How would you feel about a team named after its owner instead of the city it represents? How about the Ford Lions of the NFL? That is how the franchise was known at the beginning; as for seven years it was called the Zollner Pistons.
On October 1, 1999, Fred Zollner was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame after a 15-year effort by former Pistons general manager Carl Bennett.
In 1957, Zollner moved the Pistons from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Detroit despite there having been little success establishing professional basketball. Before Zollner, there had been four pro teams based in Detroit, and all had failed.