Anyone who sat through all of last season knows It was incredibly painful as fans to watch each game inevitably slip away for another loss. What was even more painful than the actual play was how the players took each loss as they compounded. I can vividly remember Cade Cunningham looking empty, hopeless. That was crushing. But, fast forward to this year, and the Detroit Pistons are one of the most exciting teams in professional sports. So how does this turnaround rank?
Detroit Pistons could pull off biggest turnaround in NBA history
The Detroit Pistons went 14-68 last season that included a historic 28-game losing streak. Right now, the Pistons are 39-32, which already gives them more wins this year than the last two combined. They have already clinched their first winning road record since 2008 with three times as many wins on the road so far as they had last season.
There are so many reasons for the stark turnaround: JB Bickerstaff has been a huge upgrade at head coach, both in terms of player development and X's and O's. Trajan Langdon gave his coach more weapons to work with by trading for and signing stable veterans who complement the young core which improved with better teammates, and everything just fell into place.
Lots of teams improve over an offseason, but this flip is worthy of record books. The current, all-time largest single single turnaround, record-wise, belongs to the 2001-2002 Nets. In 2000-2001, the Nets went 26-56 with a .317 winning percentage, and in 2001-2002, they improved to 52-30, good for .634. Their difference was literally double, a .317 winning percentage increase.
Detroit has just 11 games remaining. Looking at their schedule, they should win at least five of those games. So let’s say they finish the year playing .500 basketball. That would put the Detroit Pistons at 45-37. That would be an increase of 31 games! The Pistons would annihilate the previous record from the Nets. Cade and company would have gone from .205 last year, to .548 this season. That’s good for a winning percentage increase of .343. In fact, Detroit could finish the year 4-8, ending with a record of 43-39, and still break the all-time single season improvement record.
As mentioned, there are so many different reasons for Detroit to have seen this turn around. So many different people deserve credit for what’s being done here. And, after Cade’s buzzer-beater in Miami last week on national TV, the nation is starting to take notice. That 2001-2002 Nets team made it to the NBA Finals in case you were wondering.