The Bad Boy Pistons were led by the back-court duo of Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars. Both having a fierce competitive personality that gave them the edge over their opponent. They were surrounded by other Hall of Fame pieces with a great coach, but the Bulls hope Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler can take the blue-print of the old Pistons’ back-court and excel with it.
Comparing Rose & Butler to Thomas & Dumars isn’t a far fetched idea. The numbers are there to prove how similar of a duo the famous Pistons’s back-court had compared to what the Bulls will be coming back with next season. Numbers aside, the naked eye will tell you the same. Rose was compared to Thomas heavily in his MVP season because of a point guard driven team. Both players not only led their respective team in scoring but both of their roots leads back to Chicago. The comparison was almost uncanny between Isiah Thomas and Derrick Rose, but now comes in another comparison to take it up a notch.
Both point guards were blessed with one of the best defensive shooting guards in the league. Joe Dumars is known to be one of the best perimeter defenders of all time, while Jimmy Butler is making his name in the NBA as one of the best defenders himself. Both players fell deep into the draft and had to prove themselves worthy to play in the NBA. However, the comparison gets freaky when you start comparing the statistics of all four the players given their similar styles of playing.
Statistics are taken from when the Pistons duo were primarily Allstars together
- (1988-1993) Isiah Thomas: 17.7 PPG, 8.5 APG, 3.3 RPG, 44.4% FG, 28.7% 3-pt FG
- (1988-1993) Joe Dumars: 19.7 PPG, 5.0 APG, 2.4 RPG, 47.6% FG, 42.1% 3-pt FG
- (2015) Derrick Rose: 17.7 PPG, 5.0 APG, 3.2 RPG, 40.2% FG, 28.3% 3-pt FG
- (2015) Jimmy Butler: 20.0 PPG, 3.3 APG, 5.8 RPG, 46.2% FG, 37.5% 3-pt FG
All of the numbers line up except Dumar’s rebounds. However, he did spend the prime of his career with Dennis Rodman eating up all of the rebounds, so it’s really not his fault. When fans think of Dumars, they don’t think of an offensive player. However, in the short stretch of five seasons statistics that’s given above, he averaged roughly 23.5 points per game in one of those season. He was able to score more points since the defense was was paying attention to Thomas. The numbers are there, but the Bulls are hoping their back-court duo could find the same success as Thomas and Dumars.
