When the Detroit Pistons used up all of their cap space trading for Joe Harris and Monte Morris the message was clear that they are doubling down on their young core.
The truth about NBA free agency is that the Pistons are never likely to land the top guys, as they rarely hit the market in the first place and even rarer is the instance where one of them chooses Detroit as their next home.
That could change once they start winning (or at least aren’t the NBA’s worst team) but for now, and throughout the history of the franchise, the Pistons have built through the draft and by making savvy trades.
After adding two more first-round draft picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, Detroit has one of the biggest and best collections of young talent in the league, some of which is worth investing heavily in, and some for which it might be time to give up.
Here are the players the Pistons should focus their development on, and the ones that should be sent packing.
2 young players the Pistons should develop, 2 to give up on
Develop: Jalen Duren
This seems like the biggest no-brainer of all time given that Duren is the youngest player on the team and appears to be the center of the future.
Sometimes last season it wasn’t clear that the Detroit Pistons realized this, as they traded for another young center in James Wiseman and then featured him in the starting five alongside Duren for some reason.
It didn’t help either of them and isn’t the type of move you normally see teams make around a guy they consider the future franchise center. The Pistons continued this madness in Summer League, where Duren was often left standing in the corner watching Wiseman in the pick-and-roll.
Duren is already miles better than Wiseman, and while he still has a ways to go, he should be given every opportunity to fulfill his destiny. Hopefully Monty Williams will put an end to all of this two-big nonsense, put Wiseman on the bench as a backup center and focus the team’s efforts on developing the best big man they have, which is Jalen Duren.