Izzo and the Pistons

Its been rumored before and it will probably get rumored again, but some recent events and recent conversations have caused me to reach the conclusion that Tom Izzo is going to be the next coach of the Detroit Pistons. The headline itself is going to cause mass hysteria all over the State of Michigan. Spartan fans will suffer anxiety attacks with flash backs to Big 10 mediocrity, NIT tournaments and .500 records. Wolverine fans will dance in the streets, hopeful that MSU losing their Commander-in-Chief will signal a return to Big 10 relevance and out of the black hole that have been the last 15 years.

Right off the top... if your looking for a smoking gun, a named source or some form of hard physical evidence... your not going to find it here.

What you will find are indicators... any one of which would mean very little by itself, but together build a compelling case to support the conclusion.

Izzo has been approached four different times by NBA teams to discuss a head coaching job. In 2000, the Atlanta Hawks made an offer so substantial that Izzo actually returned to East Lansing with the intention of leaving. Having won a National Championship and completed their 3rd consecutive Final Four appearance, little appeared left to prove. But for Izzo, there was... that he could do it again without the original Flintstones recruiting class. In 2004, it was the Toronto Raptors who came calling... but Izzo was not inclined to leave MSU for a struggling franchise that had just finished treating coaching friend Kevin O'Neal poorly. And in the Spring of 2005, Tom Izzo met with officials from the Minnesota Timberwolves in Grand Rapids about their vacant head coaching job and after the Pistons fired Larry Brown, Joe Dumars talked to Tom Izzo. Izzo had been close to Larry Brown... spent much time with the coach... many assumed that Izzo was being groomed by Larry Brown.

It is doubtful that at that time Joe Dumars asked Tom Izzo to come coach Detroit. Dumars has said often and repeatedly:"There wouldn't be any questions asked if Tom wanted to sit down and talk about this job ... I'd do it in a heartbeat," Dumars said of Izzo. "But I can't go up to Lansing and yank him out of Michigan State. There's a way to get it done. And that's not the way to get it done. Tom knows that I'd be very interested to talk to him. But that's Tom's call though."

However, Joe Dumars and Tom Izzo are close confidents... friends even. And it wasn't always that way... back in 2001 when first asked about Tom Izzo, Joe Dumars' intimated he wasn't looking for a college coach for his NBA team. That's how the relationship began, yet that relationship grew and developed and to this day it continues... Izzo and Dumars talk weekly. I don't know what they talk about, but you can be sure they share conversations about their respective teams. Share conversations about players in the league, coaches, the trials and tribulations associated with the NBA and the NCAA. They attend each other events, most recently in October at Eagle Hawk just off MSU's campus. If you know anything about Joe Dumars, he respects men of honesty and integrity. He respects men who respect others and who respect the game. Over the last 5 years this relationship has become closer, it has become more reinforced, and it has established Tom Izzo as a guy that Joe Dumars now knows and trusts.

The track record of college coaches making the jump to the NBA isn't good. Rick Pitno, P.J. Carlismo, Tim Floyd, Lon Kruger, and John Calipari just to name a few. And Tom Izzo's name has been mentioned as a guy who probably couldn't make the jump. And it irks the man. Tom Izzo is the kind of guy who has always achieved what others have said he can't achieve. A U.P. kid who wasn't big enough, wasn't fast enough, wasn't skilled enough to play college ball. Yet he did. And he did it well... a Division III All-American his senior year. From High School coach, to grad assistant, to assistant coach to head coach of a Big 10 school... a Big 10 school with a history of mediocrity with flashes of greatness, to a perennial national power, to National Champion. And he has coached professional players... as an assistant in the 2001 Goodwill games, as head coach in the 2003 Pan American Games. Inside Tom Izzo, he thinks he can do it. Izzo history is, if I think I can, I will.

On November 30th, 2006 Dan Monsoon resigned as head coach at the University of Minnesota. They placed Jim Molinari in the interim position and have now gone 3 months without finding a head coach. They haven't even looked. Perhaps they have their guy picked out, just waiting for his commitments to be completed. Perhaps that guy is in Detroit, coaching the Pistons. Flip Saunders is an alum of the University of Minnesota... as both a player and a coach. Saunders started his coaching career in Minnesota and his son is currently a player for the University of Minnesota. Flip has been criticized by some in the media for being too soft, for being too distracted. Larry Brown got ran out of town for being distracted. Sometimes reading tea leaves is tough. Sometimes its not.

It has been assumed that Tom Izzo was being groomed to be the next AD at MSU. That isn't going to be the case. Mark Hollis is going to be the next AD at Michigan State. Only 43 years old, a 1985 alum, Mark Hollis is highly though of and he has paid his dues. He is also everything a 21st century AD is supposed to be... 1/2 show man, 1/2 CEO. The modern NCAA doesn't have a use for old coaches as ADs. It still happens, but it’s not like it was. Michigan State knows it. Tom Izzo knows it. Tom Izzo also knows that coaching at the highest level of the NCAA requires a lot of work. It never ends... Its 365 days a year. Coaching, recruiting, campaigning, recruiting, fund raising, recruiting, networking and recruiting. Did I mention recruiting? It’s an ugly, dirty, process... and it’s gotten so high profile, so dirty that it’s not fun for Tom Izzo anymore. Izzo would never leave MSU in a lurch. He'd never leave with unfinished business to be attended to. It’s why he didn't leave in 2001... It’s why he didn't leave in 2004. But its different now, in 2007 he has a highly competitive team, one without a senior. An incredible recruiting class signed... another blue chip laden class in waiting. And a protégé ready to take over the reigns. Tom Crean's contract with Marquette contains an out to go to MSU. Marquette and Crean negotiated an extension just this fall... and the out remained in place. Why do you keep a clause in your contract you don't feel you might need... that you want to need.

And so the perfect storm comes together: Flip wanting to leave the Pistons and the Pistons ready for him to go. Joe Dumars wanting Izzo to want to come to the Pistons. Tom Izzo wanting to take on this final challenge without forsaking MSU, without having to feel he pushed out a friend.

Remember this Joe Dumars quote the last time he looked for a Piston's head coach:

"I want this guy to be the guy that when the team walks on the floor that I can truly, truly have total confidence that they're prepared to get the job done,"

That guy is Tom Izzo.