Detroit Pistons: 5 disturbing trends that need fixed in preseason

The Detroit Pistons have to avoid boneheaded turnovers

Turnovers are part of the game, but the Pistons make more stupid ones than just about any team I’ve ever watched. You can accept turnovers when they are a result of aggression or a player trying to make a difficult play, but what is unacceptable is when they just hand the ball over to the other team, which happens 3-4 times every game.

Cade Cunningham is sometimes guilty of making lazy passes, especially just after crossing halfcourt. He only had two turnovers vs. the Suns, but he also only played 23 minutes and one of the turnovers was of the boneheaded variety.

You can’t throw lazy passes in the NBA, the players are too fast and skilled on defense, so the Pistons have to avoid these mental lapses.

The Pistons can’t be mediocre from 3-point range

The Detroit Pistons have the personnel to be a good 3-point shooting team, and they need to be, as their young guards and bigs need space to work.

The Pistons were 21st in 3-point percentage last season, shooting a mediocre 35 percent as a team. They were still launching plenty of them, and plan to again this season, but for their offense to be effective, they have to be better than just mediocre.

The Pistons hit 31.5 percent of their 3-point attempts in the first preseason game, and it didn’t help that two of their best shooters were on the bench in street clothes. But even with Bojan Bogdanovic and Monte Morris out, Detroit still had shooters and they just weren’t hitting them consistently.

The offense won’t work without space and that space won’t be there until Detroit shows they can bury a team with shooting.

This one doesn’t concern me as much, as they have some proven 3-point shooters, but it’s a number to watch as the season progresses.