The Detroit Pistons have a few unanswered questions heading into the season

After reaching the postseason for the first time in five years, the Detroit Pistons sent a message to the rest of the NBA that another tough-nosed, young team had entered the Eastern Conference picture. 

In doing so, Detroit completed a 30-win turnaround and finished the 2024-25 campaign with 44 victories to its credit before facing the New York Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. The Pistons were able to push the Knicks to six games, but Detroit was ultimately bounced after that demonstrative effort.

But while Detroit did make a big statement last season, there are still several questions that exist and must be answered sooner rather than later if the organization hopes to make a deeper postseason charge going forward.

1. Who will be Detroit’s secondary ball handler with Dennis Schroder on the Sacramento Kings?  

During the summer, the Pistons did not experience a great deal of roster turnover, but one player who exited the squad was point guard Dennis Schroder. As an established vet, Schroder had played a lot of playoff basketball already, and his competence in running the offense when spelling Cunningham helped keep Detroit’s star fresh throughout the latter part of the season. 

Without Schroder on the team, Detroit will look to another player, potentially Jaden Ivey, to run the show intermittently during the season. One option is that Caris LeVert could operate as the primary ball handler as he did on occasion during college at Michigan, but that is likely not the desired option for the Pistons in the long term.

2. Will Duren or Thompson emerge as a consistent inside scoring threat?

While Detroit has a good deal of offensive firepower on the wings, the Pistons would be well-served to establish an interior scoring threat to complement that outside shooting. Last year, Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson averaged just barely north of 10 points per game, and ideally the Pistons would benefit from a bit more production down low. Now, Duren and Thompson are both another year older, so the pair could still be developing their respective low-post repertoire.

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3. Can Duncan Robinson and Caris LeVert replace the veteran roles that Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dennis Schroder fulfilled last season? 

Just like Schroder, the Pistons will not be retaining the services of Malik Beasley for the coming season. Beasley was a marksman from deep last year and helped supply a lot of production off the bench, so Detroit will have to replace his 16 points per game as well. 

The Pistons brought in Duncan Robinson during the summer and the aforementioned LeVert, and both players could combine to more than make up for Beasley’s scoring touch, but that still needs to play out on the basketball court this year. Ron Holland II is another wing player expected to make a jump from year one to year two, so it will be important to monitor his contributions as well. 

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