Will Detroit Pistons top their longest losing streak?

The Detroit Pistons have lost 12-in-a-row heading into tonight’s road game against the Indiana Pacers.

I marked this as one of four games in December where the Pistons have a chance to end this losing streak, as the rest are against teams currently in the playoff picture. The Pistons already beat the Pacers for one of their four wins this season, but are still double-digit underdogs without top scorer Jerami Grant, who has been the subject of trade rumors.

If the Pistons don’t win another game this calendar year, they will head into 2022 on a 20-game losing streak, which is not how you want to enter a new year.

Detroit has gotten achingly close but continues to fall apart at least one quarter per game, usually sometime in the second half.

The question now is whether the 2021-22 Detroit Pistons are going to set the franchise record for most games lost in a row. Luckily, they still have a way to go.

Detroit Pistons: Longest losing streak in franchise history

The Pistons’ longest losing streak came over the course of two seasons, as it started in 1979-80 and carried over to the following season.

Detroit lost 21 games-in-a-row during that streak, which is the 8th-longest in the history of the NBA. In case you were wondering, the “Process” 76ers own the longest streak of a all time at 28 games.

If the Pistons can’t get a win in one of the next two games against the Pacers and Rockets, then they will be at risk of catching this streak, as they will only have games against the Heat (x2), Knicks (x2) and Spurs to finish off the month.

They start the new year against the Spurs again and then have the Bucks, who own the Pistons and have beaten them like 800 times in a row.

Hopefully the Pistons will find a win in there somewhere, as we don’t want franchise cornerstone Cade Cunningham in the record books on the team with the longest losing streak in team history.

The bright side is that the longest streak did lead to Isiah Thomas, so hopefully Detroit will at least come out of this one with an impact player in the 2022 NBA Draft. 

The Pistons hopefully found something in the small-ball lineups they used against the Nets and can break this streak tonight on the road. Otherwise that home game against Houston suddenly becomes important, as it may be the only thing standing between the Pistons and a dubious record.