Sheed used to say that other teams made changes in order to keep up with Pistons. The Pistons have been the top dog in the conference for a while. Is this time that pressure is on the team?

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=9662

Quote:

The Detroit Pistons have been the class organization of the Eastern Conference for the past six seasons, getting to the Conference Finals each year. But, doing their best Buffalo Bills impression, the team has only made the next step to the NBA Finals twice, winning one title. The road has never been easy, as the Pistons have faced challenges from LeBron James and the [COLOR=#c80000! important][COLOR=#c80000! important]Cleveland [COLOR=#c80000! important]Cavaliers[/color][/color][/color] and the Big Three in Boston. Now, however, Detroit's status as one of the top dogs in the East will be in question, as Milwaukee, Toronto and Philadelphia will be noticeably better with the changes they've made this offseason. All that has put pressure on Pistons' President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars, who is now looking around to work his magic and re-tool the team. Rumors of interest in Tracy McGrady, Josh Smith, and Carmelo Anthony have made headlines this summer, as everyone on the Pistons is on notice and could be moved at anytime. But new Pistons' head coach Michael Curry cautions the speculators to remember that the Pistons will be very judicious in their approach to improving. "I think when Joe Dumars said he would make changes, he said he would only make changes that would make the team better," Curry said. "I'm not really worried about the teams that made changes; it's a strong conference, but I'm more concerned with how we continue to improve and how we improve as a team."

I sure hope at the end of next season, we can say to Philly, Toronto and Milwaukee,"keep trying" !

As other teams make moves to get better and the Pistons stand pat, the expectations for Detroit are lower. In that sense, there is less pressure on the Pistons.

^My thoughts exatcly.

I agree.

Heck even we expect less from the Pistons

But we still want them to win it all.

The Pistons and pressure cannot coexist in the same sentence man. The Pistons will win next season. Who can stop them?

Yup. Major success will be viewed by many people as "overachieving".

If a team gets to the semi finals 6 times in a row, then odds are that they will make the finals 3 times and win 1.5 championships.

We made the finals 2 times and won 1.0 championship. If we had won 2, we would have over achieved, but since we only won one, we under achieved.

Do you see what a fine line that is? Shouldn't have left Horry open.

I hate the fact that Horry's shot is a going to be a high light for the rest of the century. Add to this, NBA TV plays it as part of great memories, it is not great memories to me.

Please don't talk about that. I've managed to block it out from my memory, and now i just pretend it never happened.