Red-Hot Pistons Chase 1996 Bulls Into History
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Entering this season, the Detroit Pistons had a simple, seemingly attainable goal: to finish with the best record in the league so that they would play the deciding game of any playoff series on their home court. Nearly a third of the way into the season, it’s clear that they set the bar too low.
At 23-3 heading into tonight’s showdown with Miami, Detroit is off to one of the hottest starts in NBA history. Do they stand a chance of making a serious run at the all-time mark, Chicago’s 72-10 record in 1996?
Intuitively, it seems improbable. Those Bulls were distinct beneficiaries of a unique confluence of circumstances. Michael Jordan was still at his peak, and although he was 32 – an age at which many perimeter players’ skill sets decline precipitously – he had spent most of the previous two seasons away from the pounding of the hardwood courts to prove that hitting a baseball isn’t as easy as it looks.
Dennis Rodman, added to bolster the team’s previously anemic rebounding, kept his head screwed on for most of the season and led the league in rebounding with astonishing 18.2 boards per 40 minutes. The Bulls also got a combined 32 points and 10 rebounds a night from the two-headed swingman monster of Toni Kukoc and Scottie Pippen. And all of this took place as the Bulls’ primary Eastern Conference rivals – Miami and the Knicks – went through down seasons. Are the planets so perfectly aligned to allow Detroit to win 88% of its games?
The case for the Pistons is compelling. The Pistons, a perennial defensive powerhouse, have undergone an offensive renaissance under new head coach Flip Saunders. Last season, they ranked 16th in Offensive Efficiency (points per 100 possessions) at 106; this season they lead the league at 114.8. Last season, they were beset by injuries and illness … not to their players, but to coach Larry Brown, who missed 17 games with hip and bladder ailments; they went 9-8 in those games en route to a 54-28 record.
The previous season, the Pistons were a holy terror in the league after acquiring forward Rasheed Wallace from Atlanta. With Wallace in the fold, the Pistons went 20-4 and outscored their opponents by an average of 12 points a game, a pace of victory consistent with a 72-win season.
Two years later, the Pistons starting five is the same as it was for that run – guards Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton, forwards Wallace and Tayshaun Prince, and center Ben Wallace. Like the ’96 Bulls, this starting unit is devastating because every player can fill just about every role – the guards are big enough to post up most counterparts, while the forwards can step out and shoot from the perimeter.
Plus, the bench is now stronger, fortified by recent arrivals like swingman Maurice Evans, second-year guard Carlos Delfino (who saw little action in his rookie season), and former Knick Antonio McDyess.
The first red flag for the Pistons is that their defense has slipped. Last year they finished third in Defensive Efficiency, allowing 100.8 points per 100 possessions. This year they’re 11th, allowing 105. The major difference is in rebounding.
In 2004-05, the Pistons grabbed 73% of their opponents’ missed shots, fifth best in the league, but this season that rate has dropped to 69.7%, fifth worst. It’s a decline that doesn’t make much sense, though. Rebounding numbers are usually one of the most consistent statistics year-to-year, and in their 85-70 victory over San Antonio on Christmas Day, the Pistons outboarded the Spurs, a good rebounding team, by a whopping 57-30 margin. So there’s hope for Pistons fans that the defense will return to old ferocious self.
The second red flag is margin of victory. The ’96 Bulls beat teams mercilessly, posting a 12-point averaging margin of victory. These Pistons are only (these things being relative) winning by 8.6 points a game, which predicts a spectacular, but not record-breaking, campaign.
The final red flag is the Pistons’ division. Whereas the ’96 Bulls dominated an Eastern Conference that was beginning a descent into depths that soon had people calling for playoff realignment, the current Pistons will consistently face much tougher opponents, particularly within their own division, where Cleveland, Indiana, and Milwaukee all field playoff caliber teams and Chicago shouldn’t land far from .500.With a tough slate of divisional opponents, the Pistons will need their A if not A-plus game a high percentage of the time.
Still, with those strikes against them, the Pistons, barring injury, seem assured of a win total in the mid 60s and, with more press coverage than events to cover, they may get a fair amount of attention should they maintain a record pace. If they do, it would provide a nice parallel to the ’96 Bulls, who were indicative of their celebrity-driven era, given that they were led by Jordan, the superstar of superstars as well as Rodman, everybody’s favorite class clown.
These Pistons are emblematic of the unpretentious work-pail title teams like the Spurs, the New England Patriots, and the Chicago White Sox. These are teams that disappoint the celebrity driven crowd but endear themselves permanently to the most devoted fans of great basketball.