The Bad Boys were one of the most identifiable dynasties in NBA history. Which players from the Detroit Pistons’ past best defined the era?
The greatest NBA teams are often defined by their biggest stars. We talk about the Jordan Bulls, Russell’s Celtics, or the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. But it is only a few select teams across any sport that transcend in popularity and identity to having an instantly recognizable name. Showtime. Greatest Show on Turf. And of course, The Bad Boys.
The Detroit Pistons organization was around since early in the NBA’s history, and saw some early success making it as far as the Finals. But by the time 1981 rolled around the Pistons were on a 20-year streak of not making it to the conference semifinals, let alone the NBA Finals. Then, things began to change with the drafting of point guard Isiah Thomas in the 1981 NBA Draft out of Indiana University.
Over the next few seasons, the core of the team was assembled, including bruising big man Bill Laimbeer and fiery head coach Chuck Daly. This was a team forged by fire, ascending slowly up the ladder and always winning the rematch.
The Atlanta Hawks knocked them out in 1986, and Detroit beat them in 1987 in five. Then, the Boston Celtics. Then, the Los Angeles Lakers. This team was always getting better until they reached the top.
1987-88 was when this team was truly dominant for the first time. They tweaked their rotation and galvanized their identity as the toughest guys on the block. To beat these Pistons, you must be tougher and stronger physically and mentally. Thus the Bad Boys were named.
In 1988, they beat Larry Bird’s Celtics, and never again would Bird make the NBA Finals. After losing in the NBA Finals to Magic Johnson and the Lakers, they came back and swept them with a suffocating defense in 1989. During that postseason run, not a single team cracked 100 points on Detroit.
In 1990 the Bad Boys ruled the league, holding down Michael Jordan long enough to claim a second title and a secure place in the annals of NBA History. The mountaintop between Magic v. Larry in the 1980s and Jordan’s dominance in the 1990s were the Bad Boys.
The Bad Boys gave the league the Jordan Rules, a strategy specifically designed at roughing up the league’s beloved son, embracing the role of villain like no other team before them. Everyone hated the Pistons because they were good, but also because they made sure everyone felt how good they were in hip checks and follow-through blocks.
These Bad Boys were characters, well known by NBA fans with enduring legacies even today. Four hall of famers suited up for this team during their run. For at least two seasons, this close-knit family with vibrant personalities ruled the league. Here are a few of those personalities, all playing a part in one of the best acts of NBA history.
The Bad Boys were a team focused on its defense, and one way that was manifested was effectively playing two center-sized players all the time. Bill Laimbeer was one of the team’s leaders and a perennial starter, but his wingman down low rotated throughout the 80s.
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When the Detroit Pistons signed Earl Cureton in 1983, they acquired a player with championship pedigree. Cureton won a title with the Moses Malone – Julius Erving 76ers in 1983 before joining the Pistons to shore up their frontcourt.
He would play three seasons with the Pistons, serving as the third big as they developed from talented up-and-comers to East contenders.
Cureton was never one to stuff the stat sheet, but he was a solid defender in the post. All three of his seasons in Detroit he had a strong defensive BPM (Box Plus-Minus), despite limited minutes. More than his on-court contributions, Cureton had a deep and lasting connecting with the city of Detroit and the organization.
The Detroit native played six more seasons in the NBA and another half-dozen abroad, even winning another title in 1994 with the Houston Rockets. Yet in recent years, he has returned to the Pistons and to Detroit, serving as the franchise’s community ambassador for the past four seasons.
Cureton was not a part of the Pistons’ title runs, but he — like a couple of other players on this list — helped to establish the foundation of what was to come.
Younger readers may see the name Gerald Henderson and think of the current player who starred at Duke and bounced around the NBA, but his father made a more lasting impact on a number of title teams. After spending time on two Boston Celtics championship teams, Henderson signed with the Pistons in 1989.
