End of an Era for the Pistons

by Steve Kays

Hey Pistonscast Posse,

PART 1

It’s the end of an era of Detroit Basketball. The Pistons that everyone knew and loved are changing. The “Bad Boys 2” of 2002-2009 will soon be a distant memory. But I’ve enjoyed the ride. It’s hard to remain competitive in the NBA for several years at a time, unless you’re the San Antonio Spurs. But the Detroit Pistons have had an awesome run. Think about it: 6 straight years of Eastern Conference Finals, 7 straight 50-win seasons, 2 NBA Finals, and 1 championship. That is a truly incredible run by essentially the same core of players, none of whom would be considered “superstars.”

But let’s look at the current contenders and see how they were just a few seasons ago.

L.A. Lakers: Missed playoffs in 2005; eliminated in first round in 2006 and 2007.
Boston Celtics: Eliminated in first round in 2004 and 2005; missed playoffs in 2006 and 2007.
Orlando Magic: Eliminated in first round in 2003; missed playoffs in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
Cleveland Cavaliers: Missed playoffs in 2003, 2004, 2005; eliminated in second round in 2006 and 2008.

There is a common theme among all these contenders: They were all really bad before they got really good. Cleveland and Orlando both won draft lotteries, drafting LeBron James and Dwight Howard, respectively. L.A. drafted Andrew Bynum from the lottery and basically stole Pau Gasol from Memphis. Boston traded away several young players that they selected from all the lotteries they had been in and turned them into Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

The Pistons didn’t build their mini-dynasty on one single dominant player. And maybe that was their mistake.

It’s been said that Pistons General Manager Joe Dumars messed up in the 2003 Draft when he selected Darko Milicic over such players as Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Carmelo Anthony. And it seems that he’s admitting he was wrong as he’s going to try this summer to acquire a dominant big man, like Bosh, Carlos Boozer, or David Lee. One thing that’s for sure is that this current season wouldn’t be this bad if Bosh were starting for Detroit.

I recently read about two other areas that really cost the Pistons. One was Larry Brown. The Pistons just haven’t been the same since Brown was relieved of his coaching duties. It doesn’t really matter whose fault it was, but it’s clear that no other coach has had the same effect on the players, nor have they gotten the same results out of them.

The other area was that of Ben Wallace. Now, Dumars was right in not re-signing Wallace to an overinflated contract. That’s not the issue. It was that he never replaced what Wallace brought, which was a tough, intimidating defensive paint presence at the center position. Dumars has tried though with a variety of players: Nazr Mohammad, Chris Webber, Rasheed Wallace. None have worked out as a successor to Ben Wallace, even though the stats say that the Pistons have been just fine defensively without him.

Now if the Pistons miss the playoffs this year or get eliminated in the second or even first round, then that shouldn’t be a great shock to their fans. You can’t play into late May every single year. It’s just not possible. Ask the Lakers. After winning three straight titles from 2000-2002, the Lakers were either eliminated in the first round (2006, 2007), second round (2003), or missed the playoffs entirely (2005). Yes, I know that they did make it back to the Finals in 2004 and 2008 (losing both), but the point still stands. It just goes to show that it’s incredibly difficult to remain competitive when you’re drafting in the lower 20’s every NBA Draft.

If the Pistons have just one bad transition year, it won’t be the end of the world. As great as the core of Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace were, it could only go so far. This same group lost from 2005 to 2008, with the last two losses coming without Ben Wallace as he took a 4-year, $60 million contract offer from Chicago. Now, Joe Dumars got a lot of flak about it at the time, but Ben Wallace circa 2006-2010 is in no way worth $60 million. If Dumars had re-signed him then, he would have been severely restrained by his huge contract and probably wouldn’t have been able to re-sign Billups the next year.

PART 2
There’s been a great outcry against the Pistons management and General Manager Joe Dumars ever since the trade for Iverson which sent Billups to Denver. No one doubts Billups’s greatness at the point guard position, but let’s imagine for a second that Dumars would’ve kept the same core together for this current season. Fast forward to May, and what do you have? Another playoff exit in the conference finals, maybe even in the second round. And then you would have fans and the media blasting Dumars, saying how he should have blown it up last year. You can’t have both. That core has failed 4 straight times at this point. It was time for a change. And Dumars has made the kind of trade that will keep the Pistons competitive. He remembers all too well back in the early ‘90s when the Bad Boys disintegrated. He remembers all those ugly years in those teal uniforms. He won’t have another 10-year period of non-competing Pistons teams.

This was a great trade, make no mistake about it. It’s going to be a win-win either way. It was either that Allen Iverson would provided the scoring punch that the Pistons had lacked in the playoffs the past few springs or that his huge expiring contract would be used to totally reshape the team on the fly. Now, it’s becoming painfully obvious that Iverson just doesn’t fit in with the Pistons as they are a dismal 27-28 as of this writing. Maybe it’s that Iverson’s not being used the right way. Maybe Billups’ leadership was undervalued. Whatever the reason is, the point is that the Pistons stand a real chance of missing the playoffs altogether. So it looks like Iverson’s contract is much more important than his on-court play.

The Detroit Pistons team didn’t blow their chances to win a title this year with the Iverson-Billups trade; they blew their title dreams in 2006, 2007, and 2008. In 2006 the Pistons were the #1 seed in the entire playoffs but still lost in six games to the Miami Heat. In 2007 Detroit was up two games to none on Cleveland when they let the Cavaliers win 4 straight games. And in 2008 the Pistons had an opportunity to take control of the series against the Celtics but dropped Games 3 and 6 at home in devastating fashion.

Why keep putting effort into a losing product? Why are people so against change when clearly that team roster wasn’t getting it done? Before the Iverson trade, I didn’t have a lot of faith that the Pistons would finally make it back to the Finals. Boston was still dominant, Cleveland had greatly improved, and Orlando gained experience. As previously said, Detroit already blew its many chances with the old core. After the Iverson trade I thought that it might be enough to get over the hump. While that seems like a far-fetched idea at this point, Dumars is preemptively trying to rebuild the Pistons on the fly to compete with these teams.

As for getting rid of Billups, there’s a saying that goes: “Getting rid of a star one year too early, is better than one year too late.” And it’s true. Had the Pistons decided to keep the core together, it’s unlikely that they would have been able to acquire such a large expiring contract that would enable them to totally remake the team. If Detroit acquires Chris Bosh this summer, then it was a great trade. But you can’t get Bosh unless you trade Billups.

It’s been a disappointing season to be sure. It looks pretty bleak right now. Fans need to realize that this is a rebuilding team. It may not be as evident as it is in Minnesota and Memphis after they traded their franchise players (Kevin Garnett and Pau Gasol), but it is what it is. Most of the core is gone or will soon be. Billups is gone, Ben Wallace is gone, Rasheed will soon be gone, as will the recently-acquired Iverson. Even steadfast Antonio McDyess has recently talked about possibility leaving after this season.

There is a glimmer of hope however. And it’s that the Pistons are in a position to improve. It’s not like they’re locked into this current underachieving roster for the next several years. They have several draft picks, young players, and expiring contracts, all of which can be used to change this team for the better. You can expect that the Pistons will be the busiest team in the NBA come summertime. And I fully anticipate this team to look dramatically different for the better come fall.

Peace,

Steve Kays

www.pistonscast.com