- [Narrator] On June 15th, 2004, the Detroit Pistons
rode their suffocating relentless defense
to a championship for the third time in franchise history.
Capping a winding journey back to the NBA mountaintop.
After they'd gone 10 straight seasons
failing to win a single playoff series,
president of basketball operations Joe Dumars
hired Rick Carlisle as coach in 2001.
In his first year, they got off the schneid
with a playoff series win over the Raptors,
then traded Jerry Stackhouse
for Wizards sharpshooter Richard Hamilton,
and signed free agent point guard Chauncey Billups.
The next season, they won two series,
earning a berth in the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals.
But they were swept by the Nets
and with Larry Brown available,
Dumars fired Carlisle to bring in the former 76ers coach.
Brown would elevate second year string bean Tayshaun Prince
to the starting lineup to replace Michael Curry
and he proved to be an immediate defensive stopper.
Then down low was the 'fro.
Ben Wallace, the two-time defending
Defensive Player of the Year,
who terrorized anyone who dare to enter his paint.
- [Announcer] Feels, forces.
Blocked by Ben!
- [Narrator] At the trade deadline they acquired
fellow Wallace, Rasheed,
fortifying a smothering, ferocious starting lineup.
With Billups locking down point guards,
Prince eliminating the opponent's top scoring wing,
and big Ben anchoring everything inside,
the '04 Pistons defense was off the charts.
They held their opponent under 100 points
in 78 of their 82 games.
The most of all time.
They'd survived the Jermaine O'Neal
Ron Artest Pacers in a six game slug fest
to reach the 2004 NBA Finals,
where the heavily favored Shaq, Kobe,
Payton, Malone Lakers awaited them.
The Pistons weren't intimidated
and took that star-studded team behind the woodshed.
And they did it by adopting the personality
of the city where they played,
with a roster of blue collar selfless very good players
that lacked a true superstar who'd get all the credit.
This team worked together and shared the glory together
with each piece perfectly complementing one another.
The next year they returned mostly the same core,
though they replaced backup big Mehmet Okur
with Antonio McDyess.
But just eight games into their championship defense
in the first Pistons Pacers matchup
since their heavyweight bout of a playoff clash
less than six months earlier,
Ben Wallace and Ron Artest got into a scuffle
with Detroit down big late in the game,
and a massive brouhaha ensued when a fan tossed
a drink on Artest.
- [Announcer] He's absolutely out of his mind!
This is the ugliest scene you'll ever see.
- [Narrator] Wallace was suspended six games
for his role in the Malice at the Palace
A key reason for their slow 12 and 12 start to the season.
But they rebounded, and again returned to the NBA Finals
to face Gregg Popovich, Tim Duncan,
and the San Antonio Spurs.
They each held serve at home through four games
and with under 10 seconds to play in overtime of game five,
the Pistons were primed to take a three-two lead.
But then Rasheed Wallace helped off of Big Shot Bob Horry
and they don't call him big shot Bob for nothing.
- [Announcer] Oh my!
- [Announcer] Unbelievable, this guy is off the charts.
- That one flubbed rotation turned
what was looking like a potential dynasty
into a team that in a few years wouldn't even
be able to tread water.
Upon losing that heartbreaking seven game NBA Finals in 2005
Pistons management had grown weary
of Brown's wandering eye for other gigs
as well as his ever present health concerns,
and the two sides parted ways after two seasons
and 31 playoff wins.
In stepped Flip Saunders, who won 37 of his first 42 games
as their head coach en route to a franchise record 64 wins.
While 80% of their starting lineup were all-stars.
Sorry Tayshaun.
Their fourth straight trip to the Eastern Conference Finals
failed to yield a third straight trip
to the NBA Finals however as the Heat
exacted some revenge from the prior year
with Dwyane Wade and new pal Shaq just too much to handle.
The 2006 off season would deal them a tough blow
as Ben Wallace, who'd monopolized
the Defensive Player of the Year Award,
with four trophies in the previous five seasons,
signed with the Bulls in free agency.
They replaced him by signing Nazr Mohammed
before scooping up Michigan man Chris Webber
after he was bought out in Philly.
They made yet another Conference Finals
which they kicked off with a couple 79-76 wins
before finding themselves knotted up
at two games a piece against Lebron James
and a bunch of flotsam riding his coattails
known as the Cavaliers.
But in game five from the comfort of their own Palace,
the Pistons' attempts at resistance
against the 22 year old James, in what would have been
his senior year of college, proved futile.
