By Mark Wilson
December 8, 2014

Think about the worst pro sports teams in Detroit history.

Go ahead. Think about it. I’ll wait.

Fun, huh?

Detroit Pistons basketball 2014-15 has a REAL SHOT at being the worst ever.

EVER.

You decide; what’s the worst?

Is it the 0-and-16 the Lions put up in 2008 when no NFL team had ever done that before?

A unit SO BAD that Rob Parker joked about the head coach’s son-in-law as a defensive coordinator.

It’s a football team that all future terrible football teams will be compared too.

Is it the 2003 Tigers that slapped on 119 losses to set an American League record for futility?

ONE loss from the Major League Baseball record of 120 set by the franchise that remains the gold standard for awful, the New York Mets of 1962.

The ’03 Tigers were SO BAD that I know some Motown baseball fans that have completely wiped that season from their brains.

As if… it never really happened.

Is it the 1985-86 Red Wings?

Harry Neale was named head coach that season after Nick Polano ONLY led the Wings to 66 points in ’84-85. 66 got Polano fired.

The Neale Wings WISHED for 66 points.

They didn’t come close.

Neale didn’t even last HALF the campaign.

Fired after 35 brutal games, he was replaced by former defensive star Brad Park.

I remember Park saying, “I’m going to be the coach here a long time.”

If New Year’s Eve until April is a long time then… yes, Park was a warrior.

He barely made it an entire WINTER.

Even with a young Steve Yzerman, Detroit’s hockey team scored the fewest goals, allowed the most and had the most penalty minutes of all NHL clubs that season.

The final record?

17-57-and-6 for 40 points.

FORTY POINTS!

That was for the ENTIRE season. Nowadays, the Wings have 40 before Christmas.

Is it the 1993-94 Detroit Pistons?

With the terrific “Bad Boys” era of basketball coming to a close, Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer were in their last hurrahs with the organization.

Chuck Daly had given way to Ron Rothstein who promptly went 40-and-42 the year before and missed out on the playoffs by one game.

Rothstein was fired by owner Bill Davidson.

No playoffs? Unacceptable!

The ’93-94 Pistons could only DREAM to be as good as the Rothstein group.

Don Chaney was hired as head coach and without even blinking… led the Pistons to an eye-popping round of losing barely seen on the courts from Cobo to the Palace.

20-and-62.

A full TWENTY games worse than the previous bad season.

After an early season eight game losing streak, the Pistons upped the ante with, not just ONE losing skid of 13 or more but TWO skids of 13 or more.

In fact, they finished the brutality by not winning a single game after March 29th.

They played 13 games in April, folks.

The other streak was 14 in a row.

For that? Chaney got to coach a second season unlike his predecessor.

1994-95 wasn’t much better.

The Pistons won 28 games but it wasn’t as bad as in “Duck’s” first foray. We called Chaney, Duck.

Quack, quack.

Talk about laying an egg!

Keeping with the Pistons, how about 1979-80?

You know, Dick Vitale likes to think of himself as a master evaluator when it comes to all things basketball.

He’s a “PTP’er” as he would scream.

In his second season off the campus of the University of Detroit, hand picked by Davidson, Dickie V. had made three questionable first round draft picks in June of ’79. Some trades and a 30-52 mark in 1978-79 afforded the Pistons the three choices.

Gregory Kelser, Phil Hubbard and UCLA’s Roy Hamilton rolled into town to try and help the team out of its doldrums.

Add to that trio, UNLV’s Earl Evans and U-of-D stud Terry Duerod and you had FIVE draftees that were supposed to be the “Pistons future.”

None of them were.

Injuries took a toll early and when the dust had settled on the ’79-80 slate, Vitale’s picks and the veteran holdovers had a rousing 16 victories.

16-and-66.

Well, actually Dickie V. never got close to coaching all 82 games.
Twelve games in, at 4-and-8, Vitale was fired.

Richie Adubato had the notorious task of finishing the mess. He went a miserable 12-and-58.

Detroit started that season 3-and-1.

Stan Van Gundy was not as fortunate in 2014.

This version of the Pistons began 0-and-3 and has worked their way DOWN.

Normally you would wait to write a column/blog about full season futility until the season was actually over.

Watching this group of sad sack basketball players it’s painfully obvious that nothing is happening at “Three Championship Drive” in Auburn Hills.

