The Boston Celtics won their 18th NBA championship Monday night, which brings us to the Pistons: "How does the worst team in the NBA become the best team in the NBA?" says Jim Costa. "What do you want them to steal from the Boston blueprint?"
The Celtics have been built around the duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown -- third overall picks in consecutive years -- for seven seasons. They lost three times in the conference finals and once in the NBA Finals before finally breaking through: "They built this through two homegrown guys who by themselves would not be viewed as good enough to lead a team to the title," says Costa. "And there were people who thought the two together couldn’t win it all."
"This didn’t happen overnight. This is maybe a lost art in sports now, where you have a team that goes through the trials and tribulations, they fail, they add a piece — Jrue Holiday, Al Horford — and you find the right group around your cornerstone players and you finally break through and win in dominant fashion. They were the best team all year."
The Pistons believe they have one cornerstone in Cade Cunningham. Jon Jansen says "you’ve gotta find somebody to pair with him ... and then you need to find creative ways to add to this roster, whether it’s through trades, free agency, to put together a team, because you can’t just do it through the draft. It is too unpredictable. What do I want to steal from them? I want a general manager that is competent in adding difference-making talent to your ball club."
That's Trajan Langdon's job moving forward, the Pistons' new president of basketball operations who replaced Troy Weaver as the architect of the team. In terms of emulating the Celtics' on-court strategy, Costa says that "Boston's style of play is very 2024."
"The number of players on the floor that can’t shoot a three for Boston, at any time, was zero. You had to respect them from three. It helped them move the ball. That’s what I want them to copy in Detroit. There were stretches last year where the Pistons would play lineups featuring three guys who couldn’t shoot — it'd be a center, Ausar Thompson and Killian Hayes. You’re gonna run out a lineup that cannot shoot and you’re wondering why Cade Cunningham hasn’t developed into Tatum or Brown?
"I think you have a piece in Cade. What I want them to do is blueprint shooters around him. Boston made the most threes and the highest percentage of threes in the NBA and at any moment on the floor, all five guys could shoot. If you’re not building that team, you’re not maximizing Cade Cunningham and you’re not going to be in this position three, four years down the road. To me, it has to be shooting."
Contrary to something Weaver once said -- "I've never seen a team shoot their way to the top" -- Costa points out that "basically every (recent NBA champion) besides the bubble Lakers has been a really good three-point-shooting team ...
"To me, it starts there, with floor spacing for Cade and the shot that is worth more. Please, please make that an emphasis in free agency and the draft and everything you do to your core, because fit matters. It’s not just about drafting the best player available. Boston embodied that, not just with who they added, but why they added them."
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