I’m pissed. I’m only here for a year or so, but my lady and I can not get out soon enough.

they did it because they had to. we don’t. we’re already in everybody’s heads. we’re still the toughest, grittiest team in the league.

Here’s the thing, Matt. It takes a ton to put together anything, be it Krista Jahnke, Rob Parker, Chris McCosky, your deal, or some random boob-job with a blog and a filthy mouth, such as myself. I totally get that you try to find a piece of the internet with the oft-overlooked points.

I re-read that piece on Amir. It’s clearly not him that I’m really against, although the funny part about all this is, I’m actually now starting to like him less. In particular, this push for Amir, and the result of fan-slobbers, plus the result of my post, it actually almost started a weird self-induced brain-wash in which I really did not like the kid. But even I can pull myself out of my own traps, and I say it here, just like I wrote it before . . . if he has his Tayshaun moment, it’s all worth it, and I’ll be happy for him.

One thing I’ve noticed about Front Office Joe Dumars and his job with the Pistons . . . players sometimes resemble the players he played with back in the day.

Here’s the one bit of sick puke praise I’ll give Amir Johnson . . . he appears to be Dennis Rodman-esque with regard to his likely skill-set.

And that brings me to the subject of “Detroit Bad Boys.”

When I watched this team, earliest, it was the mid-1980s, and I hated the frigging Celtics. That team that McCloskey put together, the one that Daly ran . . . it was magnificent. Even if they didn’t win it, they, with Isiah, Joe, Dennis, Bill, Buddha, the whole set of guys . . . they were mean. They were rotten. They gave little or no quarter to opponents. They let their opponents know just what it felt to get hit by a freight train of defense and Bill Laimbeer. And that’s what I loved about them. I loved that they were dirty rotten scoundrels.

I understand the irony of such Bad Boys of lore, all the while how they produced with a man who would eventually be honored with his name attached to the NBA’s sportsmanship award.

Over Joe’s tenure in the front office, he’s put together a very solid group. It’s a great team. I couldn’t be happier for Davidson’s success. The Pistons keep me entertained, more or less, or at least annoyed when they lump it a bit too much. It could be much much worse, for granted.

However, especially this year, there seems to be something missing.

Low fan interest, clearly not-sold-out seats . . . there are many factors that contribute to the why, but it just eats me . . . I remember back as a kid when I wanted to go to a Pistons game, especially during those championship seasons, it was one of the hardest tickets to get a hold. It seemed like back then . . . the Pistons were THE professional sporting event for a while in this state.

Often, I just don’t think this team has enough BAD in them. I hope I’m wrong.

For me, it’s not just about them winning . . . the now, the future, the past . . . it’s about being dirty, rotten, and scoundrel-y. I want to feel like I belong to a close band of pirates, collectively kicking the balls of the NBA when Detroit takes home the championship. I love that everyone else HATED us. And I just don’t feel that anymore, or at least, they hate us but they don’t care enough to let us know that we have to whoop their ass.

It’s also little things . . . this under the radar crap that the team pulls. If the Pistons have been under the radar all this time, especially still, then over half of the rest of the league’s been under the ground.

I feel like this team tends to be a little too goody-good for its own good. I say this DESPITE Rasheed Wallace and his exemplary efforts in the BAD department. The current Pistons actually do have a fair resemblance to what the old Bad Boys clubs had, with arguably better 3-point shooting, to boot.

However, I want to feel, as a fan, as a fan of their team, hated again, oddly enough.

I also find it nauseating to have too much of the high hopes and the praise and goody-good going on with regard to players, especially the young ones. I think by now that with Joe Dumars, after drafts that netted Mateen Cleaves and Darko Milicic, like The Wayne Fontes Experience notes in the next link, that we can safely back up off of any kid just a bit until he makes his own name. I understand that you may not be able to do that by your response, Matt, but maybe the fans can.

http://thewaynefontesexperience.blogspot.com/2007/06/joe-dumars-draft-history-low-is-high-up.html

It’s okay to be cynical. It’s okay to be goody-good. Just remember . . . if you’re Darko Milicic, you’ll end up huffing it next to Kwame Brown in a pyramid.

Even thought we don’t attend the practices, there is this presumption that we know more than Pistons management about their players. Yes, Flip historically has been reluctant to develop them, but do note that he has grown as a coach in the last couple of years (with the help of Dumars, of course).

2) Weren’t Rip and Kobe high school rivals or something like that?

That being said, these last few games have proven me wrong. He’s a better rebounder than I expected. He gets above the rim to get those boards. But, basically, I think he deserves to continue to get minutes because he makes things happen (more often good than bad).

I still remain in the tiny camp that sees Cheick Samb as the more exciting prospect and I will continue to hype him as the next Marcus Camby, but I’m excited to see how Amir will develop the rest of the year in the hopes that he can be a six minute a game player in the playoffs.

The mainstream media (newspapers, TV and radio) spends so much time focusing on the big name starters that I don’t feel a need to echo most of their sentiments, even if I personally agree. That coverage already exists, and I take for granted that the hardcore fans who end up on this site are well versed in it.

Last year, I championed the cause of Maxiell and Delfino getting more time — not for the sake of being different but because I really think those guys have a bright future in the league and the starting lineup could use the rest.

This year, Maxiell has stepped up big time, and (aside from a slight regression in January) has been excellent filling the role McDyess filled last year. He’s been so good, in fact, that I think most fans already know what he can do and no longer needs a guy (ie, me) tooting his horn all the time.

It’s a weird give-and-take that’s probably the reverse of most forms of media: as soon as a guy consistently starts deserving dap, I stop explicitly giving it. But it has to be like that, or else every post would start out, well, Chauncey and Rip are freaking good, Rasheed is awesome and McDyess has been the balls this year.

It doesn’t mean that I no longer appreciate Maxiell’s game, it’s just that he’s being given a chance to play and is meeting expectations. And if you re-read this piece, I tried to explain that as much as I want to see Amir play, even I can’t argue for him to see significant minutes when the other bigs (Maxiell, McDyess and Sheed) are playing as well as they have for most of the year.

I just don’t want Amir buried with 12 straight DNP-CDs — give him a few minutes here or there (even if every other game) just to keep him fresh and see what he can do. You see teams like the Bulls (last year) getting a shot in the arm when Tyrus Thomas gets on the court, or the Cavs getting hot when Daniel Gibson comes out of nowhere or Team X catching the opposition off guard when Random Rookie breaks out, but that rarely happens in Detroit. It’s a blessing that the Pistons haven’t had to rely heavily on young players, but it works against them when they never get a chance to catch lightning in a bottle.

I don’t know if any of that makes sense. Does Amir Johnson deserve all the attention I give him? Not at all if your sole criteria is, “how important is he to the team RIGHT NOW.” But since the rest of the media focuses so much on the starters (ie, the really important guys) to the point of overkill (remember Rip’s “slow start” to the season? He had a few so-so games in November and everyone acted like he and Tay suddenly forgot how to play together. Flash-forward half a season and he’s shooting a career-high 50%+ from the field …) that I try to round out the coverage by digging deeper than the most obvious storylines. And a lot of the time, the conversations we have on this site today are the things the newspapers and radio folk start noticing next week (and I mean that figuratively AND literally).

Maybe that makes things more clear, or maybe I’m rambling. I’m not sure. If I look at this in the morning and decide it’s the former, I might give this comment a coat of polish and make it an actual post, because it’s something I’ve wanted to explain for a while now, even before I came across Sauce’s post (which, again, I really enjoyed).