The Detroit Pistons are hoping to finally crawl out of the basement of the Eastern Conference next season, but will need a lot to go right for it to happen.
The biggest wildcard is the return of Cade Cunningham, who has looked fantastic in limited offseason action so far and is showing all of the signs of having a huge breakout season.
If everything clicks for Cade, the Detroit Pistons may surprise some people next year and make a big leap in the win column under new head coach Monty Williams.
But it wasn’t surprising to see that the Detroit Pistons were not well represented in Bleacher Report’s recent ranking of the top 100 players.
Detroit did have two players featured, but should they have been higher? And should more of their young guys gotten some props?
Detroit Pistons: Bleacher Report’s top-100 players
Honorable mention: Jaden Ivey
Jaden Ivey did not make the top 100 but he did get on the honorable mention list, which featured a mixture of older players like Mike Conley and younger guys like Brandon Miller and Jeremy Sochan.
Putting Ivey any higher would have been based on potential, but that didn’t stop B/R from putting Chet Holmgren at #73 and Victor Wembanyama at #63 even though they’ve yet to play an NBA game. Ivey has at least shown he can do it at the highest level for a full season, though it would be hard to argue that his ceiling was higher than either of those guys.
There are plenty of guys ahead of him that you wouldn’t trade Ivey for, but his position on the list is probably accurate at this point in his career. It will be interesting to see how high he climbs by this time next year.