The biggest issue with the Detroit Pistons young core

The Detroit Pistons have stockpiled a few quality assets within their younger core group of players, but they’ve still got a ton of work to do.

Fans of the Detroit Pistons are often quick to defend the younger players on the team, citing their promise and frequent flashes of success. They’re not wrong to do so, considering all of them have at one point or another shown us that they belong on the team.

However, to think that the Pistons are anywhere close to coming out of their rebuild any time soon would be disingenuous. Detroit is still years away from developing these assets and turning them into formidable products.

Along with that comes the most glaring issue; sure, the Pistons do most certainly have some solid young talent. Bruce Brown, Luke Kennard, and Sekou Doumbouya to name a few are all great. However, the team does not currently posses a single player that could transcend the team.

As it stands, the ceiling on every single one of these players is that of a role player. None of them seem to posses the skill set to turn the Pistons into a title contending team. The necessity for that 20-25 points per game scorer is still there.

If you were to look at the players that Detroit has either drafted or traded for within the last three seasons, who’s the closest to becoming an All-Star? It’s probably Kennard, and he’s not particularly close.

That’s not a knock on him, but the gap between what he provides on the court versus what actual All-Stars do are two different conversations.

This year’s draft could land Detroit the star that they need. The easiest pick would be assuming they’re in a position to draft LaMelo Ball, he could be the most surefire way to jump start this rebuild.

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Role players are incredibly valuable and fans seems to pay less and less attention to that as the years move on. So having these players on your team whose ceilings may reach that isn’t such a bad thing.

However, you won’t be able to succeed with what you currently have, even if they all reach their full potential. That star power is still incredibly lacking.

In a best case scenario, Sekou could very well live up to expectations and within a few years he could be a match up nightmare. He could become the very player that we’re talking about, but again, we’re several years away from that even being a possibility.

Brown’s ceiling is as one of the better defenders in the entire league, but his offensive impact is always up in the air. While he did become more confident in his abilities this season, we don’t know he’ll grow moving forward.

So, we can confidently say that we enjoy the young players that we do have, but none of them can take this team to the next level. Who that player could be remains to be seen, but we’ll certainly know it when we see it.