The Detroit Pistons have climbed from a perennial NBA Draft Lottery participant to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference over the past two seasons, but their next step hinges on whether their core, which should be ascending, can hold together through questions of fit and uncertainty.
In 2025-26, the Pistons won 60 games as Cade Cunningham fully broke out as one of the league’s elite offensive engines. However, contract negotiations with All-NBA center Jalen Duren are dampening the vibes in Detroit entering this season. Duren recently declined the Pistons’ five-year, $200 million offer, missed the team’s media day, and isn’t expected to attend the start of training camp.
That drama hangs over an up-and-coming Detroit squad ready to take another step forward in 2026-27. With a seemingly improved roster and a pivotal contract negotiation underway, Detroit’s range of outcomes looks as volatile as any team entering next season.
Pistons’ Biggest Offseason Loss: Tobias Harris
Tobias Harris played a key role in Detroit’s turnaround over the past two seasons. As the Pistons stocked up on high-upside, youthful lottery talent for half a decade, they needed win-now veterans to up their game.
Harris helped stabilize a young group that was finding its way. Despite positive strides from Detroit’s collective in the past two years, the Pistons have ranked below league average in halfcourt offense each season, according to Cleaning the Glass.
The top need for the Pistons in these past two seasons has been offensive creation alongside Cunningham. Even if Harris wasn’t a high-usage offensive hub, he elevated the offense in a group where spacing and creation were major questions.
Harris’ shot-making proved vital as the Pistons secured their first playoff series win in 18 years last season. After falling behind 3-1, Harris averaged 25 points per game in the final three contests, including a 30-point Game 7 performance.
Harris wasn’t a high-usage creator or an exceptionally efficient scorer, but he was a stabilizing, trustworthy second option alongside Cunningham. Without him, a tremendous workload remains on Cunningham’s shoulders, and the Pistons will need someone, if not multiple players, to step up for significant usage.
Team’s Biggest Offseason Addition: John Collins
John Collins fills a positional vacancy for Detroit following the departures of two key frontcourt players from last season: Harris and Isaiah Stewart.
Last season, the Pistons’ identity revolved around smothering defense and aggressively crashing the glass. Whether Collins can contribute to that identity will be a key storyline for Detroit this year. Defense has never been Collins’ calling card, but with enough talent around him, he can still be maximized relative to his strengths.
Detroit’s main defensive emphasis is preventing shots at the rim and creating turnovers. While Collins’ defense has lapses, he provides playmaking and rim protection. Collins is somewhat challenged on the perimeter, but with superb athletes like Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland who can cover a lot of ground, the Pistons could perhaps get away with Collins playing more paint-oriented and be okay living with certain outside shots.
Collins was an effective rebounder early in his career with the Atlanta Hawks, but that has slipped in recent years. Part of that may be because improved shooting has kept him on the perimeter. A healthier balance between spacing and rebounding would fit two key Pistons needs. Detroit could use a revitalized Collins attacking the glass to help replace Stewart and keep the team among the league’s best offensive rebounding units. At the same time, his shooting gives Cunningham another spot-up option in the projected starting lineup.
Collins’ Deep Ball
Collins has shot 40.3 percent from deep over the past two seasons on 3.4 attempts per game, mostly from the corners and off the catch. That makes him a release valve who also has the athleticism to crash hard as needed. Finding the right mix of those traits could weaponize him in an offense where Cunningham will do most of the creating.
Collins’ positional importance makes him a prominent x-factor for Detroit, but adding Isaiah Joe may be more valuable long term. Joe’s three-point creation may be as valuable as any trait the Pistons added this offseason.
Detroit ranked 29th in three-point frequency last season — only 31.3 percent of its field goals came from behind the arc, per Cleaning the Glass. The lack of spacing played a crucial role in why the offense finished below average in halfcourt efficiency. Both were relevant talking points around the Pistons entering the playoffs, which ultimately panned out as they fell in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Joe has spent each of the past four seasons above the 40–percent mark on threes, including a career-high 42.3 percent last year. He is elite as a catch-and-shoot player, but also has some off-the-dribble chops that Detroit could greatly benefit from.
