Last Friday, when news started coming out about a supposed players protest, it looked like the John Kuester era in Detroit was about to come to an end. Many believed the Pistons would fire him by the end of the weekend, and at the very least the belief was that Kuester's time as Pistons head coach was winding down.
On Monday afternoon, however, Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars released a statement that made it clear no coaching change will be happening in the immediate future.
"First of all, John Kuester has my full support as we try to make a push towards the postseason over these last 21 games. We've had a long and proud history of being a first class organization that handles its business the right way. We expect everyone that represents the Detroit Pistons to do so in a first class manner and that will continue as we move forward."
So that's that. It's still very possible that Kuester will be fired at the conclusion of the 2010-11 season, but for right now he is the head coach moving forward.
One could certainly argue that a change needs to be made, but public relations-wise it would not be good timing to fire him after what happened last Friday. There is some skepticism about whether or not there even was a players protest, but it would not look good to make a change and appear to be feeding into what the players wanted. The best thing for right now is just to ride it out with Kuester for 21 more games and wait to evaluate things after the season and perhaps after the Pistons have a new owner.