Dan Nied is still in shock that his Pistons are now NBA Champs.
Note: this is part of a special NBA finals series.
I know, I know. It’s been nearly a week since the Pistons won the NBA title. But to steal a line from Tayshaun Prince after the clinching Game 5: “I’ve been speechless since that buzzer went off.”
Like Tayshaun, I have barely been able to comprehend what the Pistons did last Tuesday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Not only did they become the most improbable NBA champions in 30 years, they knocked off what was supposed to be the best team ever assembled. What’s more, they didn’t just beat the Lakers, they pulverized, embarrassed, chewed up and spit out the Lakers. They stomped on, over, through and beneath the Lakers leaving absolutely no question as to which team was better. If basketball were war, this would have been more Desert Storm than Vietnam. It wasn’t close. Ever.
And that is the trouble I have understanding that the Pistons emerged out of seemingly nowhere to become champions. It wasn’t until they went up 3-1 on the Lakers that I thought there was even a chance to win a title this season. But in retrospect, I should have seen it coming back in February when Rasheed Wallace arrived.
Even after they jacked Rasheed from the Hawks, the long term outlook of the trade was to free salary cap room for Mehmet Okur. It turned out to be the move that put this team over the top. Look, everyone knew the Pistons were a good team. But never over the course of the full season were they considered a powerhouse. They were the nice little team from the east that played tough defense. They were basically seen as the San Antonio Spurs’ junior varsity affiliate.
And none of that perception really changed when Rasheed came to town. Initially he was expected to bolster the defense, provide an offensive spark and help with a nice little run to the Finals and then be on his merry way. But as soon as he got to Detroit everything started to turn around, but nobody noticed how much. The Pistons, who were in a mini-tailspin at the time of the trade, became one of the best defensive teams in the history of the game. Rasheed combined with Ben Wallace to form the most intimidating front court duo since Duncan and Robinson circa 1999. Most opposing players shied out of the lane and those who didn’t instantly regretted it when they watched one of the Wallace brothers swat their shot into the third row. In one stretch the Pistons held five straight teams under 70 points. When the Nets finally broke that streak, by scoring 71 points in a lopsided loss, they celebrated like they just won a division title.
We should have seen it. But that is what hindsight is for. Rasheed absolutely put this team over the top. The Pistons finished the regular season 20-6 with Rasheed. Still they remained hidden in the bushes of the Eastern Conference. It was easy to dismiss their record as a result of playing half-assed teams like the Wizards and Bulls. But no one bothered to see that the Pistons were beating these teams by at least 15 points every night. And no one bothered to look at how the Pistons fared against the West’s elite teams. The Pistons split with the Lakers, beat the Spurs and the Mavericks all BEFORE trading for Rasheed. After, they were robbed twice by the referees against Minnesota, lost two close games to Sacramento and lost to San Antonio on the road. And while Rasheed’s presence didn’t seem to improve their efforts against these teams, these games were all decided in the last two minutes.
Then when the playoffs came and the East had its annual tournament to see who would play fodder for a Western behemoth in the Finals. The Pistons were predictably the team most experts picked. But less than a handful picked the Pistons to go all the way.
It is hard to imagine that one midseason addition, short of trading for Shaq, could take a team from lifeless prey to champion. And sure, Rasheed had help along the way, with Ben Wallace, Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince each sharing starring roles, but ask anyone in the Pistons organization and they will tell you that without Rasheed, this season would have ended after the Nets series. Coach Larry Brown said that, without Rasheed, he would be trying to find Michael Jordan for a round of golf during the Finals.
To fathom that this team, which seemed a year away from doing anything of note, just rolled through the Lakers to win the title is like imagining O.J. Simpson joining the LAPD.
As soon as Game 5 ended and the 40 people around me went crazy, all I could do was ask myself “What just happened?” I was stunned. Even when crowds formed in the streets and horns were honking, random cheers developed, I was still in shock. “Did the Pistons just win the title? Did this team just end a potential Laker dynasty?” In every champion I have ever seen in Detroit, there was a series of steps and maneuvers each team took over the course of at least five years. The original Bad Boy Pistons of the late 80’s had to endure Bird stealing the ball in the ’87 Eastern Conference finals, then they had to get past a game 7 loss to the Lakers in 1988 before winning back to back titles in ’89 and ’90. Hell, Isiah Thomas was drafted in 1981! The Red Wings first Stanley Cup in 1997 was a product of getting upset in the finals to the Devils in 1995 and then suffering a crushing defeat to the Colorado Avalanche in 1996. That’s not to mention underachieving first round exits in 1993 and 1994. Steve Yzerman, the cornerstone of those championship teams, was drafted in the early ‘80s, Sergei Fedorov came aboard in the early ‘90’s and it still took seven years to reach the top.
But there I was Tuesday celebrating a championship for a team that only four years ago was 30-52 in the aftermath of losing Grant Hill, their only bona fide star, to free agency. And they didn’t build on that team either. The only current members of the Pistons left from that team are Ben Wallace and Corliss Williamson. General Manager Joe Dumars managed to skip a few steps to the title by finding gold in Wallace (free agent), Hamilton (obtained by a trade with the Wizards for Jerry Stackhouse), Billups (free agent) and Prince (draft). Along the way he added a perfect supporting cast and built the deepest team in the league.
Dumars made more shrewd moves than Robert Langdon in “The Da Vinci Code”. When he sensed that coach Rick Carlisle, who guided the team to 100 wins in his two seasons as coach, wasn’t the man to take the Pistons to the next step, he axed Carlisle and hired Larry Brown, long regarded as one of the best in the business. When he saw that he needed cap room to sign Okur this summer, he somehow found a way (with the help of Celtics GM Danny Ainge) to unload useless contracts to get Rasheed. He traded a 30 point a game scorer in Stackhouse to get the young, relatively unproven Hamilton. When Hill left for Orlando in 2000, Dumars snared Ben Wallace in a sign and trade. And then he took his chances on Billups, who spent his first five years in the NBA with five different teams. They were a group of castoffs and basketball degenerates, all discarded by other teams or overlooked in the draft. Dumars saw their silver lining and fiddled with this puzzle until all the pieces fit into one neat little defensive powerhouse that had enough fire and hunger to rise above the crop of contenders and make their mark as NBA Champions.
And, to tell you the truth, I still can’t believe it.
Go Pistons!