OT: The 2004 Pistons, the Exception to the Rule by which all other exceptions are judged
They're back again. With the Raptors, huge underdogs, poised to clinch an NBA title with a win in any one of the last three games of the series, people naturally turn to history to view this upset in light of other significant NBA Finals upsets. A familiar name floats to the top of the list when such discussion occurs. You know what it is, but hold that thought for a second.
Flash back to January, when Anthony Davis demanded a trade from New Orleans. The Ringer posted this article discussing how well New Orleans utilized Davis, a multiple first-team All-NBA performer. As the article states, NBA champions almost invariably include at least one multiple first-team All-NBA member on their squad. Almost invariably:
That’s not to say that a team doesn’t need at least one superstar to win. Dating back to 1979-80, when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the league, only two champions didn’t depend on a multi-time first-teamer: the 2003-04 Pistons and the 2007-08 Celtics, who qualify only on a technicality because Kevin Garnett made three All-NBA first teams with Minnesota but just one in Boston. Rather, employing such a player is basically a necessary but not sufficient condition to win a title.
Hey, look, it's the 2004 Detroit Pistons. Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Ben and Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince... those guys. Not an all-timer amongst them.
Flash back to today. Here's a tweet that just came across the transom:
There we have it again, the 2004 Detroit Pistons.
Not a bad team, mind you: They beat real teams in the East, and that Lakers team that they swept in 5 games was loaded with four dead-certain HOF players, including two (Shaq and Kobe) in their primes. Then the team made it back to the Finals the next year and took the Spurs to game 7.
It's perhaps the most unique champion in NBA history. And the legend only grows with each passing year. Whenever you have an odd result or a team succeeding with an unusual roster construction, the 2004 Pistons are the team that comes up. When there's a big underdog, or when people talk about teams without superstars, or even when you talk about all-time bad draft picks, somehow the 2004 Pistons enter the conversation. They're the scrawny kid with weird glasses that beats you at chess, blows by you for a layup in gym class, and steals your lunch money.
The are the exception to every rule; the exception by which all other exceptions are judged.
SB Nation made a nice video on the Pistons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBzt5eUy-co
Red Wings too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JIkZAxDVPc&t=
What's crazy is how different the 04 Pistons and 02 Red Wings, Pistons well documented as an underdog, but Red Wings the opposite, stacked with Hall-of-Famers. Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille were backups lol
And that makes it equally frustrating that the 2019 Pistons are basically trying to emulate that style. They continue to win just enough so that they cannot land a top pick but are not even CLOSE to threatening other teams.
The future for this franchise is so incredibly bleak. For some reason, ownership and management loves Drummond, who is an antique in today's NBA. Griffin played his ass off, but that is not how to win games. He may put up with one more season of this and tell ownership to get him outta town.
Who else on this team can we even consider for the future? Reggie can't shoot and gets hurt all the time. Kennard is a nice piece, but he's the 7th or 8th guy on most championship-level teams. Wayne Ellington is a role player. Ish will be leaving town.
I have no idea why ownership is in love with the idea that just getting in means you are succeeding. They aren't.
It is an incredibly sad thing to watch this historic franchise continue to run into a brick wall.
The only explanation is Gores is not interested in winning a title. He wants a .500 team because he thinks it will keep fans semi engaged. I don’t think there is a logical argument to be made that tanking is not the correct path to a title.
Certainly a Star (or 3) must be drafted. That could be a pick in the teens, but good luck finding that guy.
I'm leaning that way. I honestly think this is something Gores is doing for fun and to make money. The dude spends the entire season in LA anyways, and pops up every now and then.
The Pistons are Gores Billionaire playtoy and investment. He doesn't care about building a contender or else he would've started a rebuild years ago
Have you ever seen him at the end of games when he's in town? He shows off to all his friends calling players like Drummond over to meet them. Its 100% a status symbol for him
You're dead wrong about Drummond, and even a cursory glance at both traditional and advanced stats make that readily apparent. Aside from leading the league in DRTG, you know how good you have to be to register 11th in the league in WS on a team as mediocre as the Pistons? Blakes VORP is higher because 50 point games in losses are still losses. That indicates that the Pistons were better when Drummond was leading the way, and thats a coaching problem. Blake isos while Drummond takes rebounding position on the weakside, out of the offense, were wayyy too common.
