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Could the 2004 Pistons beat the 1989 Pistons in a 7 game series? What if playing by 1980s rules?

Whew, that would be a battle. Can’t say I can decide either way other than series goes 7 in a war of attrition. Both known for very physical, defense minded styles of play. Both known for having ended a Lakers dynasty.

For me it comes down to the depth of the teams. 89 Pistons were a deep deep team. ~9 guys that were starter quality. Series could go 6-7 games but I'd say the 89 pistons has the advantage here

Full season maybe 1989 but at their best (i.e., Pistons with Sheed) then the 2004 Pistons. Both teams had pretty good health though Dumars missed 17 games. Pistons won a lot of close games (63 wins, 56 Pyth wins, clutch veteran team), but weren’t dominant in the regular season and were less dominant in the playoffs than the 2004 pistons.

Pistons lost the first two games Sheed played with them and then went on to win 20 out of the next 24 with Sheed sitting out a few. These games from 2/23/2004 to 4/12/2004, the Pistons had:

—A MOV of +13.58
—DRtg of 89-90, rDRtg of about -12

They wind up having a playoffs DRtg of -11.84

Playoff Offensive Rating: -0.82 (97th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -11.84 (2nd)
Playoff SRS: +11.08 (43rd), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.00 (24th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +0.94 (83rd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.78 (30th)

Playoff Heliocentrism: 26.6% (77th of 84 teams) - Ben Wallace
Playoff Wingmen: 42.2% (33rd) - Billups & Hamilton
Playoff Bench: 31.2% (16th)

Round 1: Milwaukee Bucks (+0.4), won 4-1, by +12.6 points per game (+13.0 SRS eq)
Round 2: New Jersey Nets (+4.2), won 4-3, by +3.4 points per game (+7.6 SRS eq)
Round 3: Indiana Pacers (+6.5), won 4-2, by +2.5 points per game (+9.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Los Angeles Lakers (+7.6), won 4-1, by +9.0 points per game (+16.6 SRS eq)

Lastly, that 2004 team’s victory over the Lakers is just much more impressive than the 1989 teams victory over the Lakers with Byron Scott out, and a hobbled o completely injured Magic Johnson.

As for a head-to-head matchup, I’m unsure about the Pistons offense in 2004, but I think their defense would shut the 1989 pistons down much more than the 1989 pistons which shut down the 2004 pistons they could go either way

Redmoon wrote:For me it comes down to the depth of the teams. 89 Pistons were a deep deep team. ~9 guys that were starter quality. Series could go 6-7 games but I'd say the 89 pistons has the advantage here

9 played depth is great when you play against multiple teams. Your Top 7 against Team A may be different than your Top 7 against Team B.

When you are looking at just 1 series, the depth is less important.

homecourtloss wrote:Full season maybe 1989 but at their best (i.e., Pistons with Sheed) then the 2004 Pistons. Both teams had pretty good health though Dumars missed 17 games. Pistons won a lot of close games (63 wins, 56 Pyth wins, clutch veteran team), but weren’t dominant in the regular season and were less dominant in the playoffs than the 2004 pistons.

Pistons lost the first two games Sheed played with them and then went on to win 20 out of the next 24 with Sheed sitting out a few. These games from 2/23/2004 to 4/12/2004, the Pistons had:

—A MOV of +13.58
—DRtg of 89-90, rDRtg of about -12

They wind up having a playoffs DRtg of -11.84

Playoff Offensive Rating: -0.82 (97th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -11.84 (2nd)
Playoff SRS: +11.08 (43rd), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.00 (24th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +0.94 (83rd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.78 (30th)

Playoff Heliocentrism: 26.6% (77th of 84 teams) - Ben Wallace
Playoff Wingmen: 42.2% (33rd) - Billups & Hamilton
Playoff Bench: 31.2% (16th)

Round 1: Milwaukee Bucks (+0.4), won 4-1, by +12.6 points per game (+13.0 SRS eq)
Round 2: New Jersey Nets (+4.2), won 4-3, by +3.4 points per game (+7.6 SRS eq)
Round 3: Indiana Pacers (+6.5), won 4-2, by +2.5 points per game (+9.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Los Angeles Lakers (+7.6), won 4-1, by +9.0 points per game (+16.6 SRS eq)

Lastly, that 2004 teams victory over the Lakers is just much more impressive than the 1989 teams victory over the Lakers with Byron Scott out in the hall building been completely injured Magic Johnson.