Both players fit the profile of where the Pistons need to improve next season, and that need frames Detroit’s bigger question: can the roster add enough creation and spacing to support Cunningham?
Pistons’ Best-Case Scenario Outcome
The Pistons’ trajectory should continue upward as their young building blocks keep improving.
Cunningham is already one of the NBA’s best point guards at 25. With improved spacing around him as Joe, Collins, Duncan Robinson, and Kevin Huerter integrate into Detroit, and with hopeful development from their other young players, the paint may open up even more for a Cunningham-Duren two-man game.
Defensive playmaking remains high across the roster, and collective athleticism may even be an area of improvement. Losing Stewart’s back-line paint protection hurts, but Paul Reed could provide more range beyond the paint while Collins, Thompson, and others can serve as secondary rim protectors.
60 wins is a high bar, especially in an Eastern Conference that improved in the offseason and in a league that changed the draft lottery rules to eliminate tanking. Still, the Pistons should view the conference as open, chase a top-three seed, and, after falling one game short of the Conference Finals, have their sights set on an NBA Finals appearance.
Pistons’ Worst-Case Scenario Outcome
It’s hard to get too excited about the Pistons without knowing the outcome of Duren’s contract negotiations.
Duren reportedly feels disrespected by the process: Detroit made him wait a year past his initial eligibility, then gave Thompson a five-year, $155 million extension at the first opportunity, and he took issue with the weight-loss clauses.
Whether Duren is valuable enough to justify a $40 million-per-year deal is debatable. Still, his importance to the Pistons, amid a resurgence after over a decade of struggles, is not in question.
Again, Detroit’s offense has been lackluster even during the team’s success. Among players who appeared in at least 58 regular-season games (70 percent of the season), Duren finished as the NBA’s most productive pick-and-roll roll man by volume and was more efficient than anyone in the top 20 in that category.
Duren’s playoff performance dropped, including his effectiveness on such looks. That downturn is a major reason for the contentious negotiations this offseason. A disgruntled Duren, or an outright loss of him at the 11th hour, could be detrimental for the Pistons as they look to follow up on the best season in recent franchise history.
Even if they do bring Duren back, the offense still has questions. Cunningham carried them to a top-10 total offense last season, but Detroit posted a below-league-average unit with him off the floor.
With Duren’s status in the air, Collins still an unknown, and so much of their offense riding on Cunningham, the wheels could fall off quickly for a Pistons team that also boasts a high ceiling. As long as Cunningham is available, he likely keeps them at a play-in-level team. But for a group that looked to be on the rise, that would still feel like a step back.
Pistons’ Biggest Question Heading Into 2026-27 Season
Obviously, Duren’s future with the team is the biggest question. Since that’s already been discussed, the next question is: what layers can Thompson add to his offensive game?
Thompson already has an offensive role: transition scoring and creating second-chance opportunities. He is an exceptional offensive rebounder for a wing, finishes at the rim at a good rate, and turns his offense into opportunities. His open-court passing is also an asset.
His defensive value and ability to turn his athleticism into effective offense without a jump shot make him a good signing for Detroit. However, as his salary rises with an extension and if Duren ultimately signs around $40 million per year, the Pistons will be short on options to improve their roster, and they still desperately need other options to initiate offense besides Cunningham.
Thompson still has plenty of time before his offensive limitations negatively impact Detroit. In fact, the Pistons have been a better offense with him on the floor than off the floor over the past two years.
Thompson isn’t under serious pressure to improve his halfcourt offense next season. However, any development, whether as a jump shooter, ball-handler, or pick-and-roller, could single-handedly raise Detroit’s ceiling a tremendous amount if he becomes even a specialist in any play-creating trait.
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