The Detroit Pistons are currently the worst team in the NBA and all signs are pointing to them staying there until this season is mercifully over.
It’s been one long disappointment this season, as the Pistons had little chance to be competitive when Cade Cunningham went down, though having a healthy Cade was not likely to save what is ultimately a very poorly constructed roster.
Troy Weaver has mostly gotten a pass during this rebuild as the team he took over was a mess, but that is all going to change soon, as fans are growing impatient.
Weaver didn’t help himself by talking this team up before the season started, but is right back at it again, making promises that the team is “going to be great” next season. The question is how that is going to happen, as getting Cade back, adding a top draft pick (unless it is Victor Wembanyama) and a free agent or two isn’t likely going to be enough to fix a roster that looks far more like a collection of basketball cards than a team.
Detroit Pistons: Running it back next season
Albert Einstein is credited with saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, and by that measure, the Detroit Pistons might be labeled insane next season, as they have 10 players returning from a team that is not likely to win 20 games.
- Bojan Bogdanovic
- Marvin Bagley III
- Cade Cunningham
- Alec Burks (Team option)
- James Wiseman
- Jaden Ivey
- Killian Hayes
- Jalen Duren
- Isaiah Stewart
- Isaiah Livers (Team option)
It’s also possible the Pistons will retain Hamidou Diallo in free agency, and if so, that is most of your roster for next season. Please explain how the same team is going to be great next season. We can count on some development and improvement from the young guys, but that is not a given and hardly enough to make this team a playoff contender.
Getting Cade back will obviously help, but he’s going to need some time to get back into a rhythm and adding him alone isn’t going to make this into a cohesive playoff team. Yes, Detroit will likely have a top 5-6 pick, but unless it is Wembanyama, they may not even get a player who will start right away.
The supply of free agents is thin, and there will be plenty of teams with cap space to compete for them, so the Pistons can’t count on free agency to save them.
So I’ll ask again, how exactly is this team going to be great next season? Right now, it’s not a cohesive team that makes sense and there are going to need to be changes if we want to avoid going through this again next season.
Fans are loathe to trade away their favorite players, but that is exactly what may need to happen if this team is going to compete.
Detroit Pistons: Will the big men work? Unlikely
The Detroit Pistons currently have four big men in Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart, James Wiseman and Marvin Bagley III, three of which have a fair amount of overlapping skills.
Troy Weaver has talked about the need to get bigger to compete in the Eastern Conference but overlooked the fact that teams like Milwaukee and Cleveland aren’t just big and have dynamic bigs in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Evan Mobley who don’t just operate in the paint.
The Pistons haven’t had all four healthy at the same time (more on that later) but the small sample size we have seen has not been great. The five-man lineup with Stewart and Duren together, which has the most amount of minutes of any group, has a -16.3 net rating this season with a pathetic 124.2 defensive rating.
The lineup with the third-most minutes, which contains Stewart and Bagley III has a -26 net rating with an unbelievable 83.6 offensive rating. Woof.
The only lineup with two bigs that has played more than a handful of minutes together and has a positive net rating is the Killian Hayes, Jaden Ivey, Bojan Bogdanovic, Isaiah Stewart and James Wiseman lineup that has played 24 minutes total this season and has a 8.2 net rating.
So there is some hope that the Detroit Pistons can find some way to make this work, but the idea that James Wiseman or Marvin Bagley III is going to suddenly play the four with another big is a long shot.
Although, the way things are going, it may never come up.
Detroit Pistons: Injuries and more injuries
So let’s say the big man experiment is successful and the Detroit Pistons find a way to get all four of their bigs minutes and they actually function together on both ends.
Can we even count on all four of them being healthy at the same time? I think it’s safe to say that Marvin Bagley III and James Wiseman have been injury prone in their careers so far. Jalen Durn has missed time this season, as has Isaiah Stewart, who are both currently on the injury list.
I’m not going to call Cade Cunningham injury prone, as he was dealing with something that had been bothering him since high school, but can we really count on him to come in and play a full slate of games next season? I hope so, but probably wouldn’t bet on it.
Bojan Bogdanovic will be 34-years-old. Isaiah Livers hasn’t been able to stay healthy for long stretches. Killian Hayes has had injury problems of his own. This isn’t exactly a team of Iron Men, so even if you think all of them are going to improve, and that this roster plus another teenager and a few free agents could put the Pistons in contention, they are going to be counting on players who have not yet been reliably healthy in their young careers.
The team still doesn’t have any defense on the wing and is not a cohesive team. Team building is not just about collecting talent, it’s about finding players that complement each other and it’s hard to look at this roster and say that has happened.
This team can’t just run it back and expect to be better, which means we may see some trades this season, especially from the group of big men, as Detroit has to find a way to get a more balanced roster. It’s possible they will get lucky in the draft and that Troy Weaver will find the right free agents this offseason, but if not, the Pistons could be facing down Einstein’s definition of insanity.