Pistons Lurking In Shadows Of Celtics, Cavs

Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to the Celtics? Fine! Send Kobe Bryant to the Chicago Bulls, too, while you're at it. Anoint LeBron James the King. Oh yeah -- that's been done already. Prop Gilbert Arenas and his Wizards teammates up. Let the Miami Heat be lauded as a possible bounce-back team. Most of this has happened, or has been rumored to happen. And the more of it that goes on, I say, the better it is for the Detroit Pistons. The curtain goes up tonight on another NBA season in Detroit -- the 51st since the team moved from Fort Wayne. Commemorative patches acknowledging this being the 50th anniversary of the first NBA game played in the Motor City will be worn by the players on their game tank tops. Yet few times, if ever, have the Pistons been simultaneously a contender and a pretender in so many "experts"'s eyes. Usually you're either in or you're out as a serious player -- not both. But to hear many say it, the Pistons are either, a) too o...