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Speaker 1: Welcome to this League Uncut. You rule a twenty four

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Speaker 1: hour NBA news. This news you, Chris Haines. It's time,

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Speaker 1: work's time, It's so time. This League Uncut is underway

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Speaker 1: and on five this should be a good one.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome in to the latest edition of This

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Speaker 2: League Uncut. A solo essay edition of This League Uncut.

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Speaker 2: My dear friend Chris Haynes and I we've both been

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Speaker 2: on the run since the NBA's five game Christmas Day buffet.

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Speaker 2: We will connect again very soon to resume usual service.

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Speaker 2: But what happened Tuesday night in the NBA. It demanded

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Speaker 2: an immediate response because man t seven losses in a

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Speaker 2: row twenty seven. Remember you have to get twenty seven

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Speaker 2: outs in a row in baseball to pitch a perfect game.

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Speaker 2: Losing a completely blemished twenty seven NBA games in a

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Speaker 2: row in the modern NBA, that is really, really, really

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Speaker 2: hard to do. And yet it really just happened Tuesday

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Speaker 2: night Nets one point eighteen Pistons one to twelve in Detroit.

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Speaker 2: And I've written extensively on this on my substack as well.

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Speaker 2: This losing streak, it honestly goes back to mid May

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Speaker 2: for the Pistons, it's lasted longer than six months. As

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Speaker 2: bad as the last few nights have been for Detroit,

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Speaker 2: they couldn't beat a severely weakened Jazz team at home

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Speaker 2: to avoid lost number twenty five in a row. They

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Speaker 2: couldn't figure out how to beat the Nets in either

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Speaker 2: half of a home and home to stop this thing

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Speaker 2: before it got to twenty six and now the single

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Speaker 2: season record twenty seven consecutive defeats. However, as low as

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Speaker 2: these last few clinching ls have left the Pistons Tuesday, amazingly,

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Speaker 2: that was not the worst day of twenty twenty three

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Speaker 2: for this beleaguered franchise. Super bad, Yes, it was super bad.

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Speaker 2: Not the low point, though. Nothing hit the Pistons harder

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Speaker 2: than what happened in Chicago on May sixteenth. I was

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Speaker 2: there in the room in Chicago when the NBA draft

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Speaker 2: lottery dropped the Pistons. They had the league's worst record

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Speaker 2: in the league remember last season worst record seventeen and

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Speaker 2: sixty five. The lottery results dropped the Pistons as far

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Speaker 2: as they could mathematically plummet in the Victor Wemberyama Sweepstakes.

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Speaker 2: Detroit cratered that day from a potential number one in

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Speaker 2: the draft all the way down to number five, and

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Speaker 2: that was true devastation because that was their shot at Wenby.

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Speaker 2: You have to say, though, that Tuesday Night was plenty

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Speaker 2: devastating in its own right. These Pistons have now lost

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Speaker 2: more games in a single season than any other team

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Speaker 2: across the NBA's seventy eight seasons. And part of what

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Speaker 2: makes it so hard to take when you're looking at

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Speaker 2: the circumstances surrounding the two teams that they've just supplanted

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Speaker 2: on this list that nobody wants to be on Detroit's

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Speaker 2: twenty seven game skid. Just say it out loud again,

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Speaker 2: twenty seven game skid. That's one lost longer than both

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Speaker 2: the twenty ten to eleven Cleveland Cavaliers, who had just

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Speaker 2: lost Lebron James to the Heatles in free agency. Well,

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Speaker 2: they lost him to the heat and then they became

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Speaker 2: the Heatles with Lebron, as well as the twenty thirteen

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Speaker 2: to fourteen Process Sixers, who were trying to lose for

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Speaker 2: draft position. These Pistons were not trying to lose the season. Remember,

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Speaker 2: they started the season with dreams of a playing spot

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Speaker 2: in the East seriously playing spot. That was the that

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Speaker 2: was the target, the minimum target that this team thought

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Speaker 2: it was competing for. Pistons again, they were two to

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Speaker 2: one on October twenty eighth, after surviving zach Lavine's fifty

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Speaker 2: one points to win their home opener. And yes, you

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Speaker 2: heard me correctly. It's the same zach Lavine who the

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Speaker 2: Chicago Bulls so badly want a trade. Now, there have

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Speaker 2: been eight fifty point games registered this season by the

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Speaker 2: various scoring machines all around the league. The first of

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Speaker 2: those came from zach Lavine. He went for fifty at

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Speaker 2: Little Caesar's Arena October twenty eighth, and somehow Detroit survived that.