As for a head-to-head matchup, I’m unsure about the Pistons offense in 2004, but I think their defense would shut the 1989 pistons down much more than the 1989 pistons which shut down the 2004 pistons they could go either way

In fairness to the '89 Pistons, their own post trade run (and slightly before it) was pretty hot and they went through the playoffs well too. They survived a Salley absence for about a month during that spell too (though in typical prime Salley fashion he showed up stronger in the playoffs: partially why it was Mahorn that was left unprotected).

The flipside is I think 3 of the 4 playoff opponents had significant injuries and they didn't have to go through the toughest on-paper opponent in conference (also somewhat injury hit).

And as good as the with Sheed versions of '04 were, I think there's some potential upside for their playoff performance if played over as I think their bench regresses up closer to their production norms (Campbell, Okur, Williamson, Hunter, James shouldn't be a bad bench unit, if less heralded than the Bad Boys' 4). Mind you in a playoff run you can probably always find something unsustainable in either direction and I'm not looking closely.

Colbinii wrote:

Redmoon wrote:For me it comes down to the depth of the teams. 89 Pistons were a deep deep team. ~9 guys that were starter quality. Series could go 6-7 games but I'd say the 89 pistons has the advantage here

9 played depth is great when you play against multiple teams. Your Top 7 against Team A may be different than your Top 7 against Team B.

When you are looking at just 1 series, the depth is less important.

Arguably the Bad Boys extracted value from 8 and 9 by playing a tight 9 man rotation (18 total minutes went to non-core guys across the whole playoffs). Everyone played all the games and the lowest average is 18.6 (Edwards, rest are over 20).

Edwards has a couple of single-digit minute games (8 and 9) either side of a 30 minute appearance but quickly eyeballing the two lowest minute guys I suspect no-one was every really out of that rotation.

I don't know whether or not it was optimal in terms of maybe they could get Rodman, Laimbeer out there a bit more, but it's hard to argue with the results (and keeping everyone involved probably help chemistry) and that just ends up as an argument for their potential upside.

Owly wrote:

Colbinii wrote:

Redmoon wrote:For me it comes down to the depth of the teams. 89 Pistons were a deep deep team. ~9 guys that were starter quality. Series could go 6-7 games but I'd say the 89 pistons has the advantage here

9 played depth is great when you play against multiple teams. Your Top 7 against Team A may be different than your Top 7 against Team B.

When you are looking at just 1 series, the depth is less important.

Arguably the Bad Boys extracted value from 8 and 9 by playing a tight 9 man rotation (18 total minutes went to non-core guys across the whole playoffs). Everyone played all the games and the lowest average is 18.6 (Edwards, rest are over 20).

Edwards has a couple of single-digit minute games (8 and 9) either side of a 30 minute appearance but quickly eyeballing the two lowest minute guys I suspect no-one was every really out of that rotation.

I don't know whether or not it was optimal in terms of maybe they could get Rodman, Laimbeer out there a bit more, but it's hard to argue with the results (and keeping everyone involved probably help chemistry) and that just ends up as an argument for their potential upside.

You are right.

Also, in a single series, rotations can change on a game-by-game basis.

Redmoon wrote:For me it comes down to the depth of the teams. 89 Pistons were a deep deep team. ~9 guys that were starter quality. Series could go 6-7 games but I'd say the 89 pistons has the advantage here

I can’t choose here, it’s like picking a favorite child, but I will say the 2004 Pistons had plenty of depth as well. Memo, Corliss and Elden were a very strong reserve front court, and Hunter and James were a solid reserve back court. Those five all played at least 9 mpg in the playoffs.

Bad boys Pistons were preposterously deep. 5 all-nba calibre guys, a 6MOY candidate, and 3 other starter quality pieces, 2 of whom are defensive specalists. It's still debatable, but tough to overcome that high end depth.

onedayattatime wrote:Could the 2004 Pistons beat the 1989 Pistons in a 7 game series? What if playing by 1980s rules?

