The 2018-19 Pistons season has come to an end. They (well, Reggie Jackson and Blake Griffin) put up a fight in this game instead of getting swept by the Bucks without complaint, but in the end, there wasn’t much they could do considering the massive talent gap between the two teams. Now that they’re gone, I can’t decide which of these team nicknames I like better: The “DetRIOT PitStains” or the “Detoilet Pissed-Ons”. Both of them seem rather apt, although I doubt the citizenry of Detroit would riot over their least favorite team getting swept by a way better squad.
This is why you don’t want to make the playoffs as the 8th seed. Most of the time, barring miracles like when the Warriors shocked the Mavs, the 8th seed just gets blown out and learns nothing from the experience. The owners get to get a little extra money from two extra games, and fans can claim success because of “muh playoffs”, but this is where the Bucks were forever, and it sucks. Do 8th-seed-ish teams ever make the jump into legit contenders just by gradual iteration? No. They get some sort of star, a thing they could do if they were winning 15 games a year and fielding rosters full of scrubs.
Here’s my plan for getting the Pistons back to the winning ways they had in the earlier part of the millennium:
Fire Casey: there’s just no way that he’s getting the most out of the talent on this team, and he keeps getting swept, first in Toronto, now in Detroit.
Trade Thon Maker: he sucks and pretty much can’t play basketball, but there are still teams who will be fooled by him. Hopefully the Bucks are not that team, otherwise my life will become like that scene in “Team America World Police” where the puppet is puking frickin’ everywhere.
Tell Andre Drummond to stop playing like a pubic hair: he’s good, and he wasn’t a problem for most of the year, but he was a problem in this series. His body language was awful, there was no intensity, and he kept getting owned by Brook Lopez. And no more of those garbage hooks/floaters. Dunks and putbacks only from now on.
Heal Blake Griffin: I know a guy who knows a real-life Wiccan witch who claims to have magical potions that heal injured joints. You can have the contact info if you promise to not trade Maker to the Bucks.
Change the name of the arena: Who wants to go to an arena named after pizza? Not me. My first thought would be “why does it smell like pizza everywhere I go in here” even if it didn’t, because I’m easily suggestible. Call it something like “The Palace” instead. That would be classy, and the Pistons should present themselves as a classy organization.
Have Reggie Jackson not be your second best player: He’s good, and showed more heart than Drummond, but he’s not really a second-banana type of player. More like a fourth-banana. Ignore these highlights. Floaters are not a sustainable form of offense. EVER.
Shooters: Wayne Ellington was a good acquisition, and Griffin has some nice range, but then what? Langston Galloway? I’m LMAOing at your life.
Tank: all these suggestions are made with the idea that the Pistons want to build on this and win more games next season. But maybe the best thing to do is trade everybody, rebuild around Kennard, and see where things go from there.