SUMMARY
This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.
MANILA, Philippines – The Last Dance episodes 3 and 4 prominently featured one of the select few teams in NBA history who gave the almighty Chicago Bulls a headache for years on end: the Detroit Pistons.
Infamously known around the league for their intensely physical brand of basketball that actually led to two straight NBA championships from 1989 to 1990, the Pistons of the late ’80s were rightfully christened as the “Bad Boys” of the league.
But for the uninitiated, just who exactly are the “Bad Boys” and why did they strike the most fear in a basketball era supposedly dominated by the toughest of the tough?
Isiah Thomas, Point Guard
Career averages: 19.2 rebounds, 9.3 assists, 3.6 rebounds, 1.9 steals
Before Isaiah Thomas wowed crowds across the league with his elite scoring ability despite his short 5-foot-9 frame, there was another IT – the original one, in fact – who ruled the Eastern Conference back in the 1980s.
That was the Pistons’ Isiah Thomas, who served as Detroit’s floor general for the entirety of his 13-year, Hall of Fame career.
Apart from his natural wizardry on the offensive end of the floor, Thomas rose to infamy with his lockdown defense that would likely have resulted in a lot of whistles in the modern era.
He also didn’t care whether you were his former teammate or not, as evidenced with his scuffle in 1990 with Rick Mahorn.
If you were in the way of a win, you were going to get hurt.
Keep in mind, Mahorn was Thomas’ teammate in a championship winning team that very same year.
Of course, that would come as no surprise from a man who once vented out his anger and choked his own assistant coach on live television after getting bloodied in another fight.
After his time as a player, Thomas tried his hand on many other basketball ventures, including coaching and managing the New York Knicks in one of their darkest chapters from 2003 to 2008.
Rick Mahorn, Power Forward
Career averages: 6.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, 0.9 blocks
And speaking of Mahorn, he cracks this list as the man infamously dubbed as the “Baddest Boy of Them All” by the Pistons’ very own commentator George Blaha.
Although Mahorn generally lacked eye-popping skills as reflected in his career numbers, he more than made up for it by using his body as a walking sledgehammer ready to swing at anyone who comes too near the rim.
That included Michael Jordan, who was the sole target of the Pistons’ special “Jordan Rules,” a set of defensive principles to stop “His Airness” from scoring at all costs, flagrant fouls included.
Mahorn was the perfect man to bring the pain, as he already racked up a staggering amount of fouls even back in his time in Washington.
In his first 5 years in the league with the Bullets (present-day Wizards), the 6-foot-10 enforcer tallied 1,484 fouls for a 4.2 average per game. To put that number in perspective, he recorded 70 more fouls than made field goals (1,414) in that time span.
And that says it all, really.
Joe Dumars, Shooting Guard
Career averages: 16.1 points, 4.5 assists, 2.2 rebounds, 0.9 steals
Sandwiched in the middle of all the chaos back in the day was Joe Dumars, another player-slash-executive that earned his spot in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Unlike his backcourt partner Thomas, however, Dumars was the level-headed voice of reason who restrained his efforts on the defensive end within the confines of the rule book.
One of the rare moments when “Joe Cool” lost his cool was during the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals against the dominant Boston Celtics led by Larry Bird.
Biased commentating aside in the video, Dumars actually managed to keep calm and walk away from the situation even as Celtics guard Danny Ainge was literally goading him to engage in a fight.
Ainge went on to become one of the shrewdest general managers in modern basketball history, while Dumars went on to have the NBA Sportsmanship Award named after him.
All is well for them, which simply cannot be said for the next man on the list.
Dennis Rodman, Small Forward
Career averages: 7.3 points, 13.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.7 steals, 0.6 blocks
Oh boy, where to even begin?
Before he was the hair-dyeing, Madonna-loving, Vegas-partying spark plug that helped the Bulls complete their second and final three-peat from 1996 to 1998, Dennis Rodman was known as a no-nonsense beast on the boards who won two Defensive Player of the Year awards on top of two All-Star selections and two NBA titles.
Although he did not engage in as many extracurricular activities outside the court during his time as a Piston, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t as colorful on the hardwood for that period.
From the start until the end of his career, there was no man too tough nor too tall for “The Worm” to not start a fight with whenever he felt like it.
Whether it was the legendary Larry Bird or his future teammate Scottie Pippen, Rodman was always ready to grab boards and throw hands.
Despite his antics on the court – and off it just a few years later – Rodman proved to be the ultimate high-risk, high-reward player as he finished with 5 NBA titles and a Hall of Fame citation to boot.
Bill Laimbeer, Center
Career averages: 12.9 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 0.9 blocks
Last but definitely not the least, Bill Laimbeer completes this list as one of the most notorious names to ever grace the hardwood in league history.
Although the 6-foot-11 bruiser was actually a unicorn in his own right back in the day as a reliable perimeter shooting threat, Laimbeer still preferred to get down and dirty in the paint, with an emphasis on “dirty.”
Being another key piece in enforcing the championship-winning “Jordan Rules,” the Pistons enabled Laimbeer to get away with every little cheap shot imaginable, which understandably earned the ire of those unlucky enough to play against him.
Laimbeer’s reputation was so bad during his peak that in 1991, video game company Hudson Soft actually created “Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball,” a basketball game set in 2031 where there were no fouls and the use of weapons were perfectly legal.
It’s one thing to have your name mentioned in lists of the game’s dirtiest players, but to actually have a video game designed purely off your reputation? That’s just taking it to a whole new level, and Laimbeer did exactly that.
As evidenced by their numerous fight highlights on the internet and their championship rings, it’s clear that the “Bad Boys” did what they had to do to get to the top and did it well.
The ends may never justify the means in the Pistons’ case, but the fact remains that they got the end they wanted and no one can ever take that away from them. – Rappler.com
Add a comment
How does this make you feel?
There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.