The state of the Pistons roster, putting a rotation jigsaw puzzle together and the best Pistons dunk no one saw are items on the docket in the latest edition of Pistons Mailbag.
@ck2_art: Is our roster set before the season starts?
Langlois: It’s not full. The Pistons have one of 15 spots open for standard contracts and one of three spots open for two-way deals. Teams can bring 21 players to training camp and I would anticipate the Pistons hitting that number by adding more players to Exhibit 10 days. The likeliest reason the Pistons still have one open roster spot is keeping some maneuverability available for deals that help other teams accommodate roster needs and could result in opportunities to add draft capital or an intriguing young player in the process. One of the 14 standard deals is held by Wendell Moore Jr., the player the Pistons took into cap space in a deal with Minnesota when the Timberwolves offered the Pistons the chance to move up 16 spots in the second round, from 53 to 37, for taking on Moore’s relatively modest ($2.54 million) 2024-25 obligation. The most apparent motivation for the Pistons’ side of the deal was the chance to move up, not Moore, though it’s certainly possible Trajan Langdon’s front office sees enough in a 22-year-old taken with the 26th pick two years ago after shooting 41 percent from the 3-point line as a Duke junior to give him a shot to stick. The point is if the Pistons need to create another roster spot for any reason, there’s the obvious means. I wouldn’t expect any trade that fundamentally alters the makeup of the current roster, but you never know. There are still some teams out there that are likely candidates to trigger activity to address roster needs and teams with cap space and roster flexibility are first in line to capitalize if, say, a third team is needed to make a deal work under the tighter parameters of the current collective bargaining agreement.
Ideally the Pistons should mostly play an 8 or 9 man rotation. Who in your opinion, are at present, the most likely to get a regular game?— Bigfella195 (@bigfella1951) August 13, 2024
Langlois: I’d wager they’re going to go 10 deep most nights because that’s pretty much the way teams roll these days. But the final spot or two in the rotation could be fluid enough that there is a “core rotation” of eight or nine and then a rotating cast of players who fill the final spot or two. And injuries crop up often enough, as Pistons fans are only too aware, to render moot any August musings about what a rotation might look like. But let’s play along, anyway. The locks would be Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris. The likelies would include Jalen Duren, Jaden Ivey, Tim Hardaway Jr., Malik Beasley, Isaiah Stewart, Simone Fontecchio and Ausar Thompson. You can maybe split that group into near-locks (Duren, Ivey, Stewart) and solid bets (Hardaway, Beasley, Fontecchio, Thompson). There’s a world, I suppose, where one of Hardaway or Beasley falls out of the mix if one of the younger guys pushes. There’s a world, I suppose, where Paul Reed makes it impossible to not play him and that pushes Stewart to power forward and cuts one of Fontecchio or Thompson out. Marcus Sasser, Ron Holland II and Reed are on the fringes. Second-rounder Bobi Klintman and trade addition Wendell Moore Jr., the latter for reasons enunciated above, are longer shots.
@captain_potato216/IG: Will we get to the playoffs this year?
Langlois: Somewhere, Jim Mora is warming his vocal cords. Playoffs? I think a successful season would be doubling last season’s win total to 28 while seeing meaningful strides from young players other than Cade Cunningham. If the Pistons come out of the 2024-25 season believing a majority of players from the group of Jalen Duren, Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland II can be rotation-worthy players of a playoff team in the foreseeable future, that’s a great outcome. I don’t know if Trajan Langdon or J.B. Bickerstaff will be asked specifically about the playoffs come media day, but if they are I’m sure they will find diplomatic ways to answer it without flatly saying the playoffs are not in the cards for the coming season. They won’t cap expectations, they won’t undermine enthusiasm and all of that, but the focus for the coming season has to be getting their trove of 23-and-under players on the right track by putting players around them that can yield functional offensive and responsible defensive units.
@TOgnisanti: Are we really ditching starting both Stew and Duren?
Langlois: TBD. The new coach, J.B. Bickerstaff, started Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley together in Cleveland and their combined 3-point attempts per 36 minutes of 1.5 is about one-third of what Isaiah Stewart (4.4) shot. My guess, based on the current roster construction, is that whether Stewart and Duren start together or not, their time sharing the floor together will be reduced from last season. There is only one other big man on the roster, Paul Reed, so playing two of them together with great regularity becomes very difficult. Both Stewart and Duren have missed considerable time in their two seasons together, so that’s another consideration in how to cobble a lineup together. If you’re going to have to scheme around absences, it’s easier to do when you’re accustomed to playing with only one big man on the floor than with two. Bottom line, I wouldn’t rule out Duren and Stewart starting but don’t expect them to share the floor for the bulk of their minutes.
