Former Detroit Pistons beat writers share memories of their days with the 'Bad Boys'

https://www.mlive.com/pistons/2014/03/former_detroit_pistons_beat_wr.html

Updated: Mar. 28, 2014, 12:07 p.m.|

Published: Mar. 28, 2014, 11:07 a.m.

By Brendan Savage | bsavage@mlive.com

AUBURN HILLS – Two of the men who followed the Detroit Pistons 1989 and 1990 championship teams as closely as anyone don't remember them as being a dirty team.

Physical? Oh yeah.

But not dirty, despite what Michael Jordan might have said or the message their "Bad Boys" moniker sent to the rest of the NBA. It was the Bad Boys image that perpetuated the myth that the Pistons were a dirty team and often overshadowed their immense talents.

If anybody deserves the blame – or credit, depending on your perspective – for the Pistons getting branded as a dirty team, it was the people in the club's front office. That's according to former Pistons beat writers Steve Addy and Dean Howe.

Addy and Howe shared some of their Bad Boys memories with MLive as the Pistons prepare to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1989 championship with a reunion during tonight's game against the Miami Heat at The Palace.

"'Dirty team' is sort of a blanket assertion I'm not sure I would lay on them," said Addy, the Pistons beat writer for The Oakland Press from 1987-99. "There were definitely dirty plays ... particularly from (Bill) Laimbeer and (Rick) Mahorn and even Isiah (Thomas) every once in a while.

"I think the organization, they tried to blame the league (by saying) 'The league promoted the Bad Boys thing. That wasn't us.' The organization saw a chance to sort of brand themselves and make a lot of money off it. Sell a lot of T-shirts, which they did.

"So a couple years later, when the league sort of cracked down on that physical play, the Pistons often played innocent like the league promoted the Bad Boys. That was sort of disingenuous to me because the organization made a lot of money off that whole Bad Boys thing. I don't think they were innocent bystanders."

Howe, a beat writer from 1987-93 for Booth Newspapers – which eventually became the MLive Media Group – agrees that the Pistons weren't a dirty team. But he says the image presented by the organization fed into that line of thinking around the basketball world.

Around the NBA, Bill Laimbeer was perhaps the most disliked of the Pistons "Bad Boys."

"The team was at fault for trying to pan that off on the public," Howe said. "They were a physical team but not a dirty team. They really weren't. I knew this: You didn't drive the middle with Mahorn and Laimbeer in there. They would knock you down or foul you.

"But they weren't a dirty team, no doubt about it."

Both Addy and Howe agreed that there isn't really one memory that sticks out from that championship season. It got to the point where it was almost a foregone conclusion the Pistons would win their first crown.

The Pistons had lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1988 NBA Finals so when they made it back to the championship series the following year and beat the Lakers, nobody was really surprised – especially after Magic Johnson and Byron Scott went down with hamstring injuries before the end of Game 1.

"In a way, it was almost anticlimactic," said Addy, who is now a copy editor for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "The Pistons at that point were probably the better team anyway and you could see they were going to win this thing.

"The Finals against the Blazers in '90 were way more exciting and had a lot more storylines to them."

The Pistons won in '89 after losing to the Lakers in Game 7 of the 1988 NBA Finals, when they took a 3-2 series lead back to Los Angeles.

"They probably should have won in '88," said Howe, who retired as columnist for The Flint Journal after he left the Pistons beat. "There were several phantom foul calls (including one) on Bill Laimbeer guarding Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the last minute of the game and the Lakers went ahead and won.

"I thought the Pistons had the better team. They probably should have own three in a row."

Those two championship teams were full of characters and strong personalities but the unquestioned leader was Thomas. He was not only the cornerstone of the Pistons' rise to prominence as an NBA power but was one of the league's top players, strongest personalities and a genuine superstar.

"The thing I remember about that team more than anything is their competitiveness," Howe said. "Isiah Thomas was the best leader that they ever had. In my mind, he's the best Piston ever. He had no fear. Those guys played hurt a lot.

"I think Isiah was a consummate leader. On and off the floor, he sort of ruled that team. I like Isiah. He burned a lot of bridges in his post-career so a lot of people don't like him. But I admire him for where he came from. South side of Chicago, one of 13 children, graduated from college.

"He came from the wrong side of the tracks but he turned himself into a great basketball player and great leader. I admire him for that."

Former Detroit Pistons great Dennis Rodman (right) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watch a basketball game between players from the United States and North Korea.

Since the Bad Boys days, nobody has made a name for himself – good or bad – quite like Rodman.

He went on to win three more championships with the Bulls but these days is best known for his often-bizarre behavior such as showing up for a book signing wearing a wedding dress, appearing on several reality shows, battles with substance abuse and his recent trips to North Korea.

"That's a guy you just can't figure out," said Addy, who was 24 when he started on the Pistons beat. "Now I see him going to North Korea and I'm thinking, 'What is going on with this world. Dennis Rodman going to North Korea to do international diplomacy?'"

The Rodman Howe sees today isn't the Rodman he knew when he was covering the Pistons. There was certain innocence to Rodman back then.

"When he first came into the league, he was very immature," Howe said. "He was like an adolescent. He was in his mid-20s. He used to hang out with teenagers all the time. Younger people. He didn't communicate very well. But he had Chuck Daly (who) sort of guided him. That was his surrogate father."

Speaking of Daly, how could any look back at the 'Bad Boys' be complete without memories of the man the players affectionately called Daddy Rich because of his fancy suits and perfectly coiffed hair?

After getting fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers with a 9-32 record in 1981-82, Daly was hired by the Pistons in 1983 and spent nine seasons in Detroit before earning a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Howe laughed when recalling the day he and the late Corky Meinecke, another Pistons' beat writer, had lunch with Daly while they were covering a road game.

"He has this image of being Mr. Dapper Dan," Howe said. "Off the court, he wasn't that way. We were in Washington one time and he took us out to lunch at a crab cake place in Silver Springs, Md. He liked crab cake. (It was) a real dive and everybody knew him.

"He had a sweat suit on. He was shoving these crab cakes in his mouth and talking all the time and spitting all over us. If fans could have seen him then. He was a great guy."