Short term, probably. Long term, they’ll be in a better position.

Duren is a dime-a-dozen player who’ll be exposed quickly without a great ball handler and distributor feeding him in the lane.

Your post ended when you put the Magic above them

BBall Paul’s breakout year.

Plenty of people had this same thought the previous 2 seasons.

The pistons arguably have gotten better this off season, maybe a step worse defensively. Even with all the Duren shenanigans

I expect them to have a similar regular season as Cleveland did this last season.

The east is stacked suddenly and other teams have jumped ahead talent wise. Detroit is solid but need to be more than solid. I think Cade is special though and would love to see more of him.

Yes and that should be what the conversation about Duren is about: How do you navigate this without it being the first domino in Cade asking out? You have all your firsts and several tradeable contracts, how does this current situation inform how you move going forward?

They’re definitely in trouble

Ducks

lol. So many time we seen post here get downvoted. I understand.

As a Pistons fan.. I’m very concerned. We’ve had as bad of an offseason that you can have after getting the #1 seed.

I don’t see how replacing Harris-Stew-Lavert with Joe-Collins-Prince-Harris turns them into missing the playoffs.

Their biggest issue was lack of shooting and they improved greatly in that realm.

Pistons have the deepest team in the East and will finish in the top 3. Why you say because the other teams will load manage and not play hard every night. The Pistons will give maximum effort every night. Will they win in the playoffs probably not without adding something at the deadline but they will be a good regular season team.

Cade is 25 and gets a lot better every year.

Definitely in some trouble. Even if they come to terms with Duren, many of the teams behind them decided to make BIG moves to improve, where Detroit would appear to remain stagnant:

New York- Not much change but defending champs (did lose Robinson)

Boston- Lost Brown, but still fairly deep and have Tatum and signed Robinson

Cleveland- Kept roster together and signed Watson

Philly- Added Lebron and Brown. Also quietly made some pretty good bench acquisitions.

Toronto- Added Kawhi

Miami- Added Giannis

Indiana- Haliburton Back

They really need Duren or Thomson to take another step offensively, a younger player jumping up (Holland) or this may be a play in team. Alternatively, go see if you could find a frustrated star and try to pry him away from that team with the picks and prospects (Durant or Booker for example)

If they can keep Duren I think they’ll be okay. In the playoffs is where I really worry for them. Last year Tobias and Cade were the only one’s who could seem to generate their own shots.

I’m such an Ebuka Okorie truther that I want change my username to MITOkorie. I think having a turbo PG is going to supercharge the rest of the 2nd unit. Very bullish on the Pistons in general, just surprised nobody else is mentioning that addition

Kat or Myles Turner will land to Detroit soon

Let Duren go and tgeb trade for Towns

Maybe in the postseason. But the regular season they will still be towards the top of their conference. But continue to doubt the pistons because it worked out so well the last couple of seasons.