Trajan Langdon may have made his first big mistake

After rolling through the Eastern Conference for most of the season, the Detroit Pistons are hitting a wall, and Trajan Langdon has to be wondering if he should have done more to prevent it at the trade deadline. 

Langdon took over a team fresh off a 14-win season that featured a 28-game losing streak, but he pushed all of the right buttons, got the right veterans around his young core, and immediately got them into the playoffs. 

He made similar small tweaks last offseason, and there were immediately questions about where scoring was going to come from behind Cade Cunningham and whether the Pistons had enough shooting. 

But Langdon once again nailed the fringes, the Pistons rolled to first place in the East and stayed there for most of the season, which prompted more patience from Langdon at this year’s trade deadline. 

Langdon was right not to make a huge move just to satisfy impatient fans, but it’s becoming clearer that he probably should have done more to bolster his roster at the deadline. 

Trajan Langdon has yet to make a signature move 

While Langdon has been great at finding undervalued role players, something the previous front office struggled mightily with, he’s yet to really put his fingerprints on the roster. 

He’s been great, but he hasn’t taken any real risks yet and chose not to again at the deadline, which I think was the right move. There wasn’t a clear-cut upgrade that wouldn’t have cost the Pistons a fortune, so there was no reason to risk the long-term health of the roster for a short-term upgrade like Michael Porter Jr. 

But there was a big gray area between the Kevin Huerters of the world and the top trade targets, and Langdon probably should have explored it a little further considering Huerter has barely played and has made no impact at all. 

The Thunder, who have a much deeper roster than the Pistons, went out and added Jared McCain to boost that depth and he’s been great for them in 13 games so far. I don’t second-guess Langdon’s decision not to go all-in right now, as this team is still ahead of schedule, but it seems like he should have done more than Huerter, especially if he’s not even going to play real minutes unless there are multiple injuries. 

Langdon’s first big mistake may have been putting too much faith in his own guys, players like Daniss Jenkins and Javonte Green, who have overperformed at times this year and have gone from fringe of the rotation to very important overnight, which couldn’t have been in the plans coming into the season. 

He and his coach may have put too much faith in Caris LeVert and probably should have just re-signed Tim Hardaway Jr. for a fraction of the price. 

To be fair to Langdon, Ivey’s injuries and regression hurt, as the Pistons were counting on him to be a second scorer or at least a more lucrative trade chip at the deadline, and not a guy they pretty much had to give away.

Langdon’s mistakes aren’t going to kill the Pistons long term, but they could have used an injection of life at trade deadline that they didn’t get.