Anderson Cerney ‘26, Circulation Manager
The Detroit Pistons have been dominating the Eastern Conference so far into this NBA season, with their strength being that they play down in the paint. Most of the team’s scoring comes from drives rather than beyond the arc, and this is definitely helping to maintain the distinct identity of Detroit basketball. Although the team is dominant when hot, their one and only issue remaining from making them perfect is consistent scoring.
The failure of consistency is a recurring theme for each Pistons’ loss: the Pistons lost to the Phoenix Suns, with guard Cade Cunningham being 8-22 from the field and an abysmal 2-9 from the three-point line and guard Duncan Robinson not helping with being 1-6 from the three-point line. The Pistons lost to the Dallas Mavericks was with Cunningham being 12-30 from the field and 2-9 from beyond the arc with Robinson being 1-7 from the field and 0-5 from beyond the three-point line. The inability to score consistently seems to be the only kink within this team’s plans for the future.
Now, this issue mainly pertains to Cunningham and Robinson because of their prominent roles within the team. Cunningham is the leader of the team, and if you are going to be the leader of the team you must be able to pick up the slack of your team and fight through the tough nights where shots do not fall. Cunningham seems to ignore that and has ended up costing the Pistons multiple games. Aaron Kellerstrass of Pistons Powered wrote, “Cunningham is the Pistons’ only volume three-point shooter other than [Robinson], so even though the Pistons have a few capable shooters, they don’t have enough volume to make up for [Cunningham’s] inaccuracy so far.”
Now, Robinson’s job is to be the consistent scorer and bail out the offense for when it is obvious Cunningham is struggling. The only issue is that he often fails at that job and somebody else does it for him. An example of this occurred when guard Daniss Jenkins bailed out the team against the Golden State Warriors and the Washington Wizards, nailing a buzzer beater. Still, a nice addition of a player, but when Robinson is bad and on a bad Cunningham day, the game is practically already lost, unless somebody else rises to the occasion.
What could the solutions be for this problem, besides simply being “better?” Possibly, the Pistons could rely on Jenkins picking up the scraps or even give guard Marcus Sasser some more playing time to see if he can be the consistent shooter that they need. Swoosh Shrestha of Pistons Powered wrote, “[Sasser] is trending upwards and other teams are noticing. After an injury-saddled start to the season, Sasser has been great in his last two outings for the Pistons.” So, head coach J.B. Bickerstaff could just give either of them more playing time and that could be a solution.
The Pistons are great, but they could be the best if they just find that final piece of a consistent scorer. If they do that, the Pistons could be the best NBA team this season—potenitally even finishing with a championship.
Lyon Life 