The 6-foot-2 Henderson was the primary backup to Isiah Thomas, playing often with Joe Dumars when Thomas sat. His 3-point percentage of 45.2 during that season was the highest on the team. He was an early version of a 3-and-D player on that title team.
Henderson played a slightly more valuable role in 1990-91, even starting ten games when Thomas missed games due to injury. Even at the age of 35, the veteran had enough juice to drop 24 points in a tight game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in February of 1991.
In a year where Thomas missed 36 games Henderson helped keep them afloat, the Pistons would finish with 50 wins and get back to the Eastern Conference Finals before falling to the Chicago Bulls.
No Pistons leader boards will display Henderson’s name, and he played a relatively small role on the team all things considered. But in the playoffs, the Pistons tightened their rotation and he was still able to force his way in for 18 appearances and a ring. Prominent or not, Henderson was a part of the Bad Boys.
If the Bad Boys truly established themselves in the 1986-87 season as a contender, and acquired the poignant Bad Boys moniker the following season, then Kelly Tripucka was never truly a “Bad Boy” in the technical sense of the word. But what he was helped the Pistons win a lot of games, laying the ground work for what was to come.
Throughout the Chuck Daly era in Detroit, he liked a scoring wing at the 3, and Tripucka was the first in that line (to be followed by Adrian Dantley and Mark Aguirre). Detroit selected the smooth-shooting wing in the 1981 NBA Draft, 10 picks after taking Isiah Thomas.
Tripucka averaged 21.6 points per game for the Pistons over five seasons, including a then-team record 56 points in a game in 1983. He was well known for his high socks, trendy mullet and distinct mustache.
When Tripucka and Thomas joined the Pistons, they were coming off a 21-win season. They immediately improved to 39 wins the next season, led by Tripucka and his 7.5 win shares. Once Daly came aboard in 1983, the Pistons began a run of nine-straight trips to the playoffs. Tripucka scored just shy of 8,000 points for the Pistons before he was traded to the Utah Jazz in the package for Adrian Dantley — playing his role in the creation of the Bad Boys.
Picking back up on the theme of twin towers in Detroit, William Bedford was a member of the frontcourt rotation for the Pistons through most of their run as contenders. Bedford stepped in as the third big man for Detroit after the departure of Rick Mahorn, and over four seasons played in 186 games for the Bad Boys.
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The 1986 NBA Draft was a crucial one for the Pistons, who drafted both John Salley and Dennis Rodman.
The Phoenix Suns took Bedford with the sixth overall pick, only to trade him to Detroit for a late pick the next season. The reason was that Bedford, like many players throughout the 1980s, was caught up in substance abuse.
The 1986 NBA Draft became known for this issue, from second overall pick Len Bias dying from an overdose, to fellow top-10 draftees Chris Washburn and Roy Tarpley seeing their careers fall apart due to drug abuse.
While Bedford missed the Pistons’ first title run due to rehab, he was able to bring himself back into the game and was a solid support player on the team’s second title.
At 7-foot-1, Bedford had the size Jack McCloskey loved, with endless limits of athleticism and a smooth jumper as well. If Bedford had ever put everything together, he could have been great. For Detroit, he was never anything more than a role player, starting just 12 games total in four seasons. However, he was able to keep his life in line enough to do something with his career.
John Long pre-dated any of the Bad Boys on the Pistons, joining the team in 1978 as a second-round draft selection. He played eight straight seasons with Detroit to start his career as a two-way shooting guard, who averaged as many as 21.9 points per game in Isiah Thomas’ rookie season. Long was a key part of the highest-scoring game in NBA history, dropping 41 points in Detroit’s 186-184 win in 1983.
In September of 1986, the Pistons moved Long, trading him to the Indiana Pacers for a pair of second-round picks. He missed the next two years of Pistons basketball where the fires of the Eastern Conference forged a strong corps and birthed the Bad Boys.
