It has taken several years, but the Detroit Pistons' vision for success is starting to come together. Cade Cunningham is having his best season as a professional, and he is currently the front runner to win the NBA's Most Improved Player award. He has led the Pistons to the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference standings as of this writing, and Detroit is primed to make their first playoff appearance since the 2018-19 season.
Now, with the Pistons already in good position to avoid the play-in and secure a top-six spot in the East playoff bracket, they have been gifted an even bigger opportunity with the latest batch of NBA news. It was announced Thursday morning that the Milwaukee Bucks' Bobby Portis had been suspended 25 games due to violating the league's anti-drug policy.
Apparently, Portis mistakenly took an anti-inflammatory drug called tramadol, which was recently added to the NBA's list of banned substances. He thought he was taking something called Toradol, a legal pain-killer with a similar name. Now, even though he committed an honest mistake according to his agent, he will be sidelined for 25 of Milwaukee's final 29 regular season games.
Bobby Portis' suspension will help the Pistons
While this is unfortunate for a guy who did not mean to do anything wrong, it creates an advantageous situation for the Pistons. One of Detroit's top competitors in the standings, the Bucks, now lose one of their most reliable players for a crucial stretch of the season. Milwaukee sits just one game ahead of the Pistons in the standings, and Detroit will now have plenty of opportunity to pass them.
Additionally, the fourth-place Indiana Pacers sit just 2.0 games ahead of the Pistons as of this writing. There is a very real chance that Detroit can continue to string wins together and could have a legitimate chance of finishing in the top four of the standings by regular season's end. Doing so would of course secure them home court advantage for the playoffs, which would make it a much higher likelihood they could actually win their first playoff series of the Cade Cunningham era.
This is basically a dream scenario, but it is not all that unrealistic at this point. Getting home court in the playoffs and then knocking off the Pacers or another opponent would be a major step toward the Pistons building a winning culture that lasts well beyond this season.