James scored his team's final 25 points
including a couple dunks in the final 30 seconds
of regulation to will his team to overtime.
It also included all nine of his team's points in OT,
followed by all nine of his team's points in double OT.
A crushing blow in a devastating loss
that the Pistons couldn't recover from two days later,
as baby Bron was off to his first NBA Finals.
And in that summer of 2007,
a new super team was forming in the eastern conference,
with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen
each traded to Boston to team up with Paul Pierce.
The Pistons were still chugging along
with the same core, though they didn't bring back
Chris Webber, leading to increased roles
for third year youngsters Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson.
But despite making their sixth consecutive
Eastern Finals, nothing mattered against that powerhouse
in Eastern Massachusetts.
Sure a game four Pistons win tied up the series,
but that would be their last playoff victory
for a long time.
The Celtics took the last two games and the series,
causing Dumars to fire Saunders for his team's complacency
while putting his whole team on notice
that everyone was on the trade block,
and that no one was a sacred cow
because you lose that status when you lose
for three straight years.
Dumars hired his old teammate Michael Curry
to coach the team, and Dumars wasn't playing
about a drastic shakeup.
November 3rd, 2008 became a day that represented
a monumental fork in the road for the organization.
Just two games into the season,
both wins by the way, he traded 2004 Finals MVP,
franchise legend and fan favorite Chauncey Billups to Denver
for the expiring contrast of Allen Iverson,
while simultaneously signing Rip Hamilton
to a big money three year extension.
Piston players were extremely shocked
and disappointed by Billups' departure.
And their first game after the stunning trade
was against the Bobcats, coached by old friend Larry Brown.
Brown knew the two point guars traded for one another
quite well, and eloquently equated it
to trading Marilyn Monroe for Jane Russell.
But Iverson quickly proved out to be an awful comparison
as he'd firmly entered the twilight of his career
and had a miserable year.
Without their longtime leader and floor general in Billups,
Detroit started falling apart around the all-star break,
and it only got worse after Iverson
aggravated a back injury, knocking him out for over a month.
During this time, team owner Bill Davidson died,
making an already tenuous time that much more unstable.
When Iverson returned, it was to a reserve role,
which he hated, remarking that he could perform
his diminished role while carrying on his back
some sort of truck for ants.
Following their April 1st loss in Jersey,
the third game with this new arrangement,
Iverson reached a boiling point
saying that he'd rather retire
than keep coming off the bench.
So that would be the last time he'd ever put on
a Pistons jersey, with Dumars pulling the plug
on the Iverson era.
But this is the east, the land where mediocrity is rewarded.
Their 39 and 43 record was still good enough
to crash the postseason party as the eighth seed.
But they just became a fly on LeBron's shoulder
that he swatted away with four straight
double digit blowouts.
So out went Curry and in came John Kuester,
an assistant on their '04 championship squad.
Surely that would do the trick to turn around
the team's fortunes.
Though any attempt to do so would have to come
without the services of their top two bigs
in Rasheed Wallace, who signed with the rival Celtics,
and Antonio McDyess, who signed with the Spurs.
But hey, they still had that copious amount
of cap space which their fans had been salivating over,
and was the one silver lining to the Billups trade.
Dumars in turn chose to use it to sign Ben Gordon
and Charlie Villanueva to huge deals
that soaked up a third of their entire cap.
Along with Hamilton, they were drowning
in outrageous deals given to a bunch of UConn Huskies.
And with Rasheed now gone, you can't just give the fans
zero Wallaces after years of giving them two great ones.
So to meet their Wallace quota,
they brought back Ben for a second go around
in the motor city ahead of the '09-'10 season.
Their roster was this weird mishmash
of aging banged up, over the hill vets
from their title run, youngsters like Rodney Stuckey
and rookie second round pick Jonas Jerebko
just trying to keep their head above water.
And of course the underwhelming
but overpriced free agent acquisitions coming off the bench.
The result was a miserable joyless 55 loss season.
But at least it set them up with a great pick
in the 2010 draft.
It was their highest pick since burning
the second overall selection on Serbian teenager
Darko Milicic seven years earlier,
instead of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, or Carmelo Anthony.
One of whom might be nice to have right now.
This time they burned the seventh pick
on Georgetown center Greg Monroe,
a couple spots before Paul George and Gordon Hayward
came off the board.
Later that summer they continued their fascination
with washed up has-beens and brought Tracy McGrady
on board the sinking ship.
