No Blockbuster Necessary: Bickerstaff Says Pistons Are Set Without Making Trade

While the Pistons have a brief reprieve before Friday’s game against the Hawks, Detroit head coach J.B. Bickerstaff stopped by FanDuel TV’s Run It Back to do a bit of media availability regarding his team’s rampant success through a quarter of the regular season.

Standing at 19-5 and in first place in the East, the Pistons have been one of the greatest surprises of the 2025-26 NBA campaign. Detroit already ripped off 13 consecutive victories earlier in the season, and the Pistons have sent a message to the rest of the league– they’re ready to compete with anybody. 

In order to reach this place, Bickerstaff and Pistons President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon have worked collaboratively to build a young roster that can grow together with lofty ambitions. Last season, the Pistons progressed to make a playoff appearance and showed that there is merit to the potential Detroit shows with Cade Cunningham leading the way.

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Now, Bickerstaff and Langdon are seeing the Pistons come together in a way that matches their original vision. Given the perceived lack of strength in the Eastern Conference this season, many are suggesting that the Pistons should capitalize on this early-season success to make a trade for a superstar to pair with Cade– the popular name of late has been Giannis Antetokounmpo. And while this possibility has certainly crossed Bickerstaff’s mind, he suggested that a more pragmatic approach is currently in place in Motown during his interview with Run It Back. 

“We have made a decision this summer that we weren’t going to push the panic button because we had a little bit of success last year,” Bickerstaff said. “We felt our guys earned the right to come back as a group and see what they could build on, you know, the core of this group is back, continuing to get better, continuing to grow. They’ve earned that opportunity, and I give Trajan a ton of credit for that, for having the resolve to not just listen to outside noise to not just listen to outside perception and panic because everyone says you should, right? We gave our group an opportunity to come back and see what they could accomplish and grow it for real, right?”

Growth could be the operative word to describe the Pistons’ 2024-25 season. Last year, Detroit pulled off a staggering 30-win increase compared to the season prior, so Bickerstaff clearly knows what growth looks like and he’s seeing even more of it on the current Pistons’ squad. 

“You don’t need to skip steps and go out and trade for some type of superstar right away because you never know how that’s going to end up for you,” Bickerstaff said. “Trajan’s will always make the smart decision and the right decision for the team. I don’t doubt that by any means, but right now we are in a really good spot with a really good group of guys, and we like where we are.” 

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Based on those responses, it sounds unlikely that the Pistons are going to be major power players in the race to land Giannis. Of course, that can change in the blink of an eye if Bickerstaff and Langdon decide to suddenly go all-in, but the current forecast does not contain a blockbuster trade for Giannis in the coming weeks. 

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