2 Spots for 7 teams, including the Detroit Pistons

Can the Detroit Pistons claim one of the final two spots? 

-Detroit Pistons 

-Washington Wizards 

-Brooklyn Nets 

The Pistons are arguably the best of the worst three teams, which isn’t saying much, as the Wizards are a mess and the Nets are fully committed to tanking. 

I’d bet on the Nets being the worst team in the Eastern Conference next season with the Wizards not far behind. Washington had a confusing offseason where they traded young players away and signed weird veterans like Jonas Valanciunas. Did they improve? Maybe if Coulibaly and Sarr are better than expected. 

The Pistons improved the most of these three teams on paper, probably enough to put themselves in the conversation to be in the first group, but they still have a lot of question marks around how the roster will work and whether their young players have another level. 

When you look at the bottom half of the East, there is no reason the Pistons can’t at least be competitive for one of the final play-in spots, as none of these teams did much to improve this offseason and they weren’t good to begin with. 

Could this finally be the year the Pistons are actually trying to win games at the end of the season instead of running out a pathetic G-League roster to jockey for lottery position?