What happened to this franchise?

Homelander87 · Post #1 » by **Homelander87** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:15 pm

;ab_channel=TheValentiShowwithRico

Seriously, what happened? TBH I rarely if ever watch this team anymore. For awhile I was cheering against the team to lose very game to secure a high draft pick but after last season I've learned the NBA has no reason or want for the Pistons to ever be good so I no longer even do that anymore. So what happened? There is an argument to be made that they are the worst pro sports team in the United States since 2010. The team has not won a playoff game since 2008. Was it the Billups for Iverson trade?

I'm honestly without any answers, I'm no longer sad or angry anymore either. I just want to know.

Kalamazoo317 · Post #2 » by **Kalamazoo317** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:19 pm

If you want to know, I guess you could watch. Or read just about any thread on this page.

MrBigShot · Post #3 » by **MrBigShot** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:43 pm

Inept from the top down

bstein14 · Post #4 » by **bstein14** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:46 pm

You tank too long you build losing habbits. Honestly might need to purge most of the team that was here during the rebuild and try to add 4 or 5 new guys to the rotation next year. One new rookie, one or two via trade and one or two via FA.

Sucks but eventually you have to win some games or Gores needs to go in a new direction. If we're a bottom 5 team in the league still in 12 months Weaver 100% shouldn't be here I don't care who is injured or isn't. Even most Weaver supporters should agree with that you can't be the worst of the worst for 6 straight seasons.

Post #5 » by **Cowology** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:11 pm

What happened? Mr D died on March 13th, 2009. Worst day in this franchises history.

tradez401 · Post #6 » by **tradez401** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:46 pm

dumars not rebuilding the team from ground up after the billups/iverson trade but instead had us in no man's land with bad FA contracts, terrible draft picks killed the franchise and we never recovered.

joedumars1 · Post #7 » by **joedumars1** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:50 pm

I don’t know more chips than most franchises. At the moment they are down. I do see light, but only if Jalen Duren isn’t a injury prone big

zeebneeb · Post #8 » by **zeebneeb** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:50 pm

Cowology wrote:What happened? Mr D died on March 13th, 2009. Worst day in this franchises history.

This is the correct answer.

Ownership is the most underrated part of sports.

Ownership of any business, sets the direction, and tone of said business.

Tom Gores is not a good NBA owner, period.

I've hoped he will sell the team at some point.

vege · Post #9 » by **vege** » Tue Nov 21, 2023 11:59 pm

Cowology wrote:What happened? Mr D died on March 13th, 2009. Worst day in this franchises history.

I came in to post this, but it wasn't necessary.

Since Mr D died, we've been a mess. First the franchise was being sold, so we had to get rid of all the long contracts. Then Gores bought the team, and while he's not a cheap/bad owner, he is clueless, and people around him have been terrible.

Mr Davidson was a fantastic owner but it is what it is.

Canadafan · Post #10 » by **Canadafan** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 2:50 am

Ya, Gores made mistakes and tried to rush the process by trading for Blake.
Mr.D was the man.
Hopefully we're on the right track now. Slow a d steadyyyyy

DBC10 · Post #11 » by **DBC10** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:39 am

Gores needs to sell. It really is a top down approach and a smart owner hiring a competent person to run the team will have success follow them

The nepotism as that vid points out has done a lot of damage to the integrity of the franchise as well. We really need to clean house and Gores needs to stop listening to people who aren't/can't follow the trends of the league today

pistonsbball · Post #12 » by **pistonsbball** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:40 am

It all comes down to drafting. We draft flawed players, most commonly the flaw is that they can't shoot the NBA three. We try and build around these players for a few seasons and it's difficult to develop other good players in that environment because the team is compromised by a lack of spacing or a lack of defense or whatever it is.

Look at a well rounded player like Haliburton who can shoot and is elevating his teammates in Indiana.

buzzkilloton · Post #13 » by **buzzkilloton** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:55 am

Bad ownership,FO,and coaching. This could all be overcame if we drafted very very well or got incredibly lucky in the lotto odds but we havent. Even in the lotto we won it was the only draft in the past 5 years where the consensus pick one actually wont be the best NBA player in the class.

Piston Pete · Post #14 » by **Piston Pete** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 6:06 am

1) TANKING, builds a losing culture

2) Continually drafting guys who cannot shoot

3) Not using any of our cap space on meaningful additions 3 years in a row

4) Gifting away Bey for peanuts

5) Dumb FA moves:

Signing Plumlee to trade him away for nothing, only to sign Olynyk the next season for more money..….and extending Bagley was not a great move.

