The following article was tag teamed by two individuals with minimal to non-existant basketball knowledge but a deep rooted love for the 2004 era Detroit Pistons.

Now I’ve said it a bunch of times and I’ll probably say it on every Pistons article that I write because I don’t want Piston hardos getting their sweatbands in a knot over my meaningless opinions, but I don’t know much about the NBA, basketball, nor the Pistons. But what I do know a lot about is forming an overblown-borderline-obnoxious opinion about things I have minuscule knowledge on. And that’s what we have here today.

Rasheed Wallace said what America has always thought: The 2004 Pistons would “run through” the Golden State Warriors.

It was the elephant in the room really. The room of America. And after exchanging one text message the two of us writing this dog shit article have unequivocally concluded that the 2004 Detroit Pistons are the greatest NBA team ever assembled. And Rasheed “Stay Woke” Wallace reminded every phony in the world of that very simple fact.

The over-looked and vastly under-respected 2004 Pistons defeated the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers in five games which is referred to by many as a “five game sweep” to this day.

When Rasheed was asked if he saw any comparisons between the ’04 Pistons and the current Golden State Warriors, who feature four NBA Super Stars in their starting lineup and just won their second title in three years over the Cleveland Cavilers, he had the perfect answer ready to go:

“Oh, we’d run through them. Not even close,” Wallace said. “We play defense.”

He continued by explaining the difference between the Pistons and Warriors defense:

“I think the Warriors’ defensive strategy is, I’ma put up more shots than you,” Wallace said. “So that’s their whole defensive thing. I don’t call it good defense if the man came down and he shot a jump shot or shot a three and missed it, and the Warriors went back down to the other end and scored it.”

Our boy Sheed, like a decade later, still giving Detroit media and its fans quotes we can all fucks with.

Let’s get something out of the way… Rasheed Wallace fucking rocks and is absolutely loved by any sports fan with a brain. ‘Sheed is possibly the most bad ass player to play in Detroit since Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, and the Bad Boys of the early 90s were literally bouncing their opponents off the hardwood.

Acquired in a trade from the Atlanta Hawks who only got the greatness of the technical foul record setter for one game after getting him from Portland, Rasheed fit in immediately with fellow badass Ben Wallace.

The 2004 Pistons opponents averaged just 84.3 points per game. EIGHTY FOUR POINT THREE POINTS PER GAME. I think Lebron and the Cavs scored 75+ in the first half in game four last Friday. The Pistons held opponents under 70 points 11 times in 2004, including a streak of five games in a row. A few years later, the 2005-2006 NBA All Star game featured Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace, and Rip Hamilton as All-Stars. I wasn’t a math major but from my count, that’s four. The exact same amount Golden State had this year.

Take a good long look at this beautiful god damn picture.

So now the only question that remains is what really defines a “super team”? Now sure in defense of Golden State you could toss a bunch of 70+ wins “this” and two championships “that” my way. And sure you could make the case that the Warriors 16-1 record en route to a title will never be duplicated, but we’re really not interested in your “logic” right now. Right now we just want to live in a world where we truly believe our last awesome Pistons team could realistically give the best 2017 basketball team on the planet a run for their money.

You get the point, the 04 Pistons fucking rocked. But we aren’t naive 50 year old men who believe every decent old time player would beat today’s athletes. But what we are are mid-20’s early onset balding males who haven’t sniffed what a champion smells like since 2008 and we’re desperate as all hell to cling onto something. And right now, that thing we’re clinging to is maybe believing that Rip, Mr. Big Shot, Sheed, Big Ben, and TayTay woulda “ran through” today’s Warriors in five. Just like Kobe, Shaq, and the Lakers back in 04.

And in all honesty, fuck the NBA today. Fuck Big Three’s. Fuck Super Teams. And fuck everything besides going to work every night and playing sound, fundamental, defensive and team basketball. Right Sheed?

Man. We loved that team so god damn much. #Stones 🍾

– Joey & Frank