DETROIT — Some faces were defeated, others were shocked. Some eyes were looking at the floor, others were looking into the abyss. The only noise heard was the players taking off their shoes. The spirit of a young, vibrant Detroit Pistons basketball team that was heard just hours ago has been absorbed by everyone and now lies next to the dirty laundry in the locker room.
November 1 at the time, and the respectable 2-2 Pistons — who only lost to last year’s Eastern Conference champions, the Miami Heat, and the Oklahoma City Thunder, the current No. 2 seed in the Western Conference — welcomes the Portland Trail Blazers. That night, the Pistons had a 15-point lead seconds into the third quarter. They are dominated in every facet. For another 24 minutes, the Pistons showed that they are no longer in the same discussions as the bottom-feeders of the NBA. It appeared to be a good bounce-back response to the loss a few days earlier to the Thunder. Something a great team would do.
Then, in an instant, Detroit returned to a sunken place. It happened suddenly. The Pistons turned the ball over 10 times in the game’s final 24 minutes. They converted on just two of their 13 3-point attempts, while letting the Trail Blazers make every shot they put up. The Pistons seem hypnotized into believing things are better, like waking up from a beautiful dream. Instead, they find themselves back in the nightmare that kept them awake for the past year and some change.
“There was a change in energy,” Pistons wing Ausar Thompson said after the game.
At that moment, the rookie had no way of knowing how powerful those words were.
Three straight losses turned into seven. That became 12. Then franchise-record 15. So on and so on. Detroit continued to fall in the fourth quarter. The Pistons continue to turn the ball over at a tremendous pace in the beginning, middle and end of ball games. A rebuilding team that never learned to win at this level looked up and realized it was in a predicament you only see once every few years out there. It is “deer in headlights” in human form. No one has the answers because, well, they only know defeat at this level.
The last time Detroit won a game, the World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers was tied at one game apiece. Since then, United Auto Workers a month-long strike ended. Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress and started making cameos.
The Pistons haven’t won a basketball game since Oct. 28. That’s 46 days, 20 games without a win. How does this happen?
Well, how much time do you have?
Detroit’s disastrous season right now began last year, about 13 months ago, when the 2021 No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham was shut down after 12 games and underwent season-ending shin surgery. For Detroit, the final season should be about group development. The “restoration,” as general manager Troy Weaver likes to call it, will push forward with Cunningham, rookies Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey, veteran Bojan Bogdanović and several other players the organization has high hopes for. It must be planting the seed for something special.
DEEP
Cade Cunningham is back and ready to take the Pistons into the next phase of the rebuild
Cunningham’s injury, however, essentially led to the Pistons’ punting on their season. His loss led to Detroit trying to capture lightning in a bottle and go after once-touted prospects in hopes of reviving their careers. The franchise has moved from hoping to build continuity to, again, prioritizing individual development.
Defeat has occurred. Players who could help Detroit be respectable on most nights began showing up on the injury report at the top of the calendar year. The result? The Pistons won just seven games from January 1 through the end of the regular season in April. It also didn’t help that the prize for winning the NBA Draft Lottery last season was Victor Wembanyama, arguably, the best prospect since LeBron James.
Cunningham’s injury — more than people realized at the time — could set back the rebuilding franchise for another season.
“It’s a challenge for us,” Weaver said The Athletic in January when asked how Cunningham’s injury has affected the team’s progress. “I don’t know how many different starting lineups coach has. From a team-building standpoint, we haven’t been able to, for lack of better words, consistently find an identity. That’s been the challenge. ”
Fast forward to October of this year, and Weaver, for the first time during this rebuilding period, put the finish line at the end of the season. He said the team expects to “play meaningful basketball” until the very end. But it was December, and that felt like a dream.
However, fans need words of encouragement after what they endured last season, but no one truly knows what is coming to the Pistons this season. Not the new coaching staff. Not the front office. Not owned. This team usually doesn’t know each other on a basketball court.
The Pistons have four players with All-Star potential — Cunningham, Ivey, Duren and Thompson — who will dictate whether this historic franchise can return to relevance. So far, those four have played 11 games together. Take out the rookie Thompson, and the slightly more experienced trio played just 20 games together due to various health reasons. There is not a large enough sample size to suggest that Detroit is, in fact, ready to enter the next phase of its recovery.
The Pistons have been frugal this offseason in free agency because of what happened last season. They didn’t evaluate their group properly because of Cunningham’s injury. This year, Detroit’s front office has chosen to re-prioritize youth development and take a look at what its home is like, with expectations that some veterans sprinkled in will help everything settle down.
Instead, Detroit got a bunch of injured veterans and more young players asked to do something they had never done as professionals: win.
Bogdanović, one of the best, high-usage offensive players in the NBA last year, is largely out of the picture with a calf injury. He played in his first game of the season on December 2. Monté Morris, the veteran guard that Detroit acquired this offseason, who is expected to mature into a very young backcourt room, has not played the entire season due to injuries.
The only person around to stop the Pistons losing streak is coach Monty Williams, who signed a huge contract this summer that could earn him as much as $100 million. However — and he’ll be the first to tell you — even he had a hard time figuring out his new team considering the youth and all the injuries.
DEEP
Monty Williams had already opened the franchise. The Pistons will be different
Williams and his coaching staff have been slow to figure out what the best version of this team looks like. The Pistons had their best offensive showing of the season in Monday’s 131-123 loss to the Indiana Pacers, who are not a great defensive team by any means. However, the highest-scoring game of the season coincided with the first time Williams fielded a small-ball, spacing-friendly lineup for Detroit (it happened because of injuries to Duren and Marvin Bagley III). It also coincided with him staggering Cunningham and Bogdanović for the first time so that one was always on the court. That coincided with Ivey — who struggled to find a role under Williams despite being one of the best rookies in the NBA last season — playing a season-high 34 minutes, just the third time this campaign he’s played more than 30 minutes.
“I think we’re starting to learn that we can score when we space the floor,” Williams said after the Indiana loss. “I’m learning how to use some people in the team.”
It’s too early to tell whether or not hiring Williams will work out in the long run, but owner Tom Gores should make sure Williams is the right guy at the right time rather than wanting to win the news conference and, in turn, handing out a contract that won’t be cheap if he finds out it’s not a good marriage.
As for the front office, they were a little premature in putting a finish line on this team before the season. No one would suggest this team was ready to make the jump, even before the injuries hit. It also wouldn’t hurt to try and turn one of the two big-man prospects on its roster into proven forward depth.
The blame must be spread around, like Oprah Winfrey passing cars. You don’t get to 20 straight losses without everyone having something to do with it.
The NBA’s longest losing skid in one season is 26. The longest losing skid (over two seasons) is 28.
The Pistons, one of the league’s most successful franchises, are on the doorstep of the wrong side of history.
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(Photo by Monty Williams: Jason Miller/Getty Images)
