Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons is a professional basketball team based in Detroit, United States. As a member of the league's Central Division of the Eastern Conference, the Pistons compete in the National Basketball Association and play their home games at the Little Caesars Arena in Midtown. The team was founded in 1941 as Fort Wayne Pistons in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a member of the National Basketball League in which it won two NBL championships: in 1944 and 1945. The Pistons had entered the American Basketball League in earlier 1948. The NBL and BAA merged into the NBA in 1949, and the Pistons became a part of the new league. In 1957 the franchise was moved to Detroit. The Pistons won three NBA Championships: in 1989, 1990 and 2004. The Detroit Pistons franchise was known as the National Basketball League team Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Owner Fred Zollner's Zollner Company was a piston-making foundry, mainly for automobile, truck and locomotive engines. The Zollner Pistons had been part of the NBL from 1944 to 1945. They also won World Professional Basketball Championships in 1944, 1945, and 1946. The franchise became the Pistons of Fort Wayne in 1948, and competed in the American Basketball Association. In 1949 Fred Zollner brokered the creation of the National Basketball Association BAA and NBL at his kitchen table. There are rumours that the Pistons players conspired with gamblers during the seasons of 1953–54 and 1954–55 to skim points and ruin various games. In fact there are reports that the team may have intentionally lost the Syracuse Nationals to the NBA Finals of 1955. Late in the second quarter of the decisive Game 7, the Pistons led 41–24, before the Nationals rallied to tie. With 12 seconds left in the game on a free throw from George King, the Nationals prevailed. The closing moments included a palming error with 18 seconds remaining by George Yardley of the Pistons, a foul by Frank Brian with 12 seconds left that helped King win free throw, and a miss by Andy Phillip of the Pistons in the final seconds that gave them a opportunity to attempt the game winning shot. The next season the Pistons made it back to the NBA Finals. But the Philadelphia Warriors will beat them in five days. While the Pistons enjoyed a strong local following, Fort Wayne's small size made it difficult for them to survive, particularly as other early NBA franchises in smaller towns were folding or moving to larger markets. After the 1956–57 season, Zollner decided Fort Wayne was too weak to sustain an NBA team, and announced the team should play elsewhere in the coming season. He eventually settled on Detroit. While it was the fifth biggest city in the United States at the time, over a decade, Detroit hadn't seen professional basketball. They defeated the Detroit Tigers, the Detroit Gems of the NBL and Detroit Falcons of the BAA in 1947, and the Detroit Vagabond Kings of 1949, due to World War II. Zollner has opted to keep the name Pistons, feeling it makes sense to remember Detroit's status as the auto industry centre. George Yardley set the record for single-season NBA scoring with the Pistons in Detroit's first season, becoming the first player to score 2,000 points in one season. On 10 June 2008 the Pistons appointed Michael Curry as their new head coach. In November 2008 the Pistons traded key players including Allen Iverson, Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to the Denver Nuggets. McDyess was waived later on November 10 and rejoined the Pistons on December 9. Regardless of the free agent status Iverson received at the end of the season, trading was marked as the beginning of a new rebuilding cycle. Despite the relocation from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957, the Pistons 'jerseys remained essentially intact for two decades, showing the word "Pistons" in blue block lettering. In the 1978–79 season, the team wore a kit featuring lightning bolts on the sides and in the wordmark at the front of the jerseys. The team dissected the lightning bolt concept, switching to their conventional block lettering and flat side panel style in 1981, sticking with that look until 1996. That year the Pistons changed their colours to teal, purple, yellow, and gold, and unveiled a new logo with a horse's head and a flaming mane. This uniform scheme lasted until 2001, when the squad went back to the traditional red, white and blue colours in a generic pattern from the 1981–96 strings. The Horse's head and flaming mane logo lasted until 2005, when the company switched to a more conventional design theme.