Detroit Pistons .500ish record should be expected

This freaking team, AMIRIGHT?!

Win five, lose four. Win one, lose two. When are they going put it together??

The Pistons are like the stock market: one day, they're up. The next day...I realize I have no idea what the stock market actually is and then my head starts to hurt.

It's feast or famine with them. Matt Barnes' Hail Mary aside (*insert crying emoji*), they're either kicking ass in the fourth quarter and taking care of their business at home, or getting dominated by a Zeller.

And as a result of this inconsistent play, they've been hovering around the .500 mark for the last month or so.

It's frustrating, but really, it's to be expected. Go back and look at DBB's preseason predictions. Most of our esteemed writers had the Pistons finishing the season around .500 - pegging them anywhere between 37 and 44 wins, with 40 to 42 being the most common (except Gabe, who had 50 - love the optimism buddy!). And if all the fans are being realistic, I'm sure they were somewhere in that range as well.

Plus, if you think about it, .500's a pretty nice number. The Proclaimers walked 500 miles THEN walked 500 more. It would have been nuts to not break that trip up. Too much, too fast if you ask me.

What about 500 Days of Summer? Pretty decent rom-com! It's actually one of the more tolerable ones that should be in your "Netflix ‘n Chill" rotation. Women literally cannot say no to JGL and Zooey Deschanel in all their adorkability. And really, that seems like an appropriate amount of time for summer. 1000 days would probably start to make you miss winter a little bit.

And what if you and your friends were tossing the pigskin around your backyard and decided to play "1000" instead of "500?" I mean, that's just ridiculous. The person who's "it" would nickel and dime you to death with a smattering of impossibly-hard-to-catch 100 balls that would make the game last FOREVER. And you know it'd be that kid - probably named "Terry" or "Dillon" or something - who REFUSES to ever call a "Jackpot!". So then, you'd be forced to play "dead or alive" style (which is total amateur hour) in order to speed things up. The War on Football continues.

Would it be great if the Pistons were sitting way above .500 going into 2016? Sure. But again, we have to temper expectations back to our preseason form, even though this team and its budding stars and superstars have shown flashes of brilliance. The team itself is still very young, very inexperienced and very new to one another. You see teams like the Warriors and the Spurs who bring it every single night consistently, playing with flow and poise. But those teams have veterans who have played championship level basketball as a cohesive unit. It's almost as if male-pattern baldness is a physical metaphor for when a team is ready to make that leap.  The Pistons' top three scorers are all under 26, probably have never owned a cassette tape and haven't logged one playoff minute together.

It's not to say the Pistons can't gel as a team and really figure it out this season. It's just that I think we were all pretty fair with our original assessment of this team. Let's just enjoy this season for what it is: a stepping-stone in the right direction for sustained success while maybe sneaking in the playoffs. Anything more than that is pure gravy.

And if the gravy train rolls in earlier than expected this season, and the Pistons get to 50 wins, I'll PERSONALLY edit this post to make it seem like I never had a doubt. Gotta keep my record 1.000.