Detroit Pistons: Fans are showing patience and the front office should too

Fans of the Detroit Pistons are ready for the team to take the next step and compete for the playoffs, but are still showing a surprising amount of patience.

We are well into the silly season, the part of the offseason when teams outside of the playoffs have little to talk about. As someone who writes about this team every day, believe me, I know.

So we’ve gone over just about every hypothetical, from the Pistons making a “big-money offer” to an unrestricted free agent, from trying to pry Deandre Ayton away from the Suns, to making a big trade for some of the guys reportedly on the market.

The fan reaction to all of these hypotheticals has almost always been the same: Don’t do it.

Pistons’ fans are preaching patience this offseason, and outside of a few loud corners of the Internet, are happy with the direction the team is heading and don’t want to do anything to disrupt what Troy Weaver and the Detroit Pistons are building.

Detroit Pistons: Fans are rightfully leery about rushing things

I absolutely agree with fans that think the Detroit Pistons would be better off doing little or nothing at all this offseason rather than to reach for a guy who might not be the right fit.

Is adding a guy like Jalen Brunson really going to make the Pistons a contender? We’ve been down this path before with guys like Ben Gordon, a good, not great guard who the Pistons overpaid to get in free agency and ended up regretting.

Few want the Pistons to tank again next year (I might actually tap out, can’t do it again), but most would rather them be bad with the guys they have than be mediocre with a non-max player who is getting a max deal.

The Pistons spent a decade spinning their wheels, building around the wrong guys and making poor choices in free agency. They finally have a star in Cade Cunningham who is worth building around, but he isn’t going to stick around forever if the Pistons make bad moves and surround him with the wrong guys.

They should learn from Luka Doncic, who is a generational talent whose team has done little to help him out.

We are sick of being bad, yes, but not so sick of it that we want the Detroit Pistons to sacrifice their future for a guy who probably won’t move the needle.

Hopefully, the front office realizes that the fans are with them this time and aren’t so impatient that we demand them to make questionable moves just to do something.