Let's lose the homers and get real. The Pistons.

It's got to a point where it's become ridiculous. The "homers" are everywhere around here. By "homer", I mean people in the media that want their home teams to win so bad that they lose sight of reality. Being objective goes out the window in favor of blatant bias. It's like they're afraid of getting their press passes yanked or being chewed out by a producer for telling the truth.

Maybe that's understandable at the prep level, and even college, but when it comes to the pros, it shouldn't be asking too much for the media to act like pros themselves. This includes beat reporters, columnists, announcers, and talking heads on TV. Some of these people could find a silver lining in nuclear warfare, if one of their beloved home team players somehow survived.

I don't much give a damn. It is what it is, and let's take a quick, objective look at the pro sports scene around Detroit.

The Pistons. New ownership. Direction unknown. Can't get much worse. Joe Dumars had his day. Great moves to bring in Rip Hamilton, Big Ben, and Rasheed to put them over the top for a title. Botched the Darko thing. Getting to the conference finals other years was way over-hyped by the local media Pollyannas with their rose-tints.  That's like reaching the semis in a tennis tournament, or March Madness in the NCAA hoops thing, before getting ousted.  Nobody remembers, much less cares. Since then -- it's been all downhill.

Now the media is playing up the Pistons' drafting of Brandon Knight as a no-brainer. Indeed it was. For a team that already has too many guards, it showed absolutely no brains to go get another one. Unlike the Pistons, the competitive teams in the NBA have a lot of talented, tall guys. A team might have a couple flashy players, but without "tall", they won't get far. If you think the Pistons were bad last year, it's going to get worse before it gets better.

It's no surprise they didn't make any trades. After all, who do they have on that roster that any other team would want? Free agents? Forget about that. No player agent is going to advise one of his star clients to go to a place where the owner remains a mystery, the team has little chance of being competitive, is already pretty much "capped-out" with regards to money available, the front office may be revamped, and they don't even have a coach, for chrissakes.

Joe D's a fine man, but as he was so great on his rise as GM, he's just as terrible on the flipside a few years later. Like all players eventually find out -- it's a business. When you've outlived your usefulness, you're gone. Joe's no exception. He should be broomed.

More important -- Tom Gores -- the new owner -- needs to come out of the shadows and start showing what he's made of. Will he be an active owner and show up at games? A recluse? Win at all costs or tighten the purse strings? A fan's owner or a snob? Nobody knows. He needs to do something because it all starts with him.

Up next -- the Red Wings.