Detroit Pistons unveil Lawrence Frank as their new head coach – NBA Update
Lawrence Frank was finally presented to the media as the Detroit Pistons’ new head coach on Wednesday. The coach seemed enthusiastic about the job, but also appeared a little perturbed due to the NBA lockout and the restrictions
imposed as a result.
The league has decreed that during the lockout no NBA franchise officials or coaches can speak about any players. That made for a particularly strange situation with regards to Frank’s address at the press conference as he couldn’t
talk about his plans for the players in the future.
"This is going to be a little difficult because of the situation we are in," Frank said. "I can't talk in specifics or about the players, so I'll have to be a lot more vague than I normally try to be."
Therefore Frank had to talk about his past, his coaches and working with people like Doc Rivers. Frank was at the Boston Celtics last season as a deputy to Rivers’ and his good work on the Celtics sidelines put him in the frame
for a number of head coaching vacancies in the NBA this off season.
Detroit scouted him for quite a while and Frank was part of a very lengthy selection process that included other big names such as former Detroit star Bill Laimbeer and Mike Woodson. However around a week ago it became evident
that Lawrence had indeed won the race.
Frank comes with NBA experience at the highest level as he was coach of the New Jersey Nets for a long period of time and Joe Dumars, the President of Basketball Operations at the Detroit Pistons, revealed that the franchise had
longevity in mind when making the decision,
"Right now, our first job is to get this franchise back on track," Joe Dumars said. "We went through a very lengthy process with this hire -- we started talking to Lawrence in June, and it is now August -- and I'm very confident
that he's the right person to get us going in the right direction."
For his part Frank was delighted to be given an opportunity to head one of the elite franchises in the NBA. The Pistons boast a proud history being only one of 5 teams to have won three or more NBA World Championships. Two of those
came in the “Bad Boys” era, when the team was led by Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Joe Dumars.
The last time they tasted NBA title glory was in 2004, when Larry Brown guided a hardworking set of players to an unlikely victory over the mighty Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals.
Since then however, the franchise has fallen on tough times and the last two years under John Kuester were particularly painful for the fans to bear. They would now be hoping the Lawrence Frank can take the side back to the glory
days.
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