The Detroit Pistons Just Clinched the 1 Seed. Two Years Ago They Won 14 Games.

Two seasons ago, the Detroit Pistons won 14 games. Fourteen. That was the worst record in the NBA. They were so bad that "tanking" felt generous — tanking implies you're doing it on purpose. The Pistons were just bad.

Saturday night, they beat the 76ers 116-93 and clinched the number one seed in the Eastern Conference.

Read that again. From 14 wins to the best record in the East in two years. The last team to make a jump that dramatic was the 2007-08 Celtics, who went from 24 wins to 66 after adding KG and Ray Allen. But Boston did it by trading for two Hall of Famers. Detroit did it by developing the guys they already had.

Cade Cunningham is the engine. He's averaging 24 and 9 this season and has become the kind of point guard who makes everyone around him better. Tobias Harris had 19 Saturday. Daniss Jenkins — a rookie — dropped 16 and 14 assists. These aren't names that show up on ESPN debate shows. They're just basketball players who got better together.

The front office deserves credit too. They didn't panic after the 14-win season. They didn't trade their picks for a rental star. They drafted, developed, and waited. In a league where patience is basically extinct, Detroit played the long game and it worked.

The East playoff bracket just changed. Nobody wanted the 1 seed matchup before, and nobody wants it now. The Pistons aren't a feel-good story anymore. They're a problem.

From 14 wins to the 1 seed. Two years. That's not a rebuild — that's a resurrection.