Hours before the start of NBA free agency, Detroit Pistons president Joe Dumars made a splash of a different sort

Tuesday, firing coach Michael Curry after just one season amid ongoing concerns about Curry's command of the locker room and fears that keeping him could hamper Detroit's offseason business.

NBA front-office sources told ESPN.com that the Pistons -- projected to have more spending money than any team in the league when the market opens for business at 12:01 a.m. ET Wednesday -- had been contemplating the move for weeks after Curry's rocky debut season, and decided to go ahead with the change, in part to help maintain their position as the team with the most free-agent ammunition this summer.

After making what he described as a "difficult" decision," Dumars told ESPN.com Tuesday afternoon: "As we have continued to go through this transition, it has become clear that we needed a more experienced coach to help guide us through this period."

The Detroit Free Press also quoted Dumars as saying that he "asked a lot of Mike as a first-year head coach."

Pistons spokesman Kevin Grigg said the timetable for naming a new coach was up in the air.

"Obviously with the free agency period starting tomorrow [Wednesday], we don't know quite the speed of it," Grigg said.

One prominent coaching source told ESPN.com that it's unlikely Dumars would push for such a move, given the timing, without already having reached out to prospective targets.

Sources said that two names high on Dumars' list as potential replacements are former Pistons coach and current TNT analyst Doug Collins, along with ex-Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson, who just completed his first season as an ESPN analyst.

A source close to the situation told ESPN that Johnson met with the Pistons on Wednesday.