No-brainer: Detroit Pistons should hire Shane Battier to front office

When are the Detroit Pistons going to stop messing around and name Shane Battier the president of basketball operations?

This is the no-brainer to end all no-brainers, and it is that way on a couple of fronts.

First, the emotional side of it.

Battier, 39, who reportedly will get a second interview for a front-office position with the Pistons, per the Miami Herald, is a local kid who grew up in the area, winning the 1997 Hal Schram Mr. Basketball award while leading Birmingham Detroit Country Day to three state championships.

He then went to Duke, where he won a national championship and became the Naismith national player of the year. While at Duke, he had 3.6 GPA and earned a degree in religious studies.

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In other words: He didn’t spend four years at one of the best academic institutions in the country simply working on his jump shot.

He played 13 seasons in the NBA and is currently the director of basketball development and analytics for the Miami Heat, whom he helped win two NBA championships.

In the news release announcing Battier’s hiring, team president Pat Riley, who knows a thing or three about building a winning organization, said: “He embodies everything that we are looking for in our players and staff.”

BAM!

Battier is the guy the Pistons need to be the face of the organization. You want the organization to reflect his core values.

With him doing the hiring, you know he won’t be bringing any knuckleheads into the front office.

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He would hire one solid person after another and that filters down to the players. Just look what it has done to the Golden State Warriors, who went from NBA also-ran to juggernaut because of wise draft picks and smart acquisitions.

I like smart, and Battier is one of the smartest around. You might say he is short on front-office experience, but let’s talk about Theo Epstein.

Epstein was 28 when he became general manager of the Boston Red Sox. As assistant GM, he was charged with finding the next GM. His first two choices turned him down, and then the owners gave him the job.

He knew he was in over his head, but he hired like-minded individuals who worked hard, and he ended up halting the Red Sox's 86-year championship drought.

To prove it was no fluke, Epstein took over the Chicago Cubs in 2011, and and five years their 108-year championship drought was over.

We can compare Epstein and Battier because both have their egos in check, know what they don’t know and are analytical guys.

Battier was indoctrinated in analytics as a member of the Houston Rockets.

The Rockets were one of the first NBA teams to embrace analytics, and the franchise's analytics department would provide reports before every game. The reports often included more than 40 pages.

The players might have read the summary section, and the coaches might have read a page or two. And then there was Battier, who was known to read every word.

Every. Word.

During games, he would identify the opponent’s plays before they developed and told his teammates what to do.

Battier often guarded the league's top offensive players, without much help. That included Kobe Bryant. Battier knew which spots on the court Bryant was most effective scoring from, and he made life miserable for him.

That Battier is working with analytics with the Heat is another selling point in his favor.

He has been in Miami’s front office for just over a year and doesn’t have a wealth of front-office experience, which can be a good thing.

Battier will bring fresh ideas and hasn’t been negatively affected by working for bad organizations for years on end.

This is the Pistons' opportunity to remake themselves. With Blake Griffin, whom they traded for last season, the Pistons have an All-NBA type player and the rest of the roster is not as bad as what you typically find on teams stuck in the draft lottery.

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Noted author Michael Lewis, who wrote “Moneyball” and “The Blind Side,” wrote a lengthy piece on Battier for the New York Times when Battier was with Houston.

Lewis concluded Battier’s meager statistics did not reflect all that Battier did for a team. In the only analytical measure that counts, he wrote:

“Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the NBA as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win.”

That sounds like a guy who should be the Pistons' president of basketball operations. Or President of the United States.

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Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1

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