The Pistons’ dismal journey to become the NBA’s worst-ever team

The Detroit Pistons finally, formally made history on Tuesday night. Detroit lost their single-season record 27th consecutive game, the latest coming at home by a 118-112 score against the Brooklyn Nets. By falling to 2-28, the Pistons built more cushion in a perhaps inexorable quest to become the worst team in league history.

To put their woeful run in context: The 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats won 10.6% of their games, netting out to 7-59 record in a lockout-shortened season. The 1972-73 Philadelphia Sixers won an even 11%, setting the standard for terribleness over a typical 82-game slate at 9-73. The Pistons, with a 6.6% win rate, are pacing to go 5-77. Whether it’s possible for an NBA team in the modern era to be that bad for so long remains to be seen, but the Pistons seem intent on giving the sporting world a definitive answer.

The Pistons are egregious at every facet of basketball and shockingly devoid of bright spots in a league where being as bad as they are typically reveals some light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a premium draft pick. The Pistons have had plenty of those, but the only dividend they’ve paid is to make it all the more head-scratching how a team could be this horrific. The decline has been long and slow for a franchise that still isn’t all that far removed from spending much of the 2000s as one of the league’s marquee teams. But this season has been a plunge to new depths of egregiousness for an NBA club.

What’s gone right? Very little, of course. But what’s gone wrong is multifaceted.

The Pistons struggle with nearly every part of being a functional basketball team. They are 28th of 30 teams in offensive efficiency, scoring 107.8 points per 100 possessions. They are 26th in defense, allowing 119. There are worse teams at preventing and making baskets, and even in the overall scoring margin, the Pistons aren’t the league’s worst team. (That would be the San Antonio Spurs, led by wunderkind rookie Victor Wembanyama, at minus-12.1 points per 100 possessions.) The Pistons (minus-11.2) are even within striking distance of the Charlotte Hornets at minus-10.6.

But the Hornets have won seven games. The Spurs have won four. The Pistons are 2-28 because they have been cartoonishly, cataclysmically bad on the margins. In games that have featured a scoring margin of five points or fewer in the final five minutes, Detroit is 1-12. That is the worst mark in the NBA by miles, not just this year but in any recent year. Typically, even the worst team in such games wins 25 or 30% of them, but the Pistons cannot buy a victory in crunch time. Arithmetic and spirituality suggest that the Pistons eventually get a break when it matters most, but faith is hard to come by.

There are some bright spots hidden beneath the rubble. The brightest by a long shot is 2021 no 1 overall draftee Cade Cunningham, the 6-ft-6 guard who at least keeps the team watchable as he scores 23 points and doles out seven assists a night. Cunningham even has a promising player or two around him, like 2022 first-round pick Jalen Duren, a center averaging 13 points and 11 rebounds. But Duren has lost half his season so far to injury. Bojan Bogdanovic, the leading scorer, has played in 11 of the 30 games. Skilled shooters Alec Burks and Joe Harris have missed extensive time, too.

The Pistons hired coach Monty Williams on a record contract $78.5m contract this offseason. Photograph: Noah K Murray/AP

The Pistons are the league’s second-youngest team with an average age of 23.4, not much older than a few college outfits. Blend the youth and inexperience with the injuries and bad play in clutch moments, and you get a recipe for a bad ball club. But even the worst teams do not lose 27 in a row, and charting how the Pistons got to a place where that was even possible takes longer.

Ask their loyal remaining fans what has gone wrong, and you might get a thousand answers. But many revolve around coach Monty Williams, who signed a record contract worth $78.5m to join Detroit over the offseason. Williams has not fit what pieces he has together, and he has reportedly not gotten along easily with talented young guard Jaden Ivey. The Pistons have a disjointed look under the coach who was supposed to install some structure and creativity after four dreadful years in a row under ex-coach Dwane Casey. Given his contract, Williams will probably get some time to right the ship, but his tenure has started so dreadfully that making anything of it will be an uphill battle.

Like Casey before him, Williams, is dealing with the consequences of poor roster-building by Pistons executives. General manager Troy Weaver, who took the job in 2020, did well to land Cunningham. But that was easy enough when lottery balls put the top draft pick in his lap. Weaver’s current roster does not make a lot of sense, as it lacks a go-to scorer beyond Cunningham and does not have great shooting outlets for skilled guards to find in open space. The Pistons could have traded some of their current veterans for draft picks last year but didn’t, apparently hoping they could be competitive this year. At least in being wrong, Weaver hasn’t prevented his team from having great lottery odds yet again. Team owner Tom Gores sounds poised to find a new GM soon.

To the extent poor management is the problem, the Pistons are the inverse of their old selves. The franchise has had several long, unbroken runs of postseason appearances. It won back-to-back championships in 1989 and ‘90, and added another in 2004. The latter came in the midst of a run of six consecutive seasons of at least making the final of the Eastern Conference, with three different coaches helming the team in that time.

Back in the glory years, the Pistons had extraordinary grit and defensive ability, pairing shot-blocker Ben Wallace with hard-nosed, skilled guards Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton. Those Piston teams had great supporting players coming off the bench, like forwards Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess. The Pistons of old had talent, but they also had an identity. Today’s team may have some talent, but if it has an identity other than that of one the worst teams ever, it has yet to show itself.