OT: What happened to Detroits 4 pro sports?
Watching about 2 minutes of the Lions got me to thinking,what the hell happened to Michigans' four pro franchises? About 10 years ago Michigan was named the best state in the nation for pro sports,since then we have become a laughing stock ...
Redwings went from like 27 straight playoffs appearances ,to one of the worst NHL teams,how the hell does that happen.
Tigers (cheap F-ING bastards) have won like 6 of their last 45 home games ,currently run out one of MLB worst rosters in the past 50 years. In the decade 2010-2019 the Tigers are 9th in total revenue ,so them having ELITE baseball money and not spending means they are cheap F-ING bastards!!!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/193645/revenue-of-major-league-baseball-teams-2010-2019
Pistons cant draft .They have made 2-3 playoffs in about 15 years,Since they draft T Prince almost 20 years ago they have one of the worst records in the NBA
Lions one playoff win in 60+ years,havent won the division in 26 years,and have won a grand total of 3 divisional titles in 52 year history of the division
has their ever been a state with 3-4 major teams with all the teams this horrible at the same time ? Ohio comes to mind ,but anyone else ?
It took you til the last 2 minutes to think of that!!!
/s
As an outsider who moved here during the turbulent times of the auto industry, everyone asked me “why the hell would you move to Michigan”, and that came from MANY people who lived here at the time... well I did anyways and have been here ever since... since the spiraling economy, the perception of Detroit from people who don’t live here hasn’t changed much, even though those of us who are in the area understand it’s coming back, and is already back for the most part. This ties into the timing of the Pistons, Tigers, and Red Wings sudden decline. The Lions... well that’s a different story, TTL and all.
I understand the poor moves, bad drafting, and bad ownership, but it has to be hard to convince free agent athletes that can make millions of dollars anywhere they want, to come to Detroit, even though we all know perception isn’t reality.
You kind of have to split it up.
Lions: Have always sucked and will continue to suck until proven otherwise in my book. They're kind of a joke to me, but I'd love to see them turn it around at some point. Just don't expect anything from them and it's fine. I was crushed as a kid when Barry left and after that I kinda just lost interest in them.
Wings: Team got old, need to rebuild. Future might be bright with Stevie Y back.
Pistons: Need to commit to a rebuild. They're stuck in a shitty spot and I don't know why they decided to go all in on Griffin. I guess since they have Griffin I hope they at least keep making the playoffs.
Tigers: I don't care about baseball honestly, but obviously they're fucked for a bit.
Word for word and line by line, you just described my own sentiment towards the Lions.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:44 AM ^
I was crushed as a kid when Barry left and after that I kinda just lost interest in them.
Yup, Barry was my hero as a kid. I was so pumped he was likely going to break the all-time rushing record in one more season, then when he retired I was just kind of shell-shocked. I tried watching them the next season but quickly lost interest and haven't watched an entire Lions game since.
August 9th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
The Pistons and Lions are saddled with bad ownership. They will not be significant until the ownership is better.
Point of contention: the Tigers are not cheap bastards. Ilitch tried to buy a championship for the better part of a decade and fell short on playoff luck. You brought up they were 9th in revenue but failed to mention they were top 5 in salary for years. The Red Wings have Yzerman and will be fine after some rebuilding.
The Pistons and Lions yeah who the hell knows.
Illitch bought everything but the bullpen, and then we got hit with the Anna Karenina principle.
Historically, the Wings have brought in free agents (or de facto free agents) just past their primes (Larionov, Fetisov, Hasek, Chelios, Coffey and many others) to keep the level of play high as young players developed, and they’ve not been as aggressive about it in recent years.
The Pistons are most likely to return to being a solid team first, though simply because of the vagaries of basketball - a single acquisition can change the complexion of a team much more than a single one in other sports. It is not because of anything the organization is doing well.
