O Star, Where Art Thou?

You know what the Detroit Pistons have? 

A good coach. 

Good players. 

Good chemistry.

Deep bench. 

And do you know how much these things matter when your trying to win a big game and get to the Finals or even win a championship?

They don't.

What's the common denominator in last handful of NBA champions?

A GREAT, and I mean GREAT player. Not a Chauncey Billups, a Rip Hamilton, or even Sultan Rasheed Wallace. And what KILLS me is how close we were to having this guy. Rewind to the 2003 NBA Draft. Cleveland had the 1st pick and took LeBron, who has in his first 5 years led a team to the finals with a supporting cast that would make that woman owner from "Major League" proud. Denver, Toronto and Miami had picks 3-5 and took Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade, respectively. The first two have had great success so far in becoming bona fide superstars and the tea leave readings look quite bright for them, and all D-Wade has done is entrench himself on the short-list of the best clutch players and, oh yeah, lead his team to a championship in year 3. Now how had the 2nd pick, you ask? Well, my friend, that would be none other than the Pistons. They were coming off an Eastern Conference Finals loss (shocker) and by some crazy gift of destiny, landed the 2nd pick in the draft with a crop of players some critics said were the best in quite a while, which has turned out to be more than the case. Seems like to pick would be a no-brainer, right?

Wrong. 

Out of all these college studs, the Pistons decided to go with a big, dorky white guy from Serbia & Madagascar or some crazy European place because his film seemed to show great potential. FILM. FILM. Not the more acceptable practice of ACTUALLY SEEING THE GUY IN PERSON. FILM. And no one batted an eye. This guy was a sure thing. And far from me to criticize, I jumped on ye ole bandwagon and belized the hype that this guy was the next Dirk Nowitzki. Actually more of the next Nikoloz Tshikivili. Well the last names rhyme, that must be where we screwed up. Well Piston Nation, I hoped we've learned our lesson. In a twisted way, the good news is that our good players now are getting older and we are due for a down year and a lottery pick. Hopefully we can turn that into the next franchise cornerstone. I hope we can find this guy somewhere. 

And yes I realize I probably totally butchered Tishkavigli's name, my bad.