List of Detroit Pistons seasons

This is a list of seasons completed by the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association. The franchise was founded in 1941 as the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons in the National Basketball League and as the Fort Wayne Pistons joined the Basketball Association of America, which was the precursor to the NBA. However, the games won and lost in the NBL are not included in the franchise total.

The Pistons have had three main periods of success. In the early years of the NBA the team reached the NBA Finals twice in consecutive years before falling to the Lakers and then to the St. Louis Hawks. Following an extended era of mediocrity the Pistons, led by the Hall of Fame backcourt of Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars and nicknamed the “Bad Boys” for their intimidating defence, posted winning records every seasons from 1983 to 1984 to 1991–92, and after narrowly losing in 1988, ended the Lakers dynasty of the 1980s the following season and repeated the following year. The Pistons’ third period of success, with former on-court star Dumars serving as general manager and building a top team from other franchises’ discard, occurred 2001-2002 to 2007–08 when the team won fifty games or more during every season, including a third NBA title in 2003–04 and a record total of wins two seasons later.

The Pistons have experienced two major periods of failure. Between 1956–57 and 1982–83, the Pistons had just three winning seasons and overall had a winning percentage of .417, culminating in a combined record of 37–127 (win percent .226) in the 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons, after which the drafting of Isiah Thomas completely revitalised the franchise. From 2009–10 to 2014–15 the Pistons never finished out of the bottom two in their division, nor lost fewer than fifty games, and had an overall record of 172 wins from 476 games.

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