Really? Huh. Because the 4 seed in the East in 96 was the Cavaliers, whose best players were Terrell Brandon and Tyrone Hill. The 4 seed in the West was a Lakers team led by Cedric Ceballos and Nick Van Exel. The league was extraordinarily top heavy during that time. And if you go back to the 86 Celtics era I'd say the same thing (leaving out the transcendent C's and Lakers). The reverence people have for those goon Pistons teams is goofy, because they're responsible in large part for the hack the **** out of the opponent approach that eventually led to all those 74-72 barn burners between the Heat and Knicks that nearly ruined a great sport.
The league has never been stronger. People laughed at the idea of taking a German guy 9th overall when Dirk was drafted in the last year of the Bulls dynasty. More players are playing world wide than ever before. Now they have a drawing pool from around the world, offensive schemes have never been more complicated, and the product is extremely fun to watch on a nightly basis.
The Pistons would get mopped by the good teams of today. They had a very solid backcourt, and not a single player who could defend a bigger wing. They'd be relying on Dumars to check every good wing scorer, and then asking him, Microwave and Lambert to be their only guys who could stretch the floor. They started Rick Mahorn, who was not skilled at things other than elbows and hard screens, at power forward. You wouldn't be able to play him in a playoff series today, because the skilled 4's of the league would eat his lunch.
Side note--- The disgrace they pulled walking off the court after getting their assess kicked when the Bulls had matured and it no longer worked to just knock them down because they didn't have the athletes to compete with them gets so overlooked in the annals. I'm glad that led to Isiah getting left off the dream team because Stockton was better anyway and Isiah is one of the most overrated players in league history, and also a punk.
/rant
Edit---realized you were talking 86, not 96. 96 was extremely top heavy, less so in 86. But even then, the 51 win Rockets were the 2nd best team in the West, and that team had garbage guards. The 57 win Bucks team was the 2 seed in the East that year, and their roster was not exactly brimming with world beaters, just 3 pretty good players in Cummings, Pressey and Moncrief. The way people remember that era is essentially because of the Lakers Celtics and 76ers, and then there was a lot of mediocrity.