On Friday, November 14th in Oklahoma City, the Pistons magically defeated the Thunder, 96-89 in overtime. The Thunder was without their two big guns, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

Still, you gotta give it up to SVG for going to OKC and pulling off the OTW.

That would be “overtime win” in our world of acronyms.

Frankly, the Pistons struggled against a Thunder team that is a shadow of itself without Durant and Westbrook.

But… a win is a win.

They were 3-and-6 and still two weeks before Thanksgiving with a boat load of home games on the horizon.

Ok, not terrible.

However!

Since that win in OKC, SVG has coached ZERO triumphs.

Zero isn’t an acronym; I just put it in CAPS for angry emphasis.

Twelve straight losses.

They lost at Memphis to their former teammate, Tayshaun Prince.

They lost to Van Gundy’s previous employer, the Orlando Magic, at the Palace.

They lost at home to Phoenix.

They went to Atlanta and Milwaukee… and lost.

They came back home for FOUR straight and… lost to the Clippers, the Bucks (again), the Warriors and the Lakers.

Kobe Bryant and the Lakers should have been easy pickings since THEY are just about as terrible as the Pistons.

But, no. Kobe beat ‘em like he pretty much always does.

They then went to Boston… and lost.

It took overtime so at least the Pistons didn’t lose in regulation. The Celtics nearly set an NBA record with 21 points in the OT. The Nets set the record with 25 back in 1995.

Ah yes, that FINE year of Don Chaney.

Then, to top off this current “suck fest,” the Philadelphia 76ers came a calling.

Philly had just broken their start-of-season string of 17 losses to nearly set a new NBA mark for blowing.

Another overtime game ensued and this time the Pistons decided that ONE POINT in five minutes was plenty.

The Sixers won (gasp!) for only the second time all season, 108-101.

It was bad enough that Philly only got EIGHT points in the overtime session but that was a mountain of scoring compared to the ONE POINT the Pistons managed.

“Our effort is horrible,” Van Gundy told the media during this reign of error.

He called out his players for not even trying.

It’s one of the worst things a coach can do in any sport; question the work ethic of the guys he is leading.

SVG looked like he wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. He also looked like he wasn’t missing many meals. He has been known to put on some weight when things aren’t going his way.

A little binge eating happens to depressed people; we’ve all gone through it at some point.

On Sunday, OKC appeared at The Palace.

We’re already into “round two” of playing teams during this slide.

This time, Durant and Westbrook were available for duty.

Detroit started with a 33 point first quarter. They were up 33-25. They kept a lead into halftime, 55-48.

As has been the case with the Pistons since their fall from grace back in 2007, the third quarter was their bugaboo.

Oklahoma City outscored them 29-20 to lead by two heading to the fourth.
Durant and Westbrook combined for 50 points and as Josh Smith was missing a potential GAME WINNING triple with 1.1 seconds on the clock, the Thunder had the win and the Pistons had loss number 12 in succession.

Twelve game losing streak.

“I had a great look but it just didn’t go down,” said Smith to the media afterwards.

Yeah, yeah. Another loss.

It’s funny about the word “relative.”

It can mean the people that join you for the holidays or… it can mean how we compare things.

For example, back in 2007-08, Flip Saunders led the team to a 59 win season, first place in the division and a comfy spot in the playoffs.

They went on to win the first round series versus Philly, a second round cinch against Van Gundy’s Magic and into a SIXTH STRAIGHT conference finale.

Boston knocked off Saunders’ Pistons in six games to take the series and eventually the 2006 NBA Championship.

As a result, Flip got flipped.

59-and-23 and another spot in the Eastern Conference Finals got Saunders… fired.

Hey, it’s all RELATIVE.

We had come to expect greatness from the Pistons in the 21st Century which culminated with the 2004 title and return to the finals in 2005.

So, when Flip didn’t deliver another Larry O’Brien “gold ball” it was time for Saunders to “flip out.”

Be gone with you, my lad! Off you go!

Then-president Joe Dumars hired Michael Curry for his first head coaching gig and the downward spiral hasn’t stopped.

From Curry (one year and out) to John Kuester (assistant to Larry Brown the title year of ’04) to Lawrence Frank to Maurice Cheeks (fired after 50 games) to John Loyer; the Pistons tumble has been epic.

