Hartford, Connecticut may be Rick Mahorn’s hometown, but Detroit has his heart.

The original Pistons’ “Bad Boy” has worn many hats in basketball, from player to coach to broadcaster, but now he is back in the coaching realm leading Detroit’s BIG3 team, the Detroit Amps. 

“The city has always been good to me, I figured I have to give something back,” Mahorn said about coming back and representing Detroit. “The fact is that I made Detroit home and one thing about Detroit, it’s always going to love me and Imma love Detroit.”

Mahorn spent 18 seasons in the NBA and won the 1989 championship with the Pistons. After retirement in 1999 as a Philadelphia 76er, he started his coaching career with the Atlanta Hawks, and the “coaching phase” never faded. 

Serving as the assistant coach for the Detroit Shock for four years, he helped lead them to two championships and moved up to the head coach position before the franchise was relocated. 

Years later he joined the BIG3 when it launched in 2017 as the head coach for the Trilogy and won the league’s first ever championship, along with its first ever Coach of the Year Award. He recently stepped back into coaching for the BIG3 as the Amps coach. 

Along with his love for coaching, his love for the Pistons was at the heart of it. In between each coaching position, he took a break to focus on being a color analyst for the Pistons radio network and recently completed his 20th season in that role. 

“It keeps calling me back, but the thing I love about coaching is that you have to ‘each one, teach one,’” Mahorn said.  “Someone taught me as a coach, that kept me on the straight and narrow, making sure I was always positive about what I do for a living, but basketball opens up so many avenues.”

Founded by Ice Cube and Jeff Kwatinetz, the BIG3 played its inaugural season in January 2017 with eight teams. It expanded to 12 teams in 2019 but dropped back to eight with new cities and logos. 

Detroit was a part of the rebrand with the Detroit Amps, also known as the Detroit Amplifiers, and they joined the league last season.

Although this isn’t Mahorn’s first rodeo coaching in the BIG3, or coaching Detroit basketball, it is his first season coaching the Amps after taking over the role following the former coach, hall of famer George Gervin. 

Mahorn technically never left the Detroit fan base, and has continuously been connected with the Pistons, but it is still a great feeling for him to be back coaching on Detroit’s side for the Amps. 

“What they do to me is keep me young. You think you getting old and the next thing you know you’re coaching some young guys,” Mahorn said. “I want them to have the respect of being a professional. The fact is they’re the ones carrying the torch later.”

Ice Cube or Kwatinetz weren’t in attendance Saturday, but Ice Cube’s son, Oshea Jackson Jr., was present and working with CBS Sports on interviews. 

Other celebrities came out to support, like Pistons forward Ronald Holland, former Detroit Amps head coach and hall of famer George Gervin, and local artist Payroll Giovanni, who performed at halftime of the Amps game. 

Week two of season nine kicked off Saturday, and the Amps continued their losing streak, falling to 0-2 after a 51- 44 loss to Miami 305. 

This isn’t the only time Michiganders will see the league this season at Little Caesars Arena. It will be back for week six on July 23. 

“Detroit is a beautiful city — it’s a hardworking city,” Mahorn said. “One thing about Detroit: they embrace everybody that comes back, that’s done some things — the championships I have in my repertoire, but it’s just the fact that I just love Detroit.”

BIG3 WEEK TWO RESULTS 

Game 1:  Dallas Power 50, LA Riot 33

Game 2: Chicago Triplets 51, DMV Trilogy 49

Game 3: Miami 305 51, Detroit Amps 44

Game 4: Boston Ball Hogs 51, Houston Rig Hands 36

Detroit — The Tigers will get pitcher Jack Flaherty back in the starting rotation for a start in the series finale against the Houston Astros on Sunday, manager AJ Hinch confirmed on Saturday. 

Flaherty, who has been on the 15-day injured list since June 13 with a strain of the peroneal tendons in his left foot/ankle, will get back on the active roster with a yet-to-be-announced move on Sunday morning, as it’s the first day he’s eligible to come back from the IL. 

“He’s good to go for tomorrow,” Hinch said. “We can’t make it official until the morning. But yeah, we’re fully expecting him to be good to go.”

Flaherty completed a rehab assignment with Double-A Erie on Tuesday, throwing 5⅔ innings of two-run ball with seven strikeouts. 

That outing and the lack of any hang-ups in the days since have Flaherty on the precipice of his return. Hinch was hopeful that Flaherty could make his return on Sunday, and a few days earlier he recalled some words of motivation he gave the pitcher in a postgame handshake line. 

“I told him, I was standing in the high-five line yesterday, that we’re getting closer, closer to him being back,” Hinch said. “So, he’s definitely the right amount of being agitated and wanting to pitch.”

With Flaherty back in the mix, Hinch is unsure if Detroit will stick with a six-man pitching rotation of Tarik Skubal, Framber Valdez, Casey Mize, Troy Melton, Keider Montero and Flaherty or take it back down to five. The latter option likely requires Montero to move into a bullpen role. 

As of Saturday, the inflection point on any decision will be the series opener against the Texas Rangers on Thursday. 

The plan is for Flaherty to pitch the finale against Houston. Detroit then travels to New York for a three-game series against the Yankees where it’s set up for Mize, Skubal and Melton to pitch Monday through Wednesday. 

That Thursday opener against the Rangers, where Hinch will make a call between Valdez and Montero, sits in an odd pocket of the schedule, too, as the two teams are off on Friday before completing a three-game series over the weekend. That’s because there’s a Round of 32 game in the FIFA World Cup taking place in Arlington, Texas, that afternoon. 

And with a day off the following Monday, Detroit has two days of rest in a four-day span after coming off a 14-game stretch without an off day. 

“We’ll have a decision to make on Thursday, going to Texas,” Hinch said. “We can bring Framber back on regular rest. We could put Keider in there, do the six man. We’re kind of considering all of our options. Going with Jack coming in tomorrow kind of creates that decision for the back end of that. Then we have two off days surrounding the weekend. It’s really weird with the World Cup. We have that weird mid-series off day. So we’ll see.”

Hinch shares updates on Perez, Báez

The timeline for Wenceel Perez and Javier Báez to rejoin the active roster remains murky, though both are progressing in recovering from their respective injuries, Hinch said. 

Perez, who suffered a fractured orbital bone on his left side after a resistance band under tension released and hit him the face last week, is on the 60-day injured list. Hinch shared that things are going slow in Perez’s recovery as all parties are basically waiting for the fracture to heal and Perez’s vision to be fully restored. 

Perez is back in Detroit, but is otherwise laying low on any sort of rehab until the injury itself subsides enough. 

“There’s a little bit of unknown on how long this can take but given — I mean, it’s like two-sided,” Hinch said. “You want everybody to know he’s safe and out of harm’s way. He’s just mending slowly in that. And the swelling, the vision, not disrupting the healing of the orbital bone, it’s a lot more sensitive than just getting hit in the face.”