All work, no play

The Detroit Pistons may not be much fun to work, but everyone does his job and does it well. Oh, and they win. What more do you want?

-- by Michael Bradley

SLAM magazine, issue 67 - March 2003

Get out those lunch pails. Dust off the hard hats. Pay your union dues.

Lace up the boots. eat a good breakfast. We're going to work.

No other NBA city has a team that so closely reps its personality than does Detroit. The Pistons have adopted "Goin' to work. Every night." as their marketing slogan, and it might as well be a team mantra. The coaches preach it. The players believe it. The fans love it. Pistons games are rarely works of art, but the outcomes can be quite beautiful. Last year may have been short on basketball ballet - that 66-64 playoff loss to Boston comes to mind - but 50 wins and a trip to the second round of the playoffs (Detroit's longest postseason journey since '91) were undeniable. And in the Motor City, where the ultimate grind-it-out sport - hockey - is worshiped like some sort of toothless Great White North religion, Pistonball is very well-received.

"We're willing to come out and play hard and defend people," says Ben Wallace, the dictionary definition of a power forward. "It's still the same as last year- hard work and defense."

Not that this is anything new. The Pistons made their bones as a rough-and-tumble outfit. Remember the "Bad Boys" title teams from '89 and '90? Nothing subtle there. When Bad-Boy-era enforcer and current Detroit TV analyst Bill Laimbeer walks into an arena, the refs T him up out of habit. Rick Mahorn, perhaps the baddest Bad Boy of them all, was in the house for a November tilt with New Orleans, and I swear I saw him blind-pick a popcorn vendor and waddle off, snickering. Detroit loved that team, perhaps because the rest of the country loathed it. And the city could relate. let's face it, the Motor City isn't seen by most as a vacation spot. Popular as 8 Mile was at the box office, it probably won't do much good for the local tourismo board.

Not that Detroit isn't making a comeback. The Lions' Ford Field and the Tigers Comerica Park are state of the art, even if the teams that inhabit them are virtually unwatchable. And when you want basketball, take a drive fast, particularly around game time, when the Chrysler plant is letting out, and the traffic is beastly. The night the Pistons took on Nawlins, plenty of fans fell prey to the I-75 shuffle, and the game began in a quiet, half-filled Palace. It also began with Detroit intent upon giving the home fans a look at the fugly play that had led to a 114.75 loss to Dallas three nights earlier in the final game of a five-game road swing. "I look at that and say we went home one night too early," Wallace said before the Hornets game. Maybe, but as Nawlins raced to a 15-2 lead, it seemed as if the Pistons were still lost in space.

Enter Rip Hamilton. Acquired in an offseason trade with Washington for Jerry Stackhouse, Hamilton is a better fit for the Piston offense, even if nobody in Detroit wants to say so. Stack was a break 'em down wing, while the kinetic Hamilton zips around screen after screen in search of openings for his midrange game. Against Nawlins, he found plenty of them, scoring 14 first-quarter points and a single-handedly pulling the Pistons out of thathole. "Rip can catch fire," Wallace says. "He puts points up in bunches."

Thus rescued, the Pistons went to work. New Orleans scored 29 first quarter points but managed just 58 the rest of the way. Meanwhile, Detroit was doing its group-participation thing en route to the 93-87 win. Defensive specialist Michael Curry drilled threes. Wallace, as usual, rebounded and defended with gusto. Chucky Atkins filled in for regular pg Chauncey Billups (suspended for throwing a ball at a ref in Dallas) and went for 20 points and 7 assists. Jon barry, leading the Alternatorz, scored 17 off the bench. A typical Detroit win. Everybody contributed. Everybody defended. Everyone but the Hornets left the Palace smiling.

"We say we're an ulsefish team, so if you find yourself in a role where it's not the role you would like, you have to do what's best for the team, " Clifford Robinson says. "You continue to work, try to getbetter at what it is that you're trying to do and keep your head up."

Practice is over, but Rip won't leave the court. I want to talk. So does he, but not to me. He's out there with Curry, the man he calls "the comedian, an old jokester." And Rip is trying to take the vet to school. he's explaining, in no uncertain terms, how there's nothing Curry can do to stop him. "Any time I want," Rip says later. Hamilton may be so thins that his platinum "CV" necklace (homage to his hometown of Coatesville, PA) looks like it might break him in half, but he's not soft.

