NBA Q&A: Pistons Coach Maurice Cheeks

Courtesy of Vincent Goodwill

Q: Was there any concern about what type of talent was going to be brought here given the lack of success in the last few years

A: No, not really. The more I met with Joe Dumars, I felt comfortable with him, liked what he was saying. I just got to like him and trusted the things he said. I knew he would do the things to put the roster together to be successful

Q: Most of the guys that come from that part of Chicago, Isiah Thomas, Dwyane Wade, Will Bynum, they kind of all share this fiery outwardness that’s probably formed from being in those circumstances

A: (laughs) Yeah, that’s right.

Q: You seem to be on the other side of the spectrum. You’re relaxed, a poker face. How come you’re so different than ...?

A: (Cuts question off) Those guys? My fire comes out in different ways. I was talking to our security guy, Jerry. When I came in, I was with older guys so my era, I was more subdued with older guys. I was never gonna be a guy out front. You have to pull yourself back with older guys, or you should. Veterans are usually out front. My fire was shown on the floor more than visually. I like it that way. Players will know, they’ll see it. They’ll feel it.

Q: Has it hurt you at Philly or Portland?

A: I think someone asked me that when I first got here. I am who I am. If you’re hired as the person you are, you can’t all of a sudden turn into something different. I’m not going to get a job and turn into this outward, crazy guy on the floor.

Q: What do you take from the previous coaching experiences? Various rosters, various levels of success? Are you still learning as a coach?

A: It’s a learning process in everything we do. There’s not one thing we don’t do in life that we don’t learn from. You apply successes and failures to our jobs and try to get better, no matter what it is. As this job gets ready to unfold, they’ll be challenges, hopefully more highs and lows. In Portland I had a lot of personalities (laughs), that was challenging in itself. I come here, there’s different personalities and guys that don’t know each other and have to know each other quickly. Every job presents a different challenge.

Q: Here you have Josh (Smith), Brandon (Jennings), and Rodney (Stuckey). Three guys who’ve been known to be up and down with personalities, moods. How do you bring your calm, or is it a challenge to project your personality to them?

A: To a degree, but watching Josh, watching him play, I like his personality. I like his fire on the floor and I don’t want to change that. There’s always ways to channel it for him, to channel it to a player, your delivery. Maybe that’s something I can do. I like the way he is, I liked it in Atlanta.

Now my point guard, he can’t be here (raises hand) and then here (lowers it to the floor) the next minute. He’s got other people looking at him, expecting things of him. I want him at a more even keel. That’s something I’ll impart on whoever’s running the point.

Q: Sounds like you’ll be a little tougher on them? More hands-on?

A: For sure. He will hear me more than anybody else, or they will. Jennings, (Will) Bynum, (Peyton) Siva. That’s what I played for 15 seasons. The impact they’ll have, most big guys won’t understand. They would laugh at me. The impact he could have is tremendous. I can’t have a point guard being jubilant one minute then not so the next. I need him (even) so when guys aren’t having good moments, he can take care of them.

Q: Because (Jennings) is a person who’s been noted to have certain skills and not necessarily implemented them to the best of his ability, do you want him to grasp it early or will it be gradual?

A: Everything will be gradual. But the one thing he has to understand and realize, the respect of his team is vital. Not that he can score 50 points, but that he can run his basketball team, do all the things point guards do, whether they’re winning or losing. He has to grab their respect.

Q: You didn’t mention Chauncey (Billups) being a point guard. Is his value going to be less on the floor and more in the locker room, keeping guys together, to sort of quell divides and such?

A: I haven’t seen him, I have to wait until I see him on the floor. I do know a guy of his stature, it speaks for itself. I’m gonna rely on him in a lot of ways. If a lot of things he’s done in the past, he can still do, it makes us even better. He’s a high-character guy, well respected in the area and in the NBA. If his basketball skills are anywhere near where they were, it’s doubly better.

Q: Transferring to Rodney (Stuckey). You’re his fifth coach. When you approach a guy like that, you recognize his history, what you’ve observed, do you approach him like you know all of these things or does he get a clean slate? Or do you go straight into preacher mode, like you did in Orlando (at Summer League, where he lectured Stuckey after a practice)?

A: What I did in Orlando was basically state the obvious and I’ve done it again. Physically you have all the skills, but you just said I’m his fifth coach. We can’t say it’s the coach anymore. We gotta quit that. (He’s gotta say) “Me, as a player I have to change, do something different.”