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Speaker 2: Since then, I don't really know that we can use

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Speaker 2: the words celebrated here, but exaggerated air quotes you can employ.

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Speaker 2: The Pistons have celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas without

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Speaker 2: adding a single win to that total. Now, in the

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Speaker 2: interest of being ultra factual here, we must point out

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Speaker 2: that the Wembin Yama led Spurs at four and twenty

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Speaker 2: five entering Wednesday's play, not much better off in the

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Speaker 2: standings than the two and twenty eight Pistons. The massive difference,

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Speaker 2: of course, is that San Antonio has the seven foot

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Speaker 2: five Wembin Yama to build around. So Spurs fans, no

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Speaker 2: matter how bad the present is, they have tangible dreams

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Speaker 2: and reason to at least imagine picture a return to

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Speaker 2: glory down the road. Poor Pistons fans right now, they

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Speaker 2: only see despair, an uncertainty, and an extremely lonely Cad

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Speaker 2: Cunningham who's playing quite well. That's what they're looking at now,

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Speaker 2: after a decade plus of team building that has absolutely

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Speaker 2: gone awry. Think about this. Detroit essentially entered this current

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Speaker 2: rebuilding mode as far back as the twenty nineteen twenty season.

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Speaker 2: That's when they traded Andre Drummond to Cleveland, they bought

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Speaker 2: out Reggie Jackson. Blake Griffin only played in eighteen of

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Speaker 2: sixty six games that season, the pandemic shortened season. Blake

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Speaker 2: Griffin was bought out that following season in twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. So the Pistons, these guys are in

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Speaker 2: year three of this supposed rebuild. And that's if we're

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Speaker 2: being nice with the way we count, and even if

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Speaker 2: we are being gentle by saying year three rather than

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Speaker 2: year four, that's the most minuscule of concessions you can

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Speaker 2: make at a time when last season's record, that's seventeen

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Speaker 2: and sixty five record, when Cad Cunningham was limited to

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Speaker 2: twelve games last season before he had to undergo season

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Speaker 2: ending shin surgery. When seventeen and sixty five feels so

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Speaker 2: far out of reach and the calendar hasn't even flipped

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Speaker 2: to January first yet, I don't really know how nice

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Speaker 2: were being. I mean, the Pistons in their current state,

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Speaker 2: they're gonna need an eight and forty four finish, which

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Speaker 2: you could actually classify as an eight and forty four

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Speaker 2: surge when you have only won two of your first

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Speaker 2: thirty games. They're gonna have to go eight and forty

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Speaker 2: four to finish better than the nineteen seventy two seventy

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Speaker 2: three Philadelphia seventy six ers who went nine and seventy three.

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Speaker 2: If you really study the history books, you'll note that

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Speaker 2: the Charlotte Hornets of twenty eleven twelve. Those Hornets went

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Speaker 2: seven to fifty nine during a lockout shortened season that

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Speaker 2: only lasted sixty six games. The Hornets fared worse than

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Speaker 2: those infamous seventy six ers percentage wise, but it's really

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Speaker 2: the nine and seventy three mark through the years that

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Speaker 2: has retained the greater historical relevance in terms of a

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Speaker 2: symbol of futility. But the Pistons right now they are

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Speaker 2: on a five and seventy seven pace five and seventy seven.

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Speaker 2: This team has the chance to possibly knock both the

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Speaker 2: nine and seventy three Sixers and the seven and fifty

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Speaker 2: nine Hornets. They might knock both of these teams out

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Speaker 2: of the record books. The franchise has a three sixty

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Speaker 2: eight winning percentage since the start of the twenty eleven

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Speaker 2: twelve season under Tom Gores as majority owner. That's three

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Speaker 2: fifty eight and six fourteen in Gores' twelve full seasons.

