Central Division

Detroit Pistons Power Rankings - 2011-12

Power Ranking
WEEKRECORDRANKCOMMENT
Week 1724-4026Jonas Jerebko has guaranteed that the Pistons will make the playoffs next season. He's one of the better building blocks on Detroit's roster along with G-Monroe and an improving (at last) Stuckey, but who in Motown shares that enthusiasm? Who revels in a 20-20 mark since Feb. 3 when it's preceded by a 4-20 start?
Week 1622-3824You scarcely heard a word about Charlie Villanueva this season before April 9, when he was handed 19 minutes in Orlando after logging just 15 minutes of court time all season in the 56 games before that. Safe to say that Sunday's run-in with Derrick Rose's nose took care of that, though.
Week 1521-3522The good news: Lawrence Frank's Pistons can actually claim to be better than .500 since their dreadful 4-20 start with a passable mark of 17-15 from Feb. 3 onwards. The bad news: Nearly a third of Detroit's 35 losses -- 11! -- have come by 20 points or more. Which is second-most in the NBA behind (gulp) only Charlotte.
Week 1419-3324Another Elias special: When Detroit overcame a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter in last week's road win at Washington -- aptly described by Lawrence Frank as an "ugly, grimy, grindy" 79-77 win -- it halted a run of 115 straight defeats for the Pistons when down 12 or more in the fourth dating to January 2003.
Week 1316-3227Sign of the times in Motown: Rodney Stuckey's injury opens the door for the (long) overdue Ben Gordon to riddle Denver for 45 points -- fueled by 9-for-9 shooting on 3s -- only for that news to be trumped by the Pistons' only national TV game (April 13 vs. Milwaukee) getting demoted back to local TV only.
Week 1216-2922The good news: Detroit almost beat the Clips on the road with Stuckey's mobility severely limited. The bad news: Stuckey's toe injury might have just brought a halt to the best stretch of his NBA career and what arguably ranks as the most promising development in Motown this season not involving Greg Monroe.
Week 1115-2623They've won 11-of-17 and just beat the Lakers and Hawks. Stuckey, furthermore, is averaging 21.8 ppg over his last six games. You're tempted to say that the Pistons might even still have some playoff life in the ever-forgiving East ... but let's see where they are after playing nine of the next 10 games on the road.
Week 1012-2626Pardon them if it seems as if the Pistons are struggling to cope with the fact that February is a memory. That was their first winning month (8-6) since December 2008 ... with Brandon Knight becoming the first Detroit rookie to average 14.0 ppg for an entire month since (gulp) Grant Hill in 1994-95.
Week 911-2423You'd have expected the Pistons to win at least one of their final two games before the break -- visits to Cleveland and Toronto -- after they'd just reeled off seven wins in nine games. Not going to slam 'em too hard, though, because I frankly never thought they'd win seven of nine at any point after the 4-20 start.
Week 811-2220With a loss to the lowly Nets in its first game of the month, Detroit became the first team in the league to sink to 20 losses this season. Remember that low point? All they've done since is go 7-2, which includes two wins over the lowly Nets ... but also two wins and 194 points against uber-stingy Boston.
Week 78-2127How out of character was Detroit's recent four-game win streak? Forget that the victims sport a combined record of 24-59 and let's focus on the fact it's the first such streak for a team that started the run with a record as poor as the Pistons' 4-20 since the 2-19 Grizzlies suddenly won four straight in December 2002.
Week 66-2027This week's entry from the only-our-friends-at-Elias-could-know-something-like-this files: When L-Frank's Pistons lost at his old stomping grounds in New Jersey, they became the first Detroit team to crater to 20 losses faster than anyone else in the NBA since the 1965-66 Pistons started 9-20 and finished a league-worst 22-58.
Week 54-1728The good news: Pistons fans can stop wondering whether this team will ever score 100 points. The bad news: Detroit needed an OT game to get there, lost that game Friday night to Atlanta and still sports a road record of 1-9 with an NBA-low road scoring average of 81.4 ppg heading into a road back-to-back-to-back.
Week 44-1324Statistical Oddities Corner: Detroit is one of just two teams, along with Miami, that hasn't let an opposing scorer out there post a 30-point game against them yet. Those same Pistons, though, have played 17 games and are still waiting to find out how it feels to score 100 points.
Week 33-1027All the deserved recent raves over Greg Monroe's progress can only provide so much insulation from all the Pistons' lopsided losing lately. As the venerable scribe Sam Smith recently quipped: "They were having mutinies last season and not losing as badly."
Week 22-628The Pistons have absorbed a few too many shellackings lately -- three in a row, to be precise -- to get overly excited about Ben Gordon's back-to-respectable start or what teasingly looked like a turn-the-corner home win over Dwight Howard and the Magic.
Week 11-326Facing the prospect of a second successive 0-4 start, with Lawrence Frank toting a 20-game losing streak thanks to an L in his final 17 games coaching the Nets, Detroit got five guys in double figures to finally crack 90 points and surprise Indy.
Preseason30-5225No player mutinies are in the forecast under new coach Lawrence Frank, but watchability remains an issue with these Pistons. Greg Monroe, Austin Daye and rookie Brandon Knight ... those are realistically your three best reasons for tuning in.
Training Camp11-120With a loss to the lowly Nets in its first game of the month, Detroit became the first team in the league to sink to 20 losses this season. Remember that low point? All they've done since is go 7-2 in February, which includes two wins over the lowly Nets ... but also two wins and 194 points against uber-stingy Boston.

Detroit Pistons