Background
Before the season began, the Pistons moved from the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan to the brand-new The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The new arena was conceived by Pistons owner William Davidson. The arena would consist of luxury boxes and club seating, which added profits compared to older arenas. The Pistons would sell out all 41 games in the new arena.
The Pistons won 63 games, then a franchise record, which was highlighted by a key mid-season move. The Pistons traded former scoring champion and all-star Adrian Dantley to the Dallas Mavericks for another former all-star in Mark Aguirre. The move would pay off, as Aguirre helped the Pistons win 31 of its final 47 games. The Pistons swept the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks in the first two rounds, but were pushed to a Game 6 by the Chicago Bulls in the conference finals before prevailing at the noisy Chicago Stadium.
Prior to the season, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar announced that the 1988-89 season was to be his last. Therefore his 'retirement tour' consisted of pregame tributes in every arena to pay homage to the retiring Lakers captain. The Lakers won 57 games that year, and steamrolled through the NBA finals, going 11-0 in a sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers, Seattle SuperSonics and Phoenix Suns. Magic Johnson won the MVP award that year. Prior to the season, Lakers owner Jerry Buss offered naming rights to The Forum, which was accepted by the Great Western Bank and subsequently renamed the arena as the Great Western Forum, which paved the way to a flurry of naming rights acquisitions in almost every sporting venue in the United States.
Read more about this topic: 1989 NBA Finals
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)