The Detroit Pistons were the surprise team of the NBA this season, but now that they have broken through to the playoffs, the hard work of staying there begins.
Just about everything broke right for the Pistons this season and they can’t count on all of it happening again.
If Detroit chooses to run it back with a similar roster, they will need these things to perfectly or they risk a backslide in the standings with teams like Orlando eyeing their own leaps.
The Pistons will need to find veteran production again
The Pistons hope internal growth will help propel them forward, but they will still need to replicate or improve upon the veteran production they got this season from Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley, Dennis Schroder, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Paul Reed with the latter four players headed into free agency.
Even if the Pistons were to retain all of these guys, can they realistically count on them having similar seasons? Beasley is off a career year that will be difficult to replicate. THJ and Schroder are 33 and 31 years old, respectively and may start to see a downslide, so even if the Pistons bring back all of these players, there are concerns.
Trajan Langdon hit home runs all season for the Pistons and will need to do it again, likely by bringing back Beasley and possibly Schroder and then looking for an upgrade elsewhere, but the Pistons can’t just count on all of this production coming from young players improving, they need proven players, especially ones who can shoot.
The Pistons will need more injury luck
Some may argue that the Pistons had good luck considering they lost Jaden Ivey after just 30 games and didn’t have Isaiah Stewart for most of the playoffs, but otherwise the Pistons had a good run of health.
Cade Cunningham, Tobias Harris, THJ, Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart, Simone Fontecchio and Ron Holland II all played at least 70 games, and for Cade it was the first time in his career that he played more than 64 games.
Detroit can’t necessarily count on that happening again, as injuries happen and they don’t have the depth to withstand more than one key injury in the regular season. Increasing the quality of their depth would give the Pistons some insurance against a regression in injuries.
The Pistons need to shoot as well or better than they did this season
The Pistons were a mediocre 3-point shooting team and still managed to snag the 6th seed, mostly because they were great in fast break points and points in the paint.
But as of right now, their shooting is markedly worse than it was going into last season, as the status of their free-agent shooters is up in the air and they still weren’t good even with Beasley boosting the overall team stats.
This has to be a concern for Trajan Langdon, as a backslide in shooting will affect Cade Cunningham’s growth and limit the Pistons’ ceiling offensively.
A lot will have to go right for the Pistons to hold their spot and continue to progress, which is why the strategy of strictly running it back may not be enough.
Trajan Langdon will again have to address deficiencies without disrupting what is good about this team, a challenge that won’t be any easier this offseason than it was in the last one.