Like the University of Michigan football fall from grace, this is now year SEVEN of the Pistons futility train.

Just that quick.

Look at them now. How badly do you think Pistons’ fans, or what’s left of them, would LOVE to have a 59-and-23 season with a hitch to the conference finals?

It got Saunders fired.

It would get Van Gundy a raise.

It’s ALL relative.

When SVG was hired to replace Dumars, it was to change the “culture” of Pistons basketball.

You always hear of a “change of culture.”

Joe D. had failed to move the needle after the Flip experience and get the team back to prominence and a real shot at the “gold ball.”

Instead, the hole was dug deeper into oblivion.

We all agreed it was time for Joe to move on.

Owner Tom Gores has struggled to find a footing in his native Michigan since buying the whole enchilada from Karen Davidson following the death of her husband.

Gores got here just as Joe was hiring Frank.

Frank, Cheeks and Loyer were under Gores’ watch when he made the choice to dump Dumars after nearly 30 years as a Piston player and executive.

Gores, along with his management team, decided on Van Gundy to run the show.
Everyone likes Stan. He’s a fun-loving cat who says cool stuff in press conferences and goes to the ends of the earth to please the media.

Some threw up their hands as if to say, “Hold on people. SVG has never run an operation before.”

Others likened Van Gundy to a younger Bill Belichick who could coach and then evaluate talent to get him the players he needed for success.

No matter who is the “GM” in New England, we all know that Billy runs the ops.

As Belichick’s mentor, Bill Parcells, used to say, “If I have to cook the meal, I’d like to buy the groceries.”

In essence, Gores decided to let SVG be his chef.

Van Gundy needed a job when he got here this past spring.

C’mon, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Gores had a lot of money to offer when SVG was plowing the landscape looking for his next cash cow opportunity.

All Van Gundy had to do was convince Gores he could do BOTH gigs and the pay day would be HIS.

To the tune of about $5 million U.S. American dollars.

Spendable cash, people!

For FIVE YEARS no less.

Five years and $35 million signed back in May. There’s a long way to go in the SVG era.

Somebody asked me what would happen if the Pistons didn’t win another game and finished with a 3-and-79 record?

I laughed and said I’d bite.

Uh… I guess Gores would have to have a presser announcing that indeed Van Gundy would return despite an all time catastrophic American pro sports implosion.

Was that hard hitting enough?

He added, “Is it possible SVG could be fired?”

I said… well, uh… paying off all that money, I don’t know but I imagine that, yes… sure, Gores could FIRE Stan after just one season.

Stranger things have happened.

Not sure what but hey, we’re playing here.

Gores made no bones about it. He wants to win NOW.

There was no “five year plan.”

When Dumars traded Chauncey Billups to Denver for his coveted Allen Iverson, prevailing thought is that you can pinpoint the deal as the beginning of the end to the Pistons wheel of fortune.

I don’t disagree.

Joe D. bought into the idea that the Pistons could not be dominant again or even contend for another title without a bona fide NBA superstar.

Problem was, Dumars was getting A.I. about three years too LATE.

Iverson was past his prime and changing the system to fit A.I. rather than having Iverson as a “piece” to the puzzle didn’t work.

He simply wasn’t LeBron or Durant or even anything the San Antonio Spurs were supplying.

The NBA is a weird machine.

From 1970 through 1979, there were EIGHT different champions;

Eight in a decade.

From 1980 all the way until TODAY, there have been NINE different champions.

Nine in 35 YEARS!

30 franchises dot the NBA countryside. 20 of them haven’t won jack crap.

The Nets, Pacers, Suns, Hawks, Kings, etc. have NEVER been to the Promised Land.

New York’s Knicks? Not since 1973. Milwaukee’s Bucks? Try 1971. Philly’s Sixers? 30 years removed now.

Wizards/Bullets? One title in 1978 under Dick Motta.

Thunder/Sonics? One title in 1979 under Len Wilkens.

Only the Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, Heat, Pistons, Bulls, Rockets, Sixers and Mavericks have won the “gold ball” since the EIGHT won in the 70’s.

Amazing.

Dallas has done it only once.

Houston might never have done it if Michael Jordan hadn’t waltzed away from the game in the mid-1990’s to play minor league baseball. Jordan won three in a row before shuffling off to Birmingham, Alabama and then three more when he got back.

