Pistons owe fans who stayed loyal a lot after putrid season
Little Caesars Arena was roughly 75% full as the Detroit Pistons approached history on Thursday night.
It wasn’t a history that any basketball fan — or player or coach — wanted to be associated with.
The Pistons dropped their 67th game of the season, clinching the worst record in franchise history with two games remaining on the schedule. It was an ugly 127-105 blowout to a Chicago Bulls team they had defeated twice this season. Many of the same mistakes that have occurred throughout this disaster season, such as excessively turning the ball over, were present in their home finale.
Yet fans arrived and cheered as they watched the home team for the final time this season. Many even stuck around until the end. Cade Cunningham sat on the bench in street clothes with left knee tendonitis, costing fans their final chance to watch him. It didn’t dull the energy in the gym.
The numbers haven’t been kind toward the Pistons, but one stands out — 18,111. That’s the average attendance for Pistons home games this season, 15th-best in the NBA. Even in the midst of the worst basketball ever witnessed in Detroit, fans showed up.
The support hasn’t gone unnoticed. Pistons head coach Monty Williams expressed his appreciation for the fanbase before the game, acknowledging the team has fallen well short of the high standard set by past teams.
“I think it’s pretty clear that we have a fanbase that’s hungry,” Williams said. “From my vantage point, they’ve been committed, and we want to match that with a commitment to being a lot better than we were this year. I know that we’ve grown. We’ve had a number of close games that didn’t go our way, but we’ve also had areas where we need to get better. We are committed to that, and we can’t express that enough.”
Fans are indeed hungry. The Pistons have now gone 16 consecutive seasons without a playoff win — their last was over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals on May 26, 2008. Most of Detroit’s roster hadn’t started middle school yet.
But they averaged more fans per game this season than several contenders, including the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder.
And those fans haven’t been shy about voicing their displeasure. On Dec. 21, as the Pistons
dropped their 25th game in a row against a Utah Jazz team missing most of its top players to injury, a loud “Sell the team!” chant took over the arena. Team owner Tom Gores addressed the chants during a media availability two days later.
There have been moments of joy, too. A month later, the crowd gave the Pistons a standing ovation following a spirited battle against the Milwaukee Bucks that ended with a 141-135 loss. Effort has been applauded. Apathy hasn’t been tolerated.
“I’ve been around this long enough to know you appreciate the fans that come out, the fans that I see around town that will walk up to me and say how much they’re with us even though it’s been a tough year for us,” Williams said. “At the same time I have an appreciation for the ones that are disappointed, as well. I think they have a right to be human and a right to have a passion for their team, because this organization has a championship pedigree and background. I respect all of that.
“And we’re gonna continue to explore every area where we can do better, whether it’s schematics upstairs and analytics, all the choices we make going forward.”
The Pistons are now three days away from an offseason that needs to bring significant change, both on the floor and off. Year 4 of a rebuild that started from the studs somehow has produced a worse product on the floor, though the team has the means to turn things around rapidly.
They are projected to have roughly $60 million in cap space this offseason, tops in the NBA. If they fail to significantly upgrade the talent level and restore the franchise’s credibility, they’ll hear about it from the fanbase.
If they finish the season 13-69, it’ll be the NBA’s worst record since the “Process”-era Philadelphia 76ers went 10-72 in 2016. That Sixers team was the first to lose 28 games in a row, albeit spread across two seasons, a record the Pistons matched in one.
Unlike the Pistons, the Sixers were intentionally built to lose.
“We know we’re going to do the best job we can to make everybody proud,” Williams said. “I’ve always said this — Mr. Gores has given this place every resource possible to be a successful organization. I can say it because I’ve been in a lot of places and I know what it’s like to not have the resources. And this is a place that has everything. We have to match that with the things that we do.”