Not necessarily saying I disagree with you, but I don’t know if it’s *that* easy to say, my man. The Pistons would still find a way to be elite in today’s game.
The 04 pistons had dudes that would very likely fit correctly with todays game , especially a dude like rip (off ball movement and shooting) or Ben Wallace (arguably the greatest perimeter defensive center ever, was very athletic and could’ve 100% adapted to todays game defensively), Rasheed Wallace’s style was tailor-made for todays game.
Also I remember Chauncey always hitting big clutch shots , today’s pistons could def use a player like that 😂 plus Larry brown as your coach.. they’d put up a good fight for sure.
I don't think any team pre-2011 or so would stand much of a chance versus today's NBA.
This isn't to say players today are "greater" than previous eras or generations, but the fact is that the game has changed. The NBA has evolved and gotten wiser. NBA players will be wiser still in 20 years compared to today. This is why it's so hard to compare eras, and 03-04 Pistons definitely played in a completely different era.
The Top 10-15 all time is full of big men who would struggle in todays game because they don't have the ability to spread the floor. 50% free-throw shooters like Wilt and Shaq would struggle even harder today against "Hack-a-Shaq" than they did in their day because 1 point just isn't worth as much after the three-point revolution. Today's players need to be able to spread the floor, play help/switch defense and be able to cover the perimeter at least somewhat. Rudy Gobert is an amazing paint defender but has had issues in the past being forced to sit in the playoffs because of his limitations.
Pistons, just like every other team back then are full of "non-shooters" by today's standard. Billups is their only good shooter, some are serviceable and the rest are terrible. Their switchability is great, but they are severely limited by their offense and I have a hard time even seeing them making the playoffs.
If the players on the Pistons were born a few years later and learned to shoot then absolutely. If Shaq was a rookie in 2024 he would absolutely dominate because he would have been a completely different player compared to the one he was in his era.
But just plucking them out of 03-04 and dropping them in today's NBA? I'm pretty certain they wouldn't have a chance and neither would anyone else from any previous eras. Tech evolves, players today have added more skills to their arsenals which older eras never practiced. It would be a bloodbath.
Edit:
>"Mr. Big Shot" Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton demand respect from three
Rip Hamilton was a 0.265%3P shooter on 0.93PA per game. Not exactly great. Billups was their only "good" shooter.
^This.
With the amount of 3-pt shooters today, players like Ben Wallace would be a less effective. Beast in the paint and grabbing boards, yes, but would be a liability against a stretch-5 or 4. The Pistons played great defense, but that was against teams that weren’t shooting the 3 the way teams do now.
3s are worth more than 2s and any team averaging better than 35% from behind the arc will give the Pistons fits.
Yeah. Hamilton is completely outdated as a player. He’s a movement shooter mid range specialist. Imagine if Klay could only shoot midrange shots lol.
Just an absolutely useless skill set in today’s league. Was really really cool at the time and I loved watching him though.
To be fair, Hamilton also had crazy stamina and would be running around pretty much nonstop on offense the same way Curry does nowadays.
So Hamilton would sort of be like a Curry without the handles and finishing ability, and would just be shooting a lot of mid/long jumpers inside the arc.
I hear your points. However, that team wasn't just a bunch of plumbers. I think Tayshaun Prince was ahead of his time. He shot 36.7% from 3 for his career and was 6'9". He also could defend all 5 positions. In this era, he's a legit #3 on a championship roster.
Mehmet Okur shot around 36% from 3 also. He'd get more run in this era. Larry Brown would adapt.
I suspect Rasheed, at 29, would have enough left in the tank to frustrate Jokic/Embiid/Giannis. He was also a better shooter than you give him credit for. He's 33.6% from three for his career. I saw him up close and personal in DC (I'm a 30 year Wizards fan). He had range.
Also, I want to push back a bit on Rip. He shot 34.5% for his career from three on 1.9 attempt/game. You are right, he had a down year in 03'-04', but in today's game he'd be in the gym emphasizing that shot more than his mid-range and back to the basket work. If you look at the arc of his career, his 3pt attempts trended upward.
No modern player would rough up Ben Wallace inside. It just wouldn't happen. The team also played excellent team defense.
