Former Piston, Detroit mayor Dave Bing: Looting will add to issues trying to bring cities back

As a former athlete and politician, Dave Bing can offer a perspective on the protests happening across the country that few can. 

 The Detroit Pistons' point guard, along with Pistons coach Dwane Casey, joined "Lunch Talk Live with Mike Tirico" on NBC Sports on Monday to discuss the riots and protests breaking out in cities across the nation following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The Hall of Famer compared the political unrest to the race riots that took over Detroit in 1967, and criticized the federal government for its lack of leadership today. 

“And now it’s really incumbent upon political leaders within cities, mayors in particular, because they have the total responsibility of keeping their citizens safe in the city," said Bing, who was mayor of Detroit from 2009 to 2013. " ... We‘ve got a lot of great leaders around the country. I know it’s a lot of headaches for them right now, but it's time for them to step up and be the leaders that we need them to be, that we voted for them to be and make a difference in what’s going on.” 

While Bing supports the protests, he condemned the looting that has taken place. A Minneapolis Target was damaged following Floyd’s death, after a police officer pinned Floyd's neck to the ground with his knee for nearly nine minutes. Violent protests have taken place in other parts of the country. Demonstrators in Grand Rapids set fire to cars and broke store windows on Sunday night. 

“The burning and looting makes things worse,” Bing said. “When all of this is over, all the damage that’s been done from the fiscal standpoint has gotta be dealt with. It took Detroit 20, 30 years to try to recover from what happened in 1967. As our city, a lot of the detrimental things that are going on in a lot of our major cities, they are going to be confronted with the same sort of issues trying to bring their city back.” 

Bing, who played for the Pistons from 1966 to 1975 and was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990, said he would like to see current athletes leverage their wealth and pool their resources to aid their communities during this time. 

Several NBA players, including Celtics forward Jaylen Brown and Sixers forward Tobias Harris, joined peaceful protests this past weekend. 

"I know that it’s a risk when you make an investment on an individual basis," Bing said. "But you have a lot of guys today that are extremely wealthy and if they start to pool money together, there are a lot of positive things they can do in terms of job creation, in terms of community development, things of that nature. 

“If you make the commitment to invest in people, to invest in the city that you play in, you make a huge difference and you send the right message to the next generation. We have to do this together.”

Bing also lamented the lack of sports to give local citizens something to rally behind during this time. He noted that the 1967 riots were followed by the Tigers winning the 1968 World Series. 

The NBA, MLB and NHL are working to return from their suspended seasons. 

“What I’ll never forget is how important sports was for bringing people back together,” Bing said. “With no sports, I’m not sure what’s going to bring us back together. The politicians that we listen to, the leaders and our different communities that we listen to, nobody seems to have an answer … The race issue, it’s here, it’s been here for a long time. We have to face it head on.”

Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarisankofa. Read more on the Detroit Pistons and sign up for our Pistons newsletter.