Help me fall in love again (with the Detroit Pistons)

[jars]

I want to love this squad, but I just don't. I like most of our players in isolation, but don't really enjoy watching our team play. I believed in the potential of our young guys, but they just haven't made it (yet?).

Cade is nice, but not 'carry a team to the playoffs, first pick in the draft superstar' nice (yet?).
I like Ivey in theory, but he is too inconsistent and his best doesn't outweigh his worst.
Duren is a monster on the glass, but protects the rim the same way an umbrella protects you in a hurricane.
I like Ausar on defense, but his offense has made him nearly unplayable (so far). Sasser is the opposite of Ausar.
Beef Stew is fine & I like his aggression, but he is 'just another guy'.
Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr, & Simone Fontecchio are nice vets, but they are 'just another guy' at this stage of their career.
Ron Holland & Bobi Klintman have nice potential, but are still very raw.

I'm not hating on our team, I just need someone to help me get excited for Pistons basketball. I like that we are more structured under JB and that we now have rotations that make sense. Someone help me change my mindset. Tell me, I'm wrong!

[fleet40]

It's hard to fall in love with this team, as the franchise has been breaking my heart for... God knows how long now. (Maybe from the moment A. Iverson was traded here for our heart Billups)

Cade is a solid player, who is getting better. Still a turnover machine who wears down in the 4th.

Beef stew, is our muscle and heart. But now imagine if Bill Laimbeer back in the bad boys days couldn't shoot with any consistency, had hands of stone, and had 0 ability to play help defense or take charges. Welp. Those teams would not have won chips. That's beef stew.

Duren plays 0 defense and continues to make the same mistakes (fouls at the worst times and is a liability out on the court minus rebounds)

Ivey is a fast rim attacker, score minded only player. He competes but he sulks when he is not getting touches and then plays 0 defense and is a napkin on the boards. He should be a bench player coming in for attack offense and then sat when he goes cold or does not play defense.

The rest? Well not so good minus some really good shooting by out free agent pickups. But non of these guys are defenders. And the Pistons DNA is supposed to be defense and heart. And welp, our hearts are broken because there isn't much heart or grit on this roster. Our new coach is definitely an improvement from the scarecrow we paid millions to for nothing. So we have that.

[Absolutia]

In Cade's rookie season we 'clicked' in Boston on the eve of the allstar break; denied them their tenth straight win and for the remainder of that season we competed with everybody (except one game against Dallas, if I remember right).

Maybe that can happen again.

[Canadafan]

Sheesh. We are a beat up crew. Everyone seems to be throwing in the towel. I disagree with almost everything fleet40 said.
JARS- we are competing. Our coach is motivating. Unlike Monty who was a train wreck of a man. We lack a clear cut #1 guy-we hope Cade can get there but saying that I see our guys fighting to stay in contention for the play-in. And hopefully we luck out with our draft pick to add another future starter(fingers crossed)
I'm enjoying actually turning on a game and feeling like we're trying and have a chance at winning. Which hasn't happened much this decade. Or previous decade lol

[fleet40]

We are indeed far watchable now then in the past couple of years. But I fear this team is headed to a massive lossing streak. Hope that I am wrong.

[Kalamazoo317]

We're watchable and fun right now. If we need to be a competitor for you to "be in love" with the team, then it's not the team for you, cuz that's not what we are right now. But we keep the majority of games close and we're winning way more than we did last year and we have some fun young talent. It's enough for me.

[Invictus88]

If you haven't invested yourself in the process of the young guys trying to improve and have the patience to endure many, many pitfalls along the way (with no real guarantees) then there's really not a reason to love this team right now.

If you don't have that attachment (and it doesn't sound like it from your first post) then there are far better and more exciting teams to root for.

[MrBigShot]

Haven't watched all our games (maybe ~65-70%) but the ones I have watched have generally been pretty enjoyable with a lot of close down the wire endings.

Honestly everyone is a bit jaded because we haven't bee relevant in over 15 years at this time, and it might take a legitimate contender to change that, which I don't think this core has the capability to be.

[Moses ShamMoses]

Yeah i feel pretty indifferent to the Pistons again this year. For me, I think it has to do with the Lions success vastly overshadowing anything the Pistons have going on. Pistons have some nice pieces but aren't ready for prime time.

Side note: I can't stand NBA games anymore with their constant overly loud canned music during games (Ex. Everybody clap your hands...or some random rap song).

[MotownMadness]

Spending all that time rebuilding just to end up with this is depressing

[Patrick27]

You're not wrong here. They still don't feel like a team. They feel like a bunch of individual players that are playing for themselves. That isn't Detroit basketball.

-Cade is great when it's his turn to score. If it isn't his turn, he throws a lazy pass that gets picked off.
-Ivey just stands around without the ball.
-Duren only gets hyped when he gets to make an uncontested dunk.
-Sasser has lost minutes vs last year, and doesn't look happy.
-None of the vets pass the ball. If they get it, they shoot. They are auditioning for their next team at the deadline.

Stew, Ausar, and Holland are the only ones that seems to play unselfishly. They each have issues that keep them from getting big minutes and setting the tone. It goes against winning basketball, but we need 1-2 of them on the floor at all times to provide heart.

I'd be willing to have the team take a step back in order to establish a tone and a team identity. I hoped Bickerstaff would be able to change that, but although he has played to each player's strengths in exchange for a few wins, he hasn't fixed any glaring problems.

[mattao313]

Spending all that time rebuilding just to end up with this is depressing

This is me right now 5 years of rebuilding for a mid team

Sent from my moto g 5G - 2024 using RealGM mobile app

[TPA]

Spending all that time rebuilding just to end up with this is depressing

This is me right now 5 years of rebuilding for a mid team

Sent from my moto g 5G - 2024 using RealGM mobile app

I don't think this team even reaches the bar of "mid", but I get what you're saying.

[Laimbeer]

I've been more of a NBA fan than a Piston fan for quite a while now. The poor fit and the bonehead plays make them painful to watch. Throw in a front office that had a terrible off-season and it's tough to be engaged in what we are or what we can become.

[bstein14]

We were unwatchable most of the last few years but the team is actually watchable this year... I think we're going to need to go on a win streak or like 7 of 8 win streak to really swing fan momentum though. We've had nothing like that really since the Brandon Jennings era win streak.

[Kalamazoo317]

I love winning in Madison Square Garden. I’ll say that

[fleet40]

It only took 16 games!!! But I am happy to see the young team win in NY (they didn't have the big softy playing tho)

[Kalamazoo317]

We didn’t have Ausar playing. Players are out all the time. As Dan Campbell would say, no one cares. We showed up, we took it to them, and we won by a healthy margin. That’s the type of game this team is capable of when everything is clicking.

[zeebneeb]

We were unwatchable most of the last few years but the team is actually watchable this year... I think we're going to need to go on a win streak or like 7 of 8 win streak to really swing fan momentum though. We've had nothing like that really since the Brandon Jennings era win streak.

If this team, which is extraordinarily young, goes on a 7 or 8 game win streak, the apocalypse is neigh. Like you can see the meteors by game 5.

[breezypeezy]

We are not there, there yet. But we are going in the right direction, improving, competing.

Call me a Homer but its better than being a bandwagon hitch hiker.

Followed Motown sports for longer than most people been alive, I dont give up on my teams, cause their my frikn teams, these Pistons are gonna keep climbing.

Im not refusing to root for them till they reach the top of the hill, im right on the slope as a real fan, helping to push up.