#thisleague UNCUT: The Pistons' Historic Streak

Losing a completely blemished twenty seven NBA games in a row in the modern NBA, that is really, really, really hard to do. And yet it really just happened Tuesday night Nets one point eighteen Pistons one to twelve in Detroit. And I've written extensively on this on my substack as well. This losing streak, it honestly goes back to mid May

for the Pistons, it's lasted longer than six months. As bad as the last few nights have been for Detroit, they couldn't beat a severely weakened Jazz team at home to avoid lost number twenty five in a row. They couldn't figure out how to beat the Nets in either half of a home and home to stop this thing before it got to twenty six and now the single

season record twenty seven consecutive defeats. However, as low as these last few clinching ls have left the Pistons Tuesday, amazingly, that was not the worst day of twenty twenty three for this beleaguered franchise. Super bad, Yes, it was super bad. Not the low point, though. Nothing hit the Pistons harder than what happened in Chicago on May sixteenth. I was there in the room in Chicago when the NBA draft

lottery dropped the Pistons. They had the league's worst record in the league remember last season worst record seventeen and sixty five. The lottery results dropped the Pistons as far as they could mathematically plummet in the Victor Wemberyama Sweepstakes. Detroit cratered that day from a potential number one in the draft all the way down to number five, and that was true devastation because that was their shot at Wenby. You have to say, though, that Tuesday Night was plenty

devastating in its own right. These Pistons have now lost more games in a single season than any other team across the NBA's seventy eight seasons. And part of what makes it so hard to take when you're looking at the circumstances surrounding the two teams that they've just supplanted on this list that nobody wants to be on Detroit's twenty seven game skid. Just say it out loud again,

twenty seven game skid. That's one lost longer than both the twenty ten to eleven Cleveland Cavaliers, who had just lost Lebron James to the Heatles in free agency. Well, they lost him to the heat and then they became the Heatles with Lebron, as well as the twenty thirteen to fourteen Process Sixers, who were trying to lose for draft position. These Pistons were not trying to lose the season. Remember, they started the season with dreams of a playing spot

in the East seriously playing spot. That was the that was the target, the minimum target that this team thought it was competing for. Pistons again, they were two to one on October twenty eighth, after surviving zach Lavine's fifty one points to win their home opener. And yes, you heard me correctly. It's the same zach Lavine who the Chicago Bulls so badly want a trade. Now, there have been eight fifty point games registered this season by the

various scoring machines all around the league. The first of those came from zach Lavine. He went for fifty at Little Caesar's Arena October twenty eighth, and somehow Detroit survived that. Since then, I don't really know that we can use the words celebrated here, but exaggerated air quotes you can employ. The Pistons have celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas without

adding a single win to that total. Now, in the interest of being ultra factual here, we must point out that the Wembin Yama led Spurs at four and twenty five entering Wednesday's play, not much better off in the standings than the two and twenty eight Pistons. The massive difference, of course, is that San Antonio has the seven foot five Wembin Yama to build around. So Spurs fans, no matter how bad the present is, they have tangible dreams and reason to at least imagine picture a return to

glory down the road. Poor Pistons fans right now, they only see despair, an uncertainty, and an extremely lonely Cad Cunningham who's playing quite well. That's what they're looking at now, after a decade plus of team building that has absolutely gone awry. Think about this. Detroit essentially entered this current rebuilding mode as far back as the twenty nineteen twenty season. That's when they traded Andre Drummond to Cleveland, they bought

out Reggie Jackson. Blake Griffin only played in eighteen of sixty six games that season, the pandemic shortened season. Blake Griffin was bought out that following season in twenty twenty twenty twenty one. So the Pistons, these guys are in

year three of this supposed rebuild. And that's if we're being nice with the way we count, and even if we are being gentle by saying year three rather than year four, that's the most minuscule of concessions you can make at a time when last season's record, that's seventeen and sixty five record, when Cad Cunningham was limited to twelve games last season before he had to undergo season

