While any 12 game losing streak looks bad, Detroit must be trying for the ugliest.
They start the season with a hot 2-1, only dropping a 1 point game to the runner-up Miami Heat. Hopes are high, fans are cheering, things might finally be looking up for little ol’ Detroit.
- Then comes a 112-124 loss to a healthy Thunder, understandable. 32 from SGA
- The Trailblazers missing Simons up next? That’d be a tough loss to have. And it is. 101-110 L
- The Pelicans missing Zion and Ingram, this should get them back on track, right? … 116-125 L
- Suns missing Beal and DBook, they have a chance! … 106-120 L
- 109-120 L to a healthy Warriors team
- The Bucks are missing Middleton, and Giannis gets ejected early (L refs on that one). Pistons still find a way to lose 118-120.
- 106-114 L to a healthy 76ers
- 108-119 L to the Bulls missing Caruso
- The Hawks missing Trae Young. 120-126 L
- The Cavs missing Donovan Mitchell. 100-108 L
- 113-142 L to a healthy Raptors
- The Nuggets are missing Jamal Murray, Mike Malone gets ejected in the 1st, Jokic gets ejected in the 2nd. The Pistons lose 103-107 to Reggie Jackson and KCP, two players they used to have.
The Pistons themselves have been dealing with anywhere from 3-7 players injured each game as well, but there doesn’t seem to be much light at the end of their tunnel right now. Just an absolutely pitiful stretch of games for a professional team. For me personally, all spirits were dead after the Pelicans loss.
What is going wrong with Detroit? Is it a lack of spacing? Is it that they are in need of vet leadership? Can any Pistons fans shed some light?
When you look at their roster, they have a ton of upside. Cade has superstar potential, Duren is developing into a terrific big, Ausar has DPOY potential and Ivey and Stewart play their roles really well. It feels like they could be really good if they figure it all out.
Yeah, spacing and injuries have been absolutely miserable. We haven’t had Bojan or Monte Morris available to play yet who should both be valuable for vet presence and spacing. Add on to that we’ve missed multiple games from Duren, Ivey, Burks, and Livers throughout this stretch. All the injuries and poor spacing is giving Cade an insane and highly difficult workload, which he’s not there yet to handle consistently. I believe that even just getting Duren back fully healthy(hoping Friday) will help stabilize this team because he was a difference maker before he got hurt. Team should be better when healthy, and I think they will be, but it’s been a tough start.
2 of our 3 best players (Duren and Bojan) are injured. Duren played some of these games in the losing streak, but the ongoing ankle injury meant he wasn’t looking right and probably shouldn’t have. Both of those players should open up Cade. For a while we didn’t have a single player over the age of 24 in the rotation (because we’ve had up to 7 players injured; and haven’t had a game without 3 rotation players injured). For reasons that aren’t clear, the coach was starting Killian Hayes, whose skillset is redundant with both Cade and Ausar. We had a brutal start to the schedule with almost nothing but back-to-backs.
All of that compounds together. Plus we make the standard issues you expect from a young team: too many fouls and turnovers, defensive lapses, letdowns in clutch time. There’s also a new coach implementing a fast decision-making system that likely is generating a lot of turnovers until the young players acclimitize to it.
It’s a perfect storm of bad things that aren’t necessarily longterm issues. We’ve yet to see Detroit’s best lineup on the court together.
2 of our 3 best players (Duren and Bojan) are injured. Duren played some of these games in the losing streak, but the ongoing ankle injury meant he wasn’t looking right and probably shouldn’t have. Both of those players should open up Cade. For a while we didn’t have a single player over the age of 24 in the rotation (because we’ve had up to 7 players injured; and haven’t had a game without 3 rotation players injured). For reasons that aren’t clear, the coach was starting Killian Hayes, whose skillset is redundant with both Cade and Ausar. We had a brutal start to the schedule with almost nothing but back-to-backs.
All of that compounds together. Plus we make the standard issues you expect from a young team: too many fouls and turnovers, defensive lapses, letdowns in clutch time. There’s also a new coach implementing a fast decision-making system that likely is generating a lot of turnovers until the young players acclimitize to it.
It’s a perfect storm of bad things that aren’t necessarily longterm issues. We’ve yet to see Detroit’s best lineup on the court together.