0210310426
DETROIT FREE PRESS
021031
Thursday, October 31, 2002
METRO FINAL
1C
MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Copyright (c) 2002, Detroit Free Press
IF PISTONS ARE TO WIN, IT'S NOT IN THE STARS
Try it. You can't do it. You can't name a recent NBA champion that didn't have
superstars. The Lakers wear the crown because of Shaq and Kobe. Chicago earned
it with Jordan and Pippen. Detroit's Bad Boys had Isiah and Joe. Boston, with
Bird, McHale and Parish, battled L.A., with Magic and Kareem. These are Hall
of Fame players. Their rings are no accident. Role players are great. But role
players are role players.
So Wednesday night at the Palace, The Grand Experiment began. The Pistons, a
team many tout as an Eastern Conference finalist, have been gradually, like
some exotic snake, shedding the skin of every superstar on their roster. Grant
Hill is gone. Jerry Stackhouse is gone. The highest-paid player on the team,
Clifford Robinson, is coming off the bench. They are trying to do what has not
been done in a very long time -- reach the promised land without a Moses.
History is not on their side. But then, they said that about the Anaheim
Angels.
"I like the idea of not having to rely on one guy," said coach Rick Carlisle,
sitting in his office before the opener against the Knicks. "We can wear
people down. We can spread it around. Other teams won't have one player to
focus on."
They won't have one player to worry about, either. If you recall last year's
playoffs, the Pistons' problem was finding a go-to guy when the leading
scorer, Stackhouse, was struggling. Many felt Corliss Williamson was really
the "gotta have a basket" man. And he came off the bench!
Now even Stackhouse is gone. Williamson is still coming off the bench. And
Detroit's starting lineup is a mixture of brute force (Ben Wallace), sticky
defense (Michael Curry), often-traded point guard (Chauncey Billups),
still-learning foreigner (Zeljko Rebraca) and young kid who is supposed to do
the shooting (Richard Hamilton).
The question is: Why is management so happy?
No divas to take a dive
Well, here are a few reasons: In Philadelphia, management lives with the
tick-tick-tick of the next Allen Iverson time bomb. In New York, the front
office fined Latrell Sprewell $250,000 and told him to stay away for a while.
In Toronto, the Raptors pray that Vince Carter renews his interest in the
game.
Superstars are like opera divas -- magnificent, moody and maintenance. You
hang a lot on their shoulders and you hope they come through. Getting them to
defend can be tricky. And benching them for a hotter player is done at your
own risk.
Neither Carlisle nor Joe Dumars, the Pistons' president, is inclined to that
kind of catering. Dumars, the consummate quiet professional, has gradually, in
his time behind the desk, cast a team in his own image: hardworking and
non-glamour.
Carlisle, meanwhile, came from the Indiana Pacers, where, by his own
admission: "Wwe were really a superstar-less team. We had Reggie Miller, but
while he made big shots, he wasn't dominant the way a lot superstars are.
Mostly we spread it around, Dale Davis, Antonio Davis, Jalen Rose, those
guys."
Carlisle likes that approach. Dumars likes it, too. And Bill Davidson, who
pays the bills, really likes it. No $100-million contracts for him. And if he
can win without them, can you blame him?
We did say "if."
Doing their version of the wave
Wednesday night, against a Spree-less Knicks team, the Pistons showed why they
will have good streaks and bad streaks. They came out flat and, with no one
player to ignite them, did a lot of passing and little attacking. On the other
hand, their first wave of substitutes was Robinson and Jon Barry. Their next
wave was Williamson and former starter Chucky Atkins. They kept it close, hung
around, then, midway through the fourth quarter, surged with defense and a
second-chance hustle play that whipped the ball to Atkins for a three-point
try. He hit it, he hit two more, and they never trailed again.
So the Pistons keep coming at you, hoping eventually a wave will knock you
over. Their defense is collective -- perhaps because nobody feels above it --
and they pursue rebounds with the kind of third and fourth efforts that are
often the difference in slow nights in January.
Carlisle will do a lot of coaching -- actually, it's more like playing chess
-- and he will wait and see how the board develops. "We'll put different guys
out there and see who steps up. I told them, everyone on this team should play
24 minutes and come off feeling like they played 32."
It is not the norm. It has little precedent for success (those Indiana teams,
you'll recall, were notorious for failing). Then again, there's this: In L.A.,
Phil Jackson juggles the egos. In Boston, Vin Baker paid a teammate $10,000 to
get his old number. In Portland, they are already counting the technicals on
Rasheed Wallace.
Here in Detroit, there will be few rap records or rap sheets. But the Pistons
will keep knocking, night after night, and if things go the way Carlisle and
Dumars plan, the hardest part will be deciding who to credit for the win. We
should all have such problems.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch
Albom Show" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
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