My Strange Love of the Detroit Pistons: An Introduction

Some tall fellows are high-fiving a job well done. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Hi guys. My name is Alex. It looks like I’ll be the editor here until I go insane and wander off into a desert. That’s a Dune joke. Now that I have your attention I thought I would explain my weird relationship with the Detroit Pistons and how I came to be editing a Pistons blog while squandering the last days of my twenties in Baltimore.

I grew up and spent most of my life in San Jose, CA. Elementary school is all byzantine alliances and brand loyalty, and I learned early on that when it came to the NBA, you only had a few choices. You could support the Golden State Warriors, our plucky home team. You could align yourself with the Los Angeles Lakers, a schmaltzy but infinitely more successful version of the Warriors. There were a few kids who really, really liked Larry Bird, so that made them nominal Celtics fans. But the vast majority of the kids I shared the cafeteria with were mad for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. This was in the midst of the first three-peat, before baseball, before Space Jam, when Michael was at the peak of his herculean ascent. It was an exciting time to be into basketball. At my school the Bulls seemed like the most important thing in the world, certainly more important than cursive or long division.

But I hated Michael Jordan. Like, he pissed me off.

I guess that wasn’t fair. Michael Jordan never did anything to me (that I was aware of). I had a good friend that owned everything Michael put out. Jerseys, shoes, a pocket watch. His parents were rich and they backed the winner, dynasty chasers. I had another friend who was decidedly not rich and modeled his life on Michael’s incredible work ethic. Michael made him a stronger and perhaps better person. But me? I prefer the underdog to a dynasty, the scrappy undersized brawler to the G.O.A.T. But I promise I won’t use this space to proselytize or convert. I’m done with that. But at the time, my irrational hatred of Michael Jordan threw me into the arms of the last team that really had his number, the last team that made life hard for the anointed one.

Obviously I am referring to your Detroit Pistons. The Bad Boys.

Now, I don’t want to come off as a straight carpetbagger or misrepresent myself. I am a Golden State Warriors fanboy. The Grizzles fascinate me. I respect the Spurs. That’s the way it is in this rotating smorgasbord of basketball titans. Some teams are fun for a year or two and then they plummet to the depths and my lack of geographic ties severs that connection and that is okay. For one reason or another, I have never completely severed the Pistons. They were my favorite team in NBA Jam, though more often than not I only led them to defeat (I usually walked away without shaking hands as well). Their colors evoke some ramshackle pride. The clunky logo is an adorable classic. From Isiah’s high dribble heroics and Bill Laimbeer’s uncomfortable goonery to the Grant Hill triple doubles to Tayshaun’s block to literally everything Rasheed Wallace has ever done to the Malice to the Iverson debacle to the blazing hope of the Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond, the Pistons have some of the best lore in NBA history. It’s all a weird tattered tapestry, but a beautiful one, an exciting one. The Pistons have carved out a strange space in my imagination, and their pathos fascinate me almost as much as the promise of a competent offense, Drummond rolling hard to the rim, and a fresh start for a team abandoned in NBA purgatory for the last several years.

So I hope you’ll endure me and as time goes on I hope we can grow Life on Dumars into one of the premiere spots on the world wide web/information super-highway for all your Pistons news and commentary. Hopefully we can produce a utopia of timely re-caps, hilarious trade scenarios, player profiles, Corey Maggette fan fiction, +/- debates, breaking down possessions with a scalpel, and so much more.

In short, though I have never set foot in Detroit (or Auburn Hills), I care about this team. I’m not sure why, but I hope that comes across and I hope you join us.  I look forward to it.