3 reasons why this is the best Detroit Pistons roster of the decade

Number 2: Abundance of Young Talent

There was a time in Pistons basketball in 2015-16 when Pistons fans felt like they had a team full of young talent, headlined by 25-year-old Reggie Jackson, 22-year-old Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and 24-year-old Tobias Harris.

This core was thought to be the future of the team and now what’s left of it is 29-year-old Jackson, who’s coming into this season off of his first healthy offseason since his breakout 2015-16 season. And of course Mr. Rebounds himself, 26-year-old Andre Drummond, who’s coming into the season looking for a new contract in the summer of 2020.

Many thought that with the addition of Griffin, the Pistons would have to sacrifice their future to try and win now and what they’ve shown is that they would like a healthy balance of both winning now and having assets for the future beyond Griffin.

The Pistons have seven players under the age of 25, who could make a real impact this season. The two guarantees for the minutes at the shooting guard are young scorer and sharpshooter Kennard and lock-down defender Bruce Brown.

The biggest wildcard for this year will be 18-year-old Sekou Doumbouya, who was selected 15th overall by the Pistons in the 2019 NBA Draft. The rest of the youngins are Thon Maker, Khyri Thomas, Svi Mykhailiuk and the non-guaranteed big man Christian Wood.

This is the most young depth the Pistons have had since, forever?

Kennard is coming off a huge playoff series against the Bucks where he averaged 15 points per game, on 49 percent from the field, and 60 percent from three while also playing maybe the most minutes of any four-game stretch in his career at 33.3 minutes per game.

Whether it’s off the bench or in the starting lineup, look for Luke to put up similar numbers to these, of course at a more sustainable efficiency for an entire season.

Brown’s rookie year was not the flashiest or easiest to notice as he was a non-factor offensively. But he did earn respect as an elite up and coming defender, even holding James Harden to 0-for-10 field goals in the fourth quarter of a Pistons-Rockets meeting.

Brown showed in Summer League that he is a capable facilitator and playmaker with the ball in his hands. Hopefully this will translate to the regular season as it would be a huge help to have him be less of an offensive liability than he was in his rookie year.

The biggest question mark to how good the Pistons can be is the development of Doumbouya. We have not seen him much at all other than a few minutes in one Summer League game where he showed his ability in transition and as a spot up shooter.

He struggled in defensive sets but with his body, motor, and some film breakdown and coaching from the staff, he could come up big for the Pistons and play meaningful minutes for a team thin at small forward. It’s all about how quick he can adapt to the NBA game, and hopefully we will see a star in the making before our own eyes.