aurorakmw, I don't really know the truth about the fans. I got that impression from the way people post on the Pistons forums. I got the steady impression that there were only a couple of us defending Darko and trying to lobby to get him playing time, and kept the faith. I had the steady impression that the majority of the posters enjoyed putting him down, calling him a failure, and especially calling us Darko HOF Club members (their description, not ours) to task for our 'blind' faith in him.
It would have cost the Pistons only 5 or 7 minutes a game to shut us up forever.

Those are really the only places where I picked up that feeling and what I was basing my opinion on.

Possibly this opinion is not completely correct, but it is what I believe.

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Things appear to be at their darkest . . . . . . . . . just before they go totally black!!

Darko did engineer the trade through his agent- Joe said that much. Darko wanted out, so Joe moved him.

Darko may turn out to be a good player, but he didn't want to be OUR good player.

OK, Lazyberbs, I thought you were talking about the fans in a more general way. I didn't join this forum until after the Darko trade. Darko has certainly gotten alot of press time on this forum. In journalism school we counted line by line to see what the biggest stories of the year were. I think if we did that on this forum the most lines have probably been written about Darko, eh? Anyway, I'm talking about all the fans, the fans in the Palace, the fans who read the newspaper, who listen on the radio,the mainstream Detroit Pistons fans, I don't think they thought Darko was a failure. I think they were mostly neutral, due to not seeing him play.

That pretty much describes me. I never liked that pick. I warmed up to him a bit in year 2 but his lack of enthusiasm in the few mins that he did get kind of turned me off.

I'm sorry, Robert Michael, I was trying to be ironic or tongue in cheek or something. I should have put a laughing smilie or something to indicate that I wasn't serious about that trade being a good one.

Let's try again.
Of course we must do better than that trade. We need to sign and trade Chauncey for a pure point guard and a post player. If we keep him and spend the big bucks, we are destined for perimeter jumpshooting mediocrity for a long time. He is the biggest factor in our lack of points in the paint IMO. Not worth the big money if it hurts our efforts to grow and build around Rip and Tay.

So you're saying you think most Pistons fans were rooting for the franchise's best prospect since Grant Hill to fail? They would rather have seen Darko bust than give the Pistons the league's next great big man? Some fans...

They weren't rooting for him to fail they were just mightily displeased with the result of the draft. You basically had two sides: the pick was bad or the handling of the pick was bad. Nobody really had anything good to say about it...except that we won the championship

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aurorakmw-- Good to know you were joking. You totally had me there. We agree on flip for sure. His jumpshot offense is a playoff failure. I was blinded to the fact by all our regular season wins, but reality hit me like a ton of bricks when we almost lost to Cleveland and got rolled by Miami.

I never liked the Darko pick either. But I wanted him to succeed. I was turned off by his attitude, WEAK play, and the incessent harping about his playing time from the DHOF on Detnews. Lee was the worst. I rememember Lazy having more of a play him and let's see what we got kind of vibe. Lee was ready to build the guy a statue and bow down and worship before he ever played a game.

Side note. I did catch a Pistons Laker game in Darko's rookie year and I was on the floor, so I went way early. Darko hit about 25-30 threes in a row. I kid not. I was totally pumped. Until the next time he played.

I loved the pick, though it did fill me with a sense of dread, esp. when we decided to give him, of all things, Sam Bowie's number. I thot he was gonna be a player until summer league highlights last year. The contrast between him and Maxiell was remarkable. Max was blocking shots and dunking hard. Darko's highlight reel included shooting 3s and taking charges. That said it all.

Isiah probably phoned Joe giving him hints about good trades. Joe simply blew it and I'm still mad about it.