Detroit Pistons – From Way Downtown

Curtis Rowe: It’s a New Game Every Night, 1975

That “something more” that Rowe possesses is his adaptability, his willingness to play both ends of the floor, and his sense of perspective, both on and off the court.

Terry Dischinger: Two Toots for ‘Terrible Terry,’ 1964

This serious fellow had been in the habit of coming out first in anything that he undertakes.

Dave Bing: Sight, Sealed, and Delivered, 1971

Unlike others around him, Bing said he has no fear about returning. The doctors have assured him that playing basketball will not cause a reoccurrence of the injury.

Otto Moore: Appetite to Play, 1970

Since that pivotal night of January 2, Otto has averaged 17.4 points and 15 rebounds a game. If the latter number were projected over the whole season, it would be the same as the NBA’s third-ranked board man, a fellow named Lew Alcindor.

Bob Lanier: Bum Knee, Bad Rap, 1970-71

The curious thing is that skinny Otto Moore is saving the Pistons—saving their center position and even saving Lanier from further embarrassment. Who would have thought that . . .

Gary Brokaw: Potential for Magic, 1974-78

As a youth, Brokaw tried to pattern his play after Walt Frazier and Dave Bing. Little did he know that several years later, it would be Frazier and Bing that would be his workaday opponents.

Dick Vitale: Pumping Up the Detroit Pistons, 1978

Vitale is a workaholic. His non-stop drive to succeed may stem from the fact that he never made it as a player himself. An infection at the beginning of his junior year in high school cost him the sight in his left eye, and he could never recapture the form that made him a 25-point-a-game scorer the year before.

Isiah Thomas: The Bad, The Brave, and The Brilliant, 1988

Thomas banked a 17-footer off the glass and cleanly through the hoop. Probably the Bullets didn’t know it then, but the night was over.

Reggie Harding: The Original Detroit Bad Boy, 1972

By the end of the season, the Pistons had fined Reggie nearly $3,000 of his $15,000 a year salary and suspended him indefinitely. “After Reggie made the professional league,” his wife Nadine said, “he felt he was ‘The Man’ now, and no one had the right to tell him what to do.”

Reggie Harding: Jackson Prison Blues, 1970

[In January 1969, two Baltimore reporters got “locked up” in an airport waiting more than six hours to board their connecting flight to cover the NBA Bullets. To fight the boredom, the two embarked upon selecting their unconventional assortment of all-time NBA teams: All-Crybaby, All-Bald, All-Schoolyard, All-Hatchet, and All-Ugly (“the entire Seattle team”). Reggie Harding,Continue reading “Reggie Harding: Jackson Prison Blues, 1970”