Why Aren’t the Detroit Pistons Considered One of the NBA’s Greatest Franchises?
For the past 20 years, the Knicks have been mediocre at best, irrelevant at worst; Same goes for the Sixers (ever since Iverson’s departure in 2006); and the Lakers, albeit only recently. Basketball fans are all-too familiar with the cliche uttered whenever one of these teams is nowhere near title contention — The NBA is better when the (insert team name here) are competitive! It’s an established assertion, insomuch that these three teams (along with the Celtics) are usually regarded as the four greatest franchises in league history.
In recent years, witnessing the level of excitement surrounding New York and Philly’s potential, along with the unanimous belief that the NBA needs both basketball meccas back in the title conversation, has left Detroit Pistons’ fans feeling slighted. Detroit’s recent period of suffering — eight losing seasons in nine years; two playoff appearances; zero playoff wins — has failed to garner attention throughout the league. The team is never included in ‘The NBA is better when…’ discussion, in large part because most basketball fans don’t feel that a bad Pistons’ team leaves an unfillable void in the league’s pecking-order of contenders. On the surface, this may seem like a fair assumption; It’s not.
Sure, Detroit isn’t a ‘Basketball Mecca’; The city’s playgrounds and high schools haven’t served as a breeding ground for future stars a la New York, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Detroit’s lack of a basketball-rich tradition, one that is sewed in the city’s urban backbone, contributes to the common misconception that it isn’t a basketball town. In some ways, this is self-inflicted. We call ourselves ‘Hockey-Town’; The Tigers’ opening day is treated like a religious holiday; and the Lions, despite suffering through a historic period of ineptitude, annually sell-out.
When it comes to the Pistons, I suppose we look like a bunch of front-runners. If the team is anything less than a title contender, they struggle to fill the arena. Although it may appear that we don’t support the team during down years, we do — passionately. It’s just that in recent years, while the team has failed to rebuild three times — the Greg Monroe/Brandon Knight years; the Josh Smith/Brandon Jennings experiment; and now, the Andre Drummond/Reggie Jackson/Tobias Harris regime — we’ve had to watch the Celtics and Heat rebuild on the fly; while the Sixers, Bucks, Knicks, and Jazz did so through the draft.
When the Pistons are good, though, man. I’ve been in Joe Louis Arena during the Stanley Cup Finals and Comerica Park for the World Series; Neither crowd comes close to matching the deafening noise of a playoff game at the Palace of Auburn Hills, let alone the bedlam that ensues for an NBA Finals contest. It always surprised me that the Piston fans had another gear, considering the Lions have never appeared in the Super Bowl, Tiger fans haven’t tasted a title since 1984, and the Red Wings seemingly possess the city’s most-passionate fanbase. For some reason, though, the Pistons bring out a different level of intensity. I suppose it’s a byproduct of their underdog reputation, one that not even three championships could shake off. They’ve always been underappreciated, unable to gain the level of respect their greatness deserves.
I suppose much of the reason the Pistons have failed to resonate across NBA generations is due to the team’s lack of transcendent stars. In the past 35 years, only two superstars have come through town: Isiah Thomas (one of the 25-greatest players ever) and Grant Hill (who, fittingly, is remembered more for ‘what could have been’ than what he actually accomplished).
Meanwhile, several franchises have possessed an inventory of superstars that spans generations. Since 1983, fifteen teams have been home to at least three superstars: Celtics (Bird, McHale, Pierce, Garnett, Isaiah, Kyrie); Lakers (Kareem, Magic, Shaq, Kobe); Sixers (Moses, Dr. J, Barkley, Iverson); Knicks (Bernard, Ewing, Amare, ‘Melo); Suns (Barkley, Kidd, Nash, Amare); Sonics/Thunder (Kemp, Payton, Durant, Westbrook); Magic (Shaq, Penny, T-Mac, Dwight); Warriors (Mullin, Spreewell, Curry, Durant); Rockets (Sampson, Hakeem, T-Mac, Harden); Jazz (Dantley, Malone, Stockton, D-Will); Spurs (Robinson, Duncan, Kawhi); Heat (Shaq, Wade, LeBron); Bulls (Jordan, Pippen, Rose); Blazers (Drexler, Roy, Dame); and the Hornets/Pelicans (CP3, Davis, Cousins).
