The boos were audible. The patience from a necessary rebuild had dissipated, replaced by frustration and a feeling of: Not again.
It was only the Pistons’ first preseason game of the season and the Milwaukee Bucks had gotten off to a quick 12-0 start, prompting a timeout from new coach J.B. Bickerstaff and those boos from a fan base that had grown tired of being the NBA’s underbelly. It was like the home team was a bad act at the Apollo.
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New coach, new front office — same nonsense, or so the fans thought.
They had no idea the Pistons were about to embark on one of the most drastic turnarounds in NBA history. No idea they’d go on an eight-game winning streak in February, including a beatdown of the champion Boston Celtics. No idea they’d win a playoff game for the first time in 17 years, setting the stage for what will certainly be a raucous atmosphere at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday night for Game 3 of the Pistons’ first-round series against the New York Knicks.
There was no reason to believe something special was brewing. The franchise hadn’t won a playoff game since the 2008 Eastern Conference finals, and so many years had been lost in between.
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It has been an unexpected development. But the roots of the revival were beginning to blossom even during the franchise depression.
“Nobody celebrates when you build a big, beautiful building, when you pour in the concrete,” former Pistons head coach Dwane Casey, who’s now in the front office, told Yahoo Sports. “Nobody’s out there with pom-poms and confetti. That’s boring.”
What might feel like a one-year breakthrough is anything but. In a way, the Pistons, save for a disastrous one-year detour that had the franchise dancing with ignominy, are right on schedule.
The offseason additions of Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr., Malik Beasley and, later, Dennis Schröder have yielded positive results, the necessary veteran presence to aid a young team in desperate need of it.
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But the true reason for this reversal starts with the draft decisions made during the ugly rebuild.
(Amy Monks/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
Cade Cunningham, Isaiah Stewart, Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey are the cornerstones of this turnaround. The Pistons’ draft picks from 2020 to 2022 were all around when the team bottomed out last season, winning only 14 games, and losing 28 straight. If the years of losing had broken them, the franchise wouldn’t be here with as much optimism and real hope as there’s been in 20 years, when Detroit began its dominant run as an Eastern Conference power.
Their basketball character led the Pistons out of the darkness and to the doorstep of prosperity — or if nothing else, respectability.
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The Pistons went 60-176 from the 2020-21 season to ‘22-23. Casey wore the losses when the necessary decision was made to pivot away from the Blake Griffin-Andre Drummond core. Griffin had dragged around his left leg during the end of the 2019 season and into the playoffs, and the Pistons were swept by the Bucks in Round 1 — not far from the best-case scenario at that time.
Troy Weaver was brought in as the team’s general manager during the pandemic to lead the rebuild. He’d long been acknowledged as one of the league’s best talent evaluators from his days in Oklahoma City alongside Sam Presti, and he began the deconstruction of the roster.
Two of his first three acquisitions on draft night were Stewart and Saddiq Bey via trade — and Killian Hayes with the seventh pick. Hayes was a disaster, but Stewart and Bey were tough ones. They battled Griffin and the other vets in practice daily. For all the protocols that were restrictive on the outside, the inside was all about ball.
Cade Cunningham and Isaiah Stewart endured tough times in Detroit. (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
(Nic Antaya via Getty Images)
“We used to battle about, you know, who can get to the gym first? That’s how competitive it was,” Stewart said.
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If you got there at 8 a.m., you were probably late.
“You ain’t showing up and you saw another person’s car there before you,” Stewart said. “It all boils down to that. And obviously, that rubs off on any young player that’s around, because you don’t want to get looked at as like the oddball who was not working.”
It’s the circle of NBA life. Before proving yourself on the outside, the inside is where battles are won, real estate gained. The wins weren’t coming, because they weren’t supposed to. Veteran guard Derrick Rose was traded to the Knicks at the deadline and not long after, Griffin was waived and bought out.
The Pistons were going lottery hunting and, for the first time, luck smiled on them. In 2021, they wound up with the first pick. They needed a star, and got one: Cade Cunningham.
Upon Cunningham’s arrival in Detroit, Stewart immediately saw something special about him — a magnetism, a charisma that was easy to follow. And more importantly, a maturity that belied his age, along with a want-to, a desire to do it in Detroit even as a Dallas native.
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“Cade … he has a voice, and that voice takes the locker room when he speaks, and he’s been doing that since a rookie,” Stewart said. “I mean you coming in and you’re able to even voice stuff out to vets. I’m like, yeah, he’s special.”
But you can’t add water and produce a contender. Cunningham had a solid rookie year, but surgery on his left shin ended Year 2 after just 12 games, putting a rookie Ivey in a position to play more…
Vincent Goodwill
