Detroit Pistons info

Do Detroit Piston ticket holders realize that their team is ruining the NBA? Do they care? Does it bother them that the stifling defense Detroit plays every night is not fun to watch? Don’t they know NBA fans want to see dunks and threes and no-look passes? Or do Piston ticket holders genuinely enjoy a half court trap or great weak side help?

Maybe they enjoy buying tickets for the Pistons to go to the NBA Finals, considering Detroit has been to the last two. With Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, and the Wallace Brothers, no one in the East seems equipped to derail the Pistons. Defense isn’t pretty, but it sure seems to pave a path to the Pistons’ success. It’s just too bad that the rest of us have to watch it.

The Pistons have always been a team that won ugly in the NBA. The team scuffled around the league for the better part of its existence until 1981, when they drafted Isiah Thomas. Thomas’ game was by far the prettiest thing ever associated with the Detroit franchise. The slick ball handler and streaky scorer's game was scintillating. In the next few years he was joined by a collection of shooters and thugs. The shooters were Vinnie Johnson and Joe Dumars. The thugs were Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, and Dennis Rodman. When it was time to pick an identity for the team, guess which group won out?

Enter: The Bad Boys. Detroit’s personality was permanently redefined in the mid 80s as Coach Chuck Daly based his team around physical play and intimidation. The response was universal hatred by the rest of the league, made worse by the fact that the Pistons were winning with their style of play.

When it was all said and done, the Pistons shoved their way to two consecutive NBA Finals, winning both times, and making “The Bad Boys” a part of league history.

After Joe Dumars retired, he moved to the front office and created a new version of “The Bad Boys,” based around Ben Wallace, a basketball player with the style of a pro wrestler, who patrolled the middle for the Pistons, making life difficult for anyone who decided to come into the paint. Throw in Coach Larry Brown. Add Billups and Hamilton for offense, and Rasheed Wallace for overall feistiness, and you have another NBA Title in 2004.

The Detroit Pistons are back this year, selling tickets to the Ugliest Show on Earth. But the results are there. Detroit is a favorite to win the East yet again, despite having no superstars, and a new coach in Flip Saunders. The adage goes “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” This is one time where, for the sake of NBA ticket holders everywhere, the adage needs to be ignored.