The Red Wings can't get away with that anymore now that the salary cap is around. Too many of the stars sign contracts that have large cap hits that building teams with just-past-their-prime talent doesn't fit under the cap. It's now a league where you have to home grow most of your talent - Tampa Bay, for example, drafted basically all of their stars (Kucherov, Stamkos, Hedman, Point, and Vasilevskiy); their best player that wasn't their own draft pick last year was Tyler Johnson, who was a UDFA out of the WHL.
The Red Wings have not been as aggressive in recent years because there is a salary cap now. All the guys you listed came to Detroit because Illitch paid like he was running the Yankees. Implement a salary cap and Ken Holland doesn’t have a clue.
Yup. I'd been clamoring for years for the Wings to ditch Ken Holland. It had been painfully clear for a long time that he didn't know what he was doing once the impacts of the salary cap fully hit. Steve Y can go down to Tampa and basically turn them into a legit power in 2-3 years but it takes Ken Holland almost a decade to try and turn a team around...and he STILL can't get it done?? The man needed to go a long time ago and I was a bit miffed when the Wings didn't bring Steve Y on immediately but instead let him go to Tampa.
We can claim that he needed the time in Tampa to "learn" and all that, but the reality is Detroit could have been the beneficiary of his skills as a GM for all those years instead of just now bringing him on board.
I look forward to the Wings' resurgence from the ashes back to prominence with great anticipation!
August 9th, 2019 at 10:03 AM ^
Pistons will be most likely to return to a solid team first but I really do believe the red wings will be competing at a high level sooner than people think. people can bag on holland for his shitty contracts but he left yzerman with a very solid young core of players to build around with Larkin, Mantha, Anthansiou, and Bertuzzi not to mention he stocked up on a crazy amount of draft picks for Yzerman. I think next year if the young prospects like zadina and velano live up to their hype they can make the playoffs as soon as 2020-2021 season, but more than likely will take 2-3 years due to shit contracts
Yeah, the Tigers were huge favorites going into the 2006 and 2012 World Serieses. That's all you can really ask for (apart from, you know, actually going on to win said World Serieses).
Looking back at the '06 roster, they probably shouldn't have been huge favorites. I loved that team, but the only reason they were good at all was half the roster happened to have career years all in the same season.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
You don't think Brandon Inge, Jeremy Bonderman, and Nate Roberson will get into the HOF?
But maybe Marcus Thames?
Come on, you can't compare those guys to the greatness of Craig Monroe and Mike Maroth.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
They were. And that St Louis team has the lowest win total of any team to win the World Series.
Ilitch fell short because his pitchers somewhat incredibly couldn’t field their position at all in the WS.
Remember this? 2003 draft:
1. Cleveland - LeBron James
2. Detroit - Darko Milicic
3. Denver - Carmelo Anthony
4. Toronto - Chris Bosh
5. Miami - Dwayne Wade
That has to go down as one of the worst picks ever in any sport.
Not sure we win the championship if we draft Carmelo.
Why not? Carmelo was pretty successful in terms of wins early in his career (went from 17 to 43 wins his first season and made playoffs every year he was there) and it’s not like he was a locker room cancer. His downfall was that he only cared about the money when contract time came and was stuck on a terrible Knicks team.
Then they probably don't trade for Sheed and Melo and Larry Brown hated each other.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:19 AM ^
Agree. Melo still hasn't won a title, and wouldn't have won one in Detroit. His presence would have marginalized Tayshaun Prince, who wasn't a huge scorer but was a huge part of what made the defense tick.
The correct answer, to me, is Dwyane Wade, but nobody thought he was a top two guy that year.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:42 AM ^
^^^this
Would have liked to get Wade in that draft.
On par with the Pack picking Tony Mandarich.
Always revisionist history with Darko. Every pundit and draft person said he was a can't miss. Anyone else would to have taken him 2nd overall. Also Wade wasn't Wade coming out of college.
I believe Darko was something close to the consensus #2 pick but I think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that he was a can't-miss.
August 9th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
I didn't say he was can't miss. The pundits were billing him as the next Dirk.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:30 PM ^
When asked to describe him, Ben Wallace replied "Lunch".
