The Detroit Pistons should be better next season, even if 14 wins is not exactly the bar for excellence.
The Pistons’ schedule is brutal from the start, but with more veterans and shooters on board and far less baggage, Detroit can hopefully finally take a step in the right direction.
But if we’re being realistic, this isn’t a title contender and probably not a playoff team, so while we can expect modest improvements next season, I wouldn’t bet much on the Pistons being a top-10 team in the Eastern Conference next season.
As has been the case for the last decade, we’ll hear a lot about player development, a tired old tune that ultimately needs to lead to actually winning a few games to make a difference.
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Trajan Langdon is still trying to figure out what he has in his young players, especially Cade Cunningham, who will have his most cohesive roster yet, which should allow management to evaluate him and the other young talents well.
Since the Pistons drafted Cunningham in 2021, we’ve heard a lot about spacing and the lack of it.
Since then, the Pistons have consistently been one of the worst shooting teams in the league, with less space than a phone booth for Cunningham to play in. Detroit’s offense was one of the easiest to defend because teams could simply back up the middle where Cade wanted to be and dare anyone else to shoot.
We haven’t seen Cunningham operate in an offense with respectable shooters yet, but that should change next season.
The Pistons now have several players who are good at catch-and-shoot from distance, which should finally create more space on the court for Cunningham:
-Malik Beasley: 42.3 percent
-Simone Fontecchio: 40.5 percent
-Tobias Harris: 36.2 percent
-Tim Hardaway Jr.: 35.3 percent
-Isaiah Stewart: 38.1 percent
Cunningham finally has a few players he can pass the ball to when he draws multiple defenders, which should hopefully stop teams from constantly double or triple-marking him.
Cunningham has a physical advantage over many defenders when he has them on an island, so more space should mean easier attacking opportunities for him, more assists, and an overall more balanced offense that doesn’t rely solely on him.
One of the biggest mistakes Troy Weaver made was not having pitchers around Cunningham from the start. This not only hindered his development, but also made him a difficult player to evaluate.
Is he just putting up numbers on a bad team or can this guy actually help win on a better team? We should be able to find out this season.
The addition of experienced players not only provided Langdon with short-term benefits, but also helped him evaluate his young players, something he had struggled to do in recent years due to the complete lack of complementary talent around them.
