4 costly moves that led to Stan Van Gundy's firing

The Detroit Pistons have cut bait with head coach and team president Stan Van Gundy after four uninspiring seasons at the helm.

Van Gundy leaves behind a franchise decidedly on the path to nowhere. Not only did the Pistons miss the playoffs for the second straight season, but they're capped out for the foreseeable future, their expensive star players don't fit, and they're short on both prospects and future picks.

Here are four moves that ultimately cost Van Gundy his job.

Gambling on Blake Griffin

There's always a desperate gamble that precedes a firing, and Van Gundy swung for the expensive remains of Griffin.

On the surface, there was nothing wrong with buying low on a former superstar. The only future assets the Pistons surrendered were cap flexibility and a late lottery pick, but taking on $171 million in guaranteed salary didn't propel Detroit to the playoffs, and likely cost Van Gundy his job.

Griffin looked miserable in his 25 appearances with the Pistons, and his performance wasn't much better. He scored almost 20 points per game, but he hit just 43 percent of his field goals, the Pistons couldn't gain ground in the standings, and Griffin ended up sitting out the final eight games of the season.

A full training camp should give the injury-prone forward time to catch up, but it's never going to be an ideal fit. There's hardly any spacing on the floor when Griffin shares the court with franchise center Andre Drummond and their skills overlap. To make matters worse, those two will make over $60 million for at least the next three seasons, which kills any chance of recruiting a sorely needed third piece.

Gifting $80 million to Reggie Jackson

The Pistons thought they solved the point guard position by grabbing Jackson from the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2015.

OKC's locker room soured on Jackson, which gave Van Gundy the perfect opportunity to scoop an overqualified backup to Russell Westbrook. And in the immediate aftermath, Van Gundy looked like a genius, as Jackson averaged 18 points and nine assists to finish the season.

That brief stretch proved too enticing for Van Gundy, as he immediately locked Jackson into a five-year, $80-million contract. The point guard had another strong season in 2016, but knee, thumb, and ankle injuries limited him to just 52 and 45 appearances in the two years thereafter.

Jackson also started declining as injuries ate away at the athleticism that made him effective. His finishing at the rim dropped off while his 3-point stroke remained inconsistent. Career journeyman Ish Smith outperformed him on a regular basis and trade rumors emerged, as Jackson's name was linked to the likes of Eric Bledsoe and Ricky Rubio, and not surprisingly, Van Gundy and Jackson traded words through the press.

The next management team will not only have to bite the bullet on the $35 million left on Jackson's deal, but they will also need to find enough touches to satisfy the trio of Jackson, Griffin, and Drummond. It won't be easy.

Wasted draft picks

Van Gundy was always afforded the chance to bolster his roster through the draft, as the Pistons routinely missed the playoffs. However, he failed to translate any of his selections into meaningful rotation players.

The most successful pick made by Van Gundy was nabbing Spencer Dinwiddie with the 38th pick in 2014, but Dinwiddie only broke out after relocating to Brooklyn. The point guard couldn't cut it as a third-string backup, but he blossomed into a potential starter after changing teams.

Stanley Johnson is the other highlight, but his development has stalled following a promising rookie campaign in which he declared he was "definitely in LeBron's head" during a first-round series that ended in a sweep at the hands of the Cavaliers. He became a starter this season, but that reflects the team's circumstances more than Johnson's own improvement, as he continued to shoot under 40 percent from the field and below 30 percent from deep.

The other selections are borderline depressing. Van Gundy picked Luke Kennard right before Utah snagged Donovan Mitchell, one summer after he used the 18th pick in 2016 on Henry Ellenson, who has scored a grand total of 211 points on 210 shots in two seasons.

Van Gundy was so unsuccessful in the draft that he found more value in trades, despite failing to generate anything positive from most of them. He tried to flip the pick that became Ellenson in a deal for Donatas Motiejunas, who is now in China, before that trade was nixed due to a failed physical. He attached a second-round pick to the affordable deal of Marcus Morris for a few months of Avery Bradley, and the Pistons won't even have a pick this summer since they moved it in the Griffin trade.

Failing to develop Andre Drummond

Van Gundy also failed in his main mission, which was to replicate his program in Orlando and develop Drummond into the second coming of Dwight Howard.

Those expectations were too far-fetched, in retrospect, but Drummond had all the tools to be great. He was bigger, faster, and stronger than Howard, and Van Gundy seemed like the perfect teacher, but it never quite came to fruition.

Drummond improved marginally on defense, but he was never a shutdown force like Howard. Van Gundy also didn't show much patience, as he would routinely bench Drummond for the likes of Aron Baynes and Anthony Tolliver when the Pistons started leaking points.

He also never became an effective feature player on offense, as Drummond's crude post-up game consisted of little more than an unreliable hook shot. Drummond improved his free-throw shooting, added a nifty handle, and honed his face-up game, but none of that translated to better results for the team.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)