ending shin surgery. When seventeen and sixty five feels so far out of reach and the calendar hasn't even flipped to January first yet, I don't really know how nice were being. I mean, the Pistons in their current state, they're gonna need an eight and forty four finish, which you could actually classify as an eight and forty four surge when you have only won two of your first

thirty games. They're gonna have to go eight and forty four to finish better than the nineteen seventy two seventy three Philadelphia seventy six ers who went nine and seventy three. If you really study the history books, you'll note that the Charlotte Hornets of twenty eleven twelve. Those Hornets went seven to fifty nine during a lockout shortened season that

only lasted sixty six games. The Hornets fared worse than those infamous seventy six ers percentage wise, but it's really the nine and seventy three mark through the years that has retained the greater historical relevance in terms of a symbol of futility. But the Pistons right now they are on a five and seventy seven pace five and seventy seven. This team has the chance to possibly knock both the nine and seventy three Sixers and the seven and fifty

nine Hornets. They might knock both of these teams out of the record books. The franchise has a three sixty eight winning percentage since the start of the twenty eleven twelve season under Tom Gores as majority owner. That's three fifty eight and six fourteen in Gores' twelve full seasons. The once proud Pistons, they've made the playoffs twice. They

haven't won a playoff game since two thousand and eight. Now, I've got to put my own hand up here and say that in the offseason I applauded goers for spending so much to bring in Monty Williams because the Pistons aren't making free agent splashes with on court free agents, so a lot of people looked at that contract nearly eighty million over six years. It shocked a lot of people, but I did see it as a breakthrough moment four

Gores and the Pistons. To me, it was a clear dub inspired by that old maxim that tells us there's no salary cap when it comes to coaches. There is no way now when you evaluate the Pistons and their situation, that you can apply that kind of analysis now. League sources told me that Gores met with various players as well as GM Troy Weaver and Monti Williams a week ago today in Detroit, both in search of answers behind closed doors, and it was an attempt to lift spirits

that didn't work either. The next night was the game against Utah, where the Jazz were resting numerous regulars and the Pistons lost at home one nineteen one to eleven. No market In, no Clarkson, no Keyante George, no Taylor, Horton Tucker still couldn't beat the Jazz, who were playing

on the second night of a back to back. And part of what has to make this so galling and hard for Pistons fans to accept It was roughly a year ago at this time that the Pistons they were actively resisting external trade interest in guys like Boyan Bogdanovich

and Alec Burks. It happened again during the summer. They wanted to keep quality veterans on the roster so that a young core led by Cad Cunningham and Jalen Duran would have win now players around them, and again the hope was to make a push at worst for a

play in spot in this season's East. Now the Pistons awoke Wednesday already eleven games behind the tenth seeded Bowls, the fourteen and eighteen Bowls, who won't even have Levine back on the floor until some point in the new year, and who just lost Nikolovucevich to an injury as well. It's become a very grim game throughout the NBA to look at the Pistons' upcoming schedule and try to figure out how many more holidays are going to pass before

they finally win again. Are we talking New Year's Day? Are we talking Valentine's Day? The best upcoming opportunities to scrounge a win would appear to be on Saturday. They've got a home date with Toronto. The Raptors are eleven and eighteen and going in the wrong direction. The Pistons have a January third rematch with Utah, that one's in Salt Lake City, and on January tenth, they've got the

Spurs in town with mister wenman Yama himself. You'd probably have an easier chance though, trying to predict when the Pistons are going to find that win than trying to pinpoint their next shot at a Wembe level prize in the draft. Because the twenty twenty four draft do not expect anything resembling last season's anticipation and hooplah, the widespread sentiment around the league is that the top of the draft board in June it's gonna be far more underwhelming

than usual. And the simple translation when you boil all that down is this is a bad season for the franchise once famed for their title winning bad boys to be super bad. All right, everyone, that's gonna do it. For this quickie solo monologue edition of This League Uncut, I repeat, Chris and I will be back with you very very soon this week. As always, please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to the show if you haven't already. Thanks for listening, and.