Well, fwiw, 2004 ranks top 10 in ben's full-strength team-ratings and is well ahead of all the other piston teams by Sansterre's playoff-weighted approach. regular season SRS is worse by a point but they were better in the playoffs(both benefit from injuries though the 89 side probably benefits more).

Otoh, the 89 Pistons did repeat and they did come a game short of a three-peat while the 2004 side came close in 2005 and weren't able to make another final. That may be more due to personell, but it's fair to have more confidence in the 90's iteration. I would also give the 89 team the era-relative talent advantage but that only goes so far.

Would probably favor 2004 for a more impressive finals win, but 1989 has arguments

One_and_Done wrote:Bad boys Pistons were preposterously deep. 5 all-nba calibre guys, a 6MOY candidate, and 3 other starter quality pieces, 2 of whom are defensive specalists. It's still debatable, but tough to overcome that high end depth.

Those are my guys, but say what now? Zeke and Joe D fit the all-nba description. Laimbeer is a stretch to get there. Dantley/Aguirre were most definitely not, and Mahorn even less so.

tmorgan wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:Bad boys Pistons were preposterously deep. 5 all-nba calibre guys, a 6MOY candidate, and 3 other starter quality pieces, 2 of whom are defensive specalists. It's still debatable, but tough to overcome that high end depth.

Those are my guys, but say what now? Zeke and Joe D fit the all-nba description. Laimbeer is a stretch to get there. Dantley/Aguirre were most definitely not, and Mahorn even less so.

Laimbeer was a 4 time all-star who averaged 17-13 for 3-4 years, and finished as high as 12th in the MVP vote. People forget because he was a thug, but he was a highly skilled player with an excellent shot. He didn't make any all-nba teams, because the competition waa insanely strong at center then, but he definitely qualifies.

Dantley finished as high as 6th in the MVP vote, made 6 all-star teams, and was a 2 time all-nba teamer. He definitely qualifies. As does Aguirre, a 3 time all-star who took a lesser role to help the Pistons. He received MVP votes in 3 separate years, and was a 25ppg player on a 53 win team e year before he got to Detroit.

Rodman was an all-nba calibre guy too.

One_and_Done wrote:

tmorgan wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:Bad boys Pistons were preposterously deep. 5 all-nba calibre guys, a 6MOY candidate, and 3 other starter quality pieces, 2 of whom are defensive specalists. It's still debatable, but tough to overcome that high end depth.

Those are my guys, but say what now? Zeke and Joe D fit the all-nba description. Laimbeer is a stretch to get there. Dantley/Aguirre were most definitely not, and Mahorn even less so.

Laimbeer was a 4 time all-star who averaged 17-13 for 3-4 years, and finished as high as 12th in the MVP vote. People forget because he was a thug, but he was a highly skilled player with an excellent shot. He didn't make any all-nba teams, because the competition waa insanely strong at center then, but he definitely qualifies.

Dantley finished as high as 6th in the MVP vote, made 6 all-star teams, and was a 2 time all-nba teamer. He definitely qualifies. As does Aguirre, a 3 time all-star who took a lesser role to help the Pistons. He received MVP votes in 3 separate years, and was a 25ppg player on a 53 win team e year before he got to Detroit.

Rodman was an all-nba calibre guy too.

Dude, I’m not an idiot. I know my team very well, thank you.

Laimbeer was indeed an all-star as late as 86-87, two years before the first title, but All-NBA is a stretch and you know it. He’s my favorite Piston of all time, but I’m not going to let you lie about his resume. And yes, Bill could shoot open threes, for his era, at least. He had 202 career makes at 32.6%. Slow your roll.

Aguirre was indeed an all-star who took a lesser role, but all-nba is still a big reach. If guys’ previous teams count, sure, he’s close enough, but you made the Bad Boys sound like an over-talented juggernaut which they were definitely not. An obviously you can’t count both Aguirre and Dantley (all-star as late as 86, in Dallas), because the former was acquired for the latter.

If you mean former all-stars, not on the team at the same time, counting a few years back, for different franchises as “5 all-nba calibre guys”… erm, ok.

