The ultimate team has fallen victim to the ultimate tease.
Hubris run amok has pushed the Pistons to the edge of a collapse considered unthinkable barely three weeks ago.
They believed there wasn't a force in the NBA determined enough or selfless enough to take them down, but that blinded them from the only enemy capable of defeating them -- themselves.
The players are at fault because the two guys waiting to cash in contractually on a legacy of four straight Eastern Conference finals, two straight NBA Finals and one world championship --
team co-captains Ben Wallace and Chauncey Billups -- stand at polar opposites in believing what competitive philosophy best suits the team.
The coach is at fault because he needlessly burned out his starters during the regular season in this antiquated pursuit of home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. What good is having a Game 7 at home in the NBA Finals if your team has little reserve left in the tank to get there?
The front office is at fault because it smugly believed wasting the No. 2 overall selection in 2003 on Darko Milicic wouldn't immediately hurt this team's championship chances because of the quality and commitment of its veterans. But they failed in providing their coaches with sufficient young talent that Flip Saunders and his predecessor, Larry Brown, could trust enough to develop and eventually contribute off the bench.
Forget for a moment about how they could have had Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony instead of Darko. It's an old argument and it's pointless raising everyone's blood pressure even higher while watching Wade take over this Eastern Conference final with an assortment of shots that would make Michael Jordan blush.
Fast forward to the latter stages of the first round. They could have had Wake Forest small forward Josh Howard, another Tayshaun Prince-in-waiting, a solid, reliable player who was exposed to a high level of competition playing four years in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Instead, the Pistons went the international route once again with Carlos Delfino, who is counting the minutes until he's out of Detroit.
CRANS RIGHT AGAIN
Howard has become a key component to Dallas' drive to the franchise's first NBA Finals.
There's plenty of culpability for the Pistons' plight. And though the concept of them winning three straight against the Heat isn't implausible, they would barely have enough mental strength remaining to even take one step out of the path of the bulldozer plowing down upon them at full speed from the Western Conference in the Finals.
The irony is that this is the team that was supposedly devoid of the divas that brought down the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004.
But it's ego that's inspiring the players' collective tossing of Saunders under the bus with their sniping about his in-game decisions and overall concentration on offense as opposed to defense.
It's ego because Ben Wallace still considers himself the face of this franchise, deserving of a chorus of thank-yous and a free-agent contract this summer fat enough to dwarf Shaquille O'Neal. But if they can't trust him to make half of his free throws, then he has no cause for griping.
It's ego because Billups appreciates Saunders, who removed the shackles from him offensively. He blossomed into a legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate, but the scorer within him devoured the distributor that's essential for maintaining the ball movement and scoring balance.
Now he's salivating at the prospect of opting out of his blue-light special contract next summer and testing the waters for a potential "max-out" deal.
And the big money is more likely to come when they call you Mr. Big Shot instead of Mr. Big Dish.
All of this is disappointing, because this team supposedly stood for something. The Pistons
were the counterpoint to selfishness, the caretakers to the long-forgotten ideal that team commitment always outshines the individual agenda.
They certainly aren't dead yet. If they win tonight at the Palace, the series pretty much comes down to a Game 6 in Miami on Friday, with the heat on the Heat. But regardless of the Pistons' fate, the ideal of them as a special collection possessing a special conviction has died.
We now realize they're divas just like everybody else.
Contact DREW SHARP at 313-223-4055 or
dsharp@freepress.com.