Then Long was back, signing with Detroit after being waived in February of 1989 by the Pacers. While he did not have a prominent role on the title team, he did play in 28 games down the stretch, earning a ring with the team upon their sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Long was not present for much of the Bad Boys’ biggest moments, but he deserves his place on the list due to his significant production for the team, as it was righting itself after a tough decade. He still ranks in the top-10 in franchise history in points and steals.
Long’s connection with the Pistons went deep. He returned on a 10-day contract in 1991 before he was signed to a full contract and finished the last great Pistons run with the team. In 2016, he was inducted into the Michigan Sport Hall of Fame.
The loss of Rick Mahorn after the 1989 championship season was a tough blow for the reigning champs, as Mahorn was not only a starter, but a key part of the soul of the team. While he was not a replacement for all that Mahorn brought, the Pistons found one in the starting lineup in journeyman center James Edwards.
Selected in the 1977 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers, Edwards bounced around the league before arriving in Detroit in 1987. Born in 1955, Edwards was the oldest player on the team throughout both of their title runs.
Over his first season-and-a-half in Detroit, Edwards played in 102 games, starting only three. With the loss of Mahorn he was asked to step up into a more prominent role. In the 1989-90 season, Edwards played in 70 regular season games and in all 20 of the team’s postseason games.
Edwards had the ability to have offensive explosions on random nights. In the 1990 NBA Playoffs, he dropped 32 points on the New York Knicks in a tight win.
Edwards moved on after the 1990-91 season, traded by the Pistons to the Los Angeles Clippers. He would bounce around to four more teams before retiring in 1996 after winning a third title as a deep reserve on Chicago Bulls.
Adrian Dantley is a test case in evaluating star NBA players. A truly dynamic scorer, Dantley made the hall of fame on the back of his sheer volume of points — and array of skills to put up those points. Four times Dantley broke 30 points-per-game for a season, twice leading the entire league in scoring. For his career, the forward averaged 24.3 points per game, 16th in NBA history.
As Detroit made its transition from up-and-comers to Eastern Conference contenders, they looked to make an upgrade at small forward, flipping Kelly Tripucka to the Utah Jazz for Dantley. The 30 year-old Dantley stepped into his role as scorer immediately, averaging 21.5 points per game to lead the team.
Over the next few seasons, Detroit improved every season, losing in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1987 and the NBA Finals in heartbreaking fashion in 1988. Dantley was a major part of that rise, dropping 34 points on the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the 1988 NBA Finals.
The following season Chuck Daly began to give emerging star Dennis Rodman more minutes, decreasing Dantley’s in the process, to better emphasize the team’s defensive identity. Dantley did not appreciate this, still viewing himself as the lead scoring threat on the team.
During one game in the 1988-89 season, Daly signaled to Dantley to sub out for Rodman, and Dantley simply refused. After the game, Daly went to Jack McCloskey and told him the team needed a change.
McCloskey responded by trading Dantley to the Dallas Mavericks for forward Mark Aguirre. The move was a divisive one at the time, as Dantley was well-loved by fans and many of his teammates. Known as “The Teacher” the veteran Dantley had helped to develop a number of the younger players on the team.
Divisive as it was, the move unlocked a more balanced hierarchy for the Pistons. They ripped off a run after the trade that carried them all the way to two titles. Dantley played a key role in Detroit and their ascension into Bad Boys, but it was only with his departure that they reached the mountaintop.
In the 1990s, Dennis Rodman would become known for his unique flair and personality, pushing the bounds of what the public would accept from a star player. But in the late 80s on the Bad Boys, it was forward John Salley who brought the flair to the Pistons’ locker room.
Drafted in the impactful 1986 NBA Draft, Salley was instantly comfortable in the Detroit locker room. He was an outspoken and charismatic figure for the entire dominant run of the Bad Boys, the glue that sealed together the family dynamic that core had.
