The Detroit Pistons have perfected the art of the tank

The Detroit Pistons have finally entered the rebuilding phase after trying to kick the can down the road for far too many years. Ownership and management saw the writing on the wall last season and pieced together what the rest of us had long known; it was time to stop pushing for eighth-seed berths and two games of home playoff gate revenue and hit the reset button.

And did they ever hit the reset button. Between the end of last season and the beginning of this season, new general manager Troy Weaver turned over most of the roster with only four players remaining: Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose, Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk and Sekou Doumbouya.

How the Detroit Pistons have perfected the art of the tank

Rebuilds have taken a variety of shapes and forms in the NBA. There’s The Process undertaken by the Philadelphia 76ers that was preemptively aborted by both the NBA and the team’s ownership, and there’s the kind of success that comes from being the home of Hollywood, like that of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Sometimes teams draft so well, the upswing of their rebuild is practically underway by the time the decision to start over is made, like the Memphis Grizzlies. And then you have the Detroit Pistons.

Whether this perfectly crafted tank was all part of Weaver’s master plan or things just fell into place, the Pistons are the perfect tanking team. They’re a mix of youngsters trying to break into consistent rotation minutes like Sekou Doumbouya, Isaiah Stewart and Saddiq Bey, and veterans bound and determined to make them work for their opportunities, like Blake Griffin, Mason Plumlee and Wayne Ellington.

This internal competition spills into external competition. As the youngsters battle for their chance and the veterans ensure that nothing is given, only earned, the Pistons have become a nightmare for opponents.

They have the third-worst record in the NBA at 5-14, ahead of just the Washington Wizards and Minnesota Timberwolves, but their wins are against a murderer’s row of opponents. They’ve beaten the Boston Celtics (10-7 record), the Phoenix Suns (9-8), the Miami Heat (6-12 with a million injuries), and their most recent two wins have come against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers who are a combined 27-12.

There are reasons for this, beyond the exceptional try-hardness that the Pistons unleash on everybody they face. For starters, teams that don’t take the Pistons seriously have been doomed to regret it. It’s an established fact that if you’re having an off night, the Pistons will make you work for everything and pay for your mistakes.

With the third-worst record, nine teams have a worse net rating than their -2.7. Wins and losses are what matter in the NBA, but net rating is generally a better indicator of team quality than its record, and the Pistons are in danger of actually winning too much and moving out of the bottom three in the lottery order and reducing the value of their draft pick.

Second, Ellington’s revelation as a 3-point marksman has been spectacular. It’s no secret that he can shoot the ball, but he’s torching the cover off it lately. On the season, Wayne Ellington is shooting 50-of-94 from 3-point range, a clip of 53.2 percent. When you’re hitting at this rate, it doesn’t matter if shooting 3s is all you do, just keep shooting them.

Finally, nobody knew that Jerami Grant would become a legitimate star in this league when he signed a widely-criticized three-year, $60 million deal with the Detroit Pistons in the offseason. Of course, Weaver would probably tell you he knew, and maybe he did. Considering what Grant has shown us in the first quarter of the season, I’ll be the last to suggest that Weaver just got lucky with Grant. After all, Troy Weaver came to Detroit with the reputation of being an elite talent evaluator, and it appears that we’re seeing that in action.

Grant gambled on himself, and Troy Weaver gambled on Jerami Grant. It’s a thing of beauty to behold, and as the Detroit Pistons keep slaying giants on the way to whatever lowly record they end up with, you can see the bones of the very kind of competitive team every fan base would want to root for.