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.
The 1988-89 Detroit Pistons were two teams
Very few teams in NBA history had the depth of the 1988-89 champion Detroit Pistons, as they essentially had two teams worth of great players.
The Pistons starting lineup for 1988-89 looked like this:
- PG: Isiah Thomas
- SG: Joe Dumars
- SF: Mark Aguirre
- PF: Rick Mahorn
- C: Bill Laimbeer
The trio of Thomas, Dumars and Aguirre (and Dantley before him) could light up the scoreboard and defend their positions while Mahorn and Laimbeer provided the interior defense and intimidation.
People forget that Laimbeer was the prototype for the stretch-5 and was actually a very good 3-point shooter even though the 3-point shot was not nearly as big a part of the game back then.
Now check out this bench:
- Dennis Rodman
- James Edwards
- Vinnie Johnson
- John Salley
When you have perhaps the best 6th man of all-time (Vinnie Johnson) and one of the league’s best rebounders/defenders of all-time (Dennis Rodman) coming off your bench, you know your team is deep.
The 1988-89 Detroit Pistons had a million ways to beat you and could run teams off the floor with a three or even four-guard lineup or beat you up with some of the best defenders to ever play the game.
This squad was also a “team” in the truest sense of the word.
The 1988-89 Detroit Pistons were a true team
The champion Detroit Pistons from 1988-89 could beat you in a lot of ways, mostly because they had unselfish players that embraced whatever role they were given.
Consider Mark Aguirre, a guy who was the number one overall pick and one of the best scorers in the NBA.
When he joined this team via trade, he was no longer the #1 option and saw his shot attempts go way down playing a secondary role to Thomas, Dumars and sometimes Vinnie Johnson.
Aguirre then started to lose minutes to an up-and-coming Dennis Rodman, but never complained, played his role and still had some huge games for the Pistons.
It was this mentality that made the Pistons so hard to beat, as if a team focused on stopping one guy, he would just defer and let a teammate take over.
Aguirre was the Pistons’ 6th leading scorer in the Finals, as they rode the hot hand of Vinnie Johnson, who averaged 17 points per game in the sweep.
No one cared about individual numbers on this team, and there have been few teams in NBA history that had this many weapons on both ends.
When you combine that top-end talent with quality depth and unselfishness you get one of the best teams in NBA history and it is time that they are recognized.