If Tom Gores buys Pistons next week, will they play in Detroit?

**iheartthed** · April-08-11, 12:55 PM

Gores wins:

Tom Gores and his investment firm, Platinum Equity, have announced a "definitive agreement" to purchase the Detroit Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment.
The purchase, from Pistons owner Karen Davidson, includes the NBA team, The Palace of Auburn Hills, DTE Energy Music Theatre and the operating rights to Meadow Brook Music Festival.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110408/...#ixzz1IxJPUVpJ

**R8RBOB** · April-08-11, 12:58 PM

I can wait to hear the cost. I have posted in the past about what the NBA would want the Pistons to sell for.

**1KielsonDrive** · April-08-11, 01:01 PM

My question is: if Gores or Illitch buys the Pistons by 2015, will they play in Michigan?

GUSHI · April-08-11, 01:13 PM

If Gore to buy the Pistons and move them, I could easily see another expansion team coming to Detroit. Metro Detroit is to big to not have a basketball team.

**Hypestyles** · April-08-11, 01:26 PM

ah well... hopefully gores will spend big money to get free agents and a playoff bid next year.. I'm sick of the mantra of "we're in rebuilding mode" and it lasts 7 or more years... it had better be 'playoffs or die' for the coaching and management..

**sirrealone** · April-08-11, 02:02 PM

I am hopeful that this will mean better things for the Pistons. I think Dumars has been completely hamstrung in his ability to spend any money on the team over the past two years. The last money he was given the go-ahead to spend was on Gordon and Villenueva and I get the impression that even those signings were not his first choice. I also don't blame Dumars at all for the mess that has been Kuester as coach. I really think he wanted to sign Doug Collins instead but was only given authorization to spend so much on a coach, which was below Collins asking price.

Hopefully the widow Davidson will be able to scrape by, even though she almost certainly took less than what she had been asking for, given how long this entire thing took.

**iheartthed** · April-19-11, 02:05 PM

If Tom Gores buys Pistons next week, will they play in Detroit?

No.

Pistons deal likely a loss for city of Detroit

Moving the Pistons to Detroit would open up the possibility of building a new dual-team arena for the Ilitch-owned Red Wings and the Pistons. Now, with Gores in command, it is all but certain that he will keep the Pistons in the team's current home at the Palace -- at least for now.

"Good news for Oakland, good news for Auburn Hills," Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said Friday afternoon.

The outlook downtown, though, was glummer. If the Red Wings, still playing at their longtime home, the aging Joe Louis Arena, are to move to a new arena one day, that new arena would have been much easier to finance as home to two teams instead of just one.

Two teams playing in the same arena would mean about twice the sports-related dates and revenue, which would make it that much easier to support a bond issue to raise money to pay for construction.

George Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and the city's point man for a deal, said Friday that Detroit's first job is to make needed improvements to Joe Louis for the Red Wings, and then consider a state-of-the-art arena "down the road."

http://www.freep.com/article/2011040...yssey=obinsite

So, reading the tea leaves, it sounds like the new game plan is to wait for the Palace to age out and then make another play for the Pistons to join the Wings downtown.

**firstandten** · April-19-11, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by GUSHI

If Gore to buy the Pistons and move them, I could easily see another expansion team coming to Detroit. Metro Detroit is to big to not have a basketball team.

Also remember such a move must be approved by the other NBA owners. The last move from Seattle to OKC was approved only after some games were played in OKC by the Hornets [[let owners know that the NBA would sell in OKC) after Katrina and the Seattle owner could convince the other owners that he couldn't make money in Seattle.