Central Division

Detroit Pistons Power Rankings - 2012-13

Power Ranking
WEEKRECORDRANKCOMMENT
Week 2428-5224No amount of Andre Drummond -- not even the midseason arrival of committee fave Jose Calderon -- has made any of this easy to watch. Not after Detroit started 0-8, went 1-13 in March and subjected Lawrence Frank and even Joe Dumars to an April of unfriendly job-security speculation.
Week 2326-5226Good to see Detroit win a home game after eight straight L's. Even better to see the Pistons finally find a way to beat Chicago after 18 L's in a row. Best of all: Poor Brandon Knight, either injured or slumping since DeAndre Jordan nearly beheaded him, had two 20-point games over the weekend.
Week 2224-5028Only a one-point win at Charlotte on March 23 enabled the Pistons to prevent going 0-for-the-month. They've been so uncompetitive lately that you could almost refer to Andre Drummond's eight points and 14 rebounds in Sunday night's 95-94 setback in Chicago as a triumphant return.
Week 2124-4728Come back, Andre Drummond! The Pistons have a league-low two wins since the All-Star break and are in the midst of their third double-digit losing streak in the past four seasons. The franchise witnessed just four double-digit losing streaks in its previous 61 seasons ... none since 1993-94.
Week 2023-4528The Pistons started out 0-8. They're 0-8 in March as well. And they're 0-14 on the road against Western Conference teams, with only one more chance to steal a win when they go to Minnesota on April 6. It's a lot of zeroes that add up to our usual plea: Come back soon, Andre Drummond!
Week 1923-4228Securing a high pick and making sure they use their cap space far wiser than they did in the Ben Gordon/Charlie Villanueva summer of 2009 is all that matters right now. That said ... it's pretty hard to watch how uncompetitive the Pistons are these days if, like us, you're a Jose Calderon fan.
Week 1823-3928I know that the Pistons miss Andre Drummond -- we all miss Andre Drummond, no one more so than longtime ESPN.com NBA editor Royce Webb -- but how does Detroit go from beating San Antonio by 10 on Feb. 8, to losing to the Tony Parker-less Spurs by 39 just 23 days later?
Week 1722-3624The Pistons were the only team to beat San Antonio in February until the Warriors did so Friday night. That's the good news. The bad news: Throwing away Tuesday's good start against Memphis stretched Detroit's league lead to 13 when it comes to losses after leading by more than 10 points.
Week 1621-3323Greg Monroe went into the break with eight straight double-doubles -- the longest such streak by a Piston since Grant Hill. But Monroe alone can't offset poor production from Jason Maxiell and Brandon Knight. Or Andre Drummond's injury absence. (Dan Feldman, Piston Powered)
Week 1520-3224Rookie sensation Andre Drummond heads to the training room for the next four to six weeks with a back injury that inflicts great pain upon his legions of followers in the NBA's corner of the Twitter-verse ... and with eight double-doubles to match New Orleans' Anthony Davis for the rookie lead.
Week 1418-3021After parting with the last link to their 2004 title team by jumping into the Rudy Gay trade and shipping Tayshaun Prince to Memphis, Detroit has a new look: Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond and more than $20 million in cap space this summer to build around its young tag team of bigs.
Week 1317-2720We interrupt our editor-mandated obsession with Andre Drummond to note that Greg Monroe, amid the Pistons' 11 defeats already this season in which they blew a double-digit lead, has posted eight double-doubles in his past 12 games ... after only one (yikes) in the previous 17 games.
Week 1215-2519Cannot tell a lie: Seeing Austin Daye tweet this, implying that the Pistons' trip to London was in some way either exceedingly taxing or just really long, did not sit well with the committee (of one). Not at all. It was only a couple of days and, yes, we're still highly bitter about being absent.
Week 1114-2419I concede that the Pistons, primarily because of intoxicating rookie Andre Drummond, have unexpectedly emerged as Twitter darlings this season. Doesn't change the fact that I'm highly jealous -- bitter, frankly -- that Lawrence Frank & Co. are going to London this week and I'm not.
Week 1013-2321Still trying to process which of these developments is wilder. The part about the Pistons needing only a home win over Charlotte to complete a 5-0 homestand that included visits from Miami, Milwaukee and Atlanta? Or the part about the Pistons losing to the Bobcats in OT to finish 4-1?
Week 911-2223Good times in Motown. Back-to-back wins over high-quality (Miami) and playoffs-worthy (Milwaukee) opposition, Maccabi Tel Aviv alumnus Will Bynum posted back-to-back games with at least 25 points for the first time ... and Andre Drummond just snatched the league lead in rookie PER.
Week 89-2125Only because I know my Andre Drummond-obsessed editor expects these kinds of tidbits on Mondays ... even on a holiday: Drummond's 11 points, 14 rebounds and 5 swats Friday against Washington made him the first rook to hit those levels in one game since Dwight Howard in 2005.
Week 77-1923Brandon Knight's run of five successive games in the 20s, after never stringing more than two straight 20-point games together, is Detroit's latest morsel of tangible hope to go with the occasional flashes we've seen from Andre Drummond and Kyle Singler and Greg Monroe's overall promise.
Week 67-1522A glimmer of hope for Detroit's road woes? It's probably a reach, but something tells me that our Andre Drummond-obsessed NBA supervisor back in Bristol will be watching with great anticipation Monday night once he hears that Philly is 0-2 and allowing 107.5 ppg on Mondays.
Week 55-1324The Pistons remain thoroughly uncompetitive on the road, but let's cut 'em some slack. Over the line as the recent locker-room grumbling about Lawrence Frank was, at least Frank's players didn't wait until sinking to 4-20 to get going this time. Detroit is suddenly a decent 5-5 since starting 0-8.
Week 43-1126We started to see a bit more of Andre Drummond over the weekend, but his limited PT to date is about all we can second-guess with a coach who can't do anything this season except develop the kids. With apologies to Tayshaun Prince, Lawrence Frank is the least of Detroit's problems.
Week 32-927Think we can pardon the Pistons for their inability to finish off Orlando when they sandwiched a win at Philly and a home trouncing of Boston around that lost opportunity. Don't forget they also had OKC down in their first game of the week before unraveling in the fourth quarter. Progress.
Week 20-730Never before have the Pistons started 0-8. That's what they'll be trying to avoid Monday night -- mired at 0-7 for the third time in franchse history -- when faced with the not-so-hospitable prospect of hosting Oklahoma City. (Being 0-9 entering Friday's date with Orlando is the safer bet.)
Week 10-330The Pistons are down here for a reason or three. They were helpless against Harden's 37, thoroughly uncompetitive Sunday against the Nash-less, crisis-ridden Lakers ... and remain at a loss to explain how Rodney Stuckey could start the season by missing 22 of his first 23 shots.
Preseason0-025Bold prediction: Detroit will not start 4-20 again. Whether the Greg Monroe-led Pistons can win more than 30 games for the first time since 2008-09 remains to be seen, but there's some cautious optimism bubbling in Motown after Andre Drummond's promising preseason.
Training Camp25-4125It's an if. A rather big if, actually. But the idea that draft gamble Andre Drummond can eventually form a legit front-line tandem with Greg Monroe -- with salary-cap space looming next summer -- adds up to the biggest glimmer of hope Pistons fans have seen for a half-decade.

Detroit Pistons