I can give him a clean slate but I have to look at some of his history, because if I don’t, I don’t know him. I can give him a clean slate when he’s on the floor, to see if he’s capable of giving more than he’s given.

Q: Can a guy be shell-shocked after a certain point? Can a guy be that talented and that confusing ?

A: I can’t say shell-shocked. There’s been tons of talented players that have not reached what they wanted to reach. From Rodney’s standpoint, there’s been a lot of players with physical skills where it hasn’t translated on the floor. If that’s the case, he won’t be the first.

My challenge is, if he is that talented, to see if I can get all those skills out of him. I’d be the fifth guy trying to do that. At some point we can’t keep saying the coach, the coach, the coach.

As a player, we gotta say what can I do?

Q: There’s a perception, right or wrong, that it’s the culture around here.

A: What’s the perception of the culture?

Q: The perception is whenever there’s a problem, blame the coach. There’s different layers to that, but do you have to address that or change that, of “coach blaming”?

A: That culture isn’t just here, it’s everywhere. Baseball, basketball, football. Us as coaches understand that. I was a player also, so can I say that us as players understand that if I don’t do my job, it comes down on me? Not necessarily. But I don’t have to say, “if you don’t do your job, I get the blame.” That’s the way life is as an NBA coach, baseball managers, NFL coaches, there’s no sugar coating that at all.

Our job as coaches is to get the best out of our players. You mention culture. I don’t know what the culture was. I can’t even talk about it. What I do know, as I look around, when I see these things up here (banners and retired jerseys), I know how good these players were.

When I see Joe Dumars, I know how good Joe was. I don’t know if these guys realize how good Joe was and what it takes to win those things up there. You talk about changing the culture; they had good culture here. That says it. These players that are up there and have been in here for a while, they’ve been in this building.

I’ve made mention to several guys about those banners because I played against Isiah and Joe. I know this culture has been something special. Can we get it back to where it was? We have players that can do it, we have to be committed. We can’t have one guy here trying to get 30 points, other guys here doing their own thing. We have to be as a collective.

That speaks for itself. If you walk around this building, there’s reminders all over the place. That struck me a lot. Everywhere you go, you see and you can’t help but pick up on it. As a player wouldn’t I want to be a part of it? 2004 is not that long ago. ’89 and ’90, probably not a lot of guys understand that. If you ask anyone on those teams, you ask them where they were, anything that happened during a game? They know. I don’t give a (bleep) what happens in your life, if you’re on one of those, you remember everything.

Q: That was you in ’83 (with the 76ers).

A: That’s my point. All the stuff that happened in my lifetime, at 57, I won’t forget anything that happened in ’83. Now I’m gonna forget a lot that happened in between (laughs). The culture here, it’s a pretty good culture.

Q: The biggest question people have about the roster so far, you have Andre (Drummond), Greg (Monroe) and Josh (Smith). At some point, you may have to pick which two guys finish a game and someone will have to sit.

A: How come? Why is that a major question?

Q: Arguably those are your three most gifted players and because of the strategy of the NBA, you may have to play two down the stretch instead of three.

A: That goes back to what I said. We have to be on a collective string. If it means one of those guys sits out and we’re winning games, that’s what we’ll do. If that’s the recipe. I don’t know if that’s the recipe. But if it is, one of them will have to sit. The only thing about that, those guys are young. It’s hard to tell a 20-year-old (Drummond), 23-year-old (Monroe) or 27-year-old (Smith), one of you have to sit down. 35? They’ll sit down with no problem. That’s the hardest part, that’s my job. I have to figure that out.

Q: So you know you have tough battles ahead?

A: If that’s the case. I’m hoping to have three big guys finish (laughs).

Q: Last thing. The team has gotten off to slow starts recently. Tom Gores has been vocal about wanting to make the playoffs this year.

A: Mmm-hmm.

Q: Eight new players, new coach, the team has to come together quickly. Do you feel any extra pressure?

A: I want to make the playoffs, too, you know? I don’t think anyone’s happy not making it, because it’s the ultimate to play during that time. So I don’t think there’s any more pressure. When I came here, I knew they were retooling the roster, not to just win more than 29 games, it was to make the playoffs, and I think Joe and his crew have done a nice job. We have the players to make the playoffs. I want to make the playoffs and do some damage, not just get there.