Why you should be watching the Detroit Pistons

Jan 14, 2015; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis (23) and Detroit Pistons forward Greg Monroe (10) reach for the loose ball during the first quarter at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

Being a fan of the Detroit Pistons the past five years has been a very difficult thing. The team under Joe Dumars never seemed to really work out. In fact, fans have been known to swear off the Pistons until Joe Dumars was taken out of General Manager position. Fans hated to admit that they were rooting for such a bad team that seemed to just fall out of contention.

While the early 2000’s Pistons were good due to moves that Dumars had done, something along the line went wrong and Dumars wasn’t making good deals or choices for the team. The recently released Josh Smith was brought here through a Dumars action.

You know, fans could probably deal with some losing from the team, I mean in ways they were kind of going through a rebuild and that was fine. Yet good rebuilds last about a season maybe two, after that, you are really pushing it and you sway into just being a bad team. The Pistons swayed into a being that bad team. So something had to be done or they were just going to continue to be a bad team.

In April of 2014 the Pistons announced that Dumars would be stepping down as General Manager. So with a new GM things might have changed. Fans could maybe hope that their team would be good again, at least not as bad as they had been the previous 5 plus seasons.

However, the Pistons started the season looking absolutely terrible and nothing seemed to have changed at all. The team lost their first three games. In late December the Pistons sat at a 5-23 record and were at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. The way they lost was painful. They found new ways to make fans turn away and watch something else.

They took terrible shots, defended poorly if any at all throughout games. Their longest losing streak was at 13 games before the team inched out a win against the Phoenix Suns. Then someone had this idea, an idea that would end up helping the team as a whole. Waive Josh Smith. There were talkings that the team was trying to trade Smith, but the market for him wasn’t there. So they waived him.

It did wonders so far for the team and you as a fan should really be watching it. The Pistons went on a 7 game winning streak which saw them beating teams like Dallas, San Antonio and a 103-80 beat down of division rival Cleveland. The team has made an amazing 180 degree turn around and look to be keeping it up.

You should be watching this team play because this is the team that should have been at the start of the season. This tinkered team is an actual contender now to make the playoffs and as a fan you should be paying attention to them. Watching games isn’t difficult to do anymore, you don’t want to watch something else.

You get to watch a team that does mostly everything right now. The Pistons play defense again, they play teams hard. Most importantly, they don’t take pointless, ridiculous shots that made you question their thought process. This team is alive again and is playing for something. You should be watching because you could see one of the best mid season turnarounds in history.