@quinndouggo/IG: Who’s the starting five and who’s coming off the bench most nights?
Langlois: J.B. Bickerstaff will go into training camp, I’m guessing, with ideas for what his preferred units might look like, but there are enough unknowns that he probably wants to keep an open mind to the possibilities. My hunch is he’s going to want to play a mix of young players and veterans and blend in enough 3-point shooting to make for starting and bench units that might have their own distinct strengths but each can stand up to a variety of matchups. I would expect they’d want to give Cade Cunningham at least two players who pair quality and quantity 3-point shooting. Tobias Harris is one of them, for certain. Jalen Duren is the likely starting center for the vertical spacing he provides and his blossoming ability as a playmaking big man from the elbows. Will Isaiah Stewart start to give the Pistons a strong defensive, physical presence or will Bickerstaff opt to go with Simone Fontecchio for his two-way ability, particularly his 3-point threat, or will Ausar Thompson’s defense, transition impact and all-around activity win out? Does Jaden Ivey start alongside Cunningham or will Bickerstaff go with Malik Beasley? I would expect Tim Hardaway Jr. to be a staple of the second unit. Maybe Stewart, whether he starts or not, is the de facto bench unit big man. Those are all reasonable outcomes. Bickerstaff’s task is to use a fairly condensed training camp and preseason schedule to land on what he considers the most effective options and most complementary balancing of units ahead of opening night. But the tinkering, of course, will continue throughout the season. That’s usually the case even for sure-fire playoff teams, never mind teams as young as the Pistons.
@filipkarras/IG: Where does Bobi Klintman fit on the team?
Langlois: He’ll have to win the trust of coaches to fit anywhere other than the deep bench for now. Klintman showed why the Pistons were pleased to get him with the 37th pick with his Summer League performances, putting on display his potential as a 3-point shooter and active wing with tremendous positional size. But he needs strength and repetitions and consistency before he can be considered a legitimate rotation option, just as you would imagine for a 21-year-old who grew up in Sweden and has relatively limited experience. Klintman seems an ideal candidate to spend the bulk of his season with the G League Motor City Cruise and then we can revisit that question ahead of the 2025-25 season.
@wataman66: I know it’s early, but what do you think of Trajan Langdon’s draft choices and the trades he has made? Do you see a difference in his mindset and style vs. Troy Weaver’s prior selections in the direction of the plan they have for the team?
Langlois: It’s way too early to judge Langdon’s drafting of Ron Holland II and Bobi Klintman. I think if we can infer anything from his draft – and I hesitate to make any sweeping declarations based on a single draft – it’s that Langdon is comfortable taking big swings. Holland wasn’t a “safe” pick by any means, but Langdon loved the athleticism and competitiveness and bet on him reaching potential that is considerable but might be a bit farther off than others who were drafted after him. Klintman, same thing. He’s raw but you aren’t going to find players with his size and athletic skill set very often in the 30s. On the trade/free agent front, I thought Langdon displayed great discipline. He didn’t jump to use every cent of cap space in the opening hours of free agency. The Pistons didn’t come away with any future No. 1 picks, which I’m sure he would have loved to have accomplished by renting out cap space, but neither did he respond to that by overcommitting to a plan that boxes the Pistons out of that possibility – or any other possibility, for that matter – in the near term.
@matteobiancosino16/IG: Best dunkers in Pistons history?
Langlois: Dennis Rodman had some of the most exhilarating dunks where it seemed his head hovered above the rim as he cradled the ball and threw it down in a way that was both gentle and violent at the same time. For old-timers, Terry Tyler could climb the ladder and dunk with the best of them. Jason Maxiell, for sheer force, probably registered the most powerful dunks in Pistons history. For utter breathtaking artistry, it would be hard to beat Grant Hill. Young Jerry Stackhouse attacked the rim with complete fearlessness. Jalen Duren already belongs in the discussion after two seasons. The dunk that brought me out of my seat was one almost no one else saw. It came in a Summer League practice – at Vince Carter’s mansion in his gated suburban Orlando community in the summer of 2012 – by someone you wouldn’t have guessed would belong on this list: Kyle Singler.
