Why the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons are a top-5 team of all time

The Detroit Pistons are often overlooked when people talk about the best NBA teams of all time but the 1988-89 squad absolutely deserves to be on that list.

If you watch any old NBA films of that era, you’d think the Pistons were a mere blip between Larry Bird’s Celtics, Magic Johnson’s Lakers and Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

This is ironic considering the Detroit Pistons were the only team to beat all three of those teams, yet, they’ve somehow been reduced to side characters in the era.

This was illustrated perfectly in “The Last Dance” as the Pistons were cast as the villains and bullies to Jordan’s heroics while completely ignoring how good they were.

But if you actually watched the games (shut up, I’m old) then you know that the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons were absolutely dominant and deserve to be on lists of the top-5 teams in NBA history.

They won 63 games and then dominated the playoffs, losing only two games (to Michael Jordan’s Bulls) along the way and sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers who had Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy.

How did they do it? It was a combination of high-end talent, depth and unselfishness.

The 1988-89 Detroit Pistons had top-end skill

When you look at the roster for the 1988-89 Pistons you’ll see a team full of future Hall of Famers.

Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars are Hall of Famers who were also named to the Best 50 Players of All-Time. They are considered one of the best all-around backcourts to ever play and have a strong argument to be the #1 duo.

Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley started the season on the team but was then traded for Mark Aguirre, who was an overall #1 pick who averaged 20 points per game over his 14-year career.

The team had future Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, who is widely considered the best defensive player of all time, coming off the bench.

You won’t find many teams in history that have this many Hall-of-Famers and that was just the beginning of the team’s depth.