Pistons Bring it Home!

When I was about eight, I remember laying on the floor with my Dad watching as the Pistons beat the L.A. Lakers to win the NBA World Championship in 1989. I remember my dad teaching me which players were which, and their nicknames: Chuck Daly, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer, Isiah "Ike" Thomas, John "Spider" Salley, Vinnie "Microwave" Johnson, and Dennis Rodman (before he got all crazy-looking.) We even bought a Wheaties box with the Pistons' starters on the front (I think we still have it). I also remember the 1990 Championship, and how awesome it was for the Pistons to win two years in a row. Dad bought a t-shirt with all the players' faces on it in caricatures.

Then the basketball interest in our household slowly died out until it was rekindled a week ago.

Watching games with my mom is a good gateway drug from being a loyal closet fan to a screaming, cheering fan. I was reading in my room when I hear my mom screaming at the TV. Of course, I go out to find out what it is she's yelling at, and before I know it I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, cheering for a team I had barely thought of for fourteen years.

Well, tonight the Pistons have done it again, and won the NBA Championship after a fourteen year drought for the first time on home turf. So many people in the beginning said how the L.A. Lakers had it in the bag.

Dad said the Pistons would win though, because the team is younger and none of them are stars, they are a team.

Boy was he right. The Pistons won 100 to 87 in five games.

What made me so nostalgic about the whole thing (and what prompted me to write a post about it) was at the beginnning of the game, they showed the old Pistons from the 1989 and 2000 Championships that had made it to the game, Bill Laimbeer, Vinnie Johnson, John Mahorn. As I was watching with Mom, she said, "Wow, they are all there!"

They were all there, and for a second I was eight years old again. Now that the game is over, I'm an adult again.

Nostalgia is nice, in small doses.