When was the last time the Pistons had a team teeming with young talent, hungry for a winning culture? Feels like forever doesn’t it?

With the 2023-24 NBA season upon us, we here at Pistons Fleet have been nothing short of giddy at the idea of seeing the Pistons young core going out there every night to bring the Motor City some wins this year. While the team is still young and still needs repetitions to grow together, we’re excited to see how each player develops. With training camp right around the corner, the Pistons Fleet team has decided to look at how much growth we’re planning to see from this team and how far we think they can go this year in this piece.

Rohan

Prediction: 35 Wins

With a young core, it can get very tough to get precise and predict a tangible number of wins. This becomes all the more true when considering the Pistons and fans across the world have so much to look out for. Just a few of these include Monty Williams establishing better offensive principles and more usage of ball-screens/off-ball actions, Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey taking leaps as offensive controllers, and new faces young and old with a solid knack for team play in Monte Morris, Ausar Thompson, and Marcus Sasser.

Circling back to the very first point, I am much more of a ‘process’ person as a fan of the game - where my fascination for how/why things work holds true within basketball. I think this couldn’t be stated enough for a team hoping to gain some continuity and experience from top to bottom. With that in mind, I am predicting a 35-win season - essentially doubling the winning percentage from the 2022-23 campaign. Super stoked for what’s in store.

Don

Prediction: 36 Wins

The expectations for this upcoming season can be quite a difficult thing to gauge when you are looking at a roster that’s being led by a 22-year-old coming off of a shortened season due to a stress fracture, second-year Jaden Ivey, second-year Jalen Duren, and 50-year-old Bojan Bogdanovic. It can become difficult to have any sort of real expectations for a team with just 17 wins, but there are a few reasons to sort of forget about the past and look onward to bigger and brighter days for this Pistons squad.

First, the Pistons are getting their budding star point guard Cade Cunningham back this season, who I am expecting to make a leap to stardom and be the NBA’s most improved player. Secondly, the Pistons should expect to also see some growth and leaps from their second-year players Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren, both of which by my measure exceeded expectations in their rookie seasons. I would expect a bit of a leap from both of them now that they get to play alongside such a cerebral point guard like Cunningham opening up scoring opportunities for the both of them. Third, the off-season additions of Monte Morris and Joe Harris. Monte Morris is coming off a very solid year where he had one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in the league. He is also a solid scorer and makes little to no mistakes while on the floor. Cunningham and Morris are a very clear upgrade over the guard rotation of Killian Hayes and Cory Joseph. The second offseason addition is the veteran shooter, Joe Harris, from the Brooklyn Nets.

For a team that was 22nd in 3-point percentage adding a career 43.7% shooter should help the Pistons at the very least become a middle-of-the-pack shooting team with shooters like Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Harris, Alec Burks, and even Monte Morris who is a career 39% 3 point shooter. Now I know what you are thinking, “ Why didn't he address the defense?” That brings me to my very last and final point. Ausar Thompson. I expect the 5th overall pick in his rookie year to be not only great defensively for rookie standards but to also be one of the premier wing defenders in the league from day one. The combination of tools Thompson possesses both physically and mentally is extremely rare, and that is why I expect him to do something as rare as being a top-tier defensive player in the league his rookie year. Now Thompson is not going to be able to drag the Piston’s defense out of the depths of hell by himself, but he can still have a large enough impact to where we see an improved defense overall, and many more nights where the team can compete on that end. Due to all the reasons listed above, I expect the Detroit Pistons to be a 36-win team just missing out on the play-in. I think this season is going to give us a really good idea of what this team is going to look like in the future in terms of their identity and show us despite being a 17-win team the year prior they are on a path to being a force within the Eastern Conference.

Red

Prediction: 32 Wins

There’s a lot to look forward to this upcoming season but I’m still going to try and keep my expectations somewhat leveled. I’m happy that Cade Cunningham is looking healthy and ready to go for the 23-24 season and also excited to see how Head Coach Monty works with him and this young core. With Cade being healthy, my biggest expectations would probably be seeing how much his shin injury affected his 3-point shot and finishing around the rim and seeing if he can transfer that chemistry with Duren in all those pick-and-roll clips we have seen all summer into actual games. Speaking of Duren, I can’t wait to watch him get to show off more of his feel for the game as a passer and see if he can make those same reads on the defensive end. I’m keeping Ivey’s short because I personally think he’s got the easiest job on the team if he can just be a somewhat helpful defender. My biggest expectations for Ivey are to see him finish all those random bunnies he would sometimes miss last year and to continue to develop as a shooter off the dribble, off movement, into pull-ups, and C&S. Ausar is probably going to have some rough games offensively but I think his defense and play in transition is going to really shine this year. Overall, I’m expecting 32 wins out of the Pistons and for them to learn from a lot of the mistakes they made last year and really grow as a group.

Bryce

Prediction: 37 Wins

My expectations for the Pistons this season are simply improvement. With the additions of Monty Williams and some of the other off-season acquisitions, as well as the return of Cade Cunningham, it is clear to see the improvements on paper, now it is time to show it on the hardwood. Estimating win totals is nearly impossible because of the sheer unpredictability of an 82-game schedule, but with the coaching change, new additions, and internal development, my prediction for the Detroit Pistons this season is 37 wins.

Ro

Prediction: 35 Wins

My expectation from the Pistons is that the front office understands what they have with their young team. The team will be far more competitive compared to years prior but this is another year where the team is experimenting with a plethora of young prospects, to truly navigate who they need to prioritize for the future. Especially with the addition of Monty Williams, it does give this team the environment to grow and develop so it will be interesting to see who emerges out of the competition even within the roster. At the end of the day, bringing back Cade from injury is a huge boost to any offense and defense in the league and what he does will ultimately decide how many wins the Pistons have. I do not think this is a team that is at the bottom of the league again and I think it will be fighting for a play-in spot.

Why? Well outside of Cade, the Pistons also brought in two defensive stalwarts in Ausar Thompson and Marcus Sasser through the draft, added ample shooting through Joe Harris, Monte Morris, and the aforementioned Sasser, and lastly although development is not linear, I personally am banking on growth from the combination of Ivey, Duren and Isaiah Stewart. To me, 35 wins feels achievable even in an extremely competitive Eastern Conference.

Fleet Team Average Prediction: 35 Wins

Well, there you have it! We’re extremely excited to see what happens at the end of the season but one thing we can promise is that we will see development from our younger players.

Check back at the end of the season to see how accurate we were and let us know what you think on Twitter @PistonsFleet.