Detroit Pistons

Detroit Pistons is an American YouTube channel and a NBA basketball team located in Detroit, Michigan.

History[]

Fred Zollner owned the Zollner Corporation, a foundry that manufactured pistons, primarily for car, truck, and locomotive engines in Fort Wayne, Indiana.^[1] In 1937, Zollner sponsored a semi-professional company basketball team called the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons after he received a request from his workers.^[2] In 1941, the Zollner Pistons shed their works team roots and joined the National Basketball League. The Zollner Pistons were NBL champions in 1944 and 1945. They also won the World Professional Basketball Tournament in 1944, 1945 and 1946.^[3]

In 1948, the team became the Fort Wayne Pistons and jumped to the Basketball Association of America. In 1949, Fred Zollner brokered the formation of the National Basketball Association from the BAA and the NBL at his kitchen table.^[4] In the decisive Game 7, the Pistons led 41–24 early in the second quarter before the Nationals rallied to win the game. The Nationals won on a free throw by George King with 12 seconds left in the game.^[5] The closing moments included a palming turnover by George Yardley with 18 seconds left, a foul by Frank Brian with 12 seconds left that enabled King's winning free throw, and a turnover by Andy Phillip in the final seconds which cost them a chance to attempt the game winning shot.^[6] In the following season, the Pistons made it back to the NBA Finals. However, they were defeated by the Philadelphia Warriors in five games.^[7]

After the 1956–57 season, Fred Zollner decided that Fort Wayne was too small to support an NBA team and announced the team would be playing elsewhere in the coming season. He ultimately settled on Detroit. Although it was the fifth largest city in the United States at the time, Detroit had not seen professional basketball in a decade.^[8] They lost the Detroit Eagles due to World War II, both the Detroit Gems of the NBL and the Detroit Falcons in 1947, and the Detroit Vagabond Kings in 1949.^[9] Zollner decided to keep the Pistons name, believing it made sense given Detroit's status as the center of the automobile industry. George Yardley set the NBA single-season scoring record in the Pistons' first season in Detroit, becoming the first player to score 2,000 points in a season.^[10]

Channel[]

The Detroit Pistons channel was created on October 10, 2008. Their first video was uploaded on November 24, 2014. Their first video is titled "Detroit Pistons | TG 360: Episode 2".

References[]

Attribution

This page uses Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International-licensed content from Wikipedia.

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[1] ttps://www.nba.com/pistons/news/ftwayne_071016.html

[2] ttps://vault.si.com/.amp/vault/1967/12/18/the-big-z-and-his-misfiring-pistons

[3] ttps://nbahoopsonline.com/History/Leagues/WPBT/index.html

[4] ttps://www.nba.com/pistons/features/behindthename.html

[5] ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120222181129/http://www.nba.com/history/finals/19541955.html

[6] ttp://archive.nba.com/encyclopedia/finals/1955_syracuse_nationals.html

[7] ttps://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1956-nba-finals-pistons-vs-warriors.html

[8] ttps://web.archive.org/web/20190422035135/https://detroitsportsnation.com/25-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-pistons-first-10-years-in-detroit/rake2204/detroit-pistons-news/03/12/2016/64032/

[9] ttps://www.nbahoopsonline.com/teams/Xdefunct/DetroitFalcons/

[10] ttps://www.nba.com/pistons/news/george_yardley_071226.html

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