FanHouse Bill Davidson

The NBA lost a legend Friday evening when Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson, 86, passed away at his home. The exact cause of death has not been released, but his health had been in decline the last few years. Once a regular fixture in his courtside seats near the Pistons bench at home games, his appearances this season became increasingly rare. His wife Karen Davidson will succeed him in the role of team owner.

Davidson's name was rarely in the headlines, but he was one of the most successful and innovative owners in professional sports. Under his ownership, the Pistons won three NBA championships, the Detroit Shock won three WNBA championships and the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup.

This is a good time to be a sports fan in Tampa. Well, maybe too good.

You see, for the first time in the team's history, the Tampa Bay Rays are in the Major League Baseball Playoffs, and they're scheduled to play play host to Game Two of the American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night at 8:07 p.m.

Unfortunately, across town at the St. Pete Times Forum, the Lightning are scheduled to host the Carolina Hurricanes in their own home opener. Wanting to be civic-minded and to not force local fans of both teams to choose which event to attend or watch on television, management sought to move the start time of the game to earlier in the day.

But because the Hurricanes play another game the night before at home in Raleigh against the Panthers, they had the right of first refusal on the change under NHL rules.

You know that "Flip Saunders' job is safe" talk from yesterday? Turns out he's not out of the woods just yet. From Krista Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press:

A person with knowledge of the situation said president Joe Dumars has not sat down with Saunders yet to discuss the past season, which ended last week to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.

Nor has Dumars met with owner Bill Davidson, who will undoubtedly have his say in Saunders' future.

The person said a meeting between Dumars and Davidson will take place "really soon," and after that, questions about Saunders' future should be cleared up. The person stressed that Saunders has not yet been given any assurance he'll be back.

This contradicts Chris McCosky's article in the Detroit News yesterday, although it's somewhat telling that McCosky has backed off his initial prediction today. Obviously no one not named Joe Dumars knows what's going to happen -- and maybe not even him just yet.

No matter what his status may be with the Pistons, there's no doubt that Saunders will coach in the NBA in 2008-09 if he wants to. He's failed to get the Pistons over the hump and back into the Finals, but he's also averaged more than 58 wins each of his three years in Detroit. I imagine there are at least a handful of teams out there who'd seriously consider canning their current coach should Saunders become available.

The Basketball Hall of Fame revealed its seven newest members on Monday: Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley were all accepted in their first year of eligibility while Adrian Dantley, announcer Dick Vitale, Pistons owner Bill Davidson and women's collegiate coach Cathy Rush were finally accepted after falling short as finalists in the past.

Much will be written about the three big names to get the nod -- Olajuwon, Ewing and Riley -- and deservedly so, but I'm most happy for Dantley, who had to suffer through being a finalist in six of the past seven years before finally getting the nod. Dantley, who's currently a Nuggets assistant coach, was so used to being stuck as the bridesmaid that he almost didn't answer the phone when the Hall called on Thursday. From the Denver Post:

Dantley found out Thursday. "He's a funny cat, because he didn't want to take the phone call because he thought he was going to get rejected again," [Nuggets coach George] Karl said. "I kept saying: 'Tell him to take the phone call! It's gonna be a yes!' "

Dantley never has been shy about talking about his apprehension to answering the phone when the Hall calls. "Every time around the last week of March, I start feeling kind of funny, seeing whether they are going to say yea or nay," Dantley said in an interview with The Post in February. "It's a weird feeling when the guys say, 'Sorry you didn't make it, you're eligible for next year.' . . . The last couple of years I haven't even answered my phone."

I think part of the reason it was easy to overlook Dantley's contributions to the game is because he spent the bulk of his prime years in relative obscurity with the (pre-Stockton/Malone era) Utah Jazz. But he retired as one of the league's top 10 scorers of all-time, and he's still in the top 20. Had he played in the spotlight of a major market like New York, he'd have been a shoe-in years ago.

John Tortorella is an interesting cat.

Already known as one of the most outrageous and outspoken people in hockey, the Tampa Bay Lightning head coach gave an almost surreal interview to Toronto radio station The Fan 590 yesterday in which he ripped the outgoing ownership regime of Bill Davidson, the 83-year-old billionaire owner of the Detroit Pistons.

Now, it's not everyday you hear a coach opine on things this far above his pay grade, and especially not when the parties involved are still very much on board with the team (the sale has yet to even go to the board of governors for approval, and is in the very early stages). That said, Tortorella didn't mince words when talking about team CEO and governor Tom Wilson, who is also the long-time president and CEO of the Pistons (I'm going to quote the interview at length, but there are some gems here).

On the sale:

"I think it's a good thing for our organization; I think we're going to have local ownership, I think we're going to have a little bit of passion within our ownership. I think we were kind of the ugly stepsister of the Detroit Pistons with our prior ownership with Mr. Davidson. He's a great man, but they really weren't too excited about being around the hockey club."

On ownership's role in Tampa:

"Mr. Davidson's a good man, he is a good man. I've had a hell of a time with Tom Wilson, who is kind of the middle guy here. I think Tom has put up obstacles all through Jay Feaster and I's tenure as far as trying to compete in the NHL. But Mr. D is the owner, it's his money, he can do what he wants with it, but I think when Mr. D came into this, it was a pretty safe deal. He had two other partners with him, they [died] pretty quickly after this deal was done, and it's kind of weird what happened... the thing kind of fell apart as the property and development part. I think that's what they were in it for at the get-go.

"They've slowly begun to get involved with the hockey; when you win a Stanley Cup, you can't help but want to be involved with it a little bit. But it's been a battle."