Kristen Coy, manager of Ah! Moore, a swanky coffee shop, gives thumbs-up to a customer wearing Pistons attire while Jon Farley rings up a bill. Pistons' Elden Campbell likes to duck into the shop, servers say.
Players turn Oakland Township into Pistonsville
Despite rugged start, neighbors in upscale suburb believe team will repeat as champions.
Beth Donovan works at 5 Star Cleaners, which lines one of its walls with autographed jerseys of Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace.Online extras
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OAKLAND TOWNSHIP -- When the game ends and the lights are out, after they've showered and given the obligatory interviews, the Detroit Pistons pull away from The Palace of Auburn Hills and head home.
For a third of them, that's only a few miles north of the office, in this sprawling community of towering oak and pine trees, rolling hills, parks, trails and mini-mansions.
Welcome to Pistonsville.
It's here that Darko Milicic, a 19-year-old who lives alone in a $750,000 condominium, figured his lonely puppy Pinky would be better off living with the next-door neighbors. It's here that Chauncey Billups trades his jump shot for a whiffle ball game on his neighbor's lawn. Milicic, Billups, Ben Wallace, Elden Campbell and assistant coaches Phil Ford, Dave Hanners and Pat Sullivan live within minutes of each other.
They hang out here, eat and shop, and when they go to work their neighbors and the shopkeepers who wait on them root them on, well, like they're family.
While players and fans tend to blend together without much fuss in this upscale suburb, community support is peaking during the playoffs.
"They're kind of like our team, you know what I mean?" said Matthew Zarghami, who owns Corleone's Ristorante, a 50-seat Italian eatery in the neighborhood. "I saw Chauncey the other day -- after they beat the (Miami) Heat. He was dropping off some packages at the UPS store, and I walked outside to congratulate him. He said, 'Thanks Matt.' ... I'm excited for all of them. I guarantee they're going to win it all."
This is no ordinary neighborhood, nor is this an easy time for the defending NBA champs and their closest fans.
Neighbors become fans
With the Pistons trailing the San Antonio Spurs in their bid to repeat as NBA champions, there's little joy in Pistonsville. Yet there's still plenty of hope among locals like Philipp Von Donop, who follows the team more closely than he otherwise would because his next-door neighbor is a Piston.
"It's cool that some of the Pistons live around here," said Von Donop, 17, whose neighbor is Milicic. "I love the Pistons. If they can get it together, they can come back."
Less than a mile away is Billups' $1.6 million home. The khaki-brick colonial has a four-car garage and a double wooden door accessed beneath a pillared archway.The Pistons point guard lives with his wife, Piper, and their two girls, Cydney, 7, and Ciara, 4. He rides bikes and plays whiffle ball with his girls and one of their playmates, Gabriella Solon, 6, who lives down the street.
"I wasn't a fan, but I am now," said Gabriella's mom, Stephanie Solon, 36, who moved onto Billups' street a year ago from Toronto. "I hope they win. I really do. You can't help but pull for someone like Chauncey.
"The other day, I was joking with him about his diamonds," Solon said, tugging on her left earlobe. "I told him, 'You need to talk to my husband about getting me diamonds like yours.' His are bigger than mine."
Von Donop, originally from South Africa, and his family adopted Milicic's 9-month-old Rottweiler last month. "He didn't know it was going to be so much work," Von Donop said.
After babysitting Pinky numerous times, Von Donop's mother had asked Milicic if she could buy the dog. He told her to forget about the cash, but he welcomed the opportunity to unload his pooch. He then agreed to shell out $1,000 so the family could install an invisible fence around their property.
"He doesn't speak much English," Von Donop said. "I see him quite often when he's in his driveway with his buddies, or playing soccer. ... It's sweet being someone's neighbor who plays for the Pistons."
Pistons seen at shops
At the community's only business district, a retail center at the corner of Adams and Silver Bell roads, Piston sightings are common.
With its light brick exterior, hunter green roof, copper awnings and matching clock tower, the strip mall is situated on what is being dubbed the "Billion Dollar Mile." Shops include Sandalwood Bay Spa & Salon, a dressed-up Kroger called Fresh Fare -- with its own Sushi chef -- and Ah! Moore, a swanky coffee shop owned by former Detroit Lion Herman Moore.
Elden Campbell likes to duck into the coffee shop for a tuna fish sandwich, servers say. Ben Wallace and the others patronize the local dry cleaning shop, where they pay $5 to have a T-shirt laundered.
Billups usually visits Ah! Moore for the chocolate chip cookies, $1.75 apiece, manager Rick Wagner says. Campbell is a regular who prefers to eat lunch on one of the red felt sofas and watch the plasma TV attached to a blue ceramic wall.
While the players are neighborly, they also try not to attract too much attention. Billups usually peeks inside before entering the coffee shop. He stays away if it's too crowded, servers say. Campbell has come in with the hood pulled up.
"He's so soft-spoken," server Andy Murphy said of Campbell, a 7-foot reserve center. "Sometimes, it's hard to hear what he's ordering."
Once, as Campbell ate lunch by himself, a group of people spotted a Mercedes pulling up to the cleaners next door.
"They're like, 'Oh, there's Darko. Let's go.' And Elden is sitting in here and they didn't even notice him," Murphy said.
Milicic once waited for his laundry at 5 Star Cleaners, which lines one of its walls with autographed jerseys of Billups, Wallace and former Pistons Corliss Williamson and Michael Curry, while a young boy stood and stared.
"Darko's huge," manager Meghan Scussel, 26, said of the 7-foot backup center. "He noticed him come in and he's just staring at him with these big eyes. It was so cute."
Scussel, who stayed up all night celebrating when the Pistons won the 2004 finals, wasn't mesmerized.
"No. I see them all the time. It's like Pistons corner up here," she said.
"They're all really cool. They're just like every other person who comes in here, except they park in front. They bring a ton of clothes -- suits, jeans, T-shirts. Ben's wife comes up here all the time. She's so sweet. You would think of them as being stuck up, but they're not."
Community spirit only reaches so far, however. Without a back-to-back championship, there are no plans to rename this growing community after the Pistons.
"That would short-change Eminem and all the other semi-celebs that live in the area," Oakland Township manager James Creech said, laughing.
You can reach Tony Manolatos at (313) 222-2069 or tmanolatos@detnews.com.
The community's only business district, a retail center at the corner of Adams and Silver Bell roads, is situated on what is being dubbed the "Billion Dollar Mile."
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