Detroit Pistons: Remaining strength of schedule for the tankers

The Detroit Pistons are officially at the point of their season where fans start calculating lottery odds and giving up on any misguided dreams of sniffing the play-in tournament.

The Pistons have the second-worst record in the league after embarrassing themselves against the Bulls in Paris and are one of four teams that look like they are in a race to the bottom.

The Houston Rockets are currently the frontrunner in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes, as they have the worst record in the league and have lost 12-in-a-row. They are a shambles, but the Pistons aren’t far behind, as they are just a half game ahead of the Rockets.

The Charlotte Hornets are a game in front of the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs are four games behind the Rockets for the worst record in the league.

These four teams seem to the ones with a real chance at reaching the bottom, as the Orlando Magic are nearly as close to the play-in as they are to the worst record and the rest of the current lottery teams are actually trying to win.

But who has the schedule advantage heading into the last two months of the season?

Detroit Pistons lottery odds: Remaining strength of schedule

One advantage the Pistons have over all of these teams in the race to the bottom is that they are missing their best player, as Cade Cunningham is not coming back this season.

However, out of the four tankers, the Pistons are the team with the easiest remaining schedule. Here they are from most difficult to least as of the writing of this:

• Houston Rockets: 4th
• San Antonio Spurs: 24th
• Charlotte Hornets: 25th
• Detroit Pistons: 28th

It’s also worth noting that the Magic have the 7th most-difficult remaining schedule, so a losing streak could put them right back in the mix for the bottom three.

But right now, the Rockets are clearly the frontrunners for worst record, as they are the worst team now and still have a lot of tough games to play. The Pistons had the most-difficult schedule in the NBA to start the season in preparation for all of the days off around the Paris trip, so they have the 28th most-difficult remaining schedule in the league, with the Hornets and Spurs right behind them.

The Pistons have 10 remaining games with their fellow tankers and those will go a long way towards deciding who ends up in the bottom three with the top odds for Victor Wembanyama, which are still a huge long shot at just 14 percent.

There is also a chance that the Pistons will trade one or both of Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks, and if they do, will almost surely end near the bottom.

I hate the fact that we are here again, counting losses as wins, but when the season has already been tossed in the bin, hope in the lottery is all you have left.