Akeem Olajuwon benefited from Jordan’s exile.

Detroit is LUCKY that they have the “Bad Boys” dual crowns and the one in 2004.

Look at all the cities that have never celebrated pro basketball euphoria.

Each year you could make the claim that basically, 20-24 teams have NO SHOT to win the NBA Championship.

It puts a premium on hiring an executive.

Will Phil Jackson bring a winner back to NYC?

Right now it’s highly doubtful.

Even with his track record as a coach of the Bulls and Lakers and the amount of rings he’s accumulated, there is no evidence that Phil Jax knows how to put a championship group together in the front office.

Ditto Van Gundy.

He doesn’t have that on his resume.

SVG has nothing to compare it too. Even as a coach he never won diddly squat in Miami or Orlando. His one season coaching the University of Wisconsin wasn’t exactly a prize either.

We trusted and wanted to believe that SVG was the right man to replace Joe D.
Gores bought it and paid for it.

He has the T-shirt.

At 3-and-18, the Pistons are just 21 games into the 82 game grind. The recent onslaught of “L’s” happened while the team was going through a nice stretch of home dates.

Portland is coming to town Tuesday. The Blazers are only 16-and-4. It’s a great start for a club that features two of the NBA’s most under appreciated players in Damian Lillard (19.9 ppg) and LaMarcus Aldridge (22.3 ppg). Wesley Matthews (17 ppg) is another.

Matthews’ father is the guy who played at Wisconsin and hit a full court buzzer beater in 1979 at Michigan State to end the Big Ten regular season. It was the impetus for Magic Johnson’s roll to an NCAA title three weeks later.

The Blazers road record is 6-and-2 heading into the Palace.

They have twice as many wins as the Pistons based on just ROAD games.

Beating THEM… is highly doubtful.

Without much effort, which SVG is used to out of his motley crew, Detroit’s losing streak could hit 13 straight.

After that game, the Pistons head out of Michigan for nine of the next 13.
It all starts out west with three games against the Suns, Kings and Clippers.

Here comes the nasty WEST again.

Since midway through the 2010 campaign, the Pistons mark vs. the west is insane.

Insanely terrible.

I stopped counting but it’s something like 51 losses in 55 tries. The only western road wins have come in Sacramento (twice), Utah and the one in OKC earlier this season.

They’ve been a complete patsy for the west.

Road fodder.

More like… road KILL.

This certainly isn’t all Van Gundy’s fault; far from it.

His charge however, is to stop the madness.

No question the major problem he faces going forward is the lousy chemistry with the dudes he inherited. It was a bad mix from the get-go.

Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings were ill-advised free agent signings who have not gelled together. Greg Monroe seems downright malcontented the longer he remains in red, white and blue. Kyle Singler and Jonas Jerebko aren’t good enough for 82 games.

We all know Joe D. should have drafted Trey Burke out of Michigan rather than select Kentavious Caldwell-Pope from Georgia.

And speaking of the draft… before you go crazy resurrecting the picking of Darko Milicic TEN YEARS ago, I offer up the 2001 draft as being even worse than that one.

Joe Johnson of the Nets is still pounding it as an All-Star in the NBA and blasting the Pistons on the court every chance he gets.

Draft night in ’01 I specifically asked that Dumars take Johnson out of Arkansas with the ninth overall choice.

He didn’t listen.

Instead, Rodney White was tabbed out of Charlotte.

Johnson went next, number ten, to Atlanta.

J.J. is 34 years old and going strong. White is about the same age and hasn’t played in the NBA since 2005.

2005 people!

When then-Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe said that if HE had had the third overall pick in 2003 HE would have also taken Darko, that kind of let Dumars off the hook for that choice.

Any Monday morning quarterback can look back and say it was a bad choice over Carmelo Anthony but back on THAT DRAFT DAY, it was the right selection.

Plus, let’s count the number of pro titles that Anthony has. It won’t take you very long.

There are none.

Carmelo makes no one around him better.

Would you trade the 2004 championship for Carmelo?

I think not.

The drafting of White was worse.

Back to the current roster.

Although, the only one left to mention is Andre Drummond. The other guys are just pieces parts.

A.D. is a terrific performer at power forward.

