From First to Worst

This has been a very frustrating season, to say the least. The Detroit Pistons, once one of the power houses of the NBA, now is at the bottom of the league. For six straight years, 2003-2008, the Pistons went to the Eastern Conference. In 2004 and 2005 they made it to the championship. But they only won the one in 2004 against the Lakers. So how did they go from one of the best teams in the league to one of the worst in just two seasons?

There are many things that this can be blamed on but the one it mostly can be blame on is age. The age of starters. The starters were the same since the 20004 and most of them were no rookies when they got her, they were in their prime. Normally when a player hits his prime in basketball is when he is 24 or 25. But the pieces we had were already a year or two in their prime. So after five seasons of trying to get another ring, they got to ol and slow to compete with the other younger teams.

When most teams get into the offseason, they add players that would be able to help them down the line. They want to sure up their future with young stars like John Wall, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Brandon Roy, or Blake Griffin. These players were drafted because the teams wanted to prepare for the future. The Pistons did not do this, they added fillers so they could try and win another championship. So when some of their starters left, they could not use any of the players drafted because they were just role players.

Now only two people from that team that went to the Eastern Conference Championship six years in a row is still there. One was Tayshaun Prince who never was a big part of the offence; he did what needed to be done to win. If that meant only taking five shots in a game he did it but he always gave 100% every game. The other one is Ben Wallace who is a mockery of his former self. Once considered one of the best Centers in the league now can barely get 5 rebounds in a game. Because of this the Pistons are seeing more players like this because they are losing so much now.