August 9th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
I liked Bosh. Our backcourt was solid and Bosh could've helped us out in the paint. We probably still trade for Sheed in 2004 and Bosh would've helped against KG when he went to Boston. But while everyone kills Joe D for that pick, Darko was considered a top 5 pick at the time. Maybe things would've turned out better if they would've stashed him in Europe for a few years.
I blame the Russians
Lions: have had garbage ownership for 50+ years
Tigers: Ilitch was desperate to win a World Series before he died, mortgaged everything to try to get it, got a bit unlucky, and now they have to rebuild with a ton of dead money and a spent farm system.
Pistons: Are stuck in the middle of the NBA, the worst place to be. Can't get a high draft pick to get a franchise player through that route and Detroit is not a particularly attractive free agent destination to get a star that way. So you have to do it with a trade or get lucky with a lower pick turning into a megastar. That, obviously, is not common. Or do it without an elite player, which in the last forty years of the league has basically one precedent: the 2004 Pistons.
Red Wings: Should have realized the window was closing in 2011 or so, as much as I would have hated to see Pavel and Hank in other uniforms. Didn't figure it out until Zetterberg retired. Now in rebuild, have a lot of promising young talent and a really good GM.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:47 AM ^
now they have to rebuild with [...] a spent farm system.
https://www.mlb.com/tigers/news/top-10-farm-systems-in-mlb
10. Detroit Tigers
The headliners on this year’s Tigers Top 30 list soon could be headlining the team’s big league rotation, as 2018 No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize and '16 first-rounder Matt Manning, as well as Franklin Perez and Beau Borrows, all have the potential to be pitching in Detroit by '20. Two 2017 trade acquisitions -- Isaac Paredes and Daz Cameron -- rank as the system’s top position prospects after their breakout performances in their first full season in the system. Those two, along with 2018 acquisition Willi Castro, rising teenage shortstop Wenceel Perez and 2018 second-round pick Parker Meadows give the Tigers a solid core group of players at premium positions.
These guys are even more bullish on the Tigers
https://motorcitybengals.com/2019/08/06/detroit-tigers-farm-system-rank/
First part of user name does not check out.
August 9th, 2019 at 11:18 AM ^
Beat me to the punch, Tigers farm system is solid
August 9th, 2019 at 11:51 AM ^
I'll believe it when I see it at Comerica.
As long as the Tigers have Avila, they aren't going anywhere.
As long as the Pistons have a fool of an owner in Gores, they aren't going anywhere.
The Red Wings are probably the only team that have a shot to improve the soonest, but for the next season or two, they aren't going anywhere.
As long as the Lions exist, they aren't going anywhere. My ongoing motto for decades in comparing this team to Michigan is that they are like two different movie genres: I get my drama on Saturdays, and my comedy on Sundays.
College sports are the only thing that keep me sane from a sports perspective in this town.
Why does everyone hate Gores so much? He's willing to spend money and has tried to hire good management even though those decisions didn't pan out as well in hindsight. Svg was considered a good coach before that but shouldn't have been GM.
It was Karen Davidson and Joe D completely losing it at the end that ruined the stones.
August 9th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
Personally, because he's regularly shit-faced at games making an ass of himself. Not at the top of my leadership qualities.
August 9th, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
Profile name does not check out...
August 9th, 2019 at 11:53 AM ^
Touche.
August 9th, 2019 at 11:55 AM ^
Why does everyone hate Gores so much?
Shallow
Vapid
Sparty?
August 9th, 2019 at 10:48 AM ^
The common denominator with the Lions are the Fords.
Been a long cycle for the Lions. ?
Yeah, you have to use geologic time to track the Lions cycles of excellence...
The Lions were amazing in the late Pleistocene.
An organization is only as good as its people. The people running these organizations are the reason all four teams are where they are. I can give the Wings some slack and expect they will right the ship in short time.
I grew up in Pittsburgh. Professional basketball? What's that?
The Pittsburgh Pipers don't count?
Well, there was this mythical team, the Pittsburgh Condors.