Besides, even stylistically, a rim runner like Andre Drummond is not at all out of style. Clint Capela does just fine in Houston; Jusuf Nurkic is bolted to the ground and plays well for a 50 win team; Rudy Gobert has less range than Drummond and also plays well for a 50 win team. Also Drummond had 16 games of 5+ assists in 2017-18. Capela and Gobert dont have that between the two of them for their whole careers. What those guys DO have are CP3/Harden, Dame Lillard, and Donovan Mitchell.
Finally, when you include the assists and free throws, Drummond has DRAMATICALLY improved in 2 major areas of the game in the last 3 years. He's 25 and already one of the greatest rebounders of all time, and had been the best player on a playoff team well before Blake arrived. Jahlil Okafor is an antique. Drummond is more like Herman Moore, running routes for Rodney Peete with Wayne Fontes calling plays.
Uh, so when someone improves from the absolute gutter to still relatively in the gutter with FT percentage, that makes it impressive? He hasn't even cracked 60 percent yet, so he's still basically a huge liability at the line.
Rudy Gobert is one of the best defensive players in the NBA. Drummond is an absolute liability on defense. He's there to be a big guy and grab rebounds (which, defensive rebounding is one of the more overrated stats in 2019, considering it is more about where you are standing when the ball is missed).
I guess he's a rim runner in the sense that he can stand there and clean up the misses. Outside of 5 feet, he is a total liability.
Not to mention, the dude seemingly takes days off and only shows up when the team is playing garbage teams. Drummond shot 44 percent in the four most meaningful games of his career (this playoff against Milwaukee), and to be honest, I don't even remember him on the court, he was that absent.
On any championship-level team, he's a 7th guy. Until he learns how to shoot and actually be an offensive threat, there's no chance for him to be a star.
And one more thing... Of the four major sports, coaching is at the bottom of the list. I think it's kinda silly to blame any of this season on Dwane Casey. In fact, he probably surpassed expectations, getting this group of players into the playoffs.
The team, and Andre, are who they are. A bunch of OK players that will never threaten to make any sort of noise in this league until the entire operation is blown up and done right.
What’s funny is that the raptors are considered the closest to that 04 team but even they have a superstar.
And not just that, I think these playoffs have given Kawhi the edge in the “best player in the league” argument
Kawhi has to do more in order to earn the Best player in the league title.
In 8 seasons he has only averaged 25ppg or more in 2 of them. He only played 60 games this season and he played 9 games last season
I dunno man, the last two times we've seen Kawhi Leonard in the playoffs he was punking the most talented team in league history.
This series is really making me hate Zaza Pachulia for the injury that took Leonard out of the 2017 playoffs with his team up 23 points on the road in game one.
2nd year of grad school @ Berkeley .... I was the only one I ever saw rocking a Pistons jersey/shirt every day. 3/4 of that campus wore Lakers gear.
i talked a lot of shit at a number of bars all across campus in June 2004. it was awesome.
I was also a grad student at Berkeley. I don't think I saw anyone in a Piston's jersey -- we must have been at different bars.
It was great -- I knew the Pistons matched up well against the Lakers, a fact everyone (in Berkeley at least) was completely blind to. It was so satisfying to see the series play out exactly as I expected, while watching the Lakers fans go from ridiculous overconfidence to stunned disbelief to despair.
Not to take away from what the Pistons did, but we now know with 20/20 hindsight that the Lakers were more or less D.O.A. Even leaving matchups aside, Malone and Payton were shells of themselves, 4 deep runs in the playoffs had worn out their role players like Fisher and Fox, and the Shaq/Kobe breach was past irreparable. By all rights, the Lakers were lucky to only lose 4-1.
You could argue that if they'd been fully healthy, if Shaq and Kobe hadn't imploded team chemistry...etc, etc, etc, but how deep down that rabbit hole do you want to go? As much as it pains me to admit the better team won those finals.
A Pistons win in 2004 seemed the obvious conclusion to me, and not just as a Pistons fan. It became clear to me that Kobe's desire to show he was the guy there was what those playoffs were all about in their matchup with SA and it carried over more so into the finals. Shaq dominated 3 quarters each game while the Pistons kept it close and then Kobe's hero ball would lead Detroit to the win. Maybe if Phi was interested in winning the series and not providing teaching lessons to Kobe the outcome would have been different.
I don't think the take that the Pistons just kept it close for three quarters is correct. Three of the wins in that series were by double digits or more. They really dominated that series and were firmly in control.