And Rodman was certainly not anywhere near all-nba at the time. He didn’t even average 10 boards a game for either title team, didn’t play 30 minutes, and didn’t often start. So I guess we should change your criteria to “former or future all-stars”, too.

The Bad Boys were gritty and awesome. But that was a TEAM, not some obscene collection of current talent. A lot of later career vets and up-and-comers, very few of which were playing their best individual basketball at the time. Chuck Daly was the man, too.

homecourtloss wrote:As for a head-to-head matchup, I’m unsure about the Pistons offense in 2004, but I think their defense would shut the 1989 pistons down much more than the 1989 pistons which shut down the 2004 pistons they could go either way

I was actually thinking the opposite when I was wondering about it. The 2004 team's offense just seems more fragile and easier to disrupt to me. It has some balanced scoring but is pretty light on shot creation and sort of relied on Rip Hamilton's off-ball play as a safety net. But I don't think the '89 team has any problem with dirty fouling Hamilton constantly and trying to take one player out of the game in a way that doesn't seem as effective against the Bad Boys Pistons - especially because this iteration includes Dantley.

tmorgan wrote:
Dude, I’m not an idiot. I know my team very well, thank you.

Laimbeer was indeed an all-star as late as 86-87, two years before the first title, but All-NBA is a stretch and you know it. He’s my favorite Piston of all time, but I’m not going to let you lie about his resume. And yes, Bill could shoot open threes, for his era, at least. He had 202 career makes at 32.6%. Slow your roll.

Aguirre was indeed an all-star who took a lesser role, but all-nba is still a big reach. If guys’ previous teams count, sure, he’s close enough, but you made the Bad Boys sound like an over-talented juggernaut which they were definitely not. An obviously you can’t count both Aguirre and Dantley (all-star as late as 86, in Dallas), because the former was acquired for the latter.

If you mean former all-stars, not on the team at the same time, counting a few years back, for different franchises as “5 all-nba calibre guys”… erm, ok.

And Rodman was certainly not anywhere near all-nba at the time. He didn’t even average 10 boards a game for either title team, didn’t play 30 minutes, and didn’t often start. So I guess we should change your criteria to “former or future all-stars”, too.

The Bad Boys were gritty and awesome. But that was a TEAM, not some obscene collection of current talent. A lot of later career vets and up-and-comers, very few of which were playing their best individual basketball at the time. Chuck Daly was the man, too.

If you want to say Laimbeer was a borderline all-nba type player that's fine. Whether you call him all-nba or all star, it's pretty similar.

I've just been through all this in another thread, there is only 1 ball to go around. Some guys have to make sacrifices when you clog a bunch.of all-nba guys on the same team. Those guys were in their physical prime, they just couldn't all get recognition at the same time. You don't have all-nba talent only in years you technically make it.

One_and_Done wrote:

tmorgan wrote:
Dude, I’m not an idiot. I know my team very well, thank you.

Laimbeer was indeed an all-star as late as 86-87, two years before the first title, but All-NBA is a stretch and you know it. He’s my favorite Piston of all time, but I’m not going to let you lie about his resume. And yes, Bill could shoot open threes, for his era, at least. He had 202 career makes at 32.6%. Slow your roll.

Aguirre was indeed an all-star who took a lesser role, but all-nba is still a big reach. If guys’ previous teams count, sure, he’s close enough, but you made the Bad Boys sound like an over-talented juggernaut which they were definitely not. An obviously you can’t count both Aguirre and Dantley (all-star as late as 86, in Dallas), because the former was acquired for the latter.

If you mean former all-stars, not on the team at the same time, counting a few years back, for different franchises as “5 all-nba calibre guys”… erm, ok.

And Rodman was certainly not anywhere near all-nba at the time. He didn’t even average 10 boards a game for either title team, didn’t play 30 minutes, and didn’t often start. So I guess we should change your criteria to “former or future all-stars”, too.

The Bad Boys were gritty and awesome. But that was a TEAM, not some obscene collection of current talent. A lot of later career vets and up-and-comers, very few of which were playing their best individual basketball at the time. Chuck Daly was the man, too.

If you want to say Laimbeer was a borderline all-nba type player that's fine. Whether you call him all-nba or all star, it's pretty similar.

