Fight Team, Fight, Fight, Fight!

It was the best of times. The Detroit Pistons, lackluster for so long, were only 3 1/2 games behind Denver in the National Basketball Association's Midwest Division, comfortably coasting toward a play-off berth and their first winning season in three years. Last week they had won 33 games and lost 24 and with a third of the schedule remaining were just three games short of last season's victory total. It was also the worst of times. Pistons players were at Coach Herb Brown's throat, and at one point a player actually attacked him. Locker-room arguments were the norm; the bench had become a place to sulk, not sit. Detroit players surely lead the league in fines and angry demands to be traded somewhere, anywhere.

Detroit's troubles center on Brown, who took over in the middle of last season from Ray Scott, a well-liked coach whose record had slipped at the end of his 3 1/2-year tenure with the Pistons. Brown's personality clashes with some of the players are compounded by an embarrassment of riches. After obtaining four high-priced players during the off-season to strengthen the lineup, the Pistons have more talent than a 48-minute game can contain. On the twelve-man Detroit roster are eight players accustomed to starting and playing 35 to 40 minutes a game. A ninth man was a part-time starter last year, and still another was the fourth player chosen in the college draft last spring. Since the N.B.A. remains old-fashioned when it conies to a team having more than five players on the floor at once, the stars have been putting in more than their fair share of bench time. With six-figure salaries--and equally large egos--to protect, they have become increasingly obstreperous.

Locker-Room Melee. Most hassled by the star surplus are Guards Kevin Porter, Chris Ford, Ralph Simpson and Eric Money, all of whom have been starters during their careers. The season was still young when Porter and Simpson began muttering "play me or trade me" threats. Porter, who led the N.B.A. in assists two years ago, was unhappy over losing his starting slot to Eric Money. To show his displeasure, he had begun standing off to one side, staring at the rafters and pointedly ignoring Brown during time-outs. On the bench, he also plunked himself down as far away from Brown as possible. Ford, during one nationally televised game, angrily flung his arm toward Brown when the coach sent in a replacement. Simpson, an All Star at Denver before he was traded during the offseason, could not adjust to his "sixth-man" role and told reporters he wanted out. Mean while, Brown was not exactly winning friends and influencing backcourt men. Porter felt belittled by him in practice and somehow Brown contrived to irritate most everyone else on the roster.

By the time the Christmas holidays rolled around, the team had become the Detroit Scrooges. On Christmas Eve, Brown fined Porter for stalking to his spot at the far end of the bench when he was removed from a game. On Dec. 30, Money was confined to the locker room during the second half of a game against Denver and fined after a heated argument with Brown disrupted a half-time strategy session. Porter, who has played well when in the lineup, went into 1977 boiling. Said he: "I've been playing the game for five years, and I've never been treated like this. Brown is not man enough to say that the problem is me and him, but I am. Nothing is going to be settled. He treats me bad, and I want out."

The situation was serious enough to bring in General Manager Oscar Feldman to mediate. Porter was temporarily mollified: "There won't be any more griping. What comes, comes." What came was a locker-room melee two weeks later. After an argument between Porter and Brown, Porter left the dressing room, then changed his mind. He returned and, according to one reporter, grappled with Brown while All-Star Center Bob Lanier struggled to separate them. Lanier, the team captain, later described the incident as "a discussion that got into a bigger discussion."

Lanier continued to try to smooth the differences, but at one point, the strain was so great that he talked of taking a Cowens-esque leave from the team to "get some peace of mind." As Brown's control over the players slips away, Lanier has assumed some of the coach's perquisites, seemingly running the Pistons and even taking himself out of the game when he, not Brown, feels that he needs a rest. Still, Lanier has logged more playing time than any other N.B.A. center. His teammates more and more seem to concentrate on glaring or shouting at Brown; the coach responds by levying fines.

Bagel Diplomacy. Brown maintains that nothing is amiss with the Pistons. Says he: "There is no problem with this team. Anything that happens within the confines of a locker room is not for publication. It's all part of the family. If you had a fight with your brother, you wouldn't want it put in the newspaper; you'd want to work it out. It's the same thing here." But there is no hiding the fact that the Pistons are hardly the Waltons. General Manager Feldman acknowledged as much at the end of January, when he announced a moratorium on disharmony, adding that Brown would be offered a contract for next season and that no trades--requested or not--would be made. Feldman followed his ultimatum by inviting Porter and Brown to breakfast. On the menu: bagels, Nova Scotia salmon and soft soap. Bagel diplomacy seems to have worked, but the rest of the league may live to regret it. The Pistons' combativeness has shifted its focus; Detroit players have been in fistfights with opponents during three straight games.

There is blame enough for all, players and coach, in Detroit, but winning has made it all bearable to fans--and apparently to management. There is a precedent: the baseball Oakland A's demonstrated that a team can fight and win at the same time.

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