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ST. LOUIS -- After winning two consecutive National Basketball Association titles in 1989 and 1990 and literally flexing their muscle on the rest of the league, the Detroit Pistons have hit hard times. The dreaded yet inevitable sports cycle, proof that what comes around goes around, found its target in Detroit. The Pistons haven't been this bad since Dick Vitale roamed the sidelines in the late 1970s.
Four years ago, the club began to decay from the aging process following its second title. Soon, the championship pieces splintered and scattered. Dennis Rodman took his rebounds and tattoos to San Antonio. Chuck Daly packed his Hugo Boss suits and headed East. John Salley snowbirded south to Miami. Earlier this season, Bill Laimbeer gave the nation reason to celebrate when he hung up his elbows for good.
Guards Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars were most responsible for the Pistons' success, so maybe in a cruel way, it is fitting that they are still around to absorb the most punishing season in club history.
The Pistons are mired at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. The continued improvement of the Dallas Mavericks could allow the Pistons to finish with the league's worst record.
Winning championships is now just a faint and fading memory for Thomas and Dumars. And chances are they will have only one more opportunity to revive that feeling as teammates -- when they play on Team USA in this summer's World Championships.
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Los Angeles Times columnist Gene Wojciechowski's personal selection for college basketball All-Americans:
Guards Jason Kidd of California and Jalen Rose of Michigan; forwards Donyell Marshall of Connecticut, Grant Hill of Duke and Glenn Robinson of Purdue.
Kidd makes it because there are no point guards like him in the college game. Maybe there are not even any point guards like him in the National Basketball Association, which is where he probably will be playing next season.
Rose, a player blasted in the past, finally has discovered the benefits of mixing his considerable flair with on-court maturity.
Hill, the thinking man's player, can do the improbable: control games with or without scoring.
Robinson has a flaw in his game somewhere ... doesn't he?
After Glory, Pistons Never Had It So Bad
11 March 1994
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