A History Lesson from Detroit That Seems to be Repeating

" The Pistons in the early 1990s tried to re-build a title team – a title team built on defense –by acquiring scorers (i.e. Mills, Elliott, Houston, and Hunter). But since these scorers were not very productive, these acquisitions never helped much.

In 2009, the Pistons – now led by Joe Dumars – seemed to make the same mistake. The title team Dumars built in 2004 didn’t emphasize scorers. But in trying to maintain the contending status of his team, Dumars turned to two free agent scorers (Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva). Because neither is very productive, and furthermore, because many of the players the Pistons employ today are not very productive; the Pistons in 2009-10 are not winning many games."

about 2 years ago Packey 6 comments 1 recs |

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I love that you just linked to Dave Berri’s blog. Now people will hate you and me both ;)

I kid, I kid. But not about the link.

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by brgulker on Jan 13, 2010 9:56 AM EST reply actions

The money quote

“Beyond the personal reflection (which is probably only interesting to me), though, is a basketball story (the important story for this forum). The Pistons in the early 1990s tried to re-build a title team – a title team built on defense –by acquiring scorers (i.e. Mills, Elliott, Houston, and Hunter). But since these scorers were not very productive, these acquisitions never helped much.

As a fan of this team I can only hope the outcome of these bad decisions today turn out as well as they did back in the early 1990s. The disaster that was 1993-94 led to the third choice in the 1994 draft. And with that pick the Pistons selected Grant Hill. Led by Hill – a productive scorer — the Pistons were back in the playoffs by 1996. And although Hill left the Pistons without winning a title, his departure brought to Detroit a young Ben Wallace (a productive non-scorer who did help the Pistons win a title)."

Co-sign.

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by brgulker on Jan 13, 2010 10:14 AM EST reply actions

assuming the pistons do not get the #1 pick, are there any players in this draft that can have a grant hill type impact?

by ScottFL on Jan 14, 2010 11:28 AM EST reply actions

Grant was pretty special before his injuries — a triple double waiting to happen. Had he not gotten hurt, I think we’d be talking about him as one of the best SF’s to ever play the game.

I don’t follow college hoops rigorously, though. A lot of DBB’ers do.

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by brgulker on Jan 14, 2010 2:27 PM EST up reply actions

Evan Turner. Check out his profile here. He’s putting up some truly dominant stats at the moment.

For big men, check out the profiles of Dexter Pittman, Larry Sanders, and DeMarcus Cousins. All are projected as mid-first guys, and any one of them would help beef up our frontcourt.

But, with that said, my very early guess for who Jod is going to focus on… Patrick Patterson. He’s got Pistons DNA, tough as hell, very long and athletic, and is really improving as a shooter, so he also fits with the “floor spacer” type of big that Jod currently likes.

by Gabe F-B on Jan 14, 2010 3:18 PM EST up reply actions