Detroit Pistons: 5 worst duos in franchise history

Every NBA basketball team has 15 roster spots, and usually dresses 12 players a game. Five of those players are on the court together at any given time. But dynamic duos have arisen across the NBA over the years, duos such as Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, John Stockton and Karl Malone, and for the Detroit Pistons, Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars. It’s a team game, but a strong duo can do serious damage and take a team a long way.

While they’re not as easy to find, or at least, don’t come to mind as readily, there are also plenty of duos that aren’t dynamic. They’re destructive. We recently delivered a list of the 10 best duos in Detroit Pistons’ history. Here’s a list of the five worst.

5 worst duos in Detroit Pistons’ history

#5: Lindsey Hunter and Allan Houston

I’m being hard on a couple of guys who the whole town was unfair toward from the beginning. It’s that spirit of disappointment, dating back to 1993 when the Detroit Pistons used two lottery picks on their backcourt of the future – or so they hoped. It didn’t work out that way, and that’s why Lindsey Hunter and Allan Houston are on this list. It’s not that they were terrible players. Every NBA franchise is littered with players that never get off the bench.

The cold reality is that different players are expected to play different roles and Hunter and Houston had enormous shoes to fill. Frankly, no one was ever going to replace Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars.

To their credit, Hunter and Houston did try. Houston only stuck around to play three seasons in Detroit compared to 12 for Hunter (across two stints), but he did have the best statistical season of either one of them in a Pistons uniform. Hunter, on the other hand, became a fan favorite and a champion with the Detroit Pistons. Were they successful players? Yeah, more successful than most. As a duo, brought together to carry a franchise into its next chapter of success? They never came close, and their failure to do so got them onto the list.