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.
Detroit Pistons: Bleacher Report’s top-100 players
#94: Bojan Bogdanovic
Bojan Bogdanovic just made the cut even though he is coming off arguably the best season of his career. Granted, he did it on the worst team in the league and sat down the stretch with a dubious tank injury, but prior to that he was having an amazing season.
Bogdanovic is 34 years old, so this obviously isn’t based on his future, as he probably only has a couple of high-level seasons left in the tank.
But he scored over 20 per game on very efficient shooting last season, narrowly missing the 50/40/90 club that is made up of the best shooters to ever play the game.
I would still bet on Bogs having a better season next year than Bennedict Mathurin, who was tied with Bogdanovic on the list. Mathurin was more inefficient than Ivey, so I would argue that if Mathurin is this high, Ivey should be too, as he had the better all-around season.
I would also put Bogs ahead of John Collins, RJ Barrett and Devin Vassell potentially, at least for just next season.
But his age and foreseeable decline hurt him here, as you can probably count on at least some improvement from the players just ahead of him on the list, who are all young.
Detroit Pistons: Bleacher Report’s top-100 players
#39: Cade Cunningham
I was actually shocked to see Cade Cunningham this high on the list, but it shows that other people are seeing what Detroit fans are seeing, which is a player on the cusp of stardom.
But so far it’s mostly theoretical, as he missed almost all of last season, so putting him this high is definitely based on potential and ceiling. He’s just ahead of last year’s Rookie of the Year Paolo Banchero and fellow 2021 draft standout Evan Mobley, who I would have bet was higher than Cade just based on being healthy last season and being one of the defensive anchors of a playoff team.
Cunningham came in well ahead of some very good players, including Julius Randle (55), who was on the All-NBA team last year and fellow veterans Chris Paul (69) and CJ McCollum (75), not to mention Khris Middleton, Draymond Green, LaMelo Ball, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan.
Do I think Cade Cunningham will be better than these players next season? Yes, but I am Homer #1 so that is to be expected, but it was somewhat surprising to see him ranked this high by national writers with no bias towards Detroit.
But given what we’ve seen so far and the fact that Cunningham is healthy for the first time since high school, he could actually be underrated on this list.