Detroit Pistons roster churn: Who’s staying, walking or trade bait?
The Detroit Pistons will end the 2022-23 season with the worst record in the NBA, but they aren’t without hope.
They have some high-upside young talent to build around, more coming in the 2023 NBA Draft and the cap space to be a major player on the free agent and trade market.
But they also have a incoherent roster that needs a major overhaul before next season if they really want to be good.
Paul George hopes the Pistons don't screw it up with Duren. light. Related Story
With that said, who exactly is going to be back and who is going to go? I’ve broken the Pistons’ roster into four categories, the core, the fringe core, the ones who are walking and those who could be traded.
Detroit Pistons’ Roster: The core
- Cade Cunningham
- Jaden Ivey
- Jalen Duren
There are only three players on this team that are locks to be back next season barring a wild scenario involving the second pick and Jaden Ivey.
Cunningham hopes to be 100 percent healthy and ready to make a huge leap in his third year. 5th pick Jaden Ivey has continued to improve all season and looks like a much-better fit than he did at the beginning and Jalen Duren is already a force in the paint even though he’s the league’s youngest player.
It’s funny how things change, as just a year ago we might have put Isaiah Stewart, Saddiq Bey and Killian Hayes on this list, but the 2020 draft class has been supplanted and these are now the three guys the Detroit Pistons are building around.