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thats-biter · 7 months

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GOLD

Oct. 29, 2023

That's what the Detroit Pistons want, and now. They have officially arrived, and are announcing it loudly for all to hear: this ain't a game, this is a coup.

Their version of an NBA takeover started last year, but no one except them saw this coming. Just how they contend now is a little beside the point, and they know it. On some nights, it might be the MotorCade, others, it might be hungry-hippo-smash-button Jam King Jalen Duren's ignition properties. Most nights it will be a mix of both and more. A lot more. Winning basketball starts and ends with many things, because that's how winning programs work. Success by onslaught. These Pistons won't stop, because to them, they're already better than you, and they have every intention of acquainting you with their rapidly realizing fever reality.

They're done waiting for the right time to strike. They're in the trenches now. What is happening could have something to do with the full Monty effect, which no one could have predicted. The gob smacked onlookers have yet been able to pin it down with them, just ask around. But the naked truth is this: Detroit Basketball is suddenly good again. Scary good.

They've already proven there's no risk in overstating their future. Any two eyes can see their infectious cohesiveness and shockingly mature crop of otherworldly talent on display. They are poised to make a legitimate winning run this year and are primed for a fury of attack against any opponent, simply as they currently stand. If you sleep on them, you've already lost. Take it from their opponents in the last calendar year. The Pistons will win this season, and they already know who's up next once it ends; it's them.

Cade Cunningham is a superstar incarnate at 22, and he is back in the pulpit to preach. Through the bumps and bruises dished by the best efforts NBA defenses have been able to offer him thus far, he's looking healthier and beefier than his million dollar plant-based diet, and is seeking to lead this subset of grateful peers to their first victorious NBA season ever as players. He's a current top 10 player in the league today, although still too unproven to wear the title, and is a generational talent in the making right before us. There is but one thing on his mind.

In his first effort for us, head coach Monty Williams has them drinking something, and it's working. Still among the youngest players in the NBA, Jalen Duren is a, or is soon to be, the premier center in the entire league for his absurd out-of-the-gym athletics and stat stuffing two-way contributions. OG Stew, the emotional Captain of the ship in Isaiah Stewart, is the team's life-blood and enforcer; their low-key, cold-blooded, secret-weapon stud. The NBA wouldn't dare question him on that. Should he stay within the role and not exceed it, Jaden Ivey is exactly the banshee 6th man we haven't seen here since the days of Lindsey Hunter, Mike James, and Vinny Johnson before them.

Rookie starter Ausar Thompson was another huge jackpot for GM Troy Weaver, a job securing draft selection for him, and likely the piece that puts them full over. From the moment of first tip in 2023, Thompson has quickly revealed himself to be a defensive mastermind and a star. He does everything a winning team needs, and nothing it doesn't. Not caring to score but when the opportunity presents, he has a total double-blind commitment to the cause. For him, it's not just about winning, it's about taking pleasure in the dirty work. He is a Piston, after all. He exudes unselfish discipline that even veteran Champion rafter dwellers won't help but admire. Rip, Isiah and the gang must be losing it. He appears before us now as the second coming of Dennis Rodman and Ben Wallace rolled into one, but with an offensive upside that evokes a young Scottie Pippin's finesse, toughness, and brilliance. He is our missing link, our difference maker, and he's ours.

Monty Williams might not have even had to glue this bunch together himself, as they apparently know their roles, and quite literally fight for each other, behind closed doors and against any opposition under the bright lights. They will not be taking no for an answer. Not these Pistons.

Did I mention the Pistons still don't have their leading scorer back, in Bojan Bogdanović? Time will tell the impact he is able to have with this new establishment pecking order. Bojan will have to answer to Coach and Cade upon his return; something he didn't have to contend with last year. His courtmates may have just exercised their natural right to make a talented but senior player like him completely expendable. The message for him is right now this: get in line, or just get out of the way.

Coach Williams comes to us loaded; with a scorching hot system, a self-assured voice, and most importantly, the bitterness of a too-soon playoff exit and abrupt firing after a Western Conference championship berth with his similarly stacked Phoenix Suns last summer. He's looking to rub some W's on the wound just to make a point. The betrayal trauma of the Ax from a club on the near cusp of championship level basketball seems to have ignited his current focus and vision, regardless of his new historic contractual arrangements with the organization.

They saw the glint in each other's eyes first, but now it's all in plain sight for us to see too.

