Training camp starts on Monday for the Pistons , who are coming off of a franchise-worst 14-68 season. Their rebuild stagnated and then some, prompting a reset that brought significant changes to the front office and coaching staff.
Fortunes can change quickly, however, as the Pistons have seen from their neighbor down the street on Woodward Ave. There’s a blueprint to follow, and it requires the Pistons’ young players to grow up as Riley Greene, Parker Meadows and others have for the Tigers.
“It’s really cool to watch,” Cade Cunningham said of the Tigers on Wednesday while at Campus Martius as the team threw a party celebrating its new partnership with StockX. “That’s how we want to be. Seeing the Lions do the same thing, everybody in Detroit is doing that. I believe we’re next. Like Arn (Tellem) said, the best is to come.”
Detroit's pro teams are in the midst of an unprecedented run of disappointment — the Tigers are 10 years removed from their last playoff appearance (2014). The Red Wings are eight years removed (2016). January brought the Lions their first division title and playoff victory in more than three decades. The Pistons have two playoff appearances in the past 10 years (2016 and 2019), but haven’t won a playoff game since 2008, an NBA-record streak of 14 straight postseason losses.
The postseason pain has a strong chance of lessening within the next year — if not the next week — as the Tigers close out their season. The Lions are a genuine Super Bowl contender, and the Red Wings, who missed last season's playoffs on a tiebreaker, could make another postseason push this season.
Expectations aren’t quite as high for the Pistons, who have a new president of basketball operations in Trajan Langdon and new head coach in J.B. Bickerstaff. But there’s still excitement, as evidenced by the large crowd that joined the team at Campus Martius on Wednesday afternoon.
And there’s hope that the team has learned from last season’s collapse.
“It’s a new year,” Cunningham said. “We’re excited about the new year, we’re excited to be able to have a fresh start. A lot of new faces around. Trajan being around, I’m excited about everything that he’s done. It’s an exciting time for the organization and there’s a lot of opportunity for us to get better and grow.”
Langdon prioritized improving the Pistons’ spacing in his first offseason, adding veteran sharpshooters Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley to an inexperienced roster that piled up missed 3-pointers and turnovers last season. The goal is to lessen the load off of not just Cunningham, but Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren and the team’s other recent lottery picks.
Langdon, who took over in June, has much to learn about the roster he inherited. If there’s a certainty within the organization, it’s that Cunningham (fresh off of signing his rookie maximum extension) will be part of the solution.
Detroit’s roster changes were made with Cunningham in mind, and his continued growth into a star will set the tone for how Langdon approaches future offseasons.
“I think we’ve had a really good connection so far just as far as learning each other and learning what we want to do and how we want to succeed,” Cunningham said of Langdon. “And now with the season coming up, him being able to see us on the court and any adjustments we need to make, I have full faith that he’s going to be able to do all the things that we need him to do. And I’m gonna do everything he needs me to do. That’s the main thing, for real.”
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Local News
