Detroit Pistons: Doom, Gloom, and Rebirth in the Motor City

Eight consecutive losses...

Below .500, after the All-Star break...

No chemistry...

May miss the playoffs...

No longer elite...

Such is the dirge of the Detroit Pistons and their fans, as the playoffs creep closer and the Pistons continue to descend to a lower seed.

It's the end of an era, for better or for worse.

The Pistons are certainly no longer "Beasts of the East," and it seems that they are also poised to give up their nearly traditional post as Central Division Champions and Eastern Conference Gatekeeper.

Notching 50 wins a season was great and making it to the conference finals every year was exciting—before it became disappointing.

Without question, it is very upsetting to any Pistons' fan that this run seems to be coming to an end.

Many will point to the Chauncey Billups—Allen Iverson trade as the Pistons' undoing and they may be right.

For certain, the Denver Nuggets seem to have "won" the trade.

This is a simple calculation. After the trade, the Nuggets improved, while the Pistons declined—both changes were drastic.

Joe Dumars tried to make a perennial title contender into a title winner one more time, and it isn't going to work. He made a mistake.

Or did he?

Take a long look at the 2008-09 Pistons.

On opening day, the team was identical in almost every way to the 2007-08 team that lost to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals: Four guys who play good team basketball, and a large black silhouette with a question mark on his face in the center.

Not good enough.

According to nearly anyone, the Celtics had actually improved their championship squad from last season, between front office moves and the development of their young players. Their record, thus far, this season, backs up the claim.

It is no secret that the core of the Pistons, their coherence, talked about almost with boredom by TV announcers everywhere, was rapidly losing ground on the rest of the league. They were barely treading water while the Cavaliers, Magic, Celtics, and Lakers bounded forward.

What this meant to the Billups-led Pistons is that fans could circle Game Six of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals as the end of the season, again, and every season until the bottom fell out.

To really know where the Pistons currently stand, just read the context.

Young guys with raw talent on the roster, getting primed for future starting roles, a new head coach, and a veteran team leader getting shipped out, primarily to clear cap space.

That's right, Motown faithful: The Detroit Pistons are rebuilding.

The Iverson trade was a clever ruse by Dumars, a chance to rebuild without a total team collapse. He is a quality player, capable of keeping the Pistons decent, perhaps even playoff-bound.

But, his contract is up after this season, along with Rasheed Wallace's. In their place will sit millions of dollars in salary cap space. Those millions are there to build a new core or rebuild, if you will.

I know that this is a confusing concept, since rebuilding is usually accompanied by a 30-win season. But under the noses of the Pistons' faithful, Dumars has designated this as the Pistons' rebuilding season, and while the team has certainly seen a decline, they have only declined to the middle of the pack.

In the Pistons' current state, they can be a top-tier contender next season with an offseason move or two. Good drafting and smart cap management have allowed the Pistons to rebuild on the fly, without descending to the depths of the league first.

Dumars is in the process of cheating the NBA Circle of Life.

Pistons' fans, be patient. Though it all seems like doom and gloom now, it won't be long before you get to witness a rebirth from a team that never really died.