Video Courtesy of The Detroit Pistons

I Remember the game vividly because I was at the Palace that night. I remember Johns Salley’s performance and I distinctly remember the celebration of being the eastern conference champs getting ready to head off to the NBA Championship for the second season in a row. (Back2Back I still have that t-shirt)

I also had a memory of two player that you may or may not remember. William Bedford and the Bulls B.J. Armstrong.

Bedford turned out to be of the biggest disappointments, a 7 footer with much potential and two NBA championship rings (thanks to Detroit) who sadly squandered his talents because of a drug problem.

B.J. Armstrong was Michigan bred and went the Birmingham Brother Rice high school.  I will always remember how small he seemed to me (6″2)  on court and always amazed in the fact that he was right across the way while I attended school.

Any special moments you remember distinctly?

It wasn’t in the cards for our boys this season, six trips to the Eastern Conference Finals and one glorious Championship is what they have to show for it. Pretty impressive, just ask anyone in Charlotte, Seattle, or Memphis if you don’t think so.

If you are like me, it’s all a bit surreal right now. In fact I was in a bit of a daze driving home after the game Friday night and the whole thing honestly didn’t hit me until today.

It’s not quite the feeling that I felt when we lost to the Spurs in game seven and it honestly didn’t hurt as much as the ride home from the Pistons Game Five loss to Cleveland last season. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I have gotten spoiled and used to underaveivement

I am completely blown away, not that they didn’t get to The Finals. I can’t believe that they didn’t win Game Five. I was sure it was going to go Seven and at that point it really was a tossup who would come out victorious.

Boston is a great team and they deserve to get credit for what they did this season and how they took us down in the playoffs. Good luck to them. I’ll watch these Finals for the pure basketball enjoyment of it, no investment in either team.

Funny how confident I was headed to the game and how quickly things changed when the opening buzzer was growing close. As I followed text messages and comments during the game many Pistons fans were calling for Sheed to do something….anything and what we got was nothing.

It started from the his body language as I watched the warm ups. It followed during the introductions when he didn’t get ready for his ritual with Rip in the corner. It was extremely awkward when he didn’t do the pre-game dance, he just stood in the circle and looked around and then did a bit of knee slapping with the rest of the crew. He didn’t hug KG like he had throughout the series, maybe because of all the slack he was getting. Most disturbing, he didn’t rally the crowd before the jump ball like he has been doing FOR YEARS.

I knew it was going to be bad, but I hoped for the best.

I thought maybe it was just me, but it seems even more disturbing things unfolded behind the scenes with Sheed.

This run is over , things will change, we just don’t really know what those things will be. Sheed may go, Flip may be gone, Rip could be traded as well as Tay. Things are uncertain…we wait.

And you know what, that’s OK. We’ll ride right on Joe D’s bandwagon and trust that whatever he does with this team is what he thinks is best. Who are we to judge, he’s given us six straight years of glory, excitement and entertainment.

Joe, you’ve spoiled us and for that we thank you. Do what you gotta do, we will follow. If we go through some adversity it’s OK. With adversity brings excellence, any athlete knows that.

Joe, you have given us a true Team, and for that we are most thankful.

Instead of analyzing trade talks or looking at the free agents, I’ll wait for Joe’s moves and go from there. When Joe was on court you could always trust him with the last shot, he’s got the ball now and I am sure he’ll hit the bottom of the net for us.

Get ready for the shakeup that we all knew was coming if this team didn’t make the Finals.

It’s not over Piston fans…….it’s The Beginning!

Stay tuned.

P.S. Please stop with the website name change suggestions. 40 in 2 days is more than I can handle and I know more will come if I don’t mention it. I know you mean well, but Sheed or no Sheed there will always be a Need4Sheed.com. The name stays even if the player doesn’t. Who doesn’t have a Need4Sheed anyway? It’s an attitude and a lifestyle and plenty of good times.

I have a soft spot for #6 myself.