The distance between Ford Field and Little Caesars Arena is about a half-mile, perhaps a 10-minute walk through the sports corridor of downtown Detroit.
But the figurative distance between two of the neighboring tenants can be measured in light years or, more literally, in franchise life cycles.
On the football field at Ford, the Lions are 11-4 and divisional champions. In an astonishingly swift rebuild, they are legitimate contenders in the impending tournament for the Super Bowl. It would be their first National Football League championship since 1957, the year the Pistons moved from Fort Wayne to Detroit’s Olympia Stadium.
Just up Woodward Avenue is the Pistons’ current basketball floor at the LCA, where the Pistons reached the record book Tuesday night by losing their 27th consecutive game, the most in a single season by any team in the history of the National Basketball Association.
This one was won by the Brooklyn Nets, 118-112, an entertaining show before a big crowd in the hockey barn of the Red Wings. Most of the basketball game was fast, furious, and frantic, with great ebb and flow.
Paced by Cade Cunningham’s 41 points, the Pistons’ fans alternated recent chants of “Sell the team!” to bursts of “Let’s Go Pistons!” and “Dee-Fence!” for at least one night. But, as the home team faded at the end, the chants of “Sell the team!” returned.
This should concern owner Tom Gores, the Beverly Hills billionaire who bought the team in 2011 and has built it into the worst-performing franchise in a four-team town and the worst in a 30-team league.
If Gores invested his Platinum Equity funds with this sort of return, he’d have to change the first word of the firm to “Tin.”
In an unusual online news conference with some of the news media late last week, Gores — after visiting his players and their leaders personally — tried to explain what has gone wrong in the fourth season under General Manager Troy Weaver and the first season under Coach Monty Williams.
His answer — according to a transcript published by the Free Press — showed a man seeking a clue and grasping for both words and vision.
“I actually talked to the players about this the other day, with all the losses here, what we still have is a very good future,” Gores said. “No. 1, we have an amazing set of young players. High character, high talent. This set of players, and I know them individually and I saw them the other day, we’re in a great spot with our young talent . . . I’m willing to do whatever it takes for this organization to be successful. As much as the vision feels blurry to me . . . “
His words sounded just as blurry. Someone then asked Gores specifically if this was a vote of confidence for Weaver and Williams.
Weaver hired Williams before the season although Williams first turned down the job. Weaver made Williams the NBA’s highest-paid coach at more than $13 million a year. His record is 2-28.
“Firstly, I didn’t say there wouldn’t be any change,” Gores said. “You should make sure you don’t hold me to that. We require change. We’re not doing well.”
While it is noble that the team owner speaks to the press and public during this historic struggle, it is strange that Weaver has nothing to say. His coach speaks and so does his star player.
After the game, on the Bally Sports telecast, Williams said Cunningham “talked passionately” to his teammates after the historic defeat.
“Nobody wants this kind of thing attached to them,” said Williams, whose contract reaches at least six years and maybe more. “It weighs on us every day.”
On the same telecast, Cunningham said he told his teammates “Don’t jump off the boat.”
“We’ve got to stay together,” Cunningham said. “Push each other. Hold each other accountable. There’s nothing positive about this situation.”
Noting both the positive and negative aspects of Cunningham’s performance Tuesday night, Bally Sports’ analyst Greg Kelser hinted ominously that Cunningham — the top draft pick of 2021 — seemed disinterested in the first half when he scored only four points and committed three fouls.
“I don’t know if the losing has weighed so significantly upon him, but he looked pretty lethargic to me,” Kelser said, referring to Cunningham in the first half. “You just hope that a guy like that doesn’t become too negative . . . You just don’t want to lose a guy like that, lose him mentally, have him withdraw.”
Kelser specifically faulted Cunningham for a second-half shot-clock violation when he was unaware of the few seconds remaining coming out of a timeout.
There were other self-defeating moments from a team in a devastating slump. Bojan Bogdanovic — who scored 23 points — took a technical foul for slamming the ball to protest an official’s call.
Finally, with 7.5 seconds remaining and Detroit down by just six with a faint chance to perhaps tie, their last possession fizzled when Alec Burks threw a cross court pass over the head of Jaden Ivey into the seats, where booing fans rapidly headed for the exits.
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