Era of the ‘Bad Boys’ Is Over, Says MVP Dumars

Joe Dumars today said the Detroit Pistons are going to turn all the “Bad Boys” T-shirts into collectors’ items.

“We want to get away from being the Bad Boys,” Dumars said after accepting the NBA Finals’ most valuable player trophy from Sport Magazine. “Now that Rick Mahorn is gone, the Bad Boys are gone. When you lose a member of a team, you are never that team any more. We decided on the way to the White House that without Rick, we can’t be the Bad Boys.”

Mahorn was lost to the team in the NBA expansion draft.

“It won’t be easy without Rick,” Dumars said. “He gave us things that were intangible. He got other teams frustrated and ready to fight instead of ready to play.”

Dumars, the most soft-spoken of the Pistons, said he wasn’t uncomfortable with the Pistons’ outlaw image. “I was never really a part of the Bad Boys image, but it never bothered me,” he said. “Not all of the Oakland Raiders were bad guys and not all of the Los Angeles Lakers were Showtime.”