The thing about the Detroit Pistons is not the Anatomy of a Fall, a film that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival, but rather a morrocotudo crash. A stellar franchise, winner of three NBA titles (1989, 1990 and 2004), that has enjoyed the magic, strength and bad temper of Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Joe Dumars, went into a tailspin last year and did not stop losing games. Twenty-three in a row, add up and go on…
Detroit is a city that has experienced large and small depressions, following the ups and downs of the North American economy. Since the 1940s it experienced a decline in its population with the loss of jobs in the automobile sector, incomes fell with the decrease in the tax base, car manufacturing plants closed, those who were able sold their homes and moved to the suburbs. , and the center became a ghetto, a focus of misery, violence and drug addiction. The Pistons of their best era played in Pontiac (Michigan), fifty miles to the northwest.
Lately the city has undergone a notable regeneration, with the construction of homes and offices where there were previously empty lots and abandoned factories, and the transfer to the center of the stadiums of the Lions (NFL), Tigers (baseball), Pistons (NBA) and Red Wings (NHL). Regeneration is precisely the basketball team’s motto, but a combination of injuries, bad fortune, bad signings, poor organization and general demoralization has made this season an even bigger disaster than the previous one. Last year it ended with a record of 17 wins and 65 losses, this year the mark is only two wins (at the beginning of the campaign) in twenty-five attempts.
The Pistons have four young players with the potential to become all-stars: Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Jaden Ivey and rookie Ausar Thompson. They are the skeleton of a team under construction, but between one thing and another they have only played together a dozen games, so chemistry is not abundant. To make matters worse, injuries have also reduced the contribution of veterans like Bojan Bogdanovic and Monté Morris, hired as glue and a touch of experience. The starting five is almost never the same. Coach Monty Williams does not have it easy to justify his hundred million dollar contract.
The club has prioritized the development of this quartet of possible future stars over the acquisition of free agents, but the fans’ patience has run out after seeing their team lose again and again. What if they are not as good as we thought? The big debate in the coming months is going to be whether to transfer any of them in exchange for a recognized figure, possibly a small forward (the weakest position in the squad). Investing in the future is good, but a little present is also necessary sometimes.
Bad decisions in the past are an important factor in the crisis of the Detroit franchise, a serious contender for the dubious honor of being the worst in the NBA for the second consecutive year. After selecting Khris Middleton in the draft, he traded him to Milwaukee when he suffered an injury, and he did the same with Spencer Dinwiddie, now a point guard for the Brooklyn Nets, both well-known figures in the league.
At the height of the American automobile industry, before mechanization took away hundreds of thousands of jobs, it used to be said that what was good for General Motors was good for America. Now you could say that what’s good for the Detroit Pistons is good for the country.