They again hemorrhaged losses in Kuester's second season,
and things reached a tipping point
when Kuester and Hamilton, a couple weeks after
getting yanked from the starting lineup,
got into a heated altercation at practice in early 2011.
Shortly thereafter, following a January 10th
loss in Chicago, Kuester removed him from the rotation
entirely for a couple months,
which really pissed the team off, especially Wallace,
who thought it was crazy for his shorthanded squad
to deactivate an all-star.
Attempts to trade Hamilton failed to come together
and before a February 25th game in Philly,
most of the team skipped pregame shoot around
in a mutiny against their head coach,
who then only played the six guys that did show up.
And when Kuester got ejected in the second quarter
of that game, the Pistons bench had a jolly old time
laughing at him.
When they wrapped up another 50 loss season,
big changes swept through the entire organization
in a weird extended off season thanks to
the 2011 NBA lockout.
First, Tom Gores bought the team
from Davidson's widow on June 1st, 2011,
with Kuester receiving his pink slip four days later.
They'd landed the eighth overall pick in the draft,
where now Dumars decided to shy away
from UConn products and chose Brandon Knight,
a man best known for having his soul ripped
straight from his body by DeAndre Jordan
in the middle of a basketball game.
- [Announcer] Oh, what a monster jam by Deandre Jordan!
- [Narrator] One spot ahead of March Madness hero
Kemba Walker.
Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard also went a few picks later.
In July, they settled on former Nets coach
Lawrence Frank to replace Kuester.
Fast forward to December 12th, still the off season,
the Pistons reached an agreement
to pay Rip Hamilton 11 million dollars to go away.
The season finally kicked off at the end of the month
where Frank's squad was beaten like a crash test dummy
by the rest of the league,
dropping 20 of their first 24 games.
The worst start in franchise history.
At the end of another disappointing season,
37 year old Ben Wallace called it a career.
And as the 2012 draft approached,
they attached what turned out to be a future top 10 pick
to dump Ben Gordon's contract on Charlotte.
Two days later at the draft, they actually did well,
replacing Wallace with UConn center Andre Drummond,
before scooping up Khris Middleton in the second round.
But they were yet again doomed by another terrible start,
losing their first eight games
and digging themselves into a hole they couldn't get out of.
With the team reeling in late January,
Dumars traded away the final remaining player
from their NBA Finals run, Tayshaun Prince,
to Memphis in a three team deal
that brought back Jose Calderon from Toronto.
Another wasted season, another coaching change.
In what would be Dumars' final off season
running the show, he canned Lawrence Frank,
replacing him with former Sixers coach, Mo Cheeks.
In free agency, Dumars' last big deal
was a 54 million dollar contract given to Josh Smith,
forming one of the wackiest lineups you'll ever see
with not one, not two, but three complete non-shooters
all-starting and sharing the floor together
for heavy minutes.
It was a quest to destroy the very concept
and essence of spacing a basketball court
that set hoops back for decades.
And while Dumars threw fans a bone
by bringing back Chauncey Billups
to let him play out the final year
of his career in Detroit, the final trade Dumars
ever executed was a disaster,
when he tossed in future all-star Khris Middleton
in a deal with the Bucks for Brandon Jennings.
Midway through that '13-'14 season,
just 50 games into his tenure,
Cheeks became the eighth coach fired by Dumars
in his 14 year presidency.
On April 14th, 2014, with one game remaining
in their fifth straight season losing over 60%
of their games, Dumars stepped down
as Pistons president of basketball operations.
The Pistons under Joe Dumars had built
a wonderful roster of selfless hardworking players
who knew their roles, did their job,
and worked in harmony with one another.
They were blue collar through and through,
developing an ethos in which their time together
became known as the Goin' to Work Era.
They became champions without a superstar,
an unbelievable feat that we may never see again
in an era of super teams.
But then Dumars completely lost his touch.
Ultimately, the glaring mismanagement
of the draft and free agency,
a polarizing trade of the heartbeat of their team,
and constant coaching turnover which sparked disfunction
and inner turmoil were all a perfect storm of forces
to ruin the marvelous thing they had going.
They were turned into a laughing stock
that's gone over a decade without winning
a single playoff game, thanks to their devastating
yet spectacular collapse.
Don't worry, Piston fans.
If you need a lasting Dumars remnant
to hold near and dear to your heart
you'll always have that Josh Smith contract
taking up a chunk of your salary cap
until I think the sun burns out.
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