As the off-season winds down and training camp’s opening creeps nearer, Pistons Mailbag looks at what remains to be done before October and what might happen once it arrives.
@gibsonjwing/IG: Best Piston to only play one season for the Pistons?
Langlois: Wow, that’s a tough one. There are a number of great players who played only a single season with the Pistons – Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Chris Webber spring to mind – but I don’t know that their seasons here would count as remarkable. Webber was very good in his limited role but knee injuries had robbed him of his sensational athletic gifts by that point. Iverson probably had the best individual season of the single-season Pistons – he averaged 17.4 points and 4.9 assists – but because his play tailed off so notably from his previous brilliance, it’s difficult to fairly assess his impact in this context. If you want to go back to the early days, Harry Gallatin played the last of his 10 seasons with the Pistons, appeared in all 72 games and averaged 14.9 points and 10.4 rebounds, third on the team in each category. He was acquired from the Knicks via trade before the season and Gallatin, inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1991, had been an All-Star with the Knicks the previous seven seasons. That was pre-free agency and players who stayed only one season were almost surely moved via trade. If that player made a significant positive impact, they weren’t likely to be traded. So it’s a fairly limited pool to consider here.
Darrell (Detroit): I can’t understand why so many fans and writers are so eager to trade Killian Hayes. Hayes is the team’s best defender at the guard position and if he can become the player who showed glimpses of an offensive game last season before injuries crept in, then he’d be a rare two-way player at the point. Plus, the Pistons don’t have team control over Monte Morris and Alec Burks after this season and Marcus Sasser has yet to prove he can run the team. So the Pistons could find themselves looking for a capable backup point guard next season while Hayes is thriving on another team.
Langlois: To the extent what you’re describing is true, I would venture to guess it’s the convergence of a few things: Hayes’ struggle through his first three seasons to solidify his status as a quality point guard and the emergence of Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey as the backcourt of the present and future for the Pistons. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a third young guard, of course, and if Hayes can take what he did for a month-plus beginning last December and make that his norm, he’ll alter the narrative in a big way. If you consider everything but shooting, Hayes has shown the stuff to be a viable rotation staple. But shooting is a big part of the whole and Hayes’ struggles as a shooter go beyond his inability to date to become an average 3-point shooter. He’s a 27.4 career 3-point shooter and his high-water mark came last season when Hayes shot 28 percent on 3.8 attempts per game. He also shot 42.9 percent, down from 45.2 percent the previous season, on 2-point attempts. Given the presence of Cunningham and Ivey plus the addition of Morris, there isn’t a guaranteed rotation spot for Hayes coming into this season for the first time in his career. He’ll have the chance to make it impossible to keep him out of the rotation, but it probably isn’t going to be a limitless chance any longer. It’s a critical year for him, the last of his rookie deal. You’re right that Morris and Burks are on the last years of their deals, too, and the Pistons could be in need of a reliable bench option at guard next season. But that’s the NBA for every team nearly every season. About a third of the league hits free agency every year. The Pistons have three guards under team control for at least next season in Cunningham, Ivey and Sasser. Hayes could be essentially under team control, as well. If the Pistons make him a qualifying offer, he could either accept and play out his fifth year or reject it to become a restricted free agent – which means the Pistons would retain the right to match an offer.
@harisahmad1/IG: Is Killian Hayes on the outside looking in at the rotation?
Langlois: If you were writing out the depth chart today, it’s hard to envision Hayes being in the two-deep. Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey will play major roles. I can’t see how Monte Morris isn’t the runaway favorite to be the second unit’s point guard. Alec Burks was retained for a very good reason. But it’s a long season and everybody gets the opportunity at some point to win a consistent role. Hayes’ time will come. The most important thing for him is to come to training camp ready to fight for a job and make it impossible for the Pistons to keep him off the floor. It’s pretty simple to identify what Hayes has to do – shoot more efficiently. If he does that, he’ll carve out a role in the NBA. If he does that this season, there’s still a good chance he’ll do that with the Pistons.
Adriaan (The Hague, Netherlands): I see 19 names on the roster including two-way contracts. Is there still an open roster spot?
Langlois: The Pistons have two open spots – one standard contract, one two-way contract. With the addition of a third two-way contract permitted this season, teams can have 15 standard deals and three two-way deals. They can also bring a total of 21 to training camp, up from 20. It’s been reported that in addition to their 14 standard deals plus two-way contracts for Malcolm Cazalon and Jared Rhoden the Pistons have three players signed to Exhibit 10 deals, which essentially are invitations to training camp and likely assignments to the parent team’s G League affiliate. Those three are Buddy Boeheim, Stanley Umude and Tosan Evbuomwan.
