The Detroit Pistons had the second-lowest payroll in the league this season and won 50 games. That, by an NBA ranking of victories per dollar, made them the second most efficient franchise in the league. San Antonio, which spent $4 million more on players and won eight more games, was the most efficient.

But Chris McKoskey of the Detroit News says you could hardly call the Pistons cheap.

They put out quite a lot in multi-million dollar contracts to Corliss Williamson and Zeljko Rebraca last summer, and to Michael Curry, and previously unproven players Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins a year earlier.

In fact, the Pistons have 11 players being paid $1.5 million or more.  But the Pistons saved by having no player over $8 million.  

Alan Ostfield, senior vice-president of business and legal affairs, otherwise known as the Pistons' salary capologist, says "We have never had a maximum-salary player. When you aren't paying one player $10 million-plus a year, you give yourself a lot of flexibility."

The Pistons are very comfortable with their position for the future.  They will probably be just over the 2002/03 salary cap, and Ostfield says they're likely to use a goodly amount of the mid-level exception.  

Perhaps even better, they could be anywhere between $12 million and $18 million under the cap in the summer of 2003 when there's a bonanza of top-level free agents.