Building up and tearing the Detroit Pistons down

The Detroit Pistons lost their 19th straight game last night and it was never in doubt.

The team barely put up any resistance as the Magic ran layup lines and easily shut down anything Detroit tried to do at the other end.

It was tough to watch and what made it worse is that there is no easy fix.

They are somehow worse than the team that won 17 games last season even though they got Cade Cunningham back, signed a big-name coach and spent over $30 million in cap space in the offseason.

The roster is clearly broken, and as I wrote earlier, does not look like a modern NBA team with their lack of two-way forwards and skilled bigs.

In fact, it doesn't look like a team at all, at least not one that likes each other or cares much about the outcome of the game. The body language was horrible again last night, players were loafing up and down the floor, and they all looked as if they were just going through the motions until they could go home again, like office drones who go and stare at a screen for eight hours before being mercifully released, like prisoners putting in mindless labor that they know will yield no reward.

This team is far away from being good, hell they are far away from even being competitive against the other young teams.

And this front office, coach and roster may not contain an answer.

As painful as it is to say, the Pistons may need another teardown. Let's start at the top.

Tearing down the Detroit Pistons

Tom Gores

We can't fire the owner, so unfortunately, we are stuck with Tom Gores, whose team has been the worst in the NBA since he bought them. Gores is now 358-606 since taking over in 2011.

In that time, the Pistons have had exactly one winning season and have won zero playoff games. To put it in perspective, Gores' .371 winning percentage as an owner is identical to that of Donald Sterling, former owner of the Clippers, who is widely recognized as the worst owner in the history of professional sports for various reasons.

To Gores' credit, he does spend money, unlike Sterling, who was as miserly as he was racist, but Gores' money is like a reverse-midas, as everything it touches turns to ash instead of gold. But don't worry about Tom, as he is personally richer than ever.

Even though Gores is not the most engaged owner, I do think he wants to win but has consistently hired the wrong people to get him there. He's either had too much patience or not enough, has routinely tried to build his team around expensive coaches and has been completely absent as this year's team sinks into a death spiral from which they may never return. Accountability starts here, but there is nothing we can do about the owner except hope his girlfriend, like Sterling's, is wearing a wire (I kid...sort of).