Before the Palace of Auburn Hills was agog with noise and belief Tuesday night, the Detroit Pistons were already on their way to becoming something more, something permanent and lasting.
This nondescript team of role players from a Midwestern market -- supposed ratings killers, every bland one of them -- became the perfect antidote for the conspiratorial NBA mind. The Pistons have made everyone who ever hinted that David Stern's league was fixed, the chorus that believed the NBA was a place where large media markets and iconic superstars are always catered to, stand down.
Well, unless one can buy into another sting having unfolded in these NBA Finals: that Stern wanted and needed the Pistons to win it all.
Call it the counterintuitive con, and bear with us on this reach.
See, Detroit shocks the Lakers and half the league is immediately validated again. No more Clipper-esque barbs about dropping an entire conference.
The East is not only back, it has a beast to contend with all those incredibly skilled marquee players in the Western Conference. A Pistons title ensures that the commissioner's league is not top-heavy, that the 82-game drivel prior to the postseason is not worthless. Scores in the sixties and seventies are not viewed as eyesore basketball anymore, but instead grueling, physical, defensive confrontations that eventually yield champions.
Next, every official who ever had a reputation for catering to star players can sleep better with the knowledge that a team featuring one borderline all-star, Ben Wallace, could knock off the NBA's glamour team.
How else to explain Kobe Bryant going to the line five times in Game 3 and 4 in Detroit. Now, only four players in the league shot more free throws than Bryant this season, and one of them is Shaquille O'Neal, who has shot -- and missed -- more than anyone. O'Neal went to the free throw line 13 times in 90 minutes of play leading up to Game 5. Meantime, the Pistons' Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton combined for 30 foul shots in Games 3 and 4.
Were the Lakers jobbed out of a title? No. Most likely Larry Brown exploited a rule that allows incidental contact against an offensive player as long as the defender does not affect the player's speed, quickness, balance or rhythm.
By having Pistons defenders put hands on Bryant but not clearly foul him, it allowed other defenders time to come over and help. Bryant maintained the advantage over the initial defender, but the contact prevented him getting to the rim before others converged. Mark Cuban sent the league an e-mail about this development, although the Dallas owner won't buy into any conspiracies beyond that.
And implying the Lakers lost because of the officiating is not giving the Pistons credit. They could be the champion with the least star power since Dennis Johnson, Gus Williams, Jack Sikma and Paul Silas pushed the Seattle SuperSonics past the Washington Bullets in 1979. Since then, a Bird, Magic, Erving, Jordan, Olajuwon, Duncan or Kobe and Shaq were prerequisites for championships.
A Detroit title goes down as the greatest finals upset since Rick Barry's 48-win Golden State Warriors stunned and swept the Bullets of Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld in the 1975 finals.
But do not think that referees such as Ed F. Rush and Dick Bavetta, who both worked Game 4, felt a little less guilt when the Pistons won.
According to a 2002 court filing by a woman trying to assert Michael Jordan owed her $5 million in hush money for not divulging the details of their relationship, Rush is the guy who telephoned Jordan in his hotel room to make the introduction to the woman in 1989. The NBA felt comfortable enough with Rush's explanation to dismiss any fraternization or conflict of interest concerns with the game's best player. But the document let the public in on a long-held belief: that officials, like mankind, prefer to be liked by the game's greatest players.
Rush was at the center of a recent controversy involving O'Neal. He was heard inquiring at the scorer's table about how many fouls O'Neal had in a pivotal Western Conference final game against Minnesota. The league's explanation was that the public-address announcer had said O'Neal had four fouls instead of five, and that he just wanted a clarification. Even so, it fed the Oliver Stone crowd.
Bavetta was dubbed "Knick" Bavetta by Miami's Tim Hardaway a few years ago because his calls supposedly favored the team that plays in the media capital of the world. While that was a bit rash for such a longtime, respected referee, it should be revealed that Bavetta once felt so bad about calls he made -- and didn't make -- in Game 6 of the 1998 finals that he apologized to current Lakers Bryon Russell and Karl Malone.
Remember Jordan's pulsating shot to win his sixth title? How about the debated non-call when he used his right arm to move Russell aside to give himself room?
"He came up to us the first preseason game we saw him the next fall," Russell recalled recently. "Bavetta pulled me and Karl aside and said, 'I'm sorry about what happened.' We were like, 'You don't have to apologize.' I was kind of ticked off.
"But at the same time, you can respect it because he was man enough to come up and say it after he made the mistake. But I wish he would've corrected that mistake during the game."
Imagine: You are Malone or Jerry Sloan or John Stockton, chasing a title your entire career, and a referee admits he made mistakes in the most crucial game of your career. Heading into a possible Game 7 in Utah, Jordan had no legs, Scottie Pippen's back was out and the Bulls were effectively done.
"He mentioned that he messed up, that he felt sorry about it the whole summer," Russell said.
In trying to live down their career-long reputations as guys who give stars special treatment, would they unconsciously go the other way? It's a hard sell, we know.
But finally, if the Pistons become a model for how to build a champion, then NBA owners do not have to mortgage their franchise values on one or two players. They can live cheaply, win and still fill the stands. Perfect timing during collective bargaining negotiations between those cash-poor owners and living-large players, no?
Look, we warned it was a reach.