There was a time in NBA history when the Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics ruled the Eastern Conference and were regularly battling each other in the playoffs.
It’s been a while since that was true, as the Pistons have been a decade-long free fall that has mostly keep them irrelevant in the East, while the Celtics have been up and down.
But the Celtics have built sustained success over the last few seasons, something the Detroit Pistons hope to emulate after finally getting some draft luck and landing Cade Cunningham with the first overall pick.
I still hate the Celtics with a passion (can’t believe I have to cheer for Golden State) but you have to admire the way they have built their team, a blueprint the Detroit Pistons hope to follow.
Here is how the Detroit Pistons can do it.
Detroit Pistons: Build your core through the NBA Draft
If you look at the Boston Celtics’ roster, you’ll see that they drafted just about every one of their main contributors.
Four out of their five starters came from the draft in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III and all but one of their main bench contributors were drafted by Boston.
The Celtics got the core of their team through the draft and then supplemented it with veteran free agents and trades.
Like Detroit, Boston is not considered an elite free-agent destination, so they need to land their stars in the draft and they have.
The Detroit Pistons are following that model, with three of their five starters coming from the draft. They also feature Killian Hayes and Isaiah Livers off the bench and hope to add another impact starter in the 2022 NBA Draft.
Next season, at least four of the five starters will be from the draft and it could be all five depending on what the Pistons do with Jerami Grant this offseason.
Detroit Pistons: Find a star and the right complements
The Boston Celtics already had several of their current players when they traded back in the NBA Draft to land Jayson Tatum, which turned out to be one of the great draft day trades of all time.
Once it became clear that Jayson Tatum was the guy they were building around (along with Jaylen Brown) the Celtics just kept adding the right guys around him.
Of course, the Celtics had some bumps along the way with their two-year doomed romance with Kyrie Irving, but seemed to have learned from that mistake and just keep drafting hard working defenders to put around Tatum and Brown.
The Celtics learned that they don’t really need a lead point guard and would be better off surrounding their two dynamic wings with players who can shoot and defend.
They drafted Robert Williams III and Grant Williams, brought in versatile big man Al Horford and went with more or less a position-less team that is long, athletic and very switchable on defense.
The Pistons hope to do the same thing around dynamic playmaker Cade Cunningham, who is more of a point guard than Tatum but still a big “wing-like” playmaker who is versatile on both ends.
Detroit has Saddiq Bey and Isaiah Stewart, two long switchable defenders and could add another one in the 2022 NBA Draft. The Celtics are showing you don’t need a traditional point guard or center to win in the NBA and that finding the right complementary players is sometimes more important than adding superstars like Kyrie.
The Detroit Pistons need to build an elite defense
It is no coincidence that the two teams in the NBA Finals, Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors, had the number one and two defenses in the NBA this season.
Fans love offense and flashy shots and dunks are what ultimately sell tickets, but defense is what ultimately wins titles.
The games slow down in the playoffs when you have to play the same team potentially seven times. Teams learn each other’s habits, game plan for weaknesses and exploit any mismatches in the playoffs.
The Eastern Conference Finals this year were a throwback to the old days when playoff games were often had scores in the low 80’s and 90’s.
The Detroit Pistons won all three of their titles with an elite defense and need to get back to that, as it is still what wins games in the NBA.
Cade Cunningham is the perfect team leader in that regard, as he is not only a good defender who is decimated on that end, but he is versatile and can guard four positions depending on the matchups.
Your star has to buy into defense to win in the NBA, and Cade Cunningham has, which is a great sign for the Detroit Pistons. They also have a potential Marcus Smart-like defender in Killian Hayes, and while Hayes hasn’t been good at all offensively, if he can turn into an elite defender, he will be a valuable contributor, just like Smart.
Troy Weaver clearly values guys who work hard on the defensive end and will hopefully keep adding them in the draft, trades and free agency so the Pistons can get back to how they’ve won in the past.
I hate to give the Celtics credit, but they have built the type of sustainable success the Pistons hope to have very soon and showed Detroit how to do it.