Detroit Pistons’ injuries vs. Wizards and why they matter

The Detroit Pistons will take on the Washington Wizards tonight in the second game of a back-to-back in Little Caesar’s Arena.

They lost their 50th game of the season last night to Portland and have lost eight straight in one their worst stretches of the season. They are now alone as the worst team in the NBA, and there is no sign of relief, as the injuries just keep piling up.

This is the time of the season when the bad teams start to find “injuries” for their veterans in an effort to lose games, and the Detroit Pistons are no exception, as they will be potentially be missing seven players again tonight, but not all of them are vets.

Detroit Pistons’ injuries and why they matter

Cade Cunningham has obviously already been ruled out, but he’ll be joined by several of his teammates. Here is the most recent injury report for the Pistons:

• Hamidou Diallo: Questionable
• Rodney McGruder: Day-to-day
• Killian Hayes: Day-to-day
• Bojan Bogdanovic: Day-to-day
• Isaiah Stewart: Out
• Jalen Duren: Out

As you can see, it’s not just the veterans that are sitting with nagging injuries, as the Detroit Pistons are potentially missing Hayes, Stewart and Duren as well, three players that really need to get reps.

Detroit is trying to figure out how all of their disparate roster pieces fit together, especially since the acquisition of James Wiseman, as they now have four centers who could be vying for minutes.

But they’ve not all been healthy at the same time, so coach Dwane Casey hasn’t even gotten the chance to see how it might work and what his starting lineup and rotations could look like with all four bigs.

It would also be nice to get Killian Hayes reps as he tries to break out of his shooting slump, and we’ve yet to see Wiseman and rookie Jalen Duren on the floor at the same time. Stewart will potentially be playing with one of these bigs most of the time, so again it would be nice to see them get some run together before the season is over.

Nagging injuries late in the season are a problem for every NBA team as some are trying to get healthy for a run in the playoffs. But for the Detroit Pistons, it’s more about developing and building chemistry, so the loss of these games for their young players is still costly even though there is nothing at stake.