DETROIT — I tried to climb into Joe Dumars’ head this weekend. But the last I heard he was at Avery Johnson’s house in Houston, and if you think Houston is usually stifling hot in the summer, imagine how hot it is there when you’re inside somebody’s head.

So I skipped that trip. But I kept thinking about Dumars’ current task: hiring an interim coach to replace his last interim coach, Michael Curry. (Oh, I forgot: This is supposed to a permanent job. Oops.)
I can’t shake something I have heard Dumars say many times: You have to do what is right, not necessarily what is safe or popular.
Letting Ben Wallace leave via free agency was not popular. Firing Rick Carlisle after two 50-win seasons was not popular. And of course, drafting Darko Milicic ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade was not popular.
Obviously, some of those moves have worked out better than others. But I think we can agree that Dumars is willing to make unpopular decisions.
Hiring Avery Johnson would be the safe and popular decision. Johnson nearly won a championship in Dallas. He is a charismatic man who commanded the respect of Tim Duncan and David Robinson when he was a player, even though he was a little guy with limited talent (by NBA standards). If the Pistons hire Avery Johnson, I promise you his initial press conference will be a success.
But would hiring Johnson be the right decision?
The Mavericks fired Johnson after the 2008 season, and for better or worse, his record was not the reason. He was considered a control freak who had lost the faith of his team. His point guard, Jason Kidd, wanted him gone. And owner Mark Cuban, who had admired Johnson for years before making him the head coach, canned him.
So this is a risk. And yet ... Kidd, as selfless as he is on the court, has been getting his coaches fired since before he even entered the NBA. (As a freshman at California, Kidd helped lead a mutiny against coach Lou Campanelli. Cal fired Campanelli midway through the regular season, which was almost unheard of at the time.)
And Cuban is the most hands-on owner in the NBA. (Some would say that’s a kind way of putting it.) So Johnson deserves to tell his side of that story, and it probably has some merit.
The big question is this: Does Johnson realize where he went wrong? Has he learned from his mistakes?
If Johnson tells Dumars he got a raw deal in Dallas, simple as that, then he is the wrong man for the Pistons.
Johnson has one clear advantage in this race: He has been an NBA head coach. The other candidates who have been mentioned — Cleveland assistant John Kuester and Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau — have not.
Dumars would be taking a bigger risk by hiring Kuester or Thibodeau. As Dumars found out with Curry, the distance from an assistant’s seat to the head coach’s seat is much greater than it appears.
When Dumars fired Curry, he said he is looking for somebody with more “experience,” and a lot of people have taken that to mean he needs a proven head coach. I’m not so sure.
First of all, Kuester and Thibodeau have both been coaching for many more years than Curry had. And second: the new Pistons coach will not have to coach Allen Iverson or Rasheed Wallace, two of the tougher nuts to crack in the NBA. Next year’s Pistons will be much more coachable than last year’s Pistons.
So whom should the Pistons hire? I don’t know. I wish I did. All three of these coaches are qualified, but each is a risk in his own way. I do know this much: Joe Dumars has a long history of making unconventional moves. Now he has to decide if it’s time for another one.