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Speaker 2: The once proud Pistons, they've made the playoffs twice. They

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Speaker 2: haven't won a playoff game since two thousand and eight. Now,

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Speaker 2: I've got to put my own hand up here and

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Speaker 2: say that in the offseason I applauded goers for spending

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Speaker 2: so much to bring in Monty Williams because the Pistons

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Speaker 2: aren't making free agent splashes with on court free agents,

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Speaker 2: so a lot of people looked at that contract nearly

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Speaker 2: eighty million over six years. It shocked a lot of people,

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Speaker 2: but I did see it as a breakthrough moment four

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Speaker 2: Gores and the Pistons. To me, it was a clear

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Speaker 2: dub inspired by that old maxim that tells us there's

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Speaker 2: no salary cap when it comes to coaches. There is

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Speaker 2: no way now when you evaluate the Pistons and their situation,

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Speaker 2: that you can apply that kind of analysis now. League

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Speaker 2: sources told me that Gores met with various players as

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Speaker 2: well as GM Troy Weaver and Monti Williams a week

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Speaker 2: ago today in Detroit, both in search of answers behind

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Speaker 2: closed doors, and it was an attempt to lift spirits

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Speaker 2: that didn't work either. The next night was the game

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Speaker 2: against Utah, where the Jazz were resting numerous regulars and

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Speaker 2: the Pistons lost at home one nineteen one to eleven.

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Speaker 2: No market In, no Clarkson, no Keyante George, no Taylor,

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Speaker 2: Horton Tucker still couldn't beat the Jazz, who were playing

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Speaker 2: on the second night of a back to back. And

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Speaker 2: part of what has to make this so galling and

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Speaker 2: hard for Pistons fans to accept It was roughly a

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Speaker 2: year ago at this time that the Pistons they were

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Speaker 2: actively resisting external trade interest in guys like Boyan Bogdanovich

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Speaker 2: and Alec Burks. It happened again during the summer. They

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Speaker 2: wanted to keep quality veterans on the roster so that

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Speaker 2: a young core led by Cad Cunningham and Jalen Duran

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Speaker 2: would have win now players around them, and again the

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Speaker 2: hope was to make a push at worst for a

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Speaker 2: play in spot in this season's East. Now the Pistons

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Speaker 2: awoke Wednesday already eleven games behind the tenth seeded Bowls,

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Speaker 2: the fourteen and eighteen Bowls, who won't even have Levine

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Speaker 2: back on the floor until some point in the new year,

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Speaker 2: and who just lost Nikolovucevich to an injury as well.

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Speaker 2: It's become a very grim game throughout the NBA to

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Speaker 2: look at the Pistons' upcoming schedule and try to figure

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Speaker 2: out how many more holidays are going to pass before

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Speaker 2: they finally win again. Are we talking New Year's Day?

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Speaker 2: Are we talking Valentine's Day? The best upcoming opportunities to

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Speaker 2: scrounge a win would appear to be on Saturday. They've

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Speaker 2: got a home date with Toronto. The Raptors are eleven

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Speaker 2: and eighteen and going in the wrong direction. The Pistons

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Speaker 2: have a January third rematch with Utah, that one's in

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Speaker 2: Salt Lake City, and on January tenth, they've got the

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Speaker 2: Spurs in town with mister wenman Yama himself. You'd probably

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Speaker 2: have an easier chance though, trying to predict when the

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Speaker 2: Pistons are going to find that win than trying to

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Speaker 2: pinpoint their next shot at a Wembe level prize in

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Speaker 2: the draft. Because the twenty twenty four draft do not

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Speaker 2: expect anything resembling last season's anticipation and hooplah, the widespread

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Speaker 2: sentiment around the league is that the top of the

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Speaker 2: draft board in June it's gonna be far more underwhelming

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Speaker 2: than usual. And the simple translation when you boil all

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Speaker 2: that down is this is a bad season for the

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Speaker 2: franchise once famed for their title winning bad boys to

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Speaker 2: be super bad. All right, everyone, that's gonna do it.

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Speaker 2: For this quickie solo monologue edition of This League Uncut,

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Speaker 2: I repeat, Chris and I will be back with you

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Speaker 2: very very soon this week. As always, please remember to rate, review,

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Speaker 2: and subscribe to the show if you haven't already. Thanks

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Speaker 2: for listening, and.

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Speaker 1: That'll do it for us, See you next time. This

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Speaker 1: League Uncut is an iHeartRadio production. It's good marks time