Stripes Without Stars: 2004 Pistons were the NBA's most unlikely champions

The following season, the Pistons finally got their individual due. Now, four of their five starters, apart from Prince, were named to the Eastern Conference All Star team. This squad continued to dominate the East and scare the West for the next few years. They came agonisingly close to winning another championship a year later in the 7th game of the Finals to the Spurs. One game played a little differently, and we would’ve been talking about back-to-back champions.

Slowly, the team began to suffer from an ugly break-up. Ben Wallace became a free agent and signed with the Bulls, only to lose his incredible defensive swagger. Billups was sent to Denver in exchange for Allen Iverson, an experiment that failed spectacularly for Detroit. Rasheed Wallace left a declining Pistons squad for the Celtics and went on to the Finals with them. Hamilton and Prince are still in a weak Pistons squad today: Prince is still starting but is defensively a shadow of his prime; Hamilton is seeing his numbers suffer and has seen his relationships with teammates and coaches suffer, too. And in case you’re interested, Darko Milicic bounced around the league, from Orlando to Memphis to New York, and is finally settled into mediocrity at Minnesota.

The surge of Miami with Wade and Shaq, and then the coming together of the Boston Big Three put an end to Detroit’s dominance of the East, but their legacy remains untouched. Here was a team that earned its stripes without any stars. Here was a team that didn’t need an MVP, or an All Star starter, or a scoring leader, to win a championship. Watching the Pistons play back in those days was, depending on your mood, both a beautiful and a frustrating affair. Beautiful for their fans and for those who cherished hard work, teamwork, and defense; frustrating for those who wanted basketball to just be offense and highlights.

The ‘championship formula’ continues to work in today’s NBA. That’s why the Mavericks build around Nowitzki, why the Heat got the Wade/LeBron/Bosh triple threat, why the Thunder are basing their future around Durant and Westbrook, and the Knicks around Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire. The Bulls have their own MVP in Derrick Rose to bolster a team around.

But the 2004 Pistons have proved that, with the right mix of talent and selfless egos, a superstar isn’t necessary for a ring. So much so that, those same ‘non-stars’, when looked from a different angle, are bigger superstars from their achievement than those who achieve the fame without deserving it.