I spent the summer of ‘88 in San Diego, rocking a Pistons cap. Sadly a very different kind of experience
That 2003 NBA draft though. Three strikes and you're out.
3 DEN Carmelo Anthony Syracuse University
I think they would have helped but I actually think having a guy that didn’t mess with the rotation was what allowed them to win that title. If they get melo, they probably don’t trade for Rasheed during the year and without shred they don’t win that title. It sucks we wasted the number two pick, but it brought us a championship I don’t think we would have had otherwise. Maybe down the road but nothing is guaranteed (or guaransheed if you will).
Totally agree. Additionally, Tayshaun was the guy that would have been the odd man out with Melo there, but he was a vital defensive cog that supplied "enough" offense.
The guy they should have gotten is Wade. Melo has never come close to winning a title; Wade was a vastly superior player.
Rip's presence on the roster probably precluded that pick, but imagine if they had pulled the trigger anyway.
Wade was a reach at the time though. Most were surprised he went as high as he did, have to tip your cap to the Heat’s scouting department
I'm still trying to figure out why the Raptors were the underdog. They finished with a better record this year, they have the best player in basketball, and KD was never a threat to play
Who is in charge of these odds?
You have NO idea what Durant’s health status is. And +240 isn’t that big of an underdog anyway.
"KD was never a threat to play"
lolWHAT? It was always generally assumed he would miss 1 maybe 2 games but it definitely seemed he would play
You must be reading different reports. Even if it's just a "calf strain," that's a minimum month out. IYesterday was 30 days since the injury.
There was no way he was going to risk making it worse.
It seems very rude of the ABC people to show the Horry shot from 05 before each game...
Yea. That shot was horrible. Detroit should have had that 2005 series from San Antonio.
In a suite for that game. Timeout horns sounds, all the players come back onto the floor.
”DONT LEAVE HORRY DONT LEAVE HORRY DONT LEAVE... fuuuuuuuck.”
Once the arena went silent everyone was just looking at me shaking their head. Honestly doubling down on a possible game tying shot or stay with your man and dont give up a wide open 3? Seriously Sheed.
I loved that Detroit team. Pure team ball. They were one of a kind for sure.
Nobody really thought the Pistons would beat the Lakers. I remember being 10 years old at camp during game 1, and the counselors came out and announced the final score and everybody went crazy. Then everyone thought "hey maybe we have chance."
LOVED that 04 Pistons team. So gratifying to watch them shut the Lakers down cold. Still impressed Larry Brown got them to play such stifling team D. Teams don't seem to give a shit about defense in today''s game.
Same. I know people don't like to watch it, but I love teams that just smother their opponents on defense. And play team ball without a superstar.
Remember watching Michael Jordan lose his fucking mind every time he played the Pistons in 88-89? It was glorious.
Got every east coast final game and NBA final game for $60 a piece (bought weeks ahead of time). The good old days!
That was definitely a satisfying time to be a Pistons fan and watch them shut down the team full of future HoFers.
I'm enjoying seeing the Raptors do the same and hope they've got one more W left in them.
Leonard is better than anyone the Pistons had, but people crap on that 2004 team because they only had...4 all stars and 2 all-defense guys. There have been a number of teams between then and now who won titles with less overall talent. The 2011 Mavericks jump out, but I'd argue that the 2006 Heat team with Wade and Shaq weren't better than that 2004 team.
The Raptors are better offensively than anyone gives them credit, and if Leonard returns next year they should be the favorite. Of course, my guess is he goes to LA to play for the Clippers, which would be hilarious and also a little sad for Toronto, who really have done everything right in making this team.
I never understood the surprise about the 2004 Pistons. Pre Rasheed they were already very tough defensively and had enough reliable scoring to already be a tough out. Then from Rasheed’s first game as a Piston, until the end of the regular season, they were the leading defense in the NBA by I think 7 or so points a game. They were just strangling people. Pretty sure I saw every game that wasn’t west coast, they made guys they were playing just hate basketball, if not themselves and/or life itself. They were every bit as dominant as the “Bad Boys” during that stretch.
People never really discuss it because of the names, but the 2014 Spurs were eerily similar to that Pistons team. A deep, elite defensive squad with no truly elite offensive weapon. If we're actually judging the players by who they were at the respective points in their career, Ben Wallace is the closest thing either team had to a top 5-10 player.
Fear the Fro!
Maybe the “superstar” for the 2004 Detroit Pistons was not on the floor, but rather on the bench. Head coach Larry Brown....???