Are The Detroit Pistons Worse Than The Process Sixers?
I’ve developed three criteria here, that more or less just dive into what it means to ultimately be “worse” than another team, factoring both what we can see and what we can feel as fans and viewers.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He still has to shoot 50 free throws to save his job, and can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
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Thaddeus Young, Michael Carter-Williams, Henry Sims, Hollis Thompson, James Anderson, Elliott Williams, Casper Ware, Jarvis Varnado, James Nunnally, Brandon Davies, and Byron Mullens.
That was the 11-man rotation for the Philadelphia 76ers on March 27, 2014, when they lost their NBA record 26th straight game. Funnily enough, Anderson was the game’s leading scorer, even outpacing Houston Rockets’ era James Harden on the other side, but the Sixers still fell short 120-98 on the road.
One more defeat, and the 2014 Sixers would have secured the worst single-season losing streak in league history, separating themselves from the 2011 Cleveland Cavaliers. But that group of Process misfits finally found another NBA team they could beat, winning their next game in convincing 123-98 fashion, avoiding the 27th consecutive loss.
The team they beat that day in 2014? That would be the Detroit Pistons.
For those who don’t follow much basketball outside of South Philadelphia, the 2023-24 Pistons have been one of the major stories of this season, but for all the wrong reasons. After starting the year 2-1, Detroit has lost 26 straight games themselves. The despair of their streak culminated last Thursday, when the Pistons dropped a game to a 12-18 Utah Jazz that was missing nearly its entire starting lineup. Everyone had circled that game as Detroit’s best chance to end the suffering, but instead they nearly got 30-pieced by Kelly Olynyk in front of their home fans. That’s bleak stuff.
The Pistons are 4-50 in their last 54 games. That’s a winning percentage of 7.4% and good for a 6.07 win pace over 82 games
— Duncan Smith (@DuncanSmithNBA) December 24, 2023
Because my mind puts basketball hypotheticals in the place where meaningful thoughts should be stored, I came up with a question — are the 2023-24 Pistons worse than The Process Sixers?
I’ve developed three criteria here, that more or less just dive into what it means to ultimately be “worse” than another team, factoring both what we can see and what we can feel as fans and viewers. It will make more sense once you read it.
1) Win-Loss Record
The 2023-24 Detroit Pistons are on pace to finish the season with a 6-76 record, which would comfortably give them the worst winning percentage in NBA history, “surpassing” both the 2012 Bobcats and the 1973 Sixers that went 7-59 and 9-73, respectively.
Now at the top, I specifically asked if The Process Sixers as a whole were the worse team, not just the 2013-14 team. In spite of its NBA record losing streak, the '14 Sixers finished 19-63, the best record of any Philly team during that era. The 2016 Sixers had the most infamous final record, ending the year at 10-72, while the 2015 Sixers finished 18-64. Over a three-year run that’s an average of roughly 16 wins and 66 losses per year.
For their sake, I hope the Pistons manage to go at least 8-45 over their last 53 games in order to finish with double digit wins. But with how bad they’ve looked the past two months, I honestly don’t see how they reach 14 more wins on the season. Hinkie and Brett Brown’s Sixers were better at winning games, even though they were trying to accomplish the opposite.
EDGE: Sixers
2) Player-for-Player Talent
We all love our Process pals. And in retrospect, there was more real NBA talent in the building during those years than most of us thought. Jerami Grant has put together a sub-All Star level career. Ish Smith will not retire until he has suited up for all 30 teams. T.J. McConnell is my hero, and 14 year-old me would have been geeked out to hear that in eight years I would ask Robert Covington a question at a press conference.
I preface with that to say this —the Pistons would beat the Process Sixers in a head-to-head game.
That might read as heresy, but it’s more the result of the NBA being in a better place league-wide than it was 7-9 years ago.
I’ve come to grips with the idea that Cade Cunningham’s lack of burst and elite jumper means he won’t become the All-NBA talent many of us thought he might be pre-draft. But I still believe there’s a very good if not All-Star-ish level guard in there somewhere, the passing and playmaking feel is simply too good. Jaden Ivey’s lack of playing time defined the Pistons’ season for a while, because it was stupid and inexplicable decision. It’s nearly impossible to stay in from of him with his speed. Philly native Jalen Duren always impresses, and thus far he’s only been hampered by injuries and the worse centers around him. Heck, Ausar Thompson would have been absolutely beloved as a Process player. He’s the greatest rookie wing defender you’ve ever seen, but he has a jump shot ugly enough that it needs a NSFW warning attached. Mike would have loved him.