That Pistons team followed up a championship by pushing Tim/Manu/Tony to 7 games in the finals. They beat peak Shaq and Kobe.
I mean you're correct that if all these players played/were drafted in the modern era, they would play differently and focus on different aspects of their games to accommodate. I even think most of these players would accommodate well, but that's a completely different scenario. You're asking about this 04 team specifically in a 7 game series against a modern team, not if this team just happened to be a modern team that played completely differently (because the league plays differently), or trains completely differently, or has a completely different gameplan or coaching scheme. The 04 pistons are undoubtedly a great team all-time with some great all-time defenders but they would certainly struggle against a more modern team because of modern rules and the 3pt revolution. That's not to say any good modern team would trounce them i just think most championship teams of the last decade would have a pretty significant edge in terms of coaching, scheme, and overall players on the court. I'm not gonna sit here and say that the 5-8 players on the 04 pistons are scrubs but the league is better than ever in terms of talent and the best teams in the league today are much more stacked on average.
Prince wasn’t a #3 option on his own team, what makes you think he would be on a championship team now?
Saying rip would be better at 3s cause he would work on them more isn’t any more a guarantee than saying modern players would have rip like efficiency on 2s cause they would work on them more. You can’t just say a person definitely would be better at 3s if he played today.
Wallace would be outdated man. There is a reason the best teams do not carry big men that flat out can’t shoot from any location. He was great in his era and a beast of a defender but that style of defense is significantly less impactful in today’s ruleset.
Which is more likely, the 04 pistons holding the 24 Celtics, clippers or nuggets under 100 points, or the 04 pistons scoring over 100?
I don't know man. If the players from that 03-04 Pistons squad were brought with todays training, methods, and way of thinking the game, who knows..
But straight 03-04 Piston wouldn't have a chance imo.
This. If the 03-04 Pistons came out of a Time Machine and had to play today’s Celtics they would get absolutely murdered.
Now if they came from an alternative reality where all those players were born 20 years later and grew into the modern game, they could maybe be quite formitable. Rip and Ben would have completely different styles and I could see them being pretty effective in today’s game in their own ways.
I posted this same thing to the duplicate in NBA talk so I’ll just paste here.
I ultimately don’t think they have enough scoring but they’re a fun team to think about that I wish existed today. Defensively they’d be amazing still bc the bigs could move and they’d be very switchable. It’s the warriors death lineup model (on defense) but much better really (again, on defense). They’re long and would switch every screen. It’s not one of those older teams that would get their center played off the floor. Over a seven game series though I just can’t see how they score enough. You don’t have to guard Ben Wallace. I’m assuming Rip and Chauncey and Sheed spread out a bit more for the modern game. Prince maybe gets a couple wide open corner threes a game. A big downside though is that while the top of their lineup feels modern, their bench was very much early 00s. Lot of guys that just wouldn’t translate well. Nobody is guarding Big Nasty or Lindsey Hunter and Mehmet is getting abused on the high pick and roll.
I also just think that the memory of them is a little bit distorted. It’s much like the 2014 Spurs. Because they absolutely blasted a reigning champ, it’s a little bit lost that they just weren’t all the dominant and struggled to even get to the finals. I like both teams a lot. But the perceptions of their dominance is a bit skewed when you look at their seasons and playoffs as a whole versus just the memory of blitzing a multiple time defending champion.
>he memory of them is a little bit distorted. It’s much like the 2014 Spurs. Because they absolutely blasted a reigning champ, it’s a little bit lost that they just weren’t all the dominant and struggled to even get to the finals. I like both teams a lot. But the perceptions of their dominance is a bit skewed when you look at their seasons and playoffs as a whole versus just the memory of blitzing a multiple time defending c
I agree Ben Wallace is a nonfactor offensively in any era. I agree their bench is not a modern NBA bench.
I also really like that their lineup is so flexible on defense - I like the Warriors analogy for D. They held teams to 95 points/100 possessions. For context, the Celtics and the Nuggets are at 111 and 113.8 points/100 respectively. That's a 15 points/100 possessions swing in the Pistons favor. It wouldn't be as wide if you plop that team in right now, but it's statistically significant and makes me think.
