The Pistons Are Tumbling Into Oblivion

Anyone who's followed the Pistons on a regular basis couldn't possibly have been surprised by Sunday's embarrassing blowout in Cleveland. (You know things are bad when you lose by 21 and a note on the team's official Twitter feed still admits "it wasn't as close as the final score.")

The Cavs have made a lot of teams look silly this year, but the loss was Detroit's sixth in a row and their 15th in 20 games. Forget the Pistons' streak of six consecutive appearances in the Conference Finals -- at their current pace, they're in very real danger of missing the playoffs completely.

Sunday's loss dropped the Pistons to .500 for the first time all year, but they could be five games under water in the blink of an eye. They still have to face the Heat, Hornets, Magic and Celtics on their current road trip, and in their first game home they host Chauncey Billups and the Nuggets. Considering only three games separate them from their current place as the No. 6 seed to the outside looking in as the No. 9 seed, the time to panic has long-since arrived.

When the team struggled early in the year, it was easy to claim the team was still adjusting to Allen Iverson. That excuse no longer applies, not when you realize this team is regressing. Instead of building chemistry, they've built apathy, sleepwalking through games and staring into space during timeouts.

After losing on Sunday, Michael Curry said, "We were out on the court playing like we don't like each other," and he's right. Curry's faulty schemes and funky rotations may make things difficult, but it's ultimately up to the players to bring the effort and at least give the players a chance to blame someone other than themselves.

As Antonio McDyess lamented, there's not a single player on this team who feels it's his place to step up and hold his teammates accountable. From A. Sherrod Blakely of Booth Newspapers:

"We don't have that one guy that steps in, get on a person for doing something wrong," McDyess said. "We have certain nights where one person would say something, and another would, but we need that one person who will be there, and we know that they got our back and that they'll get on us when we do wrong and direct us when we're going wrong. We don't have that."

As someone who's been credentialed for the majority of Pistons home games the past two years, I'm hardly surprised by McDyess' admission. To be frank, this is hardly new criticism -- McDyess shared similar sentiments last May after the Pistons were eliminated by the Celtics -- it's just that we're used to seeing this team collapse in the playoffs, not the regular season.

In the past, Billups was the voice of the team. Win or lose, he was the first to address the media after the game, answering every question before he even got dressed. He exuded calmness and confidence, and in addition to saving beat reporters on deadline with a good quote, he also set the tone for the rest of the locker room.

When Iverson arrived, he did more than simply inherit Billups' corner of the locker room; he also assumed the responsibility of talking first. But while he absolutely says all the right things, I don't think he has the same effect. How come?

Because more than lacking a leader, this team lacks an identity, and Iverson's arrival is the biggest reason why.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting Detroit's struggles squarely on A.I.'s shoulders -- he is who he is, and Joe Dumars knew that when he traded for him -- but his arrival forced everyone else into new roles, and the resulting shakeup may have undermined Curry's credibility with the players permanently.

When Curry's misguided attempt at small-ball went up in flames, he copped out by moving Rip Hamilton to the bench instead of Iverson. The fact that Hamilton has flourished in the role of sixth man is more a testament to his professionalism than justification for Curry's decision. Iverson needs the ball in his hands to be effective, and pairing him next to Rodney Stuckey has diminished Stuckey's natural aggressiveness.

After averaging 17.3 points a game in January, Stuckey is down to 8.8 points a game thus far in February. Both players rely on getting into the lane to score points, but without a viable three-point threat on the court to provide spacing, open lanes to the basket have become increasingly rare.

Plus, Curry seems to have a different set of rules for different players, especially on defense. Everyone knows that Iverson isn't a great defensive player (despite some strides), and Curry seems to accept Rasheed Wallace's inconsistent effort, but the moment Jason Maxiell makes a mistake he not only gets yanked from the game but also dropped from the rotation for several games. To their credit, no one publicly complains, but it's hard for me to believe that players don't notice (and resent) when it happens.

In a perfect world, co-captains Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince would take it upon themselves to make sure everyone stays on the same page, but that's easier said than done. Considering Iverson and Wallace will be free agents this summer and much better coaches than Curry have been run out of the Palace several times this decade, it's not a surprise if players start playing for themselves rather than the team, knowing that huge changes could very well be in store for this summer.

Unless there's a logic-defying turnaround on the horizon, even sneaking into the playoffs would be a disaster, robbing the team of a chance at a lottery pick simply for the honor of being ousted in the first round by one of the legitimate contenders atop the Eastern Conference. There are still 28 games left in the season, but at this point it seems like a mere formality. The Pistons had a nice run, but it's an end of an era.