The NBA season plays out as a sequence of miniseries. The team that gets to the end of the regular season sometimes barely resembles the one that comes out of the preseason.
So the Pistons team that Dwane Casey takes into the Oct. 17 regular-season opener at Little Caesars Arena won’t be the one he fields in early April – or mid-December or late February, for that matter.
But to the extent that how the Pistons evolve depends on what they are at inception, the things that happen in training camp – now less than a month away – matter.
Here are five things to watch during the three weeks between the start of camp and the season opener: