Detroit Pistons:
Fueled by Big Ben and the rest of the D to reclaim title

The Detroit Pistons have a long storied history of winning. It all started when the team first broke into the National Basketball Association back in 1958. The team only finished the season with a 33-39 record but they did earn a berth into the playoffs. In the first round the Pistons swept the Cincinnati Royals in the first round 2-0. In the second round the team didn’t have as much success when they fell to the St. Louis Hawks 4-1 and ended their first NBA postseason run. A little more recently, during the ‘80s, the team developed a little bit of a mean streak. When this streak turned into the entire team’s persona the team was dubbed with the nickname of “The Bad Boys.” The team was led by their two Hall of Fame guards Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars. They were also supported by unforgettable role players like Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, Vinnie Johnson, Mark Aguirre and John Salley. The team didn’t take anything from anyone. They would bump and bruise and played a style of basketball that was unpopular among the other teams but worked. It was most evident that this style of basketball could get the job done when the team went to three straight NBA Finals and won two of them. The most exciting series the team played in during that run came during the 1988 Eastern Conference Finals. The team matched up with the Boston Celtics who also played the same style of basketball that the Pistons played which made for an ugly series of pushes and high running tempers. The series went six games with the Pistons coming out on top but it could’ve very easily been the other way if a shot or two falls for the Celtics since all six of the games were decided by eight points or less. The Pistons then went on to fall to the “Showtime” 4-3 and lost the last two games by a combined margin of four points.

Last year the team went back to “The Bad Boys” style of game that took them to the NBA Finals almost twenty years ago. Their new coach Larry Brown helped the team buy into the idea that a team doesn’t have to have a bunch of superstars to win a championship. Before the trade deadline the Pistons picked up Rasheed Wallace from the Hawks and when he got into the system he flourished. The team plowed their way into the playoffs with a 54-28 record and the number two seed in the postseason tournament. The Pistons went on to beat the Bucks and the Nets on the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. In the Finals they met up with the top seeded Indiana Pacers and beat them 4-2 in an ugly series in which neither team scored more than 85 points during the entire six games. In the Finals the Pistons met up with their polar opposites, the Los Angeles Lakers who went out and got future Hall of Famers Gary Payton and Karl Malone to join their own two future Hall of Famers Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. The Lakers were heavily favored to win the series but then got beat four out of five games and lost one of the games by twenty points 88-68. The Pistons humiliated the Lakers on the biggest stage in the NBA and for once the bad boys were the good guys.

In the off-season team president Joe Dumars knew he needed to make a couple of moves to make the team better or else they wouldn’t be able to make it back to the Finals next season. They went out and signed free agent Antonio McDyess who should have a more productive season backing up Rasheed Wallace instead of having to log long minutes as a starter where he would often get injured. The team also traded away Corliss Williamson to the 76ers in order to get another big man in Derrick Coleman and journeyman Amal McCaskill. In the draft, the team had traded their first round pick in order to get Wallace which propelled them to an NBA championship. With their lone second round pick the Pistons selected Missouri shooting guard Rickey Paulding who had some trouble repeating the amazing sophomore season he had and followed it up with two sub-par seasons.
During college Joe Dumars got an A in chemistry and it showed when he put together the current Pistons roster and then the move to bring in Larry Brown as the catalyst that pushed them over the top. The starting five consists of Chauncey Billups at point guard, Richard “Rip” Hamilton at shooting guard, Tayshaun Prince at small forward, Rasheed Wallace at power forward and one of, if not the absolute, best defender in the NBA Ben Wallace at center. The team plays incredibly well together and has a defense that wouldn’t let their own grandmothers score on them.

Coming off of the bench the Pistons are very deep. Backing up their big men Detroit has Elden Campbell, Derrick Coleman, Antonio McDyess, and last years number two pick in the draft Darko Milicic. Backing up the guards will be Lindsey Hunter, Rickey Paulding and Carlos Delfino.

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