Detroit Pistons in Conference Finals for 6 straight years

[JordansBulls]

What is the reason for their success? This is a team with not one player who is considered a superstar yet they have made the Conference Finals for now the 6th consecutive year starting from 2003.

[some_rand]

they have no holes in their line up. they got a steal when they drafted prince and have good players at every position and bench.

[Basileus777]

A lot of credit goes to Dumars for getting/signing players on good contracts. Detroit has managed to stay competitive this long because none of their core is overpaid, and several of them have played at bargain prices for their impact on the game.

[kevC]

They're in the East. Oh yeah, and they're good.

[Kobay]

its all about sheed.

[Boognish]

And while Detroit is undeniably one of the great teams of their era, I think this also shows the weakness of the east. For example, a team making the WCF for the last seven years is almost unimaginable (even SA only made four during this time)

[pillwenney]

I think that more than anything they are just as well run as anybody. Everybody on their team knows where to be and what to do all the time. Stuff like that doesn't show up in the form of superstars or flashy stats, but it's really probably more important, generally speaking anyway.

[CITYOFANGELSX3]

7 straight eastern confrence appearences and 1 title.

[Dtown84]

psst its only 6 straight years, Pistons got knocked out in 2nd round in 02.

But yeah since Rip, Chauncey, and Tay joined the team we've made the conference finals every year. Just hope we can make the finals and win it this time.

[rewill17]

psst its only 6 straight years, Pistons got knocked out in 2nd round in 02.

But yeah since Rip, Chauncey, and Tay joined the team we've made the conference finals every year. Just hope we can make the finals and win it this time.

care you guess what team knocked us out in 2002 ?

[Dtown84]

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care you guess what team knocked us out in 2002 ?

Good thing this won't be Stackhouse vs. Fatoine or the Pistons might be in trouble.

[Hunter]

7 straight years of 50+ wins too.

What's kinda neat is that first year under Carlisle we won 50 games with Chucky Atkins, Jerry Stackhouse, Michael Curry, Ben Wallace and Clifford Robinson as the starting lineup (although Corliss played starter minutes).

That team lost in 5 games to Boston, but it was that series, in which Atkins got abused by Kenny Anderson that really prompted Joe to go out and get a bigger guard on the FA market. IIRC he was actually interested in Keyon Dooling at the time too, but we wound up with Chauncey, and then with potential contract issues looming we traded the more established Stackhouse for the lesser known Rip and away we went.

It was that '03 season, in which Tay hardly played, that he had his break out playoff performance by the Magic and then the following year Sheed was acquired for expirings and a couple of 1st round picks (which turned into Toney Allen & Josh Smith).

Since then Joe has just done a hell of a job of keeping the core together and plugging in role players to keep this thing rolling. Dude has done a phenomenal job. In some ways it's been easier to keep the team together because we haven't had to break the bank for any 1 guy. We've been able to lock up guys to pretty reasonable long term contracts and Joe has been able to stagger them so that we're not caught trying to negotiate with to many guys at once. It's really been very well thought out and executed. And he's known when to cut his losses (Ben Wallace).

Obviously the Darko draft is the big black spot on his record, but lots of other GM's (including Jerry West) thought Darko was going to be a stud too. And at least we got Rodney Stuckey out of the fiasco. But nobodies perfect, and overall Joe has done about as good as anybody over the past 7-8 years.

[edfmx86]

hmmm, im starting to think that people are going to be sleeping on these guys to win it....yeah these guys might win it all, given they dont see utah in the finals

[jab]

And while Detroit is undeniably one of the great teams of their era, I think this also shows the weakness of the east. For example, a team making the WCF for the last seven years is almost unimaginable (even SA only made four during this time)

14 other teams have had an opportunity to make the conference finals every year but Detroit does it 6 straight years so this fact shows that the East is weak

[tanat-0s]

Since then Joe has just done a hell of a job of keeping the core together and plugging in role players to keep this thing rolling. Dude has done a phenomenal job.

He's done his share of mistakes though:
1. Darko pick
2. Flip signing
3. Losing some good players to free agency (James and Okur come to mind)

[Boognish]

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14 other teams have had an opportunity to make the conference finals every year but Detroit does it 6 straight years so this fact shows that the East is weak

Well, Detroit's dominance doesn't directly show the east's weakness, but is a piece of it. In the west, with several good teams, it been harder to make it to the WCF. Weaker conference=easier pather to CF. Detroit is a great team, but I think the weakness of the east is at least a part of their success

[mattyBoi]

Its just been an outstanding job by Joe...I mean dont get me wrong, he has been dealt ALOT of luck these past years

He had the #2 pick, bench players like Okur, Delfino, James...Lucking out with Billups

But this guy has made great decisions like robbing the Magic of Stuckey, letting Wallace go, grabbing Maxiell, signing Mcdyess (who is very underrated)

[Gordon Bombay]

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14 other teams have had an opportunity to make the conference finals every year but Detroit does it 6 straight years so this fact shows that the East is weak

dont get me wrong detroit has been great the last 6 seasons but it definitely hasnt been the greatest of stretches for the eastern conference as a whole.

its almost kind of like the buffalo bills in the early 90s. the afc was awful during that stretch and they just happened to be the best of the bunch for four seasons...the pistons just were able to get over that hump and actually win a championship

[jab]

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He's done his share of mistakes though:
1. Darko pick
2. Flip signing
3. Losing some good players to free agency (Turk and Okur come to mind)

The Darko pick played tonight, didn't you see STUCKEY.

We didn't lose Okur, he wanted to start and pouted when Sheed arrived and who in the world is Turk.

Utah did Joe a favor, we didn't have to lowball Memo.

Flip was the best available at the time.

I am sure Joe doesn't view it as a mistake, I do but unlike yourself I don't have a crystal ball on predicting 'chips' because of a coach.

Sir Charles might say 'Red is rolling over in his grave' because I posted that.

[Dtown84]

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He's done his share of mistakes though:
1. Darko pick
2. Flip signing
3. Losing some good players to free agency (James and Okur come to mind)

1: No argument

2: Lets see how this year finishes before writing this off as bad, besides it wasn't like there were a wealth of coaches available that year.

3: With Okur, it was essentially him or Sheed. It's hard to feel bad about that one.

Still with 7 50 win seasons, 6 division titles, 7 straight trips to at least the 2nd round, 6 conference finals appearances, 2 finals appearances (still alive), 1 title (still alive). It's easy to forgive his mistakes.