Detroit Pistons: Simulating Michael Jordan’s career with the Bad Boys

NBA 2K20’s old roster imports allow you to get creative. What if we changed the course of history by giving the Detroit Pistons one of the greatest ever?

The Detroit Pistons in the late 80’s and early 90’s were most famous for being the team that interrupted the NBA’s glamour years with the Celtics, Lakers, and Bulls championship runs. In doing so, they made an enemy out of Michael Jordan.

Despite the fact that they were able to overwhelm him for so many years, in 1991 they finally succumbed to his greatness, and the Pistons historic run was over.

So although there was never actually a chance for Detroit to select him in the draft, what would happen if Jordan was paired up with the Bad Boys?

Using the historic teams that NBA 2K20 has created, and using a meticulous process that allowed me to recreate the league in the 1980’s as best as I could, I placed the youngest iteration of Jordan possible (’85-’86) on the Pistons ’88-’89 team.

I did go through and reduce everyone’s age by five years in order to maximize their window with Jordan.

The plan was to simulate as many years as possible to not only see if Detroit could recreate their own success, but if Jordan could as well. This could wind up being the greatest defensive team of all time.

I turned the injuries setting off because that tends to make for some skewed (some would argue realistic) results. Then I turned off the salary cap because the plan is to keep these players together for as long as possible.

Heading into season number one, the starting lineup had to be as powerful as humanly possible. So, the opening rotation is as follows;

Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and Bill Laimbeer. Mark Aguirre was moved to the bench to replace Vinnie Johnson as the sixth man.

To no surprise, Detroit got out to a hot start and after achieving a record of 20-1, we needed to see what progress was being made.

Jordan was averaging 31.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game on 54.5 percent shooting. The ball distribution was clearly off the charts, as Isiah was also averaging 12.0 assists per game.

After simulating to the end of the year without anymore stoppage, the Pistons finished with a record of 67-15. Jordan won the MVP award, Rodman won Defensive Player of the Year, and Detroit cruised to the NBA Finals for a match up against the Lakers.

It wasn’t even close. Jordan proceeded to average 33.9 points per game and they went on to sweep the Lakers. The first championship had been achieved.

The second season, the third season, and the fourth season all resulted in championships. The Pistons had become world champions for four consecutive years, and everyone had received recognition at some point.

Jordan had won three MVP’s and had been selected to four All-Star teams. Isiah and Dumars had also been selected to two All-Star teams, Rodman had two Defensive Player of the Year awards, and Laimbeer made an All-Defensive team.

Then, it happened.

Heading into the fifth season, Magic and Bird had retired. This would arguably be the best individual season that we would see from this Pistons team. The door was wide open for a fifth consecutive title.

No one came even close. Jordan averaged 39.1 points per game and the team won 76 games.

Breaking the record set previously by the 1996 Chicago Bulls, but most recently by the 2016 Golden State Warriors, Detroit had achieved the single most amount of wins in a season in the history of basketball.

After battling with the Atlanta Hawks in the conference finals, they overcame a 3-2 series deficit and advanced to the Finals where they faced off against the Portland Trailblazers.

After six games of 4.1 blocks per game by Rodman, 10.3 assists per game from Isiah, and 40.8 points per game from Jordan, the Pistons had locked down their fifth consecutive title.

As the next season began and Detroit expected to tie the number of championships that Jordan actually won, I stopped the simulation after 15 games after noticing that they were scoring upwards of 150 points per game.

Jordan had scored at least 50 points in every single game of the season. He was averaging 59.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game.

At this point I decided to slow the simulation down and take it game by game, wanting to see how long he can keep this streak up for.

The answer was 31 games. For 31 straight games, Jordan scored at least  50 points, with his season high being 76. Detroit had jumped out to a 29-2 record.

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At this point, it’s clear how this ends. They captured their sixth straight title without losing a single game in the playoffs.

It’s not necessarily surprising that the Pistons are able to succeed on an elevated level with the addition of Jordan, but the fact that not a single team comes even close, not a single team has posed any legitimate threat and they’re just walking to the title every single year is baffling.

To make a long story short, the simulation continues and eventually the core pieces start to drop out. Johnson and Laimbeer retired, the production from Dumars and Aguirre had fallen of significantly, and the team was losing more and more games every year.

That being said, Detroit did make it to seven straight championships before finally losing in the conference finals to the Knicks.

After simulating 15 years of Jordan in Detroit, everyone had retired but Jordan. The roster was compiled with a bunch of computer generated draftees and free agents, none of which compared to the roster they once had.

The finally tally on Jordan’s career with the Pistons goes as follows:

• 14x All-Star
• 11x Scoring champion
• 9x NBA Champion (in 9 appearances)
• 8x NBA MVP
• 2x Defensive Player of the Year

In the real world, he holds significant disdain towards Detroit and the era that tried to eliminate him. He’s famously had problems with Isiah, and in turn the Bad Boys don’t respect him. They never could have teamed up.

But clearly, if they did, the NBA would have never been the same.