Pistons gave hard fouls. And didn’t apologize for it. They hardly were the first or most egregious. But that’s how history will remember them, because that’s the narrative. And that’s fine. But just so you get a better idea of the whole truth about it...
Before the Pistons were contenders in the mid to late 80s, every team was delivering dirty, hard fouls. That was commonplace. Even the golden boy Larry Bird and his Celtics, even the smiling Magic and his showtime Lakers. Are you too young to remember a Rambis clothesline or a Robert Parish fully ed swinging punch?
And if it it was just Detroit or that they took it too far, did you really not watch or remember the Knicks against the Bulls in 1992? Riley’s Oakley, Mason, X and company beat up Jordan worse in that playoff series than the Pistons ever did. Seriously. The stuff the Knicks were doing made the Pistons “Jordan Rules” seem like hugs and kisses by comparison. We never seem to hear those Knicks teams mentioned how badly they tried to hurt people, and Jordan in particular. In fact, the no lay-ups rule was Pat Riley’s invention, if I recall correctly. The froncourt of Dale Davis and Antonio Davis was built for that purpose specifically, to injure and maim drivers and slashers and players named Michael who were the face of the league. Do they get put in the same “they were bad for basketball” barrel as the Pistons? Do you recall Karl Malone’s elbow delivered onto Isiah Thomas’s eye that required 40 s ches? You may have seen a replay before but you won’t hear it mentioned too much, because Isiah doesn’t revisit it ten, twenty, thirty years later to cry about it. In the 80s and 90s, teams had guys like Oakley, Davis, Davis, Buck Williams, Mark West, heck Will Perdue and Bill Wennington whose sole purpose was to be an enforcer in the paint and deliver hard and sometimes dirty fouls to discourage drives and slashes. Guys got elbowed, tripped, clotheslined, tackled, undercut, kicked, punched, poked in the eye, grabbed by the nuts, choked out. And if you think it was just the Pistons or they were the worst of the bunch, you didn’t really watch 80s, 90s basketball.
Detroit were culprits, sure. They absolutely took part in the dirty and hard, physical play. Most teams did, even the good teams, even the posterboy teams, like the Celtics and their rich history and the showtime Lakers, and even the untouchable Michael and his Bulls. That’s right, Michael hated how the Pistons played so much, they started to play like them. Even added a once hated Dennis Rodman to solidify that style in the second three peat. That’s how basketball was played.
The Pistons were hated because they weren’t one of the chosen cities, chosen organizations, rich with history and legacy. They were hated because they unpretentiously and unapologetically embraced the “bad boy” persona, took on the Raiders style when Al Davis sent gear for them to rock, and ran ad campaigns with Laimbeer and Mahorn to flaunt it. They didn’t play politics in the media, downplaying the thuggish style of play. They didn’t worry about fans booing them. And they didn’t let the perception change the way they played. And they won championships with that style. And some people and some players and some fans despised them for it.
Those Bad Boy Pistons and most of their fans are cool with playing the villain role, being hated and despised. Just realize the actual whole truth is not often told.
. Funny because it’s true.
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to your victory. congrats, you have apparently proven that rule changes are bar none the biggest reason perimeter play is superior these days, as it is based off of the stats of young developing star perimeter players who's stats improved. and it certainly accounts for the fact that some of the players you mentioned actually had bigger increases in scoring in previous years, or that ray allen actually had a scoring decrease the year of the rule change even though you claimed he had a "major" and "dramatic" increase. job well done sir.