Pick your angle with this group. They've been trying to tell us for a while. They also have a dynamic 3-point core that would make any GM cower to their knees. Detroit Pistons fans are currently witnessing a hostile shake down of the NBA. It's their world, we're all just living in it. They view themselves as a formidable threat to upset the entire balance of the NBA this season, and why not? On one hand, it's because they want it, but more importantly, it's because they can. We won't have to tell them otherwise, and we shouldn't. Whether they succeed this year is up to them and fate, not us, or the rest of the league. They're too good, and too young. They will run good teams ragged this year, if they can withstand the typical hyper-imposed fan expectations and seasonal adversaries that face any next big thing. The Pistons will be great sooner rather than later. The faces are new, but it's the same old Detroit Basketball we've always known and loved. IYKYK.

There's no reason to question the authenticity of their admission that they are singularly laser-focused on playing basketball the right way right now, and are going to do whatever it takes to take home the victory. They will fight, and they will rise and fall together. Again and again they've bucked the selfish play that sometimes clouds even excellent teams. They did that when they were losing too, remember. Success cannot change that ego is simply not a part of this group's DNA, but god given talent and a winning identity seems to be.

They are obviously here to make the mark of their bright, young lives, we just don't know how big the mark they'll leave is. However, we should consider that they might already know themselves how this should go. For now, they're content to plant their flag, and ready to lay waste on the battlefield with one of the most potent combinations of artillery in the NBA to back it all up. They're too dumb to be jaded, and likewise too inexperienced to slow down and consider the reasons not to be completely and utterly confident with every errant swing of the ball. Just wait until the Lakers and Bucks get a load of this high-efficiency bomb squad.

After nearly embarrassing Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat in their own home opener, everything they've displayed after that night has been a master course in perfect basketball, aside from the high turnover margin. That's to be expected though from teams doing whatever the hell they want out there. They're big, they're fast, they're relentless, and they play defense oriented team basketball with that same Detroit bred, blue collar "D" we know and love in this town. But above all else, they are gifted; and now they are sharing that gift with us.

Skeptics will spout, but the ring of truth is real. What fans at LCA are bearing witness to is quite possibly greatness out of thin air. This is the motherload we've heard about. The world will know it too, if they maintain their onslaught through the next week and the following. Troy Weaver and Tom Gores have made a perfect hire, and drafted a perfect group of kids. This is the vision, and the culture of the franchise is now immutably that of a winning one.

But will that change in the foreseeable future? It's hard to conceive of all this just vanishing, except by freak, career altering injury to one of the main cogs. But we don't need to think like that. Even the notion of something like that isn't deterrent enough to shake this eerie feeling, and it shouldn't. Cade is ready. Take his lead, just like Monty Williams and Jalen Duren have. The rest will follow suit. It's time to buy into his Pistons.

We've tried the free agent game here, and let's finally admit it; that has not and will never work in Detroit. But what has? Drafting smartly, making brilliant trades, and a little bit of luck and grit. On paper, this comeuppance both does and doesn't make sense. But that doesn't matter, because on the court, it does in spectacular fashion.

That's why they're different now. Everything has changed overnight in Detroit again. This happens in the NBA. It has to be the right cocktail for sure, but why not? The 2004, I mean the 2024 Pistons will have some playoff experience to garner before they can think past the Eastern Conference. We're clearly lucky, but come this and next April in the D, we'll know exactly how lucky we just got.

So it's true, they've done the unthinkable. They've actually captured lightning in a bottle, again. The Larry O'Brien Trophy is now locked in their foresight, and ready to be snatched by this rag tag squad of all-kill warrior bandits. They bear an uncanny resemblance to the likes of those Warrior bandits when they were at a similar point in their trajectory to greatness. The main difference though is merely fit, and not fury. It's a different puzzle with these Pistons, but it's the same kind of puzzle. Read it and weep.

There will always be supportive voices within the fan base and organization of any professional basketball team, but this core of assassins is already unequivocally better than anything we've had here in Detroit in over a decade. Better than Blake's, far superior to Reggie's and Andre's without him, these Pistons do what those groups never dreamed to flirt with; they just issued "hits" on every opposing team that dares to cross them, and they want your jewelry too. They don't negotiate, and there will be no survivors. Apocalypse be damned, the Detroit Pistons are now!

2:56 pm

Op-ed by Cameron Navetta

#detroit pistons #detroit basketball #nba #nba op ed #cade cunningham #jalen duren #troy weaver #tom gores #ausaur thompson

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