s Brendan Savage. Van Gundy said he sees the influence as a positive, giving him confidence that he can have a successful working relationship with the club’s owners, Savage notes. Van Gundy had plenty more to say as the team introduced Bower to the media, and we’ll round up his most relevant comments via Savage and Perry Farrell of the Detroit Free Press.
On the front office dynamic between him and Bower:
“Jeff is going to be our general manager on a day-to-day basis. He’s going to be talking to assistant general managers and the scouts and dealing with agents on the phone and things like that. I’ll be much more involved at this time of the year but as we get into the season, it will look like a pretty conventional NBA franchise. What we want is a collaboration process with a lot of hard-working, intelligent people who are thinking and then we use the process to come to a decision. I look at my role in this … as more working with Jeff to develop a vision and strategy of where we want to be and then Jeff will be the primary guy. This will be Jeff’s front office. I’ll be involved. We’ve talked about lines of communication to keep me involved. But day-to-day, he’ll be the one running things.”
On the front office chain of command:
“I know how important the general manger is in this thing. The general manager is going to have just about as much authority as he has anywhere. I guess at the end of the day, if we totally disagreed on who to sign, yeah I’ll be the one [to make the final decision]. I don’t think it will come to that.”
On Greg Monroe‘s fit with the Pistons:
“Before you talk about style of play we have a current roster right here, right now and we’ve got to build around that, and I think a key piece around that right now is the Greg Monroe situation as a restricted free agent. What’s going to go on there? With Greg and Andre [Drummond] you certainly have to play a little bit differently than we played in Orlando. That doesn’t mean you still can’t find a fit. We have two of the best young guys in the league. I value Greg Monroe highly. I do want him here, but obviously when you’re dealing with a free agent, even restricted free agents, the situation gets a little more complicated.”
On his interaction with Monroe and agent David Falk:
“We’ve sat down face-to-face and they know how highly I value him. Greg Monroe is a very good young talent. He has great offensive skills. He has very high character. Those are things we value a great deal. I hope he’s here for the long haul.”
On his pitch to Monroe:
“I’ve tried to sell him on our vision. I told him I have a pretty good track record with big guys being successful.”