I liked Pistons a lot back when they were the Bad Boys. Isiah was my favorite player. There is no particular guy I dislike on the current team. I hope Larry Brown and Pistons win a second NBA Championship this year, because 1) Larry is a great coach (the guy even got the Clippers to playoff), and he may not be around too long for coaching due to his health problems; 2) it'll make up for the embarrassing loss in 2004 Olympics for Larry; 3) I want Pistons to beat Shaq and Wade. Not really a Kobe fan, but I'd like to see Shaq can't win without Kobe either; 4) Don't care much about San Antonio/Phoenix; 5) Once again it'll show you don't necessarily need superstar(s) to win an NBA title. Go Pistons Go!
I like the Pistons. They play as a team and they play well, there is no selfishness on that team at all. With that being said, I think the Pistons are the only team that can beat the Heat and Spurs in a 7 game series.
How is taking a team full of former and potential allstars to the finals in the east and beating the lakers team with no depth and a hobbled Karl Malone overachieving. The pistons were also about to lose to the nets until Kidd went down after he insulted coach Opie in the national media. Also the Clippers team he took to the playoffs won 45 games in his best season. The dude is overrated.
Which coach is not overrated? In your opinion, it seems, a coach can only be non-overrated after he coached his team to NBA title, 1) if his team has no handful of former and potential "allstars", and 2) if no single star on an opposing team can have injury, and 3) never mind the final opponent had an MDE center, one of the all-time best SG in the league, and a coach with 9 rings.
IMO, he was overrated BEFORE last season's championship, winning is what all coaches/players should be measured by and he finally did that last season. Some people thought he was the best coach in the NBA just because he made some bad teams good. Ok. There have been tons of coaches who do that exact same thing, it's not that hard to do. From Doc Rivers to Scott Skiles to Terry Porter, they've all done it. Then people want to say he made the playoffs with the Clippers, true, but so did Bill Fitch. Bill Fitch>Larry Brown? Maybe... Another thing that bothers me is that he usually leaves team WORST than they were when he got there, I think he even left Kansas (???) with several violations. Either that or teams get better after he leaves, see Larry Bird and the Pistons, Greg Popvich and the Spurs. It probably took him way too long to break out from that college coach mentality, he has to treat NBA players like MEN not kids. Which he is finally doing with the Pistons. Also, why does everyone excuse him for blaming his players for the team's failures? I hate that! For some reason every star player he's ever coached has had problems with him and somehow it's always the player's fault. He's different now which is too bad for guys like Danny Manning, David Robinson, Reggie Miller, and Allen Iverson. Last one! Why is it that Larry Brown's teams win because of him and Phil Jackson's teams win because of his players? Hmm...
Because Phil Jackson had more than his fair share of superstars, coincidentally or purposedly, in his championship seasons, while Detroit had mostly a bunch of journeymen (hell yes I am talking about "former and potential" allstars). That said, I do agree you made some legit arguments in your post.
This was the pistons roster last year. If you notice Mike James who was our 3rd best scorer was the 8th best player on their team. I guy that they didn't think was worth it to resign. The pistons were stacked last year. They essentially took the second best team in the East the two previous seasons, and added Prince and Rasheed Wallace for free. 1 Chauncey Billups G 6-3 202 9/25/76 Colorado '97 6 41 Elden Campbell C-F 7-0 279 7/23/68 Clemson '90 13 24 Tremaine Fowlkes** F 6-6 212 4/11/76 Fresno State '99 2 8 Darvin Ham F-G 6-7 240 7/23/73 Texas Tech '96 6 32 Richard Hamilton G-F 6-7 193 2/14/78 Connecticut '00 4 10 Lindsey Hunter G 6-2 195 12/03/70 Jackson State '93 10 7 Mike James G 6-2 188 6/23/75 Duquesne '98 2 31 Darko Milicic F-C 7-0 245 6/20/85 Serbia-Montenegro R 13 Mehmet Okur C 6-11 249 5/26/79 Turkey 1 22 Tayshaun Prince F 6-9 215 2/28/80 Kentucky '02 1 3 Ben Wallace - C F-C 6-9 240 9/10/74 Virginia Union '96 7 30 Rasheed Wallace F-C 6-11 230 9/17/74 North Carolina '97 8 34 Corliss Williamson F 6-7 245 12/04/73 Arkansas '96 8
Well, the fact is virtually everyone on that roster was dealt away from his previous team for various reasons, i.e., they were not considered franchise players those team vied to keep. I am not denying though that the Detroit organization did a superb job getting these players. Yet how many coaches have you seen successfully molded individual talents, which were previously under-utilized or ignored, into a championship team in such a short time? (Pat Riley and Phil Jackson don't count, since they had established superstars, underachieving or not, when they took over a new team.)
Essentially we are about to see LA-Detroit again. So I'm really interested to see what comes of this. Gonna be a good one.