He has shown uncanny ability to be a double-double player each and every night. He’s an All-Star in waiting and it’s highly likely that Drummond could come close to AVERAGING 20 points and 20 rebounds per game.

In essence he is Kevin Love.

Love set records for double-doubles in Minnesota. He was feared by opponents who had to tangle with the Timberwolves.

With all that said, Love never came close to winning in Target country.

K-Love is now trying to get it done with LeBron and Kyrie Irving in Cleveland.

Unless Van Gundy can find some real talent to bolster the positives that Andre brings to the Pistons, Drummond will have to go the way of Love.

He’ll eventually have to go somewhere else.

NBA fixes come very slowly if at all.

The trade deadline hasn’t produced much around the league in years. I contend that when the Pistons made the Rasheed Wallace deal at deadline time in ’04, they got one of the last difference-making stars in that fashion.

You also have a dichotomy when it comes to free agency.

There is NO incentive for a top notch hoops stud to pick Detroit. The more the Pistons lose, the less attractive this town becomes.

Detroit already wasn’t a place superstars want to call home.

LeBron, D-Wade and Chris Bosh didn’t have to choose between Miami and Motown.

James wasn’t “taking his talents to Lapeer Street.”

Joe D. fought that fight since the day he took the reigns from Rick Sund.

Dumars had to do it with creative trades and through the draft. That’s what he had to work with.

Van Gundy won’t be as lucky.

The only real piece he has to move would be Monroe. I don’t believe NBA teams are pounding on the Palace door dying to get G-Money away from SVG.

He would have been traded by now if that was the case.

If/when Monroe is dealt? I don’t believe the Pistons will get good value.

Honestly, I am coming up clueless here as to how to fix this damn thing.

In June, the Pistons lost their first round pick due to the business deal of not protecting a lottery pick in 2014. It wasn’t a mystery; we knew it had to happen at some point. It left SVG with just a second-rounder in his first Pistons’ draft.

Spencer Dinwiddie was the choice out of Colorado.

Van Gundy could have taken another popular Michigan choice in Glenn Robinson III but took Dinwiddie regardless.

He came here as damaged goods and has played in five games so far. Dinwiddie doesn’t blow my skirt up.

Nobody feels that Dinwiddie will ever be a guy you can build an NBA team around; even with Drummond on board.

Signing freebies like D.J. Augustin, Caron Butler, Cartier Martin and the injured Jodie Meeks are just stop-gaps. They aren’t here for the long haul. Not even close to it. They aren’t players regarded as game-changers.

Blah!

Just look at franchises like Milwaukee, Atlanta, Sacramento and Phoenix.

You don’t think they’ve tried everything in their power to turn around their sad fortunes over all these decades?

The Bucks won the NBA Championship in 1971. Lew Alcindor who later became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was on that team. When he was traded to the Lakers, Milwaukee became a moribund organization. They haven’t been close to a title since.

43 years have gone by!

People still trudge out in the dead of winter to the Bradley Center to watch the Bucks play basketball.

Why? Who knows, other than to say there isn’t much else to do in the dead of winter in Southern Wisconsin.

It’s either the Bucks or… speed skating in West Allis.

Too damn cold for skating.

Former Dumars’ assistant John Hammond runs that show in Milwaukee.

Poor John Hammond.

This is Year Seven of Pistons’ futility.

Who’s to say the Pistons aren’t already the Bucks, Suns, Kings, Hawks, etc.

Ok, I WILL SAY IT.

They ARE!

As Dennis Green so famously said, and we use it for just about everything now, when he was railing at a press conference after another NFL loss by his Arizona Cardinals, “They are who we thought they were!”

The Pistons ARE who we think they ARE.

They’re just a bad team for seven years that has no change in sight anytime soon.

I’ll tell ya Stan, I envy the money you’re making but I don’t envy your chosen task.

Trying to turn this sucker around is a job for Job.

Job (not Jobe) lamented the day of his birth.

Sheesh. That’s a lot to ponder.

Van Gundy has to lament turning around an NBA team; and fast! I’m not so sure Job or the 12 Apostles would relish that duty.

And “doody” is what this basketball thing has become and without a clear plan, losing is going to keep happening. So much so that the 2014-15 Pistons may set all kinds of records.

Just not nearly the kind we were all hoping for.