For weeks we’ve been hearing about how the Detroit Pistons are the best story in the NBA this season and it’s true.
Despite what some boring monotone giants think, going from 14 wins to a possible playoff berth in one offseason is special and they aren’t just winning, they’ve been one of the most exciting teams in the NBA.
The Pistons get up and down the floor, defend their butts off and turn that defense into instant offense. They have high-flying athletes, get a ton of dunks and aren’t afraid to mix it up. Fan or not, this team is fun to watch.
The national media has started to pay attention and we’ve seen some great pieces on the Pistons recently, but I don’t care about them.
I care about the fans (and writers, shout-out to the Pistons beat) like me who have been in the trenches with this team for more than a decade of futility. This is our moment and it’s great to see Pistons fans enjoying it.
I wrote this on Twitter earlier, and maybe it’s a sad statement about my life, but it’s markedly better when the Pistons are good, as I’ve been walking around all day with a smile on my face that has my wife asking questions.
We put in the work with the bad teams and can now enjoy the spoils of finally having a good one, but it’s not just that they are good, it’s the style of play, the individuals and the collective that make this one of my favorite teams since I started watching, which was long before most of you were born.
A real team
For years my complaint about Troy Weaver was that he never tried to build a coherent team. There were always obvious flaws and he never tried to bring on veteran talent to put around his young guys.
Trajan Langdon fixed that and went out and got players who may not be stars, but know their roles, know how to play the game of basketball and actually wanted to be in Detroit. Harris, Beasley and Hardaway Jr. embraced these roles and there are no egos on this team.
You’d be hard-pressed to even name their second-best player, as every guy in the rotation behind Cade Cunningham knows their job, knows their spot and makes his life easier, which is all we have been asking for since Cade was drafted.
The Pistons are not laden with household names, but they are a real team in the truest sense of the word.
Detroit Basketball
We’ve heard this so many times it started to be a joke, but the Pistons have finally brought back Detroit basketball.
That means playing hard every possession, feeding off the defense and not backing down from anyone, which have been the hallmarks of this team, especially since the beginning of the new year.
Detroit is now a top-10 defensive team in the league and has made that their identity, finally making good on a promise we’d been hearing for years.
Personalities and X-Factors
Every Pistons team I have loved has had engaging personalities, from Dennis Rodman, to Rasheed Wallace to now with guys like Malik Beasley and Isaiah Stewart.
They’ve also had X-factors, the guys who may win you a big game or two even though most fans have never heard of them. Vinnie “the microwave” Johnson comes to mind, as does Tayshaun Prince when I think about the impact guys like Ron Holland II and even Simone Fontecchio have had at various times this season.
Maybe it’s just the aftermath of being bad for so long, but don’t think it would be possible for me to love this team any more than I do right now.
It’s fun to be a Pistons fan again, so enjoy it. You deserve it.