Doug Collins removed his name from the short list of candidates under considering for the Pistons' head coaching job late Wednesday night. Collins did the same thing last offseason with Chicago.
That puts Avery Johnson in the driver's seat and gives the ex-Mavericks coach the ability to drive a hard bargain. The only other name on Dumars' list immediately after he fired Michael Curry Tuesday was Cleveland assistant John Kuester, who was an assistant here under Larry Brown. Kuester does not have the head coaching experience that Dumars presumably wants after Curry crashed and burned in his first year as a head coach.
Johnson's price tag will be high. He stands to collect $4 million during each of the next two seasons off of his Dallas contract, which will be nullified if he takes another head coaching job. Logically, he's going to ask for at least $5 million and probably $6 million or more to take the Pistons' job, instead of collecting Mark Cuban's paycheck and doing some spot work as an ESPN analyst.
The Pistons paid Flip Saunders $5 million last season NOT to coach. They'll be paying Michael Curry $2.5 million each of the next two years NOT to coach.
Good thing for Dumars there's no cap on head coaching salaries.