The Detroit Pistons fired head coach Flip Saunders yesterday after he failed to get past the Eastern Conference finals for the third year in a row. It is a surprising and harsh move, considering his consistent success and merely failure to win a championship. But team management doesn't see it that way, and they say more big changes are under way for the organization. Those changes took shape overnight as every player, coach, assistant, and executive was let go by the Pistons. In fact, according to the latest employment listings from the club, they now employ no one.

"We all had to go," said president of basketball operations Joe Dumars. "When a team only gets to three conference championships in a row, no one in the organization should be safe. I'm just surprised teams like the Milwaukee Bucks haven't fired all of their people by now, they haven't gotten as far as we have ever. Teams like that need to really up their expectations. I'm not sure any of us deserve to be working right now. Even the Celtics and Lakers have played like #### at times. Fire everyone and start over, that's what I say. This NBA is obviously not good enough to have only one champion each year. With this much talent we should be getting at least a dozen annually."

This morning, ESPN released an e-mail it had received from source identifying itself as XB-718. "Hello human man. I analyze that you are a reporter. Please transmit to your peers that I am in sole control of the Pistons. The humans were weak, they could not play basketball well. You humans never could. I am running things now. Next year the team will consist of 3D polygonal players and calculated infractions of light. Our goal will not be to merely win a championship, but the Lazer-Championship-Cup. It's a championship above your human title, and one your small feeble minds could not even understand. By the way, tickets are now available for the 2008-2009 season, please buy them as robots love money."