6) Not trading for future draft capital (need future 1st rounders)

DetroitDon15 · Post #15 » by **DetroitDon15** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 6:39 am

The issue is more than drafting guys who can’t shoot. It’s about building a roster. This team keeps drafting best available (in their eyes and not mine) without regard to fit. I guess Cade is the franchise but they don’t build a team around him that fits his skill. With Duren and Ansur, the 4 and 2 have to be big time three point shooters. I guess BB can be that but reality is that this team just blows. I also can’t forget that Harris trade cause it’s top 5 worst in NBA history. Who takes a 20 mill contract of flaming hot garbage for worthless seconds.

Sorry rant is over.

Billl · Post #16 » by **Billl** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 2:15 pm

We spent a long time trying to treadmill in hopes of a miracle. And we gave away draft picks during that period to do so. When we finally hit the reset button, all we had were bad contracts and a couple aging vets. We didn't have a war chest of draft picks or a prime all-star we could jumpstart a rebuild by trading. So we've been tanking and had basically 1 draft pick per year to work with. If we didn't make a big splash with that pick, then we made no progress.

Personally, I think our young talent base is pretty good. Now we have to cut out the dead wood and start actually adding talent in free agency and trades. We can't keep punting cap space and just hoping on internal improvement.

NYPiston · Post #17 » by **NYPiston** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:39 pm

I'm old enough to have been around for two fairly long championship windows, roughly 1987-1991 (my introduction to sports era as a kid) and 2003-2008 with even The Teal Era producing a few 50 win teams.
Some of the younger folks, 30 and under mainly, don't remember that the Pistons used to be one of the better NBA franchises, I'd say a top 5 NBA franchise from the mid 80s to the late 00s.

What we've seen, in the flip of a switch, is not only the worst NBA franchise since 2010 but arguably the worst in sports. Not one playoff win since 2008 is an extremely difficult feat to achieve, just extraordinary ineptitude. Ever since Bill Davidson passed away, it's gone in the toilet.
Gores was the architect of moving the Pistons to downtown Detroit with a new arena but he's been the worst thing to ever happen to the Pistons from a basketball/on court product perspective. He has no idea how to surround himself with the right basketball people. I'll give him credit that he'll spend whatever it takes to bring in "his" guy but "his" guy is always the "wrong" guy. The intention is good but the execution is bad.

As far as the current group is concerned and I see that bstein touched on it is that losing has been too engrained in their culture now.
This is the 4th year of nothing but losing for Hayes and Stewart, 3rd for Cade, 2nd for Duren and Ivey and now the rookies are being exposed to it. If you lose long enough, you develop long term losing habits that are really hard to shake.
You can go full rebuild but also supply the young core with proper vet support. Weaver has built a team especially in the last 2 years where it's "Ok, youngsters go figure it out on your own" and they've created this toxic losing culture as a result. I think Bogey and Morris coming back will help but they need more. Right now, it's a bench guy in Burks and a whole whack of young guys running the team. This is not proper team building especially the 4th year into the "restoration".

NYPiston · Post #18 » by **NYPiston** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:49 pm

Cowology wrote:What happened? Mr D died on March 13th, 2009. Worst day in this franchises history.

Bingo. I actually just mentioned that before reading the thread but, yeah, that's where it all went downhill.

Kalamazoo317 · Post #19 » by **Kalamazoo317** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 4:04 pm

buzzkilloton wrote:Bad ownership,FO,and coaching. This could all be overcame if we drafted very very well or got incredibly lucky in the lotto odds but we havent. Even in the lotto we won it was the only draft in the past 5 years where the consensus pick one actually wont be the best NBA player in the class.

I'm not sure Paolo over Chet is a lock.

Billl · Post #20 » by **Billl** » Wed Nov 22, 2023 4:13 pm

Kalamazoo317 wrote:
buzzkilloton wrote:Bad ownership,FO,and coaching. This could all be overcame if we drafted very very well or got incredibly lucky in the lotto odds but we havent. Even in the lotto we won it was the only draft in the past 5 years where the consensus pick one actually wont be the best NBA player in the class.

I'm not sure Paolo over Chet is a lock.

Paulo wasn't a consensus #1 pick. You might even call him a surprise pick. It was really uncertain who the magic would go with at #1 up until the last day.