DEEEETROIT....(yawwwwn)

The Pistons play the Sixers tonight in first round NBA Action. I probably won't watch unless it's between innings of the Tigers game or unless that's what everyone else wants to watch.

I think I've just been spoiled by the Pistons ever since the 2003 season. I've never been a HUGE Pistons fan but I still call them "My" NBA Team and up until this season at least, I have always been a big supporter and would watch them on TV if I had the time or maybe make an effort to go to a game or a "Palacevision" during the playoffs. I don't know what happened, but a wave of general apathy towards the Stones has crashed down on me this season.

There are many factors for this apathy towards my "Beloved" Pistons and I'll list them for you. First of all, the Tigers had a HUGE off-season, just retardedly huge. Things I never thought I would ever see from Dave Dombrowski and the Illitch family, I saw with my very eyes. The anticipation for spring training kind of drowned out any thought of the Pistons. Another reason is the University of Michigan and the dramatic hiring of RichRod and his posse. Staying with the Maize and Blue, another reason is the success of Michigan Hockey this season which I can safely say, nobody expected to happen. They were scary good at times (Porter and Kolarik on the same NHL line next season in Phoenix?? Yikes) and well...I don't want to talk about the Frozen Four. The success of the Red Wings drowned out the Pistons for me just as much as that period they went through in February when the Wings lost like 8 straight. The ESPN and TNT coverage of the NBA to me is just annoying so I just don't watch it, also a contributing factor. But the main reason I still care, but kind of am ok with not caring a whole lot, about the Pistons...

The Indiana Pacers. Never have I seen a franchise crumble with such velocity with management not having a single thing to do with it other than drafting and trading for the players. The easy way to talk about this issue is to bring up the brawl and how Ron Artest is a knucklehead and Stephen Jackson fighting with Turtle from Entourage, which of course is a gigantic factor in the demise of the Indiana Pacers. But the brawl was something that a team can recover from. Sure Artest was done for the season after beating up the wrong guy (who, after watching the video hundreds of times, was laughing his ass off at the guy who did it and then went total deer in the headlights, "holy shit I'm gonna die," before getting pummeled by Artest, still makes me chuckle a bit) and Jackson and O'Neal both also earned hefty suspensions and fines which really cut the core of the deam down to an old guy who loves Spike Lee and some young white dude from the east coast and Bill Walton's loveslave Jeff Foster. Somehow, Rick Carlisle (I still think he is one of the best coaches in the league, just wanted to say it) found a way to sneak the team into the playoffs. The brawl did not doom the franchise, this franchise and rivalry was doomed the spring after the brawl. The Franchise and the Rivalry died on May 19, 2005.


Dave, Jerm, Pat, Tom, and I drove to Indianapolis to watch game 6, a potential series clincher for the Pistons, so naturally, with our Ben Wallace afros we bought some nose bleed seats and were the assholes from Detroit the entire game which happened to be Reggie Miller's last one in the Association. Of course, Conseco Field House gave Reggie about a ten minute standing ovation as he walked off the floor late in the fourth quarter, people around us were crying, Dave was taking pictures, I was misting up a bit even (I got a splash of beer in my eye or it was dusty in the Fieldhouse or something) and Jerm stood there and did nothing, he may have even booed but that's what he does. Reggie Miller, his jacked up grill (seriously, look at his teeth sometime...it's creepy), and his smooth shooting touch, were the face of the Indiana Pacers. The true identity of what that team stood for and what the Association wanted their players to be. I remember Reggie Miller single handedly keeping the Pacers alive against the Knicks in those crazy games at Madison Square Garden with nothing more than grit and a smooth three point shot. Seeing Reggie and Spike Lee exchange barbs that whole series gave me a team and a player to root for (this was during the dark era of the Pistons when they had just made the transition to teal uniforms, it was a dark era because I just plain and simply refused to watch them anymore and I was only like 11 or 12, I know stupid when I see it). As we left Indianapolis that night I started thinking that, there was no way the rivalry could get any better than that. It was at its pinnacle the moment Reggie left the floor and for me at least, has been on the downslope ever since. This year the Pacers didn't even make the playoffs. Artest, the man everyone loves to hate, is in Sacramento, Stephen Jackson is...I don't actually, in jail somewhere maybe? And Jermaine O'Neal is doing his best Chris Webber impression by having unlimited talent be limited by bad knees and freak injuries. I used to get all fired up about the Pistons and the playoffs, and I still might, but right now...it's just not the same. Sheed still does his dance, Rip is still running around, Chauncey still hits big shots, Maxiel still impresses me sometimes, Lindsey is still a little ball of hate, and I still don't really care anymore.

Unless they give me a reason to...