Granted, the Pistons seem to have thrown a rod or two in recent years, but they were in the hunt for a while. That is, if one considers them slugging it out with the Indiana Pacers for fourth place in the NBA's Eastern Conference Central Division to stay out of the cellar as being semi-competitive. Alas, they spun yet another bearing, have lost 9 in a row, and now trail even the lowly Hoosier bunch by 7 or 8 games. They are the not-so-proud occupants of the basement of the division.
True, they're not the least of the East. The woeful Orlando Magic is a couple games behind them, the Philly 76ers a few more, and let's just say Phil Jackson's zen magic finally wore off when he took over the NY Knicks. As Jed Clampett would have said -- pit-ee-ful.
But still, the Pistons remain a professional basketball team. Sort of. How do I know this? Because they have a bunch of guys making millions of dollars in salary every year. It doesn't matter how incompetent they are, their contracts are guaranteed. Kind of like politicians on a much higher financial scale. Yikes, how scary is that?
Nevertheless, there are some pretty good bargains available if one wants to attend a Pistons game. This is what happens when a team is bad and struggles to put fans in the seats, despite their myriad of promotions and give-aways, which are sometimes comical.
Over the course of the next couple months, the Pistons have seats available at really low prices -- like in the 6-7 dollar range. These involve contests against Memphis, Toronto, Atlanta, and Boston. Three division leaders, and the other pretty much in the same plight as the Pistons.
But the low-low prices are just a come-on, you say, to get you into the arena so they can gouge you for everything else once there? A good point, and likely true, but there's a smarter way of handling this.
By all means, go on-line and order up your $6 tickets. Yet when the day comes, here's a couple suggestions yours truly highly recommends.
First, gorge yourself on whatever it is you eat for dinner just before going to the Palace. The nasty hot dogs, nachos, pizza, etc., won't look nearly as good if you've already got a belly full. And who wants to pay the outrageous prices for this slop anyway? Be honest. Would you eat that stuff at home? Even for free?
Far more important is you should be at least two sheets to the wind. In other words, have a serious buzz already going on before you arrive. It is not recommended to drive in such a state, so shell out an extra measly six bucks for a ticket dedicated to a designated driver. And pound down a few more shots of booze enroute just to make sure you're definitely in the twilight zone before you go through the turnstiles.
This has two benefits. If one is already struggling to keep down the huge dinner they pigged out on an hour before, the LAST thing one would want to do is stand in line for a $10 cup of nasty draft beer or a watered down rot-gut mixed drink. Even the smell of that stuff could send one stumbling towards the proverbial porcelain receptacle. Never a good thing.
And sure, the $6 tickets aren't exactly going to get one close to the action, but rather in the nosebleed section. Thing is, if you're that stoned already -- you won't even notice -- or care. You'll probably pass out and sleep through most of the game anyway. But dammit, you got a good deal.
Better yet, you also won't notice how bad the Pistons are on the court. After the final buzzer, your designated driver can scoop you up, pour you into the car, and drop you back off. Hopefully, at your own residence. One should always budget a healthy tip up front for such a driver, lest they decide to get cute and pull a practical joke by dropping you off at a house that faintly resembles your own. Trying to enter such a home in a drunken stupor might not work out so well. It could fairly be said waking up in one's own bed is normally preferable to doing the same in a jail cell, and wondering how they got there. Such things normally get ugly and expensive before they're over.
But assuming all goes right, one can drag their hungover butt into work the next day and proudly state they attended a Pistons' game the night before.
Just don't take any questions from co-workers because, like the Pistons, you'd be clueless as well trying to come up with answers.
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