Salley was never a consistent starter, but he was always a part of the rotation. He was a strong defender on the court, and always a strong defender off the court. He had no problems accusing the refs, the league or opponents of anti-Detroit bias.
While nothing about the end of the Bad Boys era was joyful, the breakup with Salley was particularly bitter. After six seasons to start his career with the Pistons he was traded to the Miami Heat, the first of four stops at the end of his career.
The Bad Boys backcourt was practically an NBA institution, with Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars making a combined 18 All-Star games and eight All-NBA teams. Yet no Detroit guard played in as many games during the Bad Boy era as Vinnie “Microwave” Johnson.
Johnson was the sixth man for the Bad Boys, starting only when Thomas or Dumars were out, but always logging consistent minutes. From 1985 (when Dumars was drafted) to 1991 when he left the team, Johnson appeared in 485 out of 492 possible regular season games. He started in just 72 of those games, the quintessential sixth man as well as a true iron man (he missed just seven games over all 9.5 seasons with the team).
While never a strong outside shooter — Johnson was a career 25.4 percent from 3-point range — the 6-foot-2 guard was a master at getting to his spots and hitting jumpers from all angles. In fact, it was just such a move that gave him his career moment.
In the 1990 NBA Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers, Detroit held a 3-1 series lead looking to close out the series at home. Portland was up seven with two minutes to go. Detroit would then rip off a 9-0 run to finish the game, closed out by Johnson nailing a contested jumper with 00.7 seconds left to give the Pistons the lead and the title. This earned The Microwave a new nickname: “007” after the time remaining on the clock.
At the age of 35, Johnson was waived by a Pistons team beginning its teardown, and he played one more season with David Robinson and the San Antonio Spurs before retiring. Johnson was then a color analyst on Pistons radio broadcasts for the next 11 years, staying closely tied to the organization.
The Pistons with Kelly Tripucka scoring from the 3 were a good team that established itself as a playoff team. The Pistons with Adrian Dantley scoring from the 3 were a great team in the mix for the NBA Finals. The Pistons with Mark Aguirre playing the 3 were a dominant title team.
Hindsight is 20-20, so it is easy to look back at Aguirre’s acquisition as a no-brainer move. When the Pistons traded Dantley and a first-round pick for Aguirre in February of 1989, it was anything but heralded.
Dantley was well-loved by many in the organization, including multiple teammates, and was a future hall of famer. Aguirre was viewed as a bad apple, poison for a locker room needing to come together. Add in his close friendship with Isiah Thomas and many fingers were pointed in the days immediately after the trade.
Yet Aguirre turned out to be the right man for the job, accepting his role in a more balanced cast — something Dantley was never comfortable doing. Aguirre averaged 15.5 points per game for Detroit after never averaging fewer than 21 since his rookie season. The Pistons won the title in 1989, with Aguirre starting all 17 postseason games, including the sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
In the 1989-90 season, the Pistons got off to a rocky start, and Aguirre recognized the team needed to start Rodman over him. While Rodman was reluctant, Aguirre could see the value to the team. He moved to the bench and let the young Rodman spread his wings.
The result was a breakout campaign from “The Worm” — Rodman won NBA Defensive Player of the Year — and the Pistons won a second consecutive title.
In total, Aguirre played close to five seasons with the Pistons, playing 375 total games. He played one final season with the Los Angeles Clippers before retiring as a three-time All-Star, two-time NBA Champion and a critical member of the Bad Boys dynasty.
The final entrant in our Twin Towers mini-series, Rick Mahorn was perhaps the nastiest Bad Boy of them all. Mahorn was the most stand-out big to play alongside Bill Laimbeer, playing a significant frontcourt role for the Pistons throughout the late 1980s.
Mahorn was a brick wall in the center of the court, making it his personal mission to stop opponents from making it to the rim. If anyone on the Pistons deserved the title of “enforcer”, it was Mahorn. He had no qualms about knocking opponents around.