Langlois: The longer it goes, the less likely they might be to sign a free agent before training camp opens Oct. 2 and start without a full roster. That’s a departure from recent off-seasons for the Pistons under Troy Weaver and could mean a number of things. One of the possibilities is Weaver has preferred keeping the roster spot open for the flexibility it affords the Pistons to do other things, which could be a trade that brings back one more player than it sends out. It could also be that Weaver has calculated some teams with more than 15 standard contracts on the books will have to waive a player or two to get down to the roster limit and the Pistons would be in line to claim a player they value. As I wrote recently, it would stand to reason that if the Pistons add to their roster it would be at the wing position. So if you’re perusing the list of available free agents or wondering what might be of interest to the Pistons should a team have to waive a player, pay special attention to players in the 6-foot-6 to 6-foot-9 range.
@notdy_lan3/IG: Is Ausar Thompson in the starting lineup?
Langlois: I would say he’s more likely to not be to open the season – and that’s OK. He surely would have been three or two seasons ago and quite possibly last season. But the Pistons have better depth today and the organizational equilibrium is shifting from player development to winning games. I see two things that have little to do with Thompson that need to happen for him to become a consideration – and, beyond that, it requires Thompson to prove his readiness for such a role. One, Monty Williams is reticent about starting two big men. (No indication this is even a thought, by the way.) Two, Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey show they’re both net positives as 3-point shooters to give the Pistons enough perimeter firepower to make Thompson’s questionable 3-point stroke less relevant. I still think the odds favor a starting lineup of Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart and Bojan Bogdanovic to go with Cunningham and Ivey, but it could be Thompson’s defensive prowess plus the other things he exhibited at a high level in Las Vegas – rebounding, passing, transition flair – prove decisive.
@connor_waple/IG: Will Troy Weaver be on the hot seat if we miss the playoffs/play-in tournament again?
Langlois: I don’t think it’s that simple. It will depend to a far greater extent on the reasons why they don’t qualify for the postseason. Are major injuries the most prominent factor? Do the Pistons stay in contention for a berth through March or are they too far behind the 10th seed by the All-Star break to be in position for a realistic push? The Eastern Conference (indeed, the whole NBA) has never been deeper in talent or in quality teams. It wasn’t that long ago that the last two playoff spots in the East would go to teams that had no reasonable chance to press the top seeds. That’s no longer the case. Pistons owner Tom Gores has exhibited a proper mixture of patience and decisiveness during his tenure. He was part of the decision-making process when the Pistons opted in February 2020 for a rebuilding. He doesn’t just look at the results but at the process. And everything he’s said publicly about the process has reflected favorably on Weaver to date.
@reginaldr_ocket/IG: Which young guy do you think we’ll see the biggest jump from last year?
Langlois: Lots of candidates here. Cade Cunningham is poised to become the player he showed he could be late in his rookie year before last season was all but wiped out by injury. I don’t think the Pistons have their fingers crossed that it’s going to happen; I think they’re confident it will happen as long as he enjoys good fortune on the injury front. Cunningham experiencing that sort of jump will have the biggest impact on the Pistons season and their future. Jalen Duren is a very strong contender here. I think we’re going to see Isaiah Stewart establish himself as a legitimate power forward and credible 3-point threat – and if that happens, it’s a very positive development for the Pistons. A Stewart who can more than hold his own as a viable power forward unlocks a lot of possibilities for lineup constructions. If Jaden Ivey picks up where he left off and goes from there, he’s another one to monitor. Ivey was a very different player at the end of his rookie season and I would expect him to come back a more confident and decisive player. I would also put Isaiah Livers on the watch list here. And maybe the most obvious candidate is James Wiseman. We’re talking about a former No. 2 overall pick who’s had very little go right for him over his first three seasons and now has a real opportunity to spread his wings.
@bear_claw22/IG: Will Bogdanovic still be on the roster come October? Or do you think they’ll wait until the All-Star break?
Langlois: My bet would be on Bogdanovic both starting and finishing the season with the Pistons. I don’t doubt he’ll have significant trade value at the deadline – a function of both his productivity and his favorable contract – but I think he’ll still be worth more to the Pistons than what he’d return in trade at the deadline. I would think the window for a trade would get a little wider after the season and through draft night, when the low guarantee on Bogdanovic’s 2024-25 expiring deal could be leveraged in inventive ways. We’ll see. How the Pistons season unfolds, obviously, will be a big factor in their thinking at the trade deadline.