I’m almost 30 and they haven’t won one in my lifetime. It’s insane. It’s been 30 years with countless different coaches and players, and they’ve never even managed to be above average.

I mean if you buy a ticket months in advance I feel like you’re doing it with the understanding that anything can happen, if you watch a healthy player play great on Monday night and buy tickets to the game on Tuesday or Wednesday night you’re probably expecting to see him play.

Bingo. I’ve been a pistons fan for 20+ years, been going to games since the early 2000s when they were actually good, and for the past 12 years the main draw to the arena has been the other teams. And they know this when they sell you the tickets, the emails I get from their ticket office always say stuff like “see Steph curry and the warriors take on the pistons! See lebron James and the lakers take on the pistons!”.

They actually sent out a survey and there was a question on there that asked something to the effect of “what have you been unsatisfied with when attending games” and “star players inactive” was one of the options lol.

I would agree with this if it was something like a nagging injury that playing through would do damage to. I’m not asking them to play injured. And if that is the case, like I said in my last paragraph, announce it publicly much earlier than an hour before the game. Teams in every sport are secretive with injury reports because it makes it harder for the opponent to game plan and that’s bad for the fans.

And it was Steph and Draymond both sitting out for rest (now that I think about it klay was still recovering from the injury so he gets a pass). Did they sleep in the same bed and both sleep funny? I highly doubt a teams best players both had secret underlying conditions and playing against the pistons would’ve been the breaking point that caused their careers to flame out.

Like I said, no one needs to play injured. If they run some kind of test and determine it wouldn’t be safe for a guy to play, announce it before fans are literally in their car on the way to the game. Or reimburse fans a portion of the money they spent on tickets but you know they won’t do that.

The nba is as popular as it is because since the early 80s they’ve marketed star players over teams. David stern openly said that. And because of that, there’s TONS of people out there who will tell you “I’m not a lakers fan, I’m a lebron fan”, and it’s always been like that.

Baseball has always done the complete opposite of that and not marketed their stars well at all and just rely on teams to capture their local fan base, so it makes sense to hold them to a different standard.

Plus hurting your oblique and missing a month straight is completely different than a star basketball player taking a rest day. No one gets mad at basketball players when they sprain their ankle and miss multiple weeks because that’s an actual injury that you can’t or at least shouldn’t play through. It just pisses people off to see “rest” on the injury report. It’s just like how if you called into work because you had covid they’d understand and tell you get well soon but if you call in and just say “I’m in the mood for a rest day” they’d look at you crazy.

Nah dudes need to just play if they aren’t actually injured. They just extended the season window a few years ago so there’s already way less back to backs than there used to be. These dudes are making millions of dollars playing a game because of the fans.

I bought tickets last year when the warriors came to Detroit because I’ve wanted to see Steph and klay play for years and Steph was on one of the best stretches of his career leading up to that game. Then not even an hour and a half before game time the warriors announced Steph klay and Draymond were all out for rest. They play at Detroit once a year. Im a grown man so it’s whatever I had a few beers with my friends and still enjoyed the game but I’m sure there was tons little kids there that day who wanted to see their favorite players and families who spent a nice chunk of cash on tickets. It’s bullshit and a slap in the face to the fans. Keep in mind this game was in the middle of November, it’s not even like they were resting up for the playoffs.

If they really NEED a rest day at least announce it more than 2 hours before the game so people don’t waste money on tickets.