The goal of the “Bad Boys” persona was primarily mental, not physical. If opponents were focused on standing up to Laimbeer and Mahorn, rather than playing their game, then the Pistons had won the mental battle and the victory was all but ensured. Mahorn loved the challenge of “getting in their heads” no matter the opponent.
Part of being unafraid to chuck players off their spots and forcefully protect the paint was being labeled as a villain. While guarding Boston Celtics big man Kevin McHale in the 1988 playoffs Mahorn was accused of purposefully stomping on McHale’s injured foot. Whether it was true or not, Mahorn was labeled a villain — and he may not have minded that.
After the Pistons won the title in 1989 with Mahorn as a starter, the addition of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Orlando Magic triggered an expansion draft. Teams could protect just eight players, and a stacked Pistons team was forced to leave at least one key player unprotected — and that ended up being Rick Mahorn. He was drafted by the Timberwolves and was torn away from the championship team he viewed as family.
Mahorn never put up incredible stat lines, as that was not his role. He knew why he was there, and why he was important to the Pistons’ success. While his longevity with the team was low enough to keep him from the very top of this list, Mahorn was a Bad Boy to his core.
Joe Dumars became a well-known figure in recent years serving as the general manager of the Detroit Pistons — a job he found inconsistent success in. Yet many years before he was fielding calls on two phones at once, he was the All-Star wingman to Isiah Thomas in the Bad Boys’ backcourt.
His presence on the Bad Boys was something of an oxymoron, as Dumars was soft-spoken and respectful to everyone he met. Yet that did not stop him from playing with a relentlessness that everyone on the Bad Boys could accept.
While Dumars was a key starter for the Pistons’ first title team, it was in 1989-90 that he truly came into his own, scoring more points-per-game than Thomas for the first time. In the 1990-91 season, when Thomas missed half the year, Dumars cracked 20 points per game.
Perhaps the defining moment of Dumars’ career was Game 3 of the 1990 NBA Finals. After dropping Game 2 at home to the Trail Blazers the series shifted to Portland. Dumars went out and had the game of his career, dropping 33 points on Portland to steal back home court.
It was only after the game that his family informed him that before the game his father had passed away. His family had waited until after the game to tell him.
Dumars was selected in the 1985 NBA Draft by the Pistons, and he would play all 14 seasons of his career in Detroit — something no other Bad Boy could claim. When the title teams were broken up in the early 90s, only Dumars remained. He played through to the 1998-99 season and continuing to battle the Chicago Bulls.
Before Dennis Rodman was America’s unofficial ambassador to North Korea, and before he was dressing up and acting out on the Chicago Bulls, and before he had the various hair colors, Rodman was simply a young man learning how to apply his prodigious physical talents to the game of basketball.
The Pistons drafted Rodman in 1986 as a relatively raw talent, but over the next few seasons, he quickly became one of the most versatile defenders the league had ever seen. At 6-foot-7, Rodman could bang with power forwards or slide up and guard wing players. His springboard athleticism and quick instincts allowed him to leap into passing lanes and generate turnovers in spurts.
Rodman’s motor was always running, as illustrated on one play against Charles Barkley and the Philadelphia 76ers. A rebound came towards Rodman and Barkley, and Rodman tipped it no less than six times to keep it away from Barkley.
After securing it, Rodman tries to go up for a shot only to have it stripped. Barkley gets the ball and pushes up the court to score a fast break layup, only for Rodman to have recovered and come from behind to swat it away.
As the team grew into title winners, Rodman was moved into the starting lineup, and he flourished in that context. The Pistons won 25 of the next 26 games they played after the change, and Rodman won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award at the end of that season.
By the end of his career, Rodman was a two-time All-NBA player, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, six-time rebounding leader and five-time NBA champion. He played in every single game for five straight seasons for the Pistons, and was a nasty player simply in how great he was on defense.
