In the 2004 NBA Finals, the Detroit Pistons pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in NBA history by defeating the powerful Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers boasted four of the greatest players in NBA history (though two were well past their prime and one of those two was injured). The Pistons deserve all the credit in the world. No one expected them to beat the Lakers--especially in five games! I admire the Pistons and their remarkable victory. But a peculiar form of lunacy has gripped NBA analysts. A lunacy caused by the Pistons victory.
While listening to sports talk radio or watching ESPN, it is nearly impossible to avoid NBA analysts heaping accolades on the Pistons. Fine. But what's even more stunning is that these so-called "experts" are arguing that the Pistons defeat of the Lakers in the NBA Finals marks a new era of the NBA where teams do not need superstars to win titles! This is simply ridiculous. What the Pistons did was fantastic but it's something that rarely happens in the NBA: Superstar-less teams (or teams without superstar-caliber players) rarely win NBA championships. In fact, what the Pistons did was so rare, it's only the second time it's happened in the last forty-four years (in 1979, the Seattle SuperSonics won the NBA title with no legitimate superstar-caliber players)!
The Pistons also accomplished something equally as rare as winning an NBA title without a superstar-caliber player on the roster: Only one other NBA team in the last forty-four years has managed to pull off as big of an upset in the finals (the Warriors swept the heavily favored Washington Bullets in the 1975 NBA Finals).
The Pistons accomplished both rare feats in the same season! But that's not the only trend they bucked in 2004:
Since the NBA was founded in 1946 (then the league was known as the Basketball Association of America), only a handful of teams have won NBA Titles without a hall-of-fame center on the roster. Think about it: From the late 1940s to the mid '50s, George Mikan led the Minneapolis Lakers to five NBA Championships; from 1957 to 1969 Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics won eleven titles (the one year they didn't win the title in the '60s, it was Wilt Chamberlain and the 'Sixers who won it); in the '70s Lew Alcindor, Willis Reed, Bill Walton, Wes Unseld, Dave Cowens, Wilt Chamberlain and Nate Thurmond were on teams that won nine of the ten NBA titles in that decade; in the '80s, nine of the ten NBA champs boasted hall-of-fame caliber centers like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone and Robert Parish. In the 1990s things changed when Jordan and the Bulls won six titles in eight years. But, c'mon, it's Michael Jordan we're talking about here! He's an obvious exception. When the Bulls didn't win championships in their eight year run, it was a Houston Rockets franchise led by none other than Hakeem Olajuwon! And when the Bulls dynasty ended in '98, the next five titles were won by teams led by Tim Duncan, David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal! Great centers all!
My point? Stop jumping on that Pistons bandwagon. Put their victory into historical context. They are a rare exception to the rule that you need superstars and, more importantly, a superstar center to win NBA titles. Add to that the rarity of their upset, and I don't think we are looking at a trend. The teams that will be winning titles in the next few years will likely be teams like San Antonio, Miami or Houston: Teams with great centers.
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