{"id":1741,"date":"2007-10-30T06:20:24","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T11:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/detroit-pistons\/"},"modified":"2007-10-30T06:20:24","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T11:20:24","slug":"detroit-pistons","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/detroit-pistons","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Pistons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record<\/strong>
\n46-36 (Tom), 54-28 (Gil)<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Record<\/strong>
\n53-29<\/p>\n

Gil’s Commentary<\/strong>
\nRaise your hand: who thought that Rasheed Wallace’s attempt at beating Tim Donaghy’s ass would turn out to be justified? Yeah, about as many of us who thought that he’d be the difference-maker for a chamionship team. Life’s funny like that.<\/p>\n

In an ongoing testament to how crappy the east has been this decade, the Pistons continue to win pretty much by memory. They’ve added a couple of rotation guys in the last two seasons, but this is really a team built for the playoffs, with the Big 4 — Billups, Hamilton, Prince, Rasheed — posting around 40 minutes\/night, unless they can get a blowout on. They didn’t miss a beat without Ben Wallace last year because Wallace was old, had no offense, and was never a good one-on-one defender.<\/p>\n

I imagine they’ll start off strong, lose interest during the season, and figure to turn it on before the playoffs, so they can eke out homecourt advantage over the Celtics and\/or Bulls. They’ve withered in the past two seasons against strong defenses, so this might be the year they got knocked out a round early.<\/p>\n

Rejoinder From Tom<\/strong>
\nI figure I’ll be watching a lot of this year’s Detroit squad play this year’s Philly squad when I’m in Hell, so I’m going to change the channel whenever they’re on.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Comics Connection<\/strong>
\nStick figure master Matt Feazell lives in nearby Hamtramck.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Pharma Connection<\/strong>
\nPfizer has pretty extensive operations in Kalamazoo, MI, as part of their acquisition of Pharmacia. Unfortunately, they closed a bunch of research facilities in Ann Arbor recently, which led one of the local papers to call me for comment.<\/p>\n

The Bottom Line<\/strong>
\nThe core of this team was good enough to get to the eastern finals again last year, but Flip “Bronzer Medal” Saunders’ awful coaching left ’em running on no cylinders. Nothing’s gonna change. –GR<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predicted Record 46-36 (Tom), 54-28 (Gil) Last Year’s Record 53-29 Gil’s Commentary Raise your hand: who thought that Rasheed Wallace’s attempt at beating Tim Donaghy’s ass would turn out to be justified? Yeah, about as many of us who thought that he’d be the difference-maker for a chamionship team. Life’s funny like that. In an … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Detroit Pistons”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1713,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"nba0708index.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1741","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4C7K-s5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1745,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/season-honors","url_meta":{"origin":1741,"position":0},"title":"Season Honors","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"TEAM HONORS NBA Championship Tom: Phoenix Over Miami Craig: Spurs over Dallas and then some eastern conference team, say the Pistons Gil: Spurs beat Phoenix, wallop the Bulls. Surprise Playoff Teams Tom: Charlotte, Portland Craig: NJ and Lakers Gil: Milwaukee, Lakers (post-Kobe trade) Surprise Non-Playoff Teams Tom: Golden State, Washington\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1463,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007\/nba-2006-2007-playoff-previews","url_meta":{"origin":1741,"position":1},"title":"2006-2007 Playoffs","author":"Gil","date":"April 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction I'm told that the Phoenix Suns are the odds maker's second pick behind the Mavericks to win the NBA Championship. The Spurs are third. Obviously the Western Conference merely has to show up and they'll be handed the trophy by either Detroit or Miami. But I don't care who\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007\/nba-2006-2007-playoff-previews#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1181,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1741,"position":2},"title":"NBA Preview 2006-2007","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch! ATLANTIC Boston Celtics by Tom Spurgeon New Jersey Nets by Gil Roth New York Knicks by Gil Roth Philadelphia 76ers by Adam Taxin Toronto Raptors by Sam Richezza CENTRAL Chicago Bulls by Tom Spurgeon Cleveland Cavaliers by Tom Spurgeon Detroit Pistons by Tom Spurgeon Indiana Pacers\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-2006-2007#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1739,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/chicago-bulls","url_meta":{"origin":1741,"position":3},"title":"Chicago Bulls","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Predicted Record 54-28 (Tom), 58-24 (Gil) Last Year's Record 49-33 Gil's Commentary Everybody thinks they're going to trade for Kobe Bryant and pair him up with Luol Deng to form a Jordan-Pippen combo. I like Deng's game, but he's no Scottie. If they don't go through with a trade, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1713,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview","url_meta":{"origin":1741,"position":4},"title":"NBA 2007-08 Preview","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for the race (well, marathon) to see who will keep the Spurs from repeating THIS time! Which is to say, \"The new NBA season is upon us!\" Sure, the league's been pummeled lately, what with the referee-gambling scandal, the Knicks' ugly sexual harassment suit, and the uncompetitive finals.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1755,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/tip-off-interview","url_meta":{"origin":1741,"position":5},"title":"Tip-Off Interview","author":"Gil","date":"October 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"To celebrate the Tipoff of the NBA season, I did an interview yesterday on the Adam Taxin Radio Show on WNWR 1540 AM in Philadelphia. You can download the audio (mp3, about about 3mb) or just read this transcript: Adam Taxin: The baseball season ended not much more than 24\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2007-08-preview\/tip-off-interview#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1741\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}