None of that even mentions Bojan Bogdanovic, who’s a proven quality starter in the NBA, or Alec Burks, who’s had a better career than 10 of the 11 players I listed to start this column (respect Thad Young).
It’s reasonable to ask why this collection of at least somewhat competent NBA players hasn’t added up to any on-court success, and my response usually would be a long monologue on the importance of roster fit, having more than one meaningful good shooter on the team, and how the league is so good right now that it just brutalizes all bad teams.
So why not end the argument here if I the Pistons have better basketball players in a vacuum? Well it’s the same reason I don’t completely discount NBA players from the 1950s and 60s even though Alexey Shved could probably dribble circles around some of them.
Everything is relative. The sport is always changing, and since Sixers became a competitive franchise, the NBA got deeper and started playing smarter. Everyone is up to date on the benefits of three-pointers and layups, while also employing players who can pass and shoot better than they did before. The Process Sixers came up during the tail end of an era where Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver were All-Stars, while C.J. McCollum and Jamal Murray can’t sniff the All-Star game in the world the Pistons live in.
So yes, I believe the 2023-24 Pistons have more skilled and talented basketball players on their roster than the Sixers ever did from 2014-16, and would beat them in a time travel engineered 7-game series. I also don’t think means the discussion should be over.
EDGE: Pistons
3) The General Morale Around the Situation
The Sixers had the decency to not delude their fans with false hope in 2014. Hinkie made it clear that lumps were going to be taken that year. Even then, the Sixers staved off the worst record in the league, finishing four games ahead of the 2014 Milwaukee Bucks.
Detroit, meanwhile, entered this season having gone 60-176 over their past three seasons. Better than the 47-199 record the Sixers posted from 2014-16 but not that much better. I’m still giving the W-L edge to the Sixers because this year’s Pistons team has been historically inept at winning games compared to 2 out of 3 Process Sixers teams only being somewhat inept.
Even without the same intentionality Hinkie possessed, Troy Weaver manufactured his own version of The Process in Detroit. Only the Pistons are enjoying zero fruits for their labor. There has been no light at the end of the tunnel following a half-decade of losing. It’s how it would’ve felt if the Sixers went 10-72 in 2018 during Joel Embiid’s first fully healthy season.
This was sold as the year Detroit would be climbing out of the doldrums, not crawling further into them. They signed Monty Williams to the richest coaching contract in NBA history, and were returning their former No. 1 overall pick that missed nearly the entirety of his second season with an injury. And yet, they play worse basketball and are a more depressing watch than they were a year ago.
Cade looks real down. 25 losses in a row. pic.twitter.com/c2GfxMwM8r
— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) December 22, 2023
None of this is to say the Sixers were a good vibes team from 2014-16. Just google “Okafor, Jahlil” for proof to the contrary. But by years 4 and 5 of the rebuild, things were looking up, even with Hinkie unfairly ousted from his position. The Sixers possessed a treasure chest of draft picks, and Embiid was on the way. He immediately took the team from four straight years of finishing with the worst offense in the NBA to the league’s ninth-ranked unit in 2018. Things were promised to changed by a certain time, and they did change by a certain time.
The Pistons have finished with 20, 20, 23, and 17 wins over their last four seasons, and would need to play at the pace of a 35-win team the rest of the season to even scratch 16 wins this season. They’ve been punched in the mouth for four years straight and have nothing to show for it. No promise of a future MVP candidate, no sign of cohesive improvement, and not even a haul of future draft picks due to the Isaiah Stewart trade they made three years ago. It’s just suffering for suffering’s sake.
Maybe this will just be a particularly blip on the radar. I still have some faith in Cade, Ivery, Duren, Ausar and even Marcus Sasser. It’s hard to stay bad for this long.
But man, the Detroit Pistons aren’t just bad right now. They’re historically bad, even worse than a Sixers team that once upon time was outright trying to lose.
FINAL EDGE: SIXERS