The Detroit Pistons spent last season as indisputably the NBA’s worst team. Now, they’re authoring one of its most surprising turnarounds.
By beating the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday, the Pistons have won seven consecutive games, the team’s longest winning streak in 10 years. It improved its record to 32-26 — one more victory than the Pistons had combined during the previous two seasons.
Detroit’s opponents during its unbeaten run have not been among the league’s upper echelon, yet that is not to discount the streak, because it was only last season that the Pistons went all of November 2023 and nearly all of December without winning a single game. On their way to a franchise-record 68 losses, Detroit lost 28 consecutive games, an NBA single-season record.
The franchise known for its championship-winning “Bad Boys” era of the 1980s had turned simply bad in recent years: From the 2019-20 season through 2023-24, Detroit won a league-worst 24% of its games. The team representing the Motor City was going nowhere: Detroit had not made the playoffs since 2019 and had not won a single playoff game since 2008.
In an attempt at a correction, the Pistons last spring jettisoned general manager Troy Weaver and fired coach Monty Williams, just one year after Detroit owner Tom Gores made Williams one of the league’s highest-paid coaches, a hiring that single-handedly reset coaching pay across the league. When Williams was fired, he was still owed a reported $65 million.
In their places, the Pistons made hires that carried little fanfare.
The new coach was J.B. Bickerstaff, who had been let go in Cleveland after he guided a rebuild that was largely admired around the league, even though the Cavaliers had not yet advanced out of the playoffs’ first round. In free agency, the team’s new front office added low-frills, offense-first older players, including Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley, to a roster filled with promising but unproven youngsters whom Weaver either traded for or drafted — point guard and former 2021 No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham, guard Jaden Ivey, uber-athletic wing Ausar Thompson and big men Isaiah Stewart and Jalen Duren.
“When we came here, Cade was the No. 1 pick, Ausar was a lottery pick, [Duren] was a lottery pick, [Ivey] was a lottery pick, Ron [Holland] was a lottery pick … Stew was a first-round pick,” Bickerstaff told reporters Monday. “We were fortunate here that the cupboard wasn’t bare. There was a high level of talent here. We just had to figure out how to best help that talent and get the buy-in and see how successful we could be. Like I said, we’re not a finished product. Every single day we aim to get better, but we’ve got a group of guys who are willing to do the work and the selfless attitude to do it together.”
The mixture initially did not click. Detroit started 0-4 and was just 11-17 on Dec. 19.
But over time, the Pistons have quietly become a contender to host a first-round playoff series.
From Dec. 21 to Jan. 8, they won eight of nine games, and that turnaround has sustained. Although a leg injury a month ago removed Ivey’s nearly 18 points per game from the lineup, the Pistons have continued to stay above .500 as Cunningham, finally healthy after multiple serious injuries throughout his career, has become the catalyst the team hoped for when it drafted him first overall. Cunningham is averaging 25.8 points and 9.5 assists while shooting a career-best 3-point percentage despite shooting more from deep than ever before — a promising development in a 3-point-centric league.
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With 22 games left in the regular season, Detroit has less than a 1% chance of not making the playoffs, per Playoff Status.
“I think we still feel like we have to earn the league’s respect and we do have to earn the league’s respect,” Cunningham told reporters Monday. “Every night you have to come with it, you have to play with that grit, you have to play with that sense of urgency, and I think that something we’ve gotten better and better at as the season’s went on is maintaining that sense of urgency each game or finding it within the game. That’s the main reason why we’ve been able to stay afloat.
“Also, coach Bickerstaff and his staff. I think he’s coach of the year, obviously, but the things that he’s done for how prepared we’ve been, I’m not surprised we’ve won so many games. We feel more prepared than the other team.”
Since the turnaround began Dec. 21, the Pistons have been one of the best teams in the league at limiting opponents’ offensive rebounds. Offensively, they excel at getting baskets inside — only three teams score a higher percentage of their points inside the paint — while also shooting far more accurately on 3-pointers (36%) than last season (31.7%).
A more dynamic offense, combined with a defense allowing nearly six fewer points per 100 possessions than last season, has flipped Detroit from a team constantly playing from behind to one that can better compete last in close games.
The Piston have come a long way, indeed. Last season, they were a league-worst 8-27 in “clutch” games, when they were within five points of their opponent in the final five minutes. This season, they are 16-13.
“We’ve come a long way,” Cunningham said Monday postgame. “We’ve learned the ins and outs of how to win games down the stretch.”
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