Gettin' kitten with the Detroit Pistons

The Pistons’ problem is that Detroit knows its basketball.

Your Detroit Pistons were in the top-10 in attendance every year in the 1990s and it ranked either first or second in Butts Seated from 2002 through 2009. People get out to watch the Pistons when the effort is warranted.

The Pistons have a new arena, I been there and it’s awesome, downtown Detroit is beautiful and the rest of the clubs in the city’s sporting ecosystem are struggling, in relative terms. The Tigers lost 98 games last season, another 98 in the “spring” and summer before that.

The Red Wings haven’t even made the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2016, when the team was knocked out of the opening round for the third straight year. The last time the Red Wings won a postseason series, Jason Maxiell was still on on Pistons.

If you haven’t watched a Detroit Lions loss since the time Dave Krieg handed off to Barry Sanders 13 times for a total of -1 yards in the 1994 NFC Wild Card game, rest assured that the Lions do indeed still suck, I just checked, 6-10.

There is room for another outfit to step in, to create some sparks and remind followers why they loved watching pro basketball so much in the first place. This year’s Pistons were not that team.

Yet they were was a success.

An unmitigated success: Dwane Casey helped overcome a culture chasm and the potential pissibiliaty of a superstar on the way toward the postseason. The postseason!

These Pistons were fun to watch, these Pistons competed and grew within the practice-free confines of a regular season, and these Pistons learned to deal with each other. You saw it in the sweep to Milwaukee, Detroit talked and remained connected, it just had its ass beat.

Blake and the boys may not be the best of friends, but this isn’t an improvement in the comparative sense — nobody gets judged by a scale just because the cameras caught you hating.

From NOLA’s low point came an understanding. And from there, some form of purpose. That’s all a collection ever needs.

The Pistons fell to Dallas and to those meanies from Milwaukee in the nights that followed the Reggie Jackson interruption, yet the club finished the season on a 20-13 tear in spite of Blake Griffin sitting five contests (and dragging his pained left leg around for maybe twice as many).

It was in the East but the Pistons have always been in the East, and the East has been like this for two decades by now.

Casey and his staff created a system that allowed others to step in, literally, moving pieces and passes around until it became apparent to defenders that everybody, here, was chipping in. I don’t know how this team managed to make it to 21st in offense.

But that was, like, it.

Griffin’s yearly injury didn’t happen to hit in April, he didn’t land on someone’s ankle, that just might be how his knee is now.

The All-Star’s proven quite capable of overcoming what dragged him in 2018-19, but pulling that shit at 30 is gonna be different than how things felt at 29, and Blake’s not gonna get out of 2019-20 as a 30-year old.

Can the Pistons bank on another season of Griffin (24-7-5) bailing teammates out over and over? The forward dragged them to win after win, doing the second and third quarter work that keeps so-so teams in the thick of better-than-them ballgames.

Blake’s gonna feel an inch shorter now in every season he returns for, is that line-drive jumper of his (36.2 percent from behind the three-point line, somehow) ready to do the heavy lifting? And how willing is Griffin gonna be to throw his body into those 7.3 free throws per game again, just to make up for another Luke Kennard Night?

We know Griffin’s owed quite a bit — $110ish million over the next three seasons — but he’s gonna put in. He’s a good dude and he’s seen some NBA shit, Griffin understands that nobody sticks in purgatory for too long because Brook Lopez just blocked 14 of his team’s shots.

Kennard missed two-thirds or more of his attempts 27 times this season, but he’s also figured out the lurch it takes to launch an NBA-sized three-pointer. Luke did a lot of growing in 2018-19, his balance is right and his opportunities as a playmaking partner with Griffin are boundless.

Detroit is clearly banking on Kennard to make some style of leap next season. Stan Van Gundy’s No. 12 pick in 2017 will be under clean contract control for the next two seasons, a welcome relief for the NBA’s eighth-highest payroll in 2018-19.

Most of this crew should return.

Reggie Jackson’s around for another year at over $18 million, his knees will ring just as worrisome in 2019-20 as this season but at least he’s come to accord with Griffin. Starting rookie swingman Bruce Brown is on his first NBA contract.

Ish Smith, the free agent that won so many minutes for the Pistons this year as a reserve point guard, will be a free agent this summer. In order to stick under the sort of luxury territory that allows for mid-level exception usage, the Pistons may have to whisper the same shit teams always do about Ish Smith — he’s maybe 5-11, and he turns 31 in July.

Thon Maker is still on his rookie deal, he’ll be back to do whatever it is people think he does, and Jon Leuer will return for the final season (at $9.5 million) of the four-year, $42 million contract the Pistons signed him to in 2016. I must have been the only person in the NBA that got sober that summer.

Langston Galloway is also under contract in 2019-20, at $7.3 million, and the swingman will have to step into increased scrutiny should the Pistons be forced to wave goodbye to free agent Wayne Ellington, as so many others have done.

The Pistons have a team option on Glenn Robinson III’s $4.26 million deal for 2019-20, Glenn struggled with ankle and knee issues for the second season in a row, I’m not sure if I’m ready for Glenn Robinson’s kid to be too old for basketball.

The other chunk of that eighth-ranked salary comes in the form of Andre Drummond’s graying (he’s 26!) beard. Drummond will earn over $27 million next season, but he’ll have the option to pick up the $28.75 million owed to him from Detroit in 2020-21.

Dre and Blake played well this season, the pair’s communication is sound and time together will only increase what was, honestly, pretty damn good this season.

If next year’s Pistons start slow, however, the urge will return. The club is set to only employ Griffin and Brown and Kennard and Khyri Thomas (plus this June’s draft pick) in 2020-21, the clearest chance for a do-over that Detroit has seen in ages.

Dealing Drummond away from a limping Pistons outfit midseason for assets and perks would only accelerate that effort.

In this modern age, holes in the middle don’t matter nearly as much as gaping craters at the point guard position. Detroit only has to look up its own top to recall as much — this team lives and dies with Reggie Jackson, goodness!

The move to retain Drummond would surely sweep just as strongly, Andre made strides yet again in 2018-19, malleable bigs don’t grow on trees and Blake’s gonna badly want a badass behind him. Andre owned both boards this year, it was the only thing the Pistons did well.

The front office cannot be cynical in its approach. Detroit has seen too many of these band-aids slip off in the shower, Piston fans aren’t going to show up for cheap thrills, these people want a basketball team with promise, for once.

In 2018-19 it got a team it could at least be proud of. A major success, indeed.

Previous kittens: INDIANA

RIDING HIGH

God I love a synth patch. It’s the sound of Sim City.

Thank you for reading, maybe listening!

(More to come.)