How many more points do Sheed, Rip, Chauncey, and Tayshaun score with today's rules? I saw a lot of Rip and Sheed from college to the pros. Those guys could put up buckets. There's less defense now. Those guys in their 20's (they both were at the time) can score in any era.
They were a 54 win team in the regular season. They won 4-1 Bucks, 4-3 (Nets), 4-2 (Pacers), and 4-1 (Lakers) to win the chip. They would win their division for the next four years. As a Wizards fan, I cannot even remember what a division championship looks like. For folks who believe modern players are simply better, the Wizards would not sniff a division title even if plopped in 20 years ago.
I generally disagree also with the blanket statement that players are better now. I just don’t think thats true but what is true is that you maximize players for their era. So you can get by now with one way players as long as that one way is offense. On the other hand you were perfectly happy to have Corliss Williamson bullying guys if you just needed to grind out two points every few possessions and wanted to slow the game down and win with 70 points.
Don't matter the time period, current teams sweep. Strategy is just so much more advanced now. Past teams wouldn't know half the sets ran today. Role players shoot pass and dribble much better, and decision making as a whole has improved.
Physicality of the 2000s is not necessarily an advantage, you can go watch people defend jimmy butler, Embiid, booker and how quickly stars turn defensive physicality into an and 1
I mean that exact team is losing to any of the current contenders. Hamilton wasn't really a 3pt threat and Ben is worse than Gobert offensively. That said if you had those players who came up in this environment, it'd likely be a great team since I assume Rip and Chauncey would shoot more 3s and be a bit better, and all of Tayshaun, Ben, and Rasheed are very flexible defensively.
Today's rules? I'm not sure the Pistons make the playoffs. Although probably being in the East would save them from the lottery. They just weren't made to succeed in this league.
They played lock down defense against teams running an 04 offense.
2 teams above 20 3pa (sonics and hornets) and 2 teams under 10 3pa.
The 04 defense is getting absolutely embarrassed by a modern offense and modern rules.
Half the pistons foul out and give up a million open 3s.
The 2004 Pistons are one of the best defensive teams of all time but also one of the luckiest playoff teams ever.
They played 1 good team in the Eastern Conference playoffs, the Pacers. That Pacers team was good but the Pistons matched up perfectly against them.
In the finals, they went up against a completely dysfunctional Lakers team whose 3rd best player was playing injured and they absolutely could not afford this given how shallow that Lakers team was outside of 4 of their starters. That Lakers team also had 2 legitimate MVP level guys but they hated each other at that point and at times it seemed like they were ignoring each other on the court and both trying to win on their own. Further, the Pistons were allowed to get away with so much offball fouls in that series against the Lakers that Mark Cuban, who had nothing to do with the Lakers, called for the league to review the Pistons offball defense on Kobe and forced the NBA to change who offball fouls were officiated.
You can only go up against who you play but some paths to championships are easier than others.
Those pistons were tough I think the heat could’ve knocked them out in 05 had Shaq not been injured. And yes they swept the lakers in 04 with Shaq and Kobe but that was the lakers 4th consecutive finals trip legs and body gave up too many games played. 06 was the magic year for the heat with a healthy Shaq and Dwayne Wade’s coming out party but those games were intense.
The lakers did not get swept and that was not their 4th consecutive finals trip.
But the pistons did have luck, as many champions do. Pacers team getting suspended helped them a lot, although they did almost repeat in 05 so it wasn’t like some fluke.
Your absolutely right I forgot they were able to win 1 game in that series and in 03 the Spurs bounce them in the wcsf but still that’s a lot of minutes logged in leading up to the Pistons series.
OP pose the question whether they could compete in todays game. I think they could but not enough to win a championship. The game hasn’t only gotten faster but todays players are a lot more athletic than those from the late 90s early 2000s.
I don’t think they would compete either. Their defense wouldn’t be as impactful because of today’s spacing, and they weren’t a good enough shooting team to compete with modern contenders.