The Pistons find themselves in the next tier, alongside the six other teams who’ve housed two superstars over this period: Cavs (LeBron & Kyrie), Wizards (Arenas & Wall), Pacers (Reggie & Paul George), Bucks (Allen & Giannis), Clippers (CP3 & Blake), and Kings (Webber & Cousins). To put Detroit’s superstar void in perspective, it’s worth noting that this group of players ascended after the Pistons’ most recent star, Grant Hill, was long gone. Further, for the league’s remaining six teams — who’ve produced only one superstar since 1983 — said superstar’s peak happened this century: Raptors (Carter), Nets (Kidd), Wolves (KG), Nuggets (‘Melo), Mavs (Dirk), and Grizzlies (Gasol).
That being said, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Sure, the Pistons’ recent demise can be attributed to their lack of superstar-talent, but their past success was never tied to the performance of one alpha-dog.
The Bad Boys legacy, alone, should’ve earned the franchise immortality. During the most-talented five-year stretch in NBA history (1987–91), when two of the best players ever (Magic and Bird) were operating at their absolute apex, the GOAT (Jordan) was just approaching his peak, and two of the greatest dynasties the sport had ever seen (Celtics and Lakers) had taken home eight of the last nine championships, the Pistons won back-to-back titles and were seconds away from a third. Across NBA history, have two championships mattered more? Probably not.
The three greatest basketball teams of all-time are considered to be: Jordan’s Bulls, Bird’s Celtics, and Magic’s Lakers. The Bad Boys effectively ended the Celtics and Lakers’ dynasties en route to their first title in ’89; Perhaps more impressively, they sent Jordan’s Bulls home three-straight years (1988–90), effectively preventing the sport’s next great dynasty from taking off.
At the time, this wasn’t enough for the Pistons to earn credit from the rest of the league; when they were knocked off of their throne by the Bulls in 1991, the unanimous reaction was “They’re bad for the sport.” Thirteen years later, not much had changed. In 2004, the Pistons, led by five starters who were seen as glorified role-players, became title contenders by following the Bad Boys blueprint: out-hustle the opponent by finding every loose ball and controlling the boards; dominate them physically with suffocating defense; along with valuing chemistry and selflessness over talent.
In the 2004 NBA Finals, they turned the superstar-driven model on its head by laying waste to the Lakers, who, led by the two-biggest egos in basketball (Shaq & Kobe), had won three-straight titles by compensating for any lack of chemistry, teamwork, or selflessness, with their superior talent. Short on talent, the Pistons won by doubling-down on the fundamentals of basketball; they played harder, worked together, controlled the boards, and simply, kept beating the Lakers down the floor.
Immediately after their upset win, the Pistons were praised for their team-first approach. After their run ended in 2008 — on the heels of six-straight ECF appearances, no less — the narrative quickly changed. So much so that, in recent years, the period coinciding with the Pistons’ reign is remembered as a watered-down era short on talent. In other words, the Pistons aren’t celebrated for what they did, but the role they had in making the NBA worse.
Hindsight proves that the ’00s Pistons, like the Bad Boys before them, were in fact, good for basketball. Embodying the sanctity of the game, both teams restored order to the league; for the Bad Boys, it was in toppling the sport’s two-headed monster; while their successors did so by proving that even superior talent can fall victim to a fundamentally-sound team.
Every fan base likes to imagine that its team depicts its city’s authentic spirit. Whenever you hear any variation of such-and-such team “represents the hardworking reputation of whatever” it’s impossible not to cringe; that is, unless it’s your own. Sure, the ‘Pistons portray the blue-collar mentality of Detroit’ cliche has been exhausted, yet there’s no denying that it’s true. Both championship regimes resonated with their city because they were an underdog team in an underdog town. Even if they never reached a level of national popularity like the ’80s Celtics and Lakers, ’90s Bulls, ’00s Spurs, ’10s Heat, and ’10s Warriors, the Pistons were and are, something.
If anything, the Bad Boys and ’00s rendition serve as a stop-gap between dueling periods. While the Magic-Bird reign slowed down, but before Jordan’s Bulls would grab a stranglehold on the throne, there were the Pistons; fifteen years later, after the Shaqobe partnership self-combusted, but before the LeBron-era commenced, there were the Pistons.
In 2017, at the height of the ‘Superteam’ generation, with 25 of the top-30 players in the league scattered across eleven teams, the Pistons are needed more than ever. And so, I’ll be the first to say, “The NBA is better when the PISTONS are contending.”
