Behind star guard Cade Cunningham, Detroit is back in the playoff mix in the East after a string of difficult seasons.
The Detroit Pistons were three minutes into their first preseason game back in October. They were already trailing by double digits against the Milwaukee Bucks and head coach J.B. Bickerstaff called time out to settle his team down.
He still remembers the crowd’s reaction from last season. “They booed us,” the Pistons’ first-year coach stated.
They’re not booing in Detroit anymore. The Pistons, the team that lost 28 consecutive games last season, are 40-32, on the brink of clinching a winning record. They’re assured of no worse than a SoFI Play-In Tournament berth and control their own destiny for a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. They’ve increased their win total by a margin of 26 games over last season, already the biggest one-year turnaround in franchise history.
They are ahead of schedule. And they are one of the best surprises in the NBA this season.
“The plan was always to win. The plan was to be better in January than we were in November and to be better in March than we were in January,” Pistons general manager Trajan Langdon said. “I always told my people, ‘I don’t know what that’s going to mean ultimately, but that’s what we’re going to set out to do.”
Detroit was a game under .500 in early February, then ripped off an eight-game winning streak punctuated by a 20-point win over Boston. Just like that, the Pistons were seven games over .500. It was obvious then that the playoffs would await; the berth still isn’t technically clinched, but it’s happening.
“I have 1,000% fallen in love with this group,” Bickerstaff said. “And all my focus goes into them and seeing them elevate and seeing them grow. That’s the thing that I find the most joy in.”