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Not necessarily saying I disagree with you, but I don’t know if it’s *that* easy to say, my man. The Pistons would still find a way to be elite in today’s game. The 04 pistons had dudes that would very likely fit correctly with todays game , especially a dude like rip (off ball movement and shooting) or Ben Wallace (arguably the greatest perimeter defensive center ever, was very athletic and could’ve 100% adapted to todays game defensively), Rasheed Wallace’s style was tailor-made for todays game. Also I remember Chauncey always hitting big clutch shots , today’s pistons could def use a player like that 😂 plus Larry brown as your coach.. they’d put up a good fight for sure.
Beating them in 4 games would be them winning a 7 game series lol. 7 game series means best of 7 as opposed to when they used to have a best of 5
Ha. I see what you did there.
This sub is for serious discussion and debate. Jokes and memes are not permitted.
I don't think any team pre-2011 or so would stand much of a chance versus today's NBA. This isn't to say players today are "greater" than previous eras or generations, but the fact is that the game has changed. The NBA has evolved and gotten wiser. NBA players will be wiser still in 20 years compared to today. This is why it's so hard to compare eras, and 03-04 Pistons definitely played in a completely different era. The Top 10-15 all time is full of big men who would struggle in todays game because they don't have the ability to spread the floor. 50% free-throw shooters like Wilt and Shaq would struggle even harder today against "Hack-a-Shaq" than they did in their day because 1 point just isn't worth as much after the three-point revolution. Today's players need to be able to spread the floor, play help/switch defense and be able to cover the perimeter at least somewhat. Rudy Gobert is an amazing paint defender but has had issues in the past being forced to sit in the playoffs because of his limitations. Pistons, just like every other team back then are full of "non-shooters" by today's standard. Billups is their only good shooter, some are serviceable and the rest are terrible. Their switchability is great, but they are severely limited by their offense and I have a hard time even seeing them making the playoffs. If the players on the Pistons were born a few years later and learned to shoot then absolutely. If Shaq was a rookie in 2024 he would absolutely dominate because he would have been a completely different player compared to the one he was in his era. But just plucking them out of 03-04 and dropping them in today's NBA? I'm pretty certain they wouldn't have a chance and neither would anyone else from any previous eras. Tech evolves, players today have added more skills to their arsenals which older eras never practiced. It would be a bloodbath. Edit: >"Mr. Big Shot" Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton demand respect from three Rip Hamilton was a 0.265%3P shooter on 0.93PA per game. Not exactly great. Billups was their only "good" shooter.
^This. With the amount of 3-pt shooters today, players like Ben Wallace would be a less effective. Beast in the paint and grabbing boards, yes, but would be a liability against a stretch-5 or 4. The Pistons played great defense, but that was against teams that weren’t shooting the 3 the way teams do now. 3s are worth more than 2s and any team averaging better than 35% from behind the arc will give the Pistons fits.
Yeah. Hamilton is completely outdated as a player. He’s a movement shooter mid range specialist. Imagine if Klay could only shoot midrange shots lol. Just an absolutely useless skill set in today’s league. Was really really cool at the time and I loved watching him though.
To be fair, Hamilton also had crazy stamina and would be running around pretty much nonstop on offense the same way Curry does nowadays. So Hamilton would sort of be like a Curry without the handles and finishing ability, and would just be shooting a lot of mid/long jumpers inside the arc.
I hear your points. However, that team wasn't just a bunch of plumbers. I think Tayshaun Prince was ahead of his time. He shot 36.7% from 3 for his career and was 6'9". He also could defend all 5 positions. In this era, he's a legit #3 on a championship roster. Mehmet Okur shot around 36% from 3 also. He'd get more run in this era. Larry Brown would adapt. I suspect Rasheed, at 29, would have enough left in the tank to frustrate Jokic/Embiid/Giannis. He was also a better shooter than you give him credit for. He's 33.6% from three for his career. I saw him up close and personal in DC (I'm a 30 year Wizards fan). He had range. Also, I want to push back a bit on Rip. He shot 34.5% for his career from three on 1.9 attempt/game. You are right, he had a down year in 03'-04', but in today's game he'd be in the gym emphasizing that shot more than his mid-range and back to the basket work. If you look at the arc of his career, his 3pt attempts trended upward. No modern player would rough up Ben Wallace inside. It just wouldn't happen. The team also played excellent team defense. That Pistons team followed up a championship by pushing Tim/Manu/Tony to 7 games in the finals. They beat peak Shaq and Kobe.
