Midway through January of 2024, Detroit exists at the cross-section of grief and euphoria. Grief for the terminally ill Detroit Pistons and euphoria towards the Detroit Lions reanimating. Nothing encapsulates the circle of life and sports quite like the present-day 313. There’s even a dash of relief that Michigan is back on top in college football and the Fab Five’s reconciliation mixed into that cauldron.
However, the NFL is king and the Lions have been paupers for most of the last half century. That changed in 2023 and nothing changed in the NFC North champion’s playoff opener. Over the weekend, the Lions gutted out a tighter-than-wet-spandex 24–23 win over a Los Angeles Rams team spearheaded by the most illustrious quarterback in Lions history.
If the Lions finish off the Buccaneers to advance into the NFC Championship Game, they’ll be competing against the Detroit Pistons in the attention economy. On that Sunday around 6:00 p.m. EST, fans will attempt to care about the Pistons hosting the buoyant Oklahoma City Thunder nuking the home team out of their own arena. Half an hour later, there’s a very real chance the Lions will be competing against the Niners for a trip to the Super Bowl, or hosting the NFC Championship Game if the Green Bay Packers play like they did Sunday and upset San Francisco.
Conversely, the Pistons MLK Day win over Tank Jordan and Pippen (Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma) improved their record to 4-37 as they stumble into the NBA season’s midpoint. A few nights after committing five straight turnovers against the Sacramento Kings, Isaiah Stewart and Killian Hayes briefly forgot one of the most basic rules of inbounding dating back to when they dribbled with two hands and shot on Fisher-Price rims. This level of galaxy-brain basketball is a key ingredient to winding up with with half as many wins as the Charlotte Hornets.
The juxtaposition of the Lions ascension and the Pistons hurtling towards the lottery is buoyed by the fact that both teams have been hovering at low altitudes long enough that the fall from this perch won’t hurt too much. A year and a half ago, the Lions were jockeying with the Washington Commanders to escape the NFL’s porcelain throne as its most depressing organization. The Pistons were supposed to be a team on the rise. After winning a league-low 17 games last season, they were expecting to have a healthy Cade Cunningham back and a legit shot at Victor Wembanyama. Instead, they finished fourth in the draft lottery, Cunningham’s stock is plummeting and he’s on the mend again.
Monty Williams was lured to Detroit with the largest contract for a coach in NBA history. Instead, all he’s done is draw the ire of Pistons faithful. Dan Campbell, the relatively nondescript assistant off of Sean Payton’s Saints staff became a laughingstock when he vowed to bite knee-caps during his introductory press conference as Lions head coach. Life’s funny that way sometimes.
It’s an extreme splitscreen of fandom akin to winning an Oscar and a Razzie in the same weekend, or attending a wedding and a funeral doubleheader in any order. The Lions are a welcome distraction from a season of mourning at Little Caesars Arena.
In less than a week the Lions will host the scrappy Buccaneers inside Ford Field with an NFC Championship berth at stake.They won’t have the option to open the roof on a team from Florida, but in a surprising turn of events, the Lions will be the overwhelming favorites against a Bucs team that is a skeletal version of the 2020 season’s champs.
Think about this, At their current rate, the Pistons are on pace to win fewer games in 82 chances than the Lions did in just 17. The last time a city’s flagship NFL franchise won more games in a season than their neighborhood NBA counterpart was 1992 when the Dallas Cowboys went 13-3 en route to their first Super Bowl while the Mavericks won 11 times out of the 82 times they clocked in to get worked.
In sharp contrast to Jimmy Johnson and The Triplets, the 11-win Mavs were the culmination of a series of disastrous scenarios coalescing in one cataclysmic season. In the year prior, Roy Tarpley was banned from the NBA for violating the substance abuse policy three years after pushing the Lakers to Game 7 of the 1988 Western Conference Finals, Fat Lever was traded, Rolando Blackman was shipped to the Knicks and fourth overall pick Jim Jackson’s holdout over a contract dispute limited him to 28 games.
The Pistons should be grateful for the Lions shielding them from the Motor City’s heat – for at least another week and the ensuing grace period. The Tigers haven’t graced a postseason stage in a decade. The Red Wings are on pace for their first .500 season since 2015, but it will take more than just a first- or second-round exit to satisfy that rapacious fanbase. The miracle of Campbell’s Lions revitalization is that they’re peaking just in time to distract from a four-year Pistons rebuild that has imploded into a real-life Towering Inferno.
This could turn out to be a brief mirage conjured by offensive mastermind Ben Johnson’s acumen. In past years, the Falcons and Eagles have both reverted back to pumpkins after losing Kyle Shanahan and Shane Steichen, respectively. However, beggars can’t be choosers. How long the Lions ride this wave is anyone’s guess. If 30-year-old Cowboys and Mavs history is any indication, the Pistons’ misery be the Lions gain.
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