The Detroit Pistons have not won a playoff game since May 2008, a streak of futility that they are hoping to end soon.
Their drought is currently the longest in the NBA after the Kings won a playoff game this season, and there is plenty of blame to go around for it.
You could point to some of the terrible trades over the years, or the free-agent mistakes that kept the Pistons either mediocre or terrible for so long.
You could talk about the guys the Pistons gave up on too soon or the fact that they never properly rebuilt after their sustained run of success in the Goin’ to Work era.
But the real culprit is the NBA Draft, where the Detroit Pistons have been the worst team in the NBA for nearly 15 years.
Detroit Pistons draft: Team’s futility starts with the NBA Draft
Teams like the Pistons need to build through the draft, as they are not going to be a hot free-agent destination. Unfortunately, they have been utterly terrible at drafting over this span, a run of futility that is so bad it’s almost as if they were trying to avoid top talent. The Pistons have had some hits with role players and second-round picks, but their first-round picks have been nothing short of tragic.
You could probably take this back even further, but it really starts in 2008, the last year the Pistons won a playoff game and the year they should have been pivoting towards a rebuild through the draft. Boy did that not happen.
2008
DJ White: They took White with the 29th pick, and then traded him, so you can’t complain too much about missing there, but the Pistons walked away from this draft without a first-round pick.
2009
Austin Daye: Daye was never good in the NBA though he looked the part at times. He was a massive bust for Detroit, who took him two picks before Jrue Holiday, who is still one of the best defenders in the NBA for the Milwaukee Bucks.
2010
Greg Monroe: Moose had a couple of good seasons for the Detroit Pistons but the league quickly passed him by as a slew-footed center who couldn’t really shoot or defend outside of the paint. The Pistons missed the memo that the league was starting to go away from traditional bigs. Monroe has now been out of the league for years, while Paul George (taken three picks later) became the prototype for the modern forward. Oops.
2011
Brandon Knight: The 2011 NBA Draft had so many misses across the board, but three really stand out for the Detroit Pistons. Kemba. Klay. Kawhi. This one still hurts more than a decade later.
Detroit Pistons draft: Missing in the 1st round every year
2012
Andre Drummond: To be fair, this draft was awful after Drummond. You can’t blame Detroit too much for missing on Draymond Green in the second round, and they did draft Khris Middleton, one of the better players in the draft only to trade him away for nothing. Drummond had a good career for Detroit but they never should have tried to build around him. Detroit was still adding offensively-challenged bigs while the league was going in a different direction. The Pistons’ failure to recognize this was a huge problem that they still haven’t recovered from. Troy Weaver may be at it again after the Wiseman trade, which is puzzling and troubling.
2013
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: KCP has rounded into a very good role player and a guy who has been key in these playoffs. This was another case of Detroit being good at drafting role players, but missing out on the star, as they could have at least had CJ McCollum, or gulp…. Giannis Antetokounmpo, both who went not long after KCP. Oops.
2014
The Detroit Pistons didn’t even have a first-round pick in 2014 thanks to some not-so-cleaver wheeling and dealing. They did find Spencer Dinwiddie in the second round, a guy who became a good player, but not with Detroit, as they gave him away for nothing, just like Middleton. To show you how bad the Pistons have been at evaluating talent, they chose to play Steve Blake over Dinwiddie at the time.
2015
Stanley Johnson: A bust who the Pistons took instead of Devin Booker. Any wonder why this team hasn’t won a playoff game in 15 years?
2016
Henry Ellenson
Puke emoji. Possibly the worst player the Pistons have ever drafted in the 1st round. Caris LeVert, Pascal Siakam and Dejounte Murray all went later. Honestly, at this point you’d think they were trying to be bad.
Detroit Pistons draft: More horrible picks
2017
Luke Kennard: Anytime you can lock up the two slowest white guys in the draft two years in a row, you have to jump at it! Who needs Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, Jarrett Allen or OG Anunoby when you can have a traffic cone who can shoot 3-point shots? I tried to talk myself into Kennard (did not want him to be the pick), which turned out to be one of my worst takes of all time.
2018
For a bad team, the Pistons sure didn’t have many draft picks in this era. Another year without a first rounder, so they took Khyri Thomas and Bruce Brown in the second round instead. Brown continued the tradition of the Pistons actually hitting in the second round only to trade the player away for nothing to watch him become good on another team.
2019
Sekou Doumbouya: In the running with Ellenson for worst player the Pistons have ever drafted in the first round. He sits the bench for a G-League team in Delaware now. There were a whole bunch of good role players taken after Doumbouya who are still thriving in the NBA.
2020
Killian Hayes: Figured out why the Pistons still suck yet? The hits keep on coming with another Frenchman. At least Killian is still in the NBA (for now) but he’s not lived up to being the 7th pick while we’ve had to watch Tyrese Haliburton turn into a star. If the 2020 NBA Draft were done again, Hayes may not go in the first round.
Isaiah Stewart: A solid pick outside of the lottery, could he be more than just a role player? Imagine if the Pistons hadn’t whiffed on Killian.
Saddiq Bey: A good pick at his spot, but he now plays for Atlanta.
2021-Present
Cade Cunningham
Jaden Ivey
Jalen Duren
After 13 straight drafts of futility in the first round, the Detroit Pistons FINALLY have some players to build around in Cunningham, Ivey and Duren, who are now the core of the team. To show you how bad they’ve been at drafting, these three formed the new “core” just this season. Cunningham didn’t even play and the other two were rookies, yet they were easily the best young players on the team.
If you were to put random names in a hat and choose them you might have picked better than the Pistons have prior to 2021, as they managed to miss out on star talent just about every year, missed obvious league trends and pretty much exclusively made the wrong pick, which is why they haven’t won a playoff game in 15 years.