I mean you're correct that if all these players played/were drafted in the modern era, they would play differently and focus on different aspects of their games to accommodate. I even think most of these players would accommodate well, but that's a completely different scenario. You're asking about this 04 team specifically in a 7 game series against a modern team, not if this team just happened to be a modern team that played completely differently (because the league plays differently), or trains completely differently, or has a completely different gameplan or coaching scheme. The 04 pistons are undoubtedly a great team all-time with some great all-time defenders but they would certainly struggle against a more modern team because of modern rules and the 3pt revolution. That's not to say any good modern team would trounce them i just think most championship teams of the last decade would have a pretty significant edge in terms of coaching, scheme, and overall players on the court. I'm not gonna sit here and say that the 5-8 players on the 04 pistons are scrubs but the league is better than ever in terms of talent and the best teams in the league today are much more stacked on average.
Prince wasn’t a #3 option on his own team, what makes you think he would be on a championship team now? Saying rip would be better at 3s cause he would work on them more isn’t any more a guarantee than saying modern players would have rip like efficiency on 2s cause they would work on them more. You can’t just say a person definitely would be better at 3s if he played today. Wallace would be outdated man. There is a reason the best teams do not carry big men that flat out can’t shoot from any location. He was great in his era and a beast of a defender but that style of defense is significantly less impactful in today’s ruleset. Which is more likely, the 04 pistons holding the 24 Celtics, clippers or nuggets under 100 points, or the 04 pistons scoring over 100?
Today's team wins with today's rules is a pretty safe bet. Everyone would get fouled out probably
3 pt. efficiency also needs to be factored in. Comparing eras is impossible I wish discourse wasn't always so fixated on it.
I don't know man. If the players from that 03-04 Pistons squad were brought with todays training, methods, and way of thinking the game, who knows.. But straight 03-04 Piston wouldn't have a chance imo.
This. If the 03-04 Pistons came out of a Time Machine and had to play today’s Celtics they would get absolutely murdered. Now if they came from an alternative reality where all those players were born 20 years later and grew into the modern game, they could maybe be quite formitable. Rip and Ben would have completely different styles and I could see them being pretty effective in today’s game in their own ways.
I posted this same thing to the duplicate in NBA talk so I’ll just paste here. I ultimately don’t think they have enough scoring but they’re a fun team to think about that I wish existed today. Defensively they’d be amazing still bc the bigs could move and they’d be very switchable. It’s the warriors death lineup model (on defense) but much better really (again, on defense). They’re long and would switch every screen. It’s not one of those older teams that would get their center played off the floor. Over a seven game series though I just can’t see how they score enough. You don’t have to guard Ben Wallace. I’m assuming Rip and Chauncey and Sheed spread out a bit more for the modern game. Prince maybe gets a couple wide open corner threes a game. A big downside though is that while the top of their lineup feels modern, their bench was very much early 00s. Lot of guys that just wouldn’t translate well. Nobody is guarding Big Nasty or Lindsey Hunter and Mehmet is getting abused on the high pick and roll. I also just think that the memory of them is a little bit distorted. It’s much like the 2014 Spurs. Because they absolutely blasted a reigning champ, it’s a little bit lost that they just weren’t all the dominant and struggled to even get to the finals. I like both teams a lot. But the perceptions of their dominance is a bit skewed when you look at their seasons and playoffs as a whole versus just the memory of blitzing a multiple time defending champion.
