DEAR READER, I promise to be candid. However, I cannot be impartial. Dealing with a loss is tough. I personally have dealt with some on my end. But in sports, it stings even more as there are many others who are also losing with you. And recently, the Detroit Pistons have made history losing 28 consecutive games which is now the most in NBA history and tied with the most by any team in North America.

I do get that intentionally losing or tanking as they call it is a valid tactic for smaller, less affluent teams to rebuild in the draft, but tanking is only a medium-term solution. As “The Process” era Philadelphia 76ers would intentionally tank for the most of the 2010s but would make deep playoff runs by the end of the decade and till today.

“we can just give up when we’re sick of it. Sick of losing, tired of the grind, tired of the cycle, the routines but will giving up entirely get us anywhere?”

But for a team to be this bad there has been something fundamentally wrong with them from the very beginning, right? To give you a measure of how bad the Detroit Pistons are not just as a team but as a franchise, the last time they have won a playoff game was in May of 2008. I was a second grader back then and at the time of writing I’m now in my fifth year in college.

Their incompetence is a statistical anomaly, as they have tied the all-time record record of losing in North American sports which was held by the Chicago Cardinals who accumulated their 28-game losing streak in a span of four seasons, from 1942 to 1945.

To give you another perspective, the Oakland Athletics arguably baseball’s worst team right now finished the 2023 Major League Baseball (MLB) season with a record of 50-112 which is a winning percentage of about 30% the Pistons are at the time of writing 3-30, with only a winning percentage 9%.

The narrative behind the Pistons is bad. There’s no sugarcoating it. Before the new year, the team was 2-29 and only set to win five games if the trend continues. A win on their last game of 2023 may have broken the 28-game winning streak, but they were welcomed by another loss to start the new year which will likely continue as the season progresses.

Now what am I getting at here? Well dear reader, loss or rather dealing with loss is a normal life occurrence. It is when we let losing win over that we fall in a slump and fall even further. The Pistons can just roll over and forfeit same as any one of us, we can just give up when we’re sick of it. Sick of losing, tired of the grind, tired of the cycle, the routines but will giving up entirely get us anywhere?

Just like the Pistons, we have another day to try again, another game to play, another play to win. Like any franchise we can always draft new and better gameplans, rebuild some of that lost structure and regain some of that pride and joy that we once had in ourselves. How’s that instead of new year’s resolutions?

Email me at thebedan_sportseditor@sanbeda.edu.ph