I still think he meant this as a tongue in cheek statement. So, who "poached" the Pistons from Fort Wayne? Silly choice of words, of course.

The Pistons were in Detroit when there were roughly double the number of people there are now in the City. They were owned by Davidson and they played in Pontiac, then Auburn Hills, where Davidson decided to build an arena with mostly his own money. Now, Wilson is with Illitch and Mrs. Davidson is selling the team. This is a barely-veiled message meant for a specific audience. When the Red Wings end up playing at the Palace for 5-7 years while a dual stadium is being built downtown, Patterson will claim "tit for tat," and convince many of the people who vote for him of the same.

Despite the public funding and arguments on all sides for new arenas, ultimately these are legally privately-owned businesses and the owners can do what they please. I don't want to get slammed for not being an MBA or whatever, but in my lay opinion it would seem inevitable that the Illitiches will put a new arena in an area of downtown that can maximize the casino and Foxtown. It would likely be lucrative to the new owner of the Pistons to have a joint arena as well. Though the Palace is still world-class today, I think any new dual stadium is still a decade away.