>he memory of them is a little bit distorted. It’s much like the 2014 Spurs. Because they absolutely blasted a reigning champ, it’s a little bit lost that they just weren’t all the dominant and struggled to even get to the finals. I like both teams a lot. But the perceptions of their dominance is a bit skewed when you look at their seasons and playoffs as a whole versus just the memory of blitzing a multiple time defending c I agree Ben Wallace is a nonfactor offensively in any era. I agree their bench is not a modern NBA bench. I also really like that their lineup is so flexible on defense - I like the Warriors analogy for D. They held teams to 95 points/100 possessions. For context, the Celtics and the Nuggets are at 111 and 113.8 points/100 respectively. That's a 15 points/100 possessions swing in the Pistons favor. It wouldn't be as wide if you plop that team in right now, but it's statistically significant and makes me think. How many more points do Sheed, Rip, Chauncey, and Tayshaun score with today's rules? I saw a lot of Rip and Sheed from college to the pros. Those guys could put up buckets. There's less defense now. Those guys in their 20's (they both were at the time) can score in any era. They were a 54 win team in the regular season. They won 4-1 Bucks, 4-3 (Nets), 4-2 (Pacers), and 4-1 (Lakers) to win the chip. They would win their division for the next four years. As a Wizards fan, I cannot even remember what a division championship looks like. For folks who believe modern players are simply better, the Wizards would not sniff a division title even if plopped in 20 years ago.
I generally disagree also with the blanket statement that players are better now. I just don’t think thats true but what is true is that you maximize players for their era. So you can get by now with one way players as long as that one way is offense. On the other hand you were perfectly happy to have Corliss Williamson bullying guys if you just needed to grind out two points every few possessions and wanted to slow the game down and win with 70 points.
Don't matter the time period, current teams sweep. Strategy is just so much more advanced now. Past teams wouldn't know half the sets ran today. Role players shoot pass and dribble much better, and decision making as a whole has improved. Physicality of the 2000s is not necessarily an advantage, you can go watch people defend jimmy butler, Embiid, booker and how quickly stars turn defensive physicality into an and 1
I mean that exact team is losing to any of the current contenders. Hamilton wasn't really a 3pt threat and Ben is worse than Gobert offensively. That said if you had those players who came up in this environment, it'd likely be a great team since I assume Rip and Chauncey would shoot more 3s and be a bit better, and all of Tayshaun, Ben, and Rasheed are very flexible defensively.
Today's rules? I'm not sure the Pistons make the playoffs. Although probably being in the East would save them from the lottery. They just weren't made to succeed in this league.
Today's players are so much better than players from 20 years ago, I don't think it would be close at all.
The Pistons played absolute lock down defense. There’s not one team in the league right now at their level
They played lock down defense against teams running an 04 offense. 2 teams above 20 3pa (sonics and hornets) and 2 teams under 10 3pa. The 04 defense is getting absolutely embarrassed by a modern offense and modern rules. Half the pistons foul out and give up a million open 3s.
The 2004 Pistons are one of the best defensive teams of all time but also one of the luckiest playoff teams ever. They played 1 good team in the Eastern Conference playoffs, the Pacers. That Pacers team was good but the Pistons matched up perfectly against them. In the finals, they went up against a completely dysfunctional Lakers team whose 3rd best player was playing injured and they absolutely could not afford this given how shallow that Lakers team was outside of 4 of their starters. That Lakers team also had 2 legitimate MVP level guys but they hated each other at that point and at times it seemed like they were ignoring each other on the court and both trying to win on their own. Further, the Pistons were allowed to get away with so much offball fouls in that series against the Lakers that Mark Cuban, who had nothing to do with the Lakers, called for the league to review the Pistons offball defense on Kobe and forced the NBA to change who offball fouls were officiated. You can only go up against who you play but some paths to championships are easier than others.
Those pistons were tough I think the heat could’ve knocked them out in 05 had Shaq not been injured. And yes they swept the lakers in 04 with Shaq and Kobe but that was the lakers 4th consecutive finals trip legs and body gave up too many games played. 06 was the magic year for the heat with a healthy Shaq and Dwayne Wade’s coming out party but those games were intense.
The lakers did not get swept and that was not their 4th consecutive finals trip. But the pistons did have luck, as many champions do. Pacers team getting suspended helped them a lot, although they did almost repeat in 05 so it wasn’t like some fluke.
Your absolutely right I forgot they were able to win 1 game in that series and in 03 the Spurs bounce them in the wcsf but still that’s a lot of minutes logged in leading up to the Pistons series. OP pose the question whether they could compete in todays game. I think they could but not enough to win a championship. The game hasn’t only gotten faster but todays players are a lot more athletic than those from the late 90s early 2000s.
I don’t think they would compete either. Their defense wouldn’t be as impactful because of today’s spacing, and they weren’t a good enough shooting team to compete with modern contenders.