That is not to say everything was good, as Rodman started a number of controversies over the course of his career. Perhaps the most well-known took place after the Pistons lost to the Boston Celtics in 1987, when Rodman made a comment about Larry Bird being so beloved because he was white. Isiah Thomas backed up his teammate, and a media firestorm was begun.
Rodman has said outlandish things before, and he will surely do so again. But his on-court play shows itself in success, and Rodman was wildly successful for a number of seasons.
The Bad Boy Pistons were built on their big men, but a versatile forward such as Rodman was a key to their ultimate success. He is one of the very best defenders to ever play the game.
The most well-known player from the Bad Boys was point guard Isiah Thomas, an NBA superstar from the jump. The 6-foot-1 Thomas was an All-Star in his rookie season and every consecutive year throughout his career until his final, injury-riddled season in 1994. In addition to 12 All-Star appearances, he racked up hardware as Finals MVP, All-Star MVP (2x) and of course won two titles.
Thomas was part of a new wave of NBA stars who all knew each other and fraternized off the court. Thomas was good friends with Mark Aguirre and Magic Johnson, even staying hours with Johnson after a crushing Game 7 Finals loss in 1984 to console him. Yet for all of his star power and off-court relationships, on-court Thomas was a Bad Boy through and through.
The forging of a true title contender came with many pains, and that included Thomas himself. In the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals Thomas scored to put the Pistons up 1, then the Pistons got a stop and simply had to inbound the ball. Instead Thomas panicked and, as he tried to get the ball out quickly, none other than Larry Bird swooped in and stole it to set up the game-winning shot.
Thomas also has a number of feel-good stories, such as dropping 25 points on the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1988 NBA Finals despite injuries sustained.
Earlier in his career, he scored 16 points in just 90 seconds. He was a leader of the Pistons, and played a style of basketball that got others involved while still giving himself enough shots to be a difference maker.
Rumors swirl around Thomas even decades after his retirement. Did he orchestrate the walkout of the Pistons on the Chicago Bulls in 1991? Why was he really left off the 1992 Dream Team — was it merely just pettiness? Thomas is still an enigmatic figure involved in basketball, and his role leading the Bad Boys was a significant one.
The final member of the team always had to be Bill Laimbeer, because he set the tone defensively every bit as much as Isiah Thomas did offensively. Without Laimbeer there are no “Bad Boys”, and very possibly not a title contender. Yet history tells us that there was a Laimbeer, and that he was as impactful as they come.
Laimbeer was a number of things that are all useful in a starting center, especially an All-Star caliber one. He was an iron man to the full application of the term. From 1982 to 1992, Laimbeer missed just three games in total.
He was also a bruiser down below. Together, he and Rich Mahorn sealed off the paint to any and all opponents. Eventually their physical nature of play became part of the team identity, and they adopted the name “Bad Boys.”
Laimbeer overcame a crushing loss to the Los Angeles Lakers where he was called for a phantom foul, the defensive leader for a squad that swept Los Angeles the following year.
Laimbeer was at the center of every standout decision from this squad. From establishing the Jordan Rules, to embracing the Bad Boys label, to the walkout on the Chicago Bulls in 1991, Laimbeer was happily in the mix. He saw that basketball games were won in the minds of the players on the court, and leveraged every angle to gain the advantage.
Laimbeer was never a prolific scorer, although he could score capably from around the rim. He was a monster on the glass, averaging double-digits rebounds for eight straight seasons and overall 10.1 rebounds in his Pistons career. Laimbeer is the Pistons’ franchise leader in offensive and defensive rebounds.
The Bad Boys were never out to be bad guys, but rather found a way to gain an advantage on their opponents before they even took the court. Laimbeer, Thomas and the rest of the Bad Boys were never the most talented group, but they still found a way to win in the midst of dynastic giants in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. They did so through a tight bond, ferociously tough play, and embracing their role as The Bad Boys.