The Last Patient Pistons Offseason is Coming to a Close
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If you have been following the Detroit Pistons for the last several years, the word “patience” has likely been a prominent word in your vocabulary. Be patient with (insert underperforming high-draft pick here). Be patient with the coaching staff. Be patient with the front office. Be patient with the team meshing together. Be patient with players coming back from injury. So on and so forth, ad nauseam.
And, for hopefully one more season, Pistons fans will need to exhibit patience in 2023-24.
Having to be patient is difficult. Movies, birthdays, weekends, or holidays eventually arrive on the calendar. With sports teams, that may not be the case. There is no guarantee that the team you root for is good next month, next year, in the next three years, or even longer. Ask a Sacramento Kings fan and they’ll tell you that that agony could stretch to a decade or longer.
The Pistons won 17 games last season, the lowest number in the NBA, only to be snake-bitten by the basketball gods with the fifth-overall pick in a top-heavy draft. Victor Wembanyama or Scoot Henderson would have had the potential to raise the Pistons’ ceiling immediately. Not getting a top-three selection likely played a factor in the front office’s decision to play it conservatively this offseason, grabbing two expiring contracts in Joe Harris and Monte Morris instead of getting into bidding wars for better players. The milquetoast moves did little to quench the fan base’s thirst for winning, but they extend the window to get more cornerstone assets - though this should be the last true offseason where that is the goal. Detroit already has young blue-chip prospects in Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren, and rookie Ausar Thompson. The future is undoubtedly intriguing and full of hope.
But in sports terms, a bright future usually indicates a troubling present. The Pistons are no exception. BetOnline has Detroit’s win total over/under at 27 victories, ten higher than their win total last season. That would be the organization’s highest win total since 2018-19, when Blake Griffin willed the team to a playoff berth. Increasing your win total by double digits is a difficult task for any team, but it is a somewhat reasonable expectation for the Pistons. There is enough talent on the roster that, when healthy, Detroit wins significantly more games this year than last.
But at the end of the day, 27 wins does not sniff the play-in tournament - let alone the playoffs outright. The Charlotte Hornets, the only team to finish ahead of the Pistons in the Eastern Conference, had 27 wins last season missing their best player LaMelo Ball for most of it. It would take in the neighborhood of 38-42 wins to be in the conversation for the play-in tournament, more than double the Pistons’ win total from last season. The 2014 Cleveland Cavaliers added LeBron James and Kevin Love and improved their win total by 18 games. Detroit did not do anything that dramatic this offseason. Not even close.
The best outcome for the Pistons would be to do what a later version of the Cavs did in 2021: double their win total organically. Cleveland saw Darius Garland and Evan Mobley blossom into All-Star-caliber players while Jarrett Allen anchored the interior. J.B. Bickerstaff, a player’s coach like new Pistons head honcho Monty Williams, created the ideal atmosphere for a young team with the help of veterans Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio. Detroit has that same mix of young, exciting players coupled with savvy veterans and an experienced coach that guys want to play for. If there is a realistic and ideal scenario to shoot for this season, it would be the 2021 Cavs.
But more than likely, the Pistons will be back in the lottery next season. There has been a ton of smoke around Bojan Bogdanovic being traded, which would be a big blow for an already shooting-deficient roster. The plethora of bigs and point guards on the roster means another move is likely happening at some point, too. Acquiring Morris and Harris with their current contract situations indicates the Pistons are prioritizing flexibility during the trade deadline and into next offseason, as opposed to winning this season. Not to say that that was the wrong decision, it is just not the one that fans had expected. After all, it was Troy Weaver who assured Bogdanovic that Detroit was going to be great this upcoming season.
There is certainly reason to tune in to the Pistons this season. Thompson showed flashes of being the high-energy, up-tempo wing that glues the young back court and front court together. The return of Cunningham, who has received high remarks with Team USA, is long-awaited. Duren and Ivey got better as last season went on and can take another meaningful step forward next to Cunningham. The impact that Williams has on the sidelines will be intriguing to watch. The blend of youth and athleticism alone will win a few more games against unsuspecting teams in January and February, the doldrum months of a long season. Weary teams on the second game of a back-to-back facing the Pistons will be greeted with a fast, hungry team that can just out-run the opposition.
Expectations should be tempered heading into a pivotal year. The Pistons have come in last or second-to-last in the Central Division in 12 of the last 14 NBA seasons. If they can buck that trend this upcoming season, consider it a massive victory for the organization. This is an exceedingly young roster that could feature four starters who have been in the league for three years or less (counting the 12 games that Cunningham played last season). The talent is there to make a jump up the standings, but it may be from 15th in the conference to 12th or 13th and not 8th or 9th. The need to be patient is extended to one more season, but one more season only.
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