Allen Iverson: The Answer to the Detroit Pistons' Motown Blues?

There's a reason why the best team in the East over the last five years has failed to bring home the O' Brien Trophy since their drubbing of the heavily-favored Shaq and Kobe-led Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals. When the Bad Boys 2.0 were assembled, they took a group of misfits and castaways that nobody in the league believed in anymore, and found the whole was somehow greater than the sum of the parts.  They fought to silence their doubters. They played with fire, intensity, and a mean streak. They had something to prove. After their back-to-back Finals appearances in '04 and '05, something changed. It was no secret that the Bad Boys created a switch and never flipped it on—unless it was an emergency situation. In retrospect, it is amazing to see that they have remained amongst the East's elite despite this. There's a reason why the media always questions a team's ability to repeat as champions. Complacency is a formidable opponent, and when other factors such as free agency and the ... (link)