I remember the Pistons being the embodiment of culture. I mean they made the conference finals for 6 straight years. But they haven’t been competitive since 2008. They are now close to, if not, the worst franchise in the league. How? This can’t only be because of Gores? Or can it?
Gores bought the team to inject money into it and make it worth 3x its initial value. He did that. His job is done. Oh wait there’s an NBA basketball team inside here somewhere?
Owners are not basketball experts
I conclude the pistons are an incompetent and disgraceful franchise run by a racist owner. For fuck’s sake, the sidebar pic looks like Cunningham tripping over a basketball. At this point, I’d rather be a Wizards fan and cheer for Jordan Poole. What a shame
The actual team right now? Roster construction. As every other team minus maybe the wizards or say Portland attempted to trade, add, or acquire talent that’s ready and capable of playing basketball we didn’t. Our veterans started the season hurt. Our coach has a slightly different belief/philosophy/idea of what our team is and can be. Also we have talent that are in roles that they simply are not good enough for.
Roster construction to me is the issue. Troy Weaver saw a 17 win roster last year and decided bringing back Cade after a year off and adding Monte Morris and Joe Harris was enough to help grow our talent. 15 games into the year it’s clear he’s wrong.
100%. We cut some of the guys that weren’t serving the roster like Cory Joseph, Noel, and RJ Hampton, which was a good first step, but then immediately took a step back by using all that space on injured vets instead of finding 3 and D guys. Now we have several players in roles too big for their talent. For example, Hayes and Stew could be really good bench role players but are asked to be starters. Bey was a great bench guy role player we also tried to turn into a starter, then we dumped him for absolutely nothing.
Weaver has been pretty good at drafting, but just so bad at everything else
Simple.
Roster is poorly made.
We have guys who are busts that are starting - Killian Hayes, James Wiseman, and Marvin. Marvin is okay but he is awful on defense.
Then you all of your main shooters are injured. Bojan and Monte are both injured. If you place your starting lineup with no spacing in this era, it is a recipe for failure.
Monty having a poor analysis of this roster and Troy hasn’t made any major changes.
Jaden should be starting. Him coming off the bench was a good thing because it allowed him to learn that his job has to be earned. If he can play like he did last game.
Cade has to be more aggressive. Dude has the worst whistle. But flop. Be aggressive. Good players will get fouls but you gotta exaggerate.
Jalen Duren being out hurts. Injury’s have killed this team. We need better staff. Paying a fuck ton on those staff equates to wins.
The league is the most competitive it’s ever been. The superstars that would have normally aged out (Steph, Bron, Durant, etc) are instead still having MVP seasons, while at the same time a whole new crop of stars are emerging. Theres a ton of talent spread across the league which means that almost every team is a tough win on any given night.
Couple that with the fact that we have missed two 40% 3pt shooters all season, our leading scorer, and two additional sharp shooting role players, along with Burks (another 40% shooter) missing 6 games and our starting center missing a lot too. We’ve had extremely shitty luck with injuries and the guys available are basically just college kids with a season or two of experience.
Those two things combined create a scenario where it’s just incredibly unlikely for us to get a win on any given night.
Bill Davidson was the Pistons owner for the 89, 90 and 04 titles.
The window for the going to work team was pretty small. They were all late 20’s/early 30’s when they put that group together. Tayshaun being the only guy under 25.
They tried to hold it together too long. Possibly because Davidson was near the end of his life and wanted to see them competitive for as long as he could.
Dumars and Davidson hatched an plan to “rebuild on the fly”. They traded their best player and leader, Chauncey Billups, to Denver for an expiring Allen Iverson. A rookie Rodney Stuckey showed a few flashes of elite talent and Dumars went all-in on him as the future (for a few seasons). They blew all the created cap space on Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. Two guys who came to Detroit, collected their paychecks and promptly stopped giving a fuck.
Detroit started cycling through awful coaches. Davidson passed away and his frankly gold digger wife held the franchise hostage for a few seasons while she looked for a buyer. She didn’t just want to sell the team- she wanted the purchaser to also buy the Palace, Pine Knob and another venue if I recall. Mike Illitch was interested, but couldn’t come to terms due to all the venues Karen Davidson demanded be part of the deal. Mike’s plan was to move them back downtown. So in swoops ego maniac with some loose 30+ year old ties to Flint to buy up the team. Platinum Equity, technically bought them. Gores has been personally buying more of the team as his own over the years. But during the time the team was for sale, Karen prohibited Dumars from adding salary. The only notable FA acquisition he made was for a broke down Tracy McGrady on a veteran’s minimum.
Then Gores thought “improving the culture” was all it took to be a winning franchise, setting the team back another decade in futile pursuits.
And I don’t really need to get into the weeds on the SVG era and beyond. It was one mess after another.
The team has a shit owner who won’t let his personnel make decisions. And Gores isn’t smart when it comes to basketball. He should stick to what he’s good at, like exploiting prison inmates.
I’ve been a fan since Grant Hill was wearing a Pistons uniform. I’ve been a fan through it all but I’m on the precipice of throwing the towel. I just don’t want to be on this roller coaster of constant disappointment.
What the Pistons need is some offence, defense, and some rule changes.