THE DETROIT PISTONS ARE UNBEARABLE
I want to preface this short piece by saying that I am not necessarily a “ball knower” when it comes to NBA basketball. I couldn’t explain the intricacies of defensive rotations or why a team might hunt certain matchups, that’s why BULLYBALL features a writer like Zariq who can fill in my knowledge gaps. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the Detroit Pistons are one of the more embarrassing sports teams of the last ten years. Riding a 23 game losing streak is one thing, but to be failing this emphatically in year four of a rebuild right after an offseason where you allegedly made moves to become competitive is about as humiliating as it gets. I’m not here to offer a solution or even call for jobs, this is mostly a stream of consciousness about how it has felt to be a relatively disconnected Pistons fan for the last few years, culminating in the dumpster fire we see before us.
I know there are plenty of fans out there who cling onto a rebuild and become deeply attached to certain players through the process, but I’ve found that difficult to do with the Pistons outside of one or two key pieces. Cade, obviously, is one of those exceptions. Detroit finally winning a draft lottery and getting a player that I had been a fan of since his time at Montverde, then seeing him take buffs out of his jacket at the draft gave me a rooting interest in Cade that went beyond my base-level desire for the Pistons to be good. Sure, the two are connected, but the entire draft process with Cade gave me a bit of understanding about why some fans would rather follow Kevin Durant from team to team than pick one team to stick with (which is still lame by the way). I would argue that having latched onto a player that I was absolutely positive would never let the Pistons get back into the depths of the league once he was fully healthy has made this season even worse. Every careless turnover, every possession where four defenders are happy to leave their man open and swarm Cade the second he crosses halfcourt, every inexplicable lineup that sees him on the floor with neither a shooter nor a lob threat is just another stomp on my will to watch this team play.
I’ve rooted for bad teams before. I saw a limited amount of 2019 Detroit Tigers baseball before I tapped out. My 2015 Cowboys got an awful lot of QB play from Matt Cassel and Kellen Moore. The 2019 Red Wings were the worst team in modern hockey history (and picked 4th in the draft while a playoff team picked 1st. Great lottery system.) Maybe the difference between those teams and these Pistons are my familiarity and understanding of those sports relative to my total confusion towards the minutiae of basketball. I can’t tell you why James Wiseman is indescribably awful, I can just tell you that he is. But as we barrel towards a 25th consecutive loss for a team that started 2-1, rationalization begins to matter less and less. I struggle to hold it against people that have outlandish takes about firing Monty Williams after less than a year on the job or tying Troy Weaver to the top of a car like a kayak and parading him down Woodward unless he trades for OG Anunoby. When your team is bad for the first time in a while, overreactions can be annoying. When your team is bottoming out in year four of what was meant to be a rebuild done “the right way”? Well, there is no such thing as an overreaction in that case. Unless of course you call for the team to be relocated like Chris Castellani did, because who the hell is that for?
If we could recall the Pistons like a defective product on the market and go back and draft Tyrese Haliburton that might make this season more palatable, but that’s not even really the point. I’m not sure there could be any level of individual performance that could make two wins out of twenty-six games even remotely acceptable. At this point, any turnaround that falls short of a miraculous play-in appearance wouldn’t take the heat off this organization, and rightfully so. You get leash when you take over a rebuilding team, but that leash ran out around loss 13. This team, this front office, this entire franchise is completely unbearable right now, and Pistons fans deserve so much better. Rant over, until Clint Capela puts them in hell tonight and even a simple glance at the box score makes me inconsolable.