Are the Detroit Pistons building to contend at the right time?

The Detroit Pistons’ roster has been in a state of constant turnover in recent years, with the franchise looking to construct its next title contender.

Rebuilding this team started with Stan Van Gundy in 2014 and is still underway, with the Pistons seeing a considerable amount of talent turnover this off-season despite being pressed for cap space.

They’ve managed to bring in Zaza Pachulia, Jose Calderon, Glenn Robinson III, and their two second-round draft picks, Bruce Brown and Khyri Thomas.

Those player acquisitions go right alongside with the dramatic shakeup in the front office.

The most obvious change was the firing of Van Gundy, and the hiring of 2018 Coach of the Year Dwane Casey. However, they also added Ed Stefanski and Gregg Polinski to their office ranks, and five fresh faces to their coaching staff.

Clearly, this is a time of transition for the Pistons, as they are building towards something.

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However, this assembling of talent begs one important question: Are the Detroit Pistons being constructed to contend for an NBA Championship at the right time?

This is arguably the most important question any NBA franchise must ask themselves in 2018 and beyond.

The current climate of the league is difficult and daunting if you aren’t an already established powerhouse team, or don’t have LeBron James at your disposal.

Barring any catastrophic injuries, there are roughly four or five teams that could realistically challenge for the title.

Even if you do manage to make your way deep into the playoffs, you will very likely have a scheduled showdown with the NBA’s version of a final boss battle in a video game; the Golden State Warriors.

Building your team to be at its most competitive right now just doesn’t make sense for the majority of teams, and it certainly doesn’t make sense for the Pistons.

Dwane Casey’s former team, the Toronto Raptors, experienced this first-hand.

Casey, alongside DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, managed to build the best team in Toronto’s relatively short NBA history, but unfortunately fell victim to being in the right place at the wrong time.

Their roadblock came in the form of LeBron James making the NBA Finals every single year.

In any other era, they would have likely challenged for a championship or two, but unluckily ran into a consensus top-two player of all-time.

Despite the LeBron roadblock taking a ride out West, the Pistons attempting to win it all right at this very moment is foolish.

The Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers are clearly much better teams.

The Celtics have a well-constructed roster and a brilliant coach, while the 76ers have a plethora of tantalizing young talent that is already showing signs of greatness.

There are also the Raptors, who are a wild card at the moment in the wake of the DeRozan-Kawhi Leonard trade and hiring of a new coach.

At best, the Pistons can probably hope to be a four-seed this season, but to go deep into the playoffs they’d likely need some freak injuries to fall into their favour.

When the time is right

However, hanging around the middle of the playoffs, biding your time can be an excellent strategy to bring on future success.

Arguably, the best example of this is the current Houston Rockets team.

From 2012 until 2017 they pretty much just hung around the playoffs in the West, rarely launching themselves as serious title contenders, but still making noise in the postseason.

They waited their time patiently, and in 2017 when Chris Paul became available they were able to make their move and seriously launch their championship campaign.

Now they find themselves as probably the second-best team in the league, and very likely may have found themselves in the Finals if it wasn’t for a Chris Paul hamstring injury at literally the worst possible time.

Now the likelihood of the Pistons landing a star such as Chris Paul is pretty unlikely, even in the wake of the Blake Griffin trade. But biding your time doesn’t always have to result in netting a star player.

Injuries, disgruntled star players, head-coach firings, and a whole number of other situations can arise from seemingly out of nowhere to unsettle a top team and open another team’s championship window.

This is the route the Pistons should be trying to take, considering luring free agent superstars to Detroit is next to impossible, and drafting a generational talent is more often than not pure luck.

However, their current roster raises a few eyebrows.

Youth movement?

The biggest question mark hovers over Blake Griffin.

At 29-years-old, he’s bordering on being almost too old to be present for a serious title run.

While there are some outliers, this is the time in an athletic big man’s career where they start declining, and while Griffin has very obviously made a concerted effort to rely less on his athleticism and develop his other skills, it’s still concerning nonetheless.

Outside of Griffin, the rest of the Pistons’ current core players are actually quite young.

Andre Drummond is just 24 and clearly the piece that will be built around going into the future.

The team’s two other recent first-round draft picks, Stanley Johnson and Luke Kennard, are both just 22.

With players this young and part of the team’s nucleus you would assume they’re building towards something in three years time.

The additions of both Zaza Pachulia and Jose Calderon seem to clash with this idea.

Pachulia (34) and Calderon (36) are practically dinosaurs in today’s NBA, and while having a veteran presence on the roster is always welcome when they come cheaply, it’s questionable as to whether those reserve spots might’ve been better spent on young talent.

There is something to be said about adding two known quantities to your roster, but taking a chance on a young, fringe-player has the possibility of paying off big time while also coming cheap.

Having these type of players on the Golden State Warriors or Cleveland Cavaliers are a great because of their potential leadership, and coaches have a good idea how they can perform on the court during pressure moments.

In a team that’s still trying to find its footing in the league, they’re far less valuable.

The chances of either Pachulia or Calderon turning into the next locker room leader in the vein of Anthony Tolliver seems unlikely based on their careers.

Neither of them has been known to be standouts in the leadership category.

If I had to make a wager, I’d say their time in the Motor City is more likely to play out the way Jameer Nelson’s did.

Man of the hour

The final pieces of this puzzle are the dismissal of Stan Van Gundy and the hiring of Dwane Casey.

Casey is a proven head coach and has seen a number of players blossom under him that never saw the same success as they did in Toronto once they moved onto a different team.

This could be arguably the biggest tick of approval you can give to the Pistons in saying they’re building for the correct time.

While Van Gundy was brutal to his younger players – constantly chopping and changing the roles for Luke Kennard and Stanley Johnson – Casey appears much more open to nurturing by growing and featuring these players in the rotation.

Young players might finally be able to play and learn without the fear of being benched within 30 seconds because you had a slight lapse and forgot a defensive assignment.

Johnson could benefit from this the most, considering he seemed to be at odds with Van Gundy constantly, while even a guy like Henry Ellenson could breakout.

At this point, we have a decent idea as to what Ellenson’s ceiling is, but there’s still a slim chance he could turn into a consistent player.

He never got a fair shake from Van Gundy, even in blowouts or once a playoff berth was out of reach.

At the very least, Casey will put in enough time to truly evaluate what Ellenson can be at the NBA level.

Casey is a perfect candidate to build up these young players, and turn them into guys who could potentially take this team to contender status in the NBA.

A lot about the Detroit Pistons seems to point at the franchise building for a time when LeBron James and the Golden State Warriors’ super-team are finished.

However, there is almost an equal amount of evidence that points towards them trying to shoot to the top of the Eastern Conference right now.

Whether any of this works out, nobody really knows.