I've just been through all this in another thread, there is only 1 ball to go around. Some guys have to make sacrifices when you clog a bunch.of all-nba guys on the same team. Those guys were in their physical prime, they just couldn't all get recognition at the same time. You don't have all-nba talent only in years you technically make it.

You also don’t have all-nba talent if you never made all-nba, and you don’t necessarily have all-nba talent just because you made it in the past, or in the future. Players develop, players age. You know this.

It’s fine. Largely semantics. If you’d said they have five players that were at some point in their careers top 30 players in the league, I would have agreed. It was a great team, after all.

They had 5 guys who were at least all-star calibre, and each had a case as all-nba calibre. Then they had 4 other strong players.

tmorgan wrote:

One_and_Done wrote:

tmorgan wrote:
Dude, I’m not an idiot. I know my team very well, thank you.

Laimbeer was indeed an all-star as late as 86-87, two years before the first title, but All-NBA is a stretch and you know it. He’s my favorite Piston of all time, but I’m not going to let you lie about his resume. And yes, Bill could shoot open threes, for his era, at least. He had 202 career makes at 32.6%. Slow your roll.

Aguirre was indeed an all-star who took a lesser role, but all-nba is still a big reach. If guys’ previous teams count, sure, he’s close enough, but you made the Bad Boys sound like an over-talented juggernaut which they were definitely not. An obviously you can’t count both Aguirre and Dantley (all-star as late as 86, in Dallas), because the former was acquired for the latter.

If you mean former all-stars, not on the team at the same time, counting a few years back, for different franchises as “5 all-nba calibre guys”… erm, ok.

And Rodman was certainly not anywhere near all-nba at the time. He didn’t even average 10 boards a game for either title team, didn’t play 30 minutes, and didn’t often start. So I guess we should change your criteria to “former or future all-stars”, too.

The Bad Boys were gritty and awesome. But that was a TEAM, not some obscene collection of current talent. A lot of later career vets and up-and-comers, very few of which were playing their best individual basketball at the time. Chuck Daly was the man, too.

If you want to say Laimbeer was a borderline all-nba type player that's fine. Whether you call him all-nba or all star, it's pretty similar.

I've just been through all this in another thread, there is only 1 ball to go around. Some guys have to make sacrifices when you clog a bunch.of all-nba guys on the same team. Those guys were in their physical prime, they just couldn't all get recognition at the same time. You don't have all-nba talent only in years you technically make it.

You also don’t have all-nba talent if you never made all-nba, and you don’t necessarily have all-nba talent just because you made it in the past, or in the future. Players develop, players age. You know this.

It’s fine. Largely semantics. If you’d said they have five players that were at some point in their careers top 30 players in the league, I would have agreed. It was a great team, after all.

Without addressing the larger debate here ... I'd disagree here on the bolded. Granting "talent" is used in fuzzy ways ...

Talent indicates something different than whether they achieved the accolade. What you say doesn't lock you in to those who do make it - at that time - do have, so it's not clear how you feel about say Juwan Howard, Mashburn, Petrovic, Vin Baker et al.

But to say Bob Lanier (or Gilmore assuming this is NBA specific, and ABA certainly didn't have the top tier competition so it depends how one is playing it) is disbarred from being in a talent level in a way those above guys aren't seems a touch odd. Ditto for Nate Thurmond. Those would be the biggest superstar names and best careers but there are more HoFers and highly productive, highly impactful players whose peaks I would take significantly before touching some of the "all-NBA" guys above.

I would also be wary about the use of rpg as a proxy for goodness for Rodman.

I'd just add that until 1989 they only had 2 all-nba teams. So when a guy didn't make any all-nba teams, but he's getting MVP votes, that's a pretty good indicator they'd have made it with 3 teams, especially in Laimbeer's case when he's 12th place and the guys he's behind that year are Kareem and Moses. Like come on. There's only onea center slot.

Aguirre's 3 years he got MVP votes he ranked 11, 15 and 14; top 15 basically suggests with 3 all-nba teams you'd make it.

I feel pretty comfortable saying the Pistons had 5 all-nba calibre players in 89; Thomas, Dumars, Rodman, Laimbeer & Dantley/Aguirre.