Detroit Pistons 2025-26 season preview: Can Cade Cunningham and this young core keep rising in the East?

The 2025-26 NBA season is here! We’re rolling out our previews — examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.

2024-25 finish

Record: 44-38 (sixth in the East, lost to the Knicks in the first round)

Offseason moves

Additions: Caris LeVert, Duncan Robinson, Javonte Green, Colby Jones, Chaz Lanier
Subtractions: Malik Beasley, Dennis Schröder, Tim Hardaway Jr., Simone Fontecchio

Cade Cunningham made his first All-Star team last season. (Stefan Milic/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

The Big Question: So … what do you have up your sleeve for an encore?

The Pistons’ rocket-ship rise out of irrelevance was one of the NBA’s best stories last season — a long (long) awaited return to form for a franchise whose glory days were built on excellent point guard play, smothering defense and irrepressible, unrepentant physicality.

Detroit managed to check all those boxes in head coach J.B. Bickerstaff’s first year on the bench. Aided by general manager Trajan Langdon importing several legitimate shooters to space the floor for his forays into the paint, cornerstone lead guard Cade Cunningham blossomed into a first-time All-Star and All-NBA selection.

The influx of some steadier veterans in front of burly young centers Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart — combined with the emergence of all-world possession-wrecker Ausar Thompson — helped transform what had been one of the league’s worst defenses into one that ranked in or just outside the top 10 in points allowed per possession, opponent field goal percentage, defensive rebounding rate, turnover creation, and preventing opportunities at the rim and in transition. And as far as the physicality goes … well, with Stewart, Duren, Thompson, rookie Ron Holland, et al., in tow, Detroit definitely didn’t duck any smoke.

The Pistons rode that recipe to their best season in a decade, a return to the postseason, and a brutally hard-fought first-round series against the Knicks — one they lost in six games, with three of the losses coming without primary interior deterrent Stewart, three coming by one possession, and one coming under, shall we say, contested circumstances:

After that taste of playoff competition, and the bitter taste left in their mouths by Jalen Brunson and Co., the Pistons enter a new season intent on continuing their upward mobility in a conference where three of the five teams that finished ahead of them last season — the Celtics, Pacers and Bucks — were rocked by devastating injuries and roster reorganizations. Progress isn’t always linear, though; there’s plenty of hard work to be done for Detroit to build on last season’s breakthrough.

As brilliant as Cunningham was during a campaign that saw him finish seventh in the NBA in scoring, fourth in assists and points created via assist, and fifth in triple-doubles, the 24-year-old must improve his interior finishing (just 57% at the rim) if he wants to reach the elevated levels of elite offensive engines like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Dončić. One of the NBA’s most ball-dominant players must take better care of it, too: Detroit’s chances of posting its first top-10 offense since 2008 could rest on how effectively Cunningham can curb his turnovers (4.4 per game, second-most in the league) and whether his teammates can follow suit to improve on last season’s bottom-10 finish in turnover frequency.

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The dudes flanking Cunningham on the perimeter will have to keep coming through, too. How smooth will the transition be from Sixth Man of the Year runner-up Beasley (who made more 3-pointers than anybody besides Stephen Curry last season before everything went insane this summer), Hardaway Jr. (who made 77 starts last season) and Schröder (a vital secondary playmaker whom Bickerstaff trusted to the tune of 27 minutes per game in the playoffs) to Caris LeVert, Duncan Robinson and Jaden Ivey, who was off to a fantastic start through 30 games (17.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 29.9 minutes per game, shooting 40.9% from 3-point range) before fracturing his left fibula?

Can the 23-year-old Ivey and 21-year-old Duren continue the kind of growth in their critical areas for development — Ivey’s catch-and-shoot game/off-ball work when alongside Cunningham, and the efficiency of his pick-and-roll playmaking when running second units while Cade’s on the bench, and Duren’s understanding of how to guard pick-and-rolls and protect the paint — that will cement them as foundational pieces in Detroit moving forward? As members of the 2022 draft class, both are eligible for extensions right up until opening night; if they don’t reach agreements, both will be ticketed for restricted free agency next summer.

Perhaps even more important: After missing the final month of the 2023-24 season and the first month of 2024-25 due to a blood clot issue, is the 22-year-old Thompson ready to make the same kind of leap that his twin brother Amen made last year?

After entering the starting lineup in early January, Ausar averaged 16.4 points, 8.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 3.9 blocks-and-steals and 5.6 deflections per 36 minutes of floor time, shooting 54.9% from the floor. The Pistons went 26-19 in his 45 starts in that span, a 47-win pace; several advanced metrics, including estimated plus minus, xRAPM and ESPN’s Net Points, evaluate him as one of the five to 10 highest-impact individual defenders in the game.

Coming off a healthy offseason in which he reportedly prioritized conditioning, adding strength and knocking down corner 3s, if Thompson’s able to play longer minutes and make more consistent offensive contributions, he could push his brother in the race for Most Improved Player honors. Combine that kind of leap with steady improvement from one of the league’s brightest young cores and steady contributions from both the incoming vets and holdovers like Tobias Harris, and the Pistons might be well on their way to proving that last year’s breakthrough was the beginning of a new run of glory days in the Motor City.

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“We have no chance of going to get a championship without a year like last year,” Cunningham told reporters at Pistons media day. “But there are more steps to be taken after that. I think our minds are just onto the next step, honestly. We’re not into celebrating last year anymore.”

Best-case scenario

Cunningham cements himself as an All-NBA mainstay, Thompson makes that leap, Ivey picks up right where he left off, and Duren looks more comfortable commanding the backline of the defense. The vets keep making shots, Bickerstaff manages the rotation well, and Detroit wins 50 games and hosts a playoff series for the first time since Flip Saunders was coaching Chauncey, Rip, Rasheed and Big Ben.

If everything falls apart

It turns out that Beasley and Hardaway Jr. were load-bearing walls; even if LeVert and Robinson make for a wash talent-wise, their impact on the overall ecosystem isn’t as positive or additive. Slightly worse spacing, slightly worse shooting, slightly less juice and slightly more questions make the margins in which Detroit thrived last year a little bit tighter. That makes it harder for Cade to cook and all the other youngsters to bloom, resulting in a team that dips back toward .500 and the play-in mix — an opportunity squandered in an East in upheaval, and an underwhelming result that muddies the waters a bit when it comes to figuring out which pieces these Pistons should be prioritizing moving forward.

2025-26 schedule

Season opener: Oct. 22 at Chicago

On one hand, the Pistons won 44 despite Ivey missing 52 games and Thompson missing 23; getting something closer to full seasons from both should push them over comfortably. On the other, though, Detroit also got by far the healthiest and most available season of Cunningham’s career; if he misses time, it’s easy to see the offense cratering and the team going with it. Let’s split the difference and assume regressions in both directions; three more wins in a down conference doesn’t sound too nuts to me.

More season previews

East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards

West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz