Trajan Langdon should only have one goal for the Detroit Pistons at the trade deadline: Don’t mess it up.
The Pistons are now 3.5 games clear in the Eastern Conference after back-to-back wins over the Cavs and Knicks, the latter of which was a complete blowout even though the Pistons were missing two starters.
So, what do you do with a young team that is running through the East, not even at full strength and still has several players not even close to their peaks? The answer is not much.
We talk about every trade rumor on this site, as it is interesting fodder for discussion, and there are certainly ways the Pistons could improve, but the main goal is not to disrupt the ecosystem they have created by chasing upgrades that might not be upgrades at all.
The Detroit Pistons don’t need to do anything drastic
Yes, the Pistons could use more shooting, and yes, it would be nice to have a consistent second star next to Cade Cunningham for the long term, but so far, Detroit has done an amazing job of masking those problems in the aggregate, as they have a deep team and it seems like a different guy steps into that role every night.
In some ways, the Pistons are easy to game plan for, as Cade Cunningham is clearly their first option, so shutting him down will be the priority, but after that, it’s a team of wild cards. It’s hard to plan for Daniss Jenkins or Javonte Green having a big game, and it’s hard to overcome a relentless defense that generates a lot of easy buckets on the other end.
As we’ve seen in the last two games, the Pistons get rolling on the defensive end first, and the offense flows from that. They can overwhelm teams in stretches, and it doesn’t much matter if they make a 3-point shot, and no one is asking who the second star is.
This works because every single player on the roster has bought in, accepts their role and plays hard every night, which is not something you want to disrupt chasing nebulous upgrades.
I’m not saying the Pistons should be inactive at the trade deadline, but any move they make has to be with the chemistry they’ve built in mind, as Detroit is better than the sum of their parts in some ways and you never know how removing a player or two could disrupt that.
Tobias Harris and Caris LeVert are obvious trade candidates given their contracts and the fact that the Pistons have won at a higher clip without them, so we could see Langdon try to upgrade somewhat, but I think he’s more inclined to let them cook and I can’t blame him.
We’ll continue to discuss the options, and I am sure Trajan Langdon is exploring some of them, but he has to be careful not to disrupt the things that have made this team the best in the East.