As expected, the Detroit Pistons were very active this summer. GM Trajan Langdon has been aggressively pursuing moves to get the team over the hump next season. While the Pistons' roster certainly looks different from it did when the season ended, whether this change has been for the better is another question.
To fully evaluate whether the Pistons upgraded the roster, let's take stock of all the incoming and outgoing players so far.
Arrivals: John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Ebuka Okorie, Gary Harris, Taurean Prince
Departures: Isaiah Stewart, Tobias Harris, Caris LeVert, Marcus Sasser
This obviously assumes the return of Jalen Duren. Given the state of the free agent market and the lack of cap space around the league, it's difficult to imagine the All-NBA center heading elsewhere. If he were to leave, things could look dramatically different and much worse.
Perhaps the most important swap has been going from Harris to Collins at power forward. Harris was arguably the second-best player for the Pistons in the playoffs. Even though Collins is younger and more athletic, whether he can provide Detroit the same individual defense and scoring is unclear. Harris is a more playoff-proven player who gave the Pistons exactly what they needed throughout his tenure.
The other important departure was Stewart's. The Pistons salary-dumped him so that they could move up and draft Okorie. Detroit believes in Paul Reed to take over the backup center spot, so parting ways with Stewart made some sense. With his salary slot, the Pistons brought in sharpshooter Isaiah Joe. Given how desperately Detroit needed to add shooting, this was an understandable swap.
At the same time, it's difficult to overstate how important Stewart was, especially during the regular season. He was one of the best backup bigs in the league and played a massive part in Detroit's defensive identity. Reed is a good player, but he is unlikely to provide the same level of rim protection and rebounding as Stewart did.
The Pistons are hoping that the offensive firepower Joe provides will be enough to make up for the defensive decline caused by Stewart's absence.
Moreover, the Pistons essentially replaced Sasser with Okorie. The rookie out of Stanford is also undersized, but is much younger and has more offensive upside. Okorie may not be able to make an impact right away, so how much of an upgrade this is in the immediate is debatable.
LeVert's departure will not be felt as he struggled in his lone season in Detroit. Yet, it's impossible to expect more from Harris or Prince. If anything, they are probably candidates to be released before the season. Even though the Pistons didn't get much out of LeVert, going from him to the combo of Harris and Prince is a wash at best.
To sum up, the main changes are swapping Harris and Stewart with Collins and Joe. Just because of the shooting upgrade, one can argue that the Pistons are better off. Plus, there is the potential for internal development of Detroit's young players.
The problem is, even if we buy the argument that the Pistons improved slightly, the rest of the Eastern Conference improved even more. Thanks to the new lottery rules, there will be very few tanking teams. Every team is incentivized to win, except for the Bucks and the Nets, who don't control their own draft picks. This means that the competition level will be much higher this season.
Because of this, Detroit's rivals all loaded up. Miami, Philadelphia, and Toronto all made superstar additions. The Pacers will be back with Tyrese Haliburton's return. The Knicks are the reigning champs. The Celtics are still the Celtics, and Jayson Tatum should be back to 100%. Even the Wizards went all-in on the Trae Young-Anthony Davis pairing and built a solid roster.
This means that the Pistons have to be much better next season to repeat the 60-win campaign they just had. Unfortunately, they haven't built a roster that can be much better, but let's hope that Langdon has something up his sleeve between now and the start of the season.
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