Pistons-Spurs matchup to make ugly history

While the future looks bright for the Pistons and Spurs with No. 1 overall picks in guard Cade Cunningham and big man Victor Wembanyama leading their respective franchises, the short-term prognoses look dire for fans in both the Motor City and the Alamo City.

Remarkably, it was less than two decades ago when Detroit and San Antonio were on top of the league's two conferences, as the former fell to Gregg Popovich's Spurs in the 2005 NBA Finals. Of course, while Popovich remains courtside for the five-time champions, a lot has changed since that seven-game series.

In Detroit, the franchise made the Eastern Conference Finals in the next three seasons, but they haven't made it that far since 2008, have qualified for the postseason just twice in the last 14 years and are on a current five-year playoff drought.

When the Spurs defeated the Pistons in the 2005 championship, Detroit's now-first-year head coach Monty Williams was months away from earning his first assistant coaching gig in the association. Cunningham was likely picking up a basketball for the first time at three years old and promising center Jalen Duren was not even two years old, so probably still in diapers.

Long gone are the likes of now Hall-of-Fame center Ben Wallace (now the Pistons basketball operations and team engagement advisor), star big man Rasheed Wallace and sharpshooting guard Richard "Rip" Hamilton. Two more contributors on that team (Chauncey Billups and Darvin Ham) are now head coaches for the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers, respectively.

Though Popovich still leads the Spurs, "Wemby," like Duren, was one year old and potentially still learning to walk.

"Pop's" trio of Hall of Famers from that Finals squad (Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker) won't be taking the court again anytime soon. Parker is currently a majority owner of ASVEL Basket in the LNB Pro A of the EuroLeague and Duncan served as a Spurs assistant for the 2019-2020 season, while Ginobili is serving as San Antonio's special advisor to basketball operations.

One of the most glaring differences when looking at the 2005 NBA Finals box scores is how low-scoring the tilts were compared to the modern game. The Spurs and Pistons were two of the top three teams in defensive rating during the 2004-05 season, so seeing just one game feature a team scoring 100 points shouldn't be a stunner.

Still, looking at the abysmal state of the Detroit franchise now, it was just last week when the Pistons scored a whopping 148 points (and still lost).

Detroit recently snapped their record 28-game losing streak but are now riding a five-game skid. San Antonio lost 18 in a row earlier this season and enters Wednesday having dropped five consecutive as well.

Something will have to give.