"With his speed and athletic ability, he's able to get wherever he wants to get out there," Billups says. "He's not the strongest guy, but he's so fast that the strong guys can't lock and hold onto him. He is just so fast and athletic that he gest any shot he wants any time."

The decision to shop Stack shocked some... but not others. "I played in Phoenix, and they traded Jason Kidd, "Robinson says. "Who'd think anybody would trade Kidd? Rip doesn't have Stack's explosiveness., but he may be a better fit for the Pistons, since he's perfectly happy taking 10-15 shots a game. (After putting up nine in the first quarter against Nawlins, he finsihed the game 6 of 13.) And though he isn't a defend-to-the-death type, Hamilton has worked to embrace the Pistons' ethic at the other end. "He definitely uses all his fouls," Wallace says. "When you use all your fouls, you gotta be doing some type of work."

Wallace knows about work. With a physique that may well be the NBA's scariest, Big ben is perfectly happy to be "the guy who doesn't need the ball." As Rip says, "When you've got a guy like Ben back there, a security blanket." Last year, Wallace led the L in boards and blocks, one of only four players in NBA history to do so. He was named Defensive POY and earned a spot on the U.S. World Championship team. In the process, he took the "role player" concept big time.

"I think he forced people to recognize him," Curry says. "His first year here [Wallace arrived, along with Atkins, in the sign-and-trade deal for Grant Hill in the summer of '00], he had an unbelievable season. And we were a poor team. It's easier to defend on a better team. What he did his first year was so remarkable, but people didn't want to pay him any attention, so he sort of forced them to, just totally dominating games throughout the year. Once they started paying attention, they realized all he brings to the game. He doesn't score 20, but the reason some of our guys can score 20 is because of a lot of the things that he does."

Curry doesn't score 20, either. But he starts almost every game. Why? Because he plays defense. The Hornets' Jamal Mashburn had 13 in the first quarter aganins Detroit but finished with just four more. Curry did that. His road to the NBA was long and hard and included Euroball, the CBA and USBL. But as long as teams like Detroit commit to D, Curry will have a job. "He's got the though assignment, almost night-in and night-out, going up against probably the best player on the other team, at the two or three spot, never getting a break, "Wallace says. "He grinds it out. He doesn't complain. He just goes out and does his job."

If anybody on the Pistons had a license to bitch, it would be Atkins. After starting at pg the past two years, he was pushed aside by Billups, the former TWolf who signed last summer. After his strong performance against New Orleans, he was philosophical. "I think guys here want to win so bad," he says. "Sometimes it's easy to go out there and try to do things on your own. In order to win, we need each other." Of course, Atkins has finished some games this year, leaving Billups on the bench - but he hasn't griped, either. Like we said, one big, happy family.

Don't get it wrong. There are egos in the Pistons locker room - this is the NBA. It's just that '01-02 Coach of the Year Rick Carlisle and GM Joe Dumars have done a great job collecting players who realiza winning is what matters. It helps that many of the components couldn't be big-time, shoe contract types if they wanted to be. Jon Barry is a tremendous long-rage shooter, but he isn't going to break people down off the dribble. Corliss Williamson has improved his outside game and become a better passer. But he's a 6-5 post man (even if the media guide says 6-7). Still, he can score or feed the long-range shooters when things get too congested inside. That's a great weapon - at the right time.

And then there's Uncle Cliffy. Robinson was once thought of as a me-first type. Now, the 14-year veteran is a calming presence. A leader. He plays three different positions. Comes off the bench without a peep. He's a strong defender and a willing mentor to the Pistons' younger seven footers, Yugoslav Zeljko rebraca and Mehmet Okur, a Turk who regularly attracts a smal passel of fellow countryman to the Palace. Indeed, Cliff's a perfect metaphor for this team. Robinson could be scoring more. He could also be losing more. In detroit, he has sacrificed the numbers for the blue-collar life. For a real shot at the Central Division title. And he's enjoying it. "We're still trying to hang our hats on playing tough defense and being an unselfish team," robinson says.

Still trying, meaning there's still work to be done. And you know this is just the group to do it.