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Hi Pistons fans,

I was looking over old rosters for whatever reason, and I came across the 2002 Pistons. After going 32-50 in 01, they flipped their record to 50-32 in 02.

This was weird to me because they seem by and large close to identical rosters.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/2001.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/2002.html

Basically the only major differences I can see are
- Carlisle took over as coach
- Corliss Williamson was hurt in 01
- Joe Smith was essentially swapped with Clifford Robinson
- Stackhouse scored a lot less in 02

Was hoping you guys could provide some context for this season. What do you guys attribute the 18 game swing to? Normally with such a large improvement, there's a huge acquisition or a star player had been injured the year before. None of that seemed to have happened here, it really does seem like an anomaly. Was Carlisle just really that good/the previous coach that bad?

Thanks guys

You named them all
Carlisle took over coach, look how good of coach he is
Corliss won 6th man of the year
Uncle Cliffy could stretch that floor
Stack shot less(was more un selfish)

joedumars1 wrote:You named them all
Carlisle took over coach, look how good of coach he is
Corliss won 6th man of the year
Uncle Cliffy could stretch that floor
Stack shot less(was more un selfish)

This.

Carlisle is an elite coach, utilizing talent to their full potential and a great Xs and Os guy.

Is the 50-32 season the one where Jon Barry arrived?

Barry & Corliss used to kill it off the pine! Carlisle obviously was a much better coach though

- Carlisle being a terrific coach and getting that group to play great defense was amazing, but incredibly necessary. We weren't going to outscore anybody with those players. That philosophy change cannot be understated.
- We went 10 deep regularly, we were sending waves of players at teams. Especially with how scrappy they were and how they would ugly up the game, we would frustrate and wear teams down a lot of nights.
- Our bench, the "Alternatorz". Healthy Corliss and the addition of Jon Barry were huge for us. Our bench won us a lot of games. I think we led the league in bench points that year at like 36ppg. Don't quote me on that last part though, I'm a little fuzzy on some of this.
- Cliff Robinson replacing Joe Smith. Cliff, although he was a poor rebounder was a way better defender and stretched the offense to the 3 point line.
- Ben Wallace became "All-Star Ben Wallace". The shift to him becoming the leader and "the man" from Jerry Stackhouse. He was the heart and soul of that team and re-energized Piston basketball.

Probably some other stuff, but those were the big ones.

Lets not forget the other changes from other teams. There was a ton of turnover and parity/mediocrity in those yrs.

Sixerscan wrote:Hi Pistons fans,

I was looking over old rosters for whatever reason, and I came across the 2002 Pistons. After going 32-50 in 01, they flipped their record to 50-32 in 02.

This was weird to me because they seem by and large close to identical rosters.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/2001.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/2002.html

Basically the only major differences I can see are
- Carlisle took over as coach
- Corliss Williamson was hurt in 01
- Joe Smith was essentially swapped with Clifford Robinson
- Stackhouse scored a lot less in 02

Was hoping you guys could provide some context for this season. What do you guys attribute the 18 game swing to? Normally with such a large improvement, there's a huge acquisition or a star player had been injured the year before. None of that seemed to have happened here, it really does seem like an anomaly. Was Carlisle just really that good/the previous coach that bad?

Thanks guys

Corliss wasn't hurt that year, or if he was it didn't account for most of the games he was short. We traded for him at the deadline that year. The guy we gave up for him, Jerome Williams, was popular and a hustle guy, but ultimately Corliss was simply a much better player.

We added a great coach, added a solid veteran forward who could score to pair with Ben Wallace, Joe Smith really wasn't very good for us and Cliffy fit perfectly. To top it off, we essentially built our bench from the ground up.

A full year of Corliss, the addition of Jon Barry, and solid contributions from guys like Zeliko Rebraca (yeah, I don't remember the spelling and am too lazy to look it up) and Damon Jones were absolutely huge for us. The individual stats on some of those guys don't look like much, but we had the highest scoring bench in the league that helped balance out our defensive starting lineup (and replaced the relatively weak bench we had previously).

Also, don't let the stats fool you. Ben Wallace was WAY better in 2002 than 2001. Ditto to Stackhouse, who playoff failings notwithstanding, became a much better team player under Rick.

I don't think those two teams are as similar as they look at first glance.

With all that said, I think most fans will acknowledge that the Pistons overachieved that year in the regular season, probably in part due to poor competition. We were slightly above average and not much more. The team showed its true colors in the playoffs when we barely eeked by Toronto despite the injury to Vince Carter that sidelined him the ENTIRE series, then got handled by the Pierce/Walker Celtics in round 2 despite home court.

Clearly Dumars agreed with that assessment, because he traded Stackhouse for Rip, and signed Billups so we'd have a real point guard. At that point, the team really started to resemble the team that would be the class of the east for the next several years.

Awesome, thanks guys!