DETROIT--Many National Basketball Association franchises would take a season of 59 wins and an appearance in the conference finals. It got Flip Saunders fired as coach of the Detroit Pistons.
Saunders went 176-70 in three years with the Pistons, leading them to the conference finals each season.
He never could match the success of predecessor Larry Brown, who won an NBA title with Detroit in 2004.
New Coach Michael Curry will try to return the championship trophy to Motown.
“In the playoffs, will this team be convinced [Curry is] the guy who can make the right calls and adjustments?,” ESPN analyst Tim Legler said. “They knew they had a championship-caliber coach in Larry Brown, but you could tell, just with their body language, that they didn’t feel that with Flip.”
Curry, 40, was an assistant under Saunders, so, he knows the team’s personnel. He already has made a lineup change, replacing Antonio McDyess with Amir Johnson at power forward.
Even so, his primary goal was changing the team’s mind-set.
“We went back to staying here throughout the summer,” Curry said. “Guys came in and competed every day. I told them, ‘Even if you play the same way you played last year, you still have to reestablish your identity.’”
Curry aimed to establish a “workmanlike attitude” with the team, something guard Richard Hamilton welcomed.
“We kind of lost our edge on the defensive end these last couple of years,” said Hamilton, a key member of the 2004 title team that also made the Finals in 2005, losing to the San Antonio Spurs in seven games.
“We want to get back to winning not just because of our offense, but our defense, too. If you hold a team to 40 percent shooting [from the field], you have a lot better chance of winning. We want to get that edge back.”
The Pistons (59-23) won the Central Division last season. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, though, are sure to push them after adding point guard Mo Williams. The Milwaukee Bucks, with the addition of forwards Richard Jefferson and rookie Joe Alexander, should also be improved.
Detroit’s only offseason move of significance was signing forward-center Kwame Brown, but several young Pistons are ready to make bigger contributions.
Johnson, 21, is prepared to do the dirty work at power forward.
Forward Jason Maxiell, 25, showed flashes of brilliance last season, scoring 28 points against the Washington Wizards in April. Guard Rodney Stuckey, 22, will join the regular backcourt rotation.
“With Dice [McDyess] starting last year, he averaged the same number of shots in eight more minutes a game as he did the two years before that,” Curry said.
“We think he can be more efficient when he’s not out there with the starting unit.
“We have Rodney Stuckey, who, like Dice, could very well be a starter, and, when you have both of those guys anchoring your second unit, you allow your role players to play their roles and not play outside of themselves.”
However, the essence of this team remains the foursome of Hamilton, 30; forward Tayshaun Prince, 28; point guard Chauncey Billups, 32; and center Rasheed Wallace, 34. They are the only remaining players from the 2004 championship team.
“They’re getting up in age a little bit,” Legler said, “but, if you look at them and the rest of the Eastern Conference, they’re still going to win 50-plus games. Hamilton, Prince and Billups are still in their prime.”
“This is a totally different team from ‘04,” Hamilton said. “We just happened to win a title so early. People didn’t expect that. We won one, and it was great, but, if you look at all the great teams that came through the league, they didn’t do it with a bunch of 25-year-olds.
“They were 28, 32. So I think we have a lot more years in us.”
