NBA Preview: Detroit is Sad

This man was give $35 million
to be made fun of by Kevin Garnett.

There are some NBA teams that are just a lot of fun to be involved with in any way.  Just writing about the Nuggets, for instance, gets me all hot and bothered.  Which is a pretty strange saying, as it is the middle of October and I haven't spent enough time with Andre Iguodala for his quirks to bother me.  In short, there are some teams that can just make the NBA worth following, regardless of whether your city has a team or happens to have lost it due to illegal practices of an overly-powerful figurehead.  Even so, the NBA can be fun to write about.

The Detroit Pistons are not fun to write about.  Even the Bobcats are hilarious about being bad, so that gives at least a glimpse of interest.  The Pistons don't have that.  Perhaps nothing defines their entire organization better than Tayshaun Prince, a small forward who everyone is aware of but nobody can actually collaborate his story that he does, in fact, exist.  Prince, like the Pistons, used to be good, but at this point its better we all pretend that they don't exist to spare us the boredom that has become Pistons basketball.  

There is one bright spot, and one bright spot only for the Detroit Pistons: Greg Monroe.  Monroe left a boring, successful program that nobody really pays attention to in Georgetown to become a part of a boring, losing program that nobody pays attention to.  Even so, Monroe has made the best of it (almost like he's a professional) and become one of the best young centers in the league, a group that admittedly only has like ten members.  Even so, Monroe scores at a solid pace (15 PPG) and rebounds pretty well (9.7 per game, as well as an Offensive Rebound Rate three points above average for centers), and has yet to be pulled into the soul-crushing sadness that is being forced to play for the Pistons.

Of course, Joe Dumars is no idiot (ok, ok: Joe Dumars is some idiot).  Dumars used his high lottery selection last season to pick up the proven, ready to contribute rookie swingman the Pistons needed in... Andre Drummond?  Yes, when everything about the Pistons screamed for help at any position but center, Dumars brought in a center.  Drummond isn't just any center either: he's a center that was barely average in his one year in college!  Drafting Drummond, along with purposefully bringing in Corey Maggette's ball-hogging idiocy, really cements how incredibly lucky Dumars got with the Billups/Hamilton/Wallace years.

Speaking of Corey Maggette, he'll probably be the Pistons leading scorer this year, or at least for the half a year he plays before being cut/going on injured reserve with "chronic awful."  This is not because Maggette is any good, of course (12 PPG without any secondary stats), but more because he insists on shooting as much as he possibly can, or rather running as fast as he can at the basket and throwing the ball.  Maggette managed to put up a higher usage rate then Dwight Howard last year, which is fair because Maggette is obviously the better player.  Even with all this, Dumars gave up a first round pick for him, which is just insane.

Beyond these two, the Pistons roster gets very boring.  Rodney Stuckey, Brandon Knight, and Will Bynum come back to man the point and provide the exact same skill set, another terrific display of GM-ing by Dumars.  Seriously, Knight and Stuckey pass the same (both averaged 3.8 APG), steal the same (44 steals for Stuckey, 49 for Knight), and shoot the same (Stuckey's eFG% of 47 was just one point lower than Knight's).  There is no reason for both of these players, as well as the shorter but still the same Bynum, to exist on the same team, but there you have it.

Rounding out the roster are a couple of just worthless forwards, with Jonas Jerebko and Jason Maxiell taking up space on a team where they have no place.  Perhaps on a good team, Jerebko could fit the role of a fifth forward, while Maxiell... could possibly sit on a bench and cheer like Ronny Turiaf.  However, on the Pistons, they will be counted on to start regularly and play well over 20 minutes a game.  There is really no hope for the Pistons, who seem content to acquire more and more of the same players they already have.  The only hope here is that Monroe can get out of town to a team where he can have fun and maybe win a game once in awhile.  Expect the Pistons to compete for the worst team in the league, just like always.