After a busy offseason, Detroit Pistons guard Chaz Lanier has a lot of competition for playing time this year
Throughout the summer months, the Detroit Pistons have set out to mold their team into one that’s capable of advancing past the Eastern Conference Semifinals after their tough seven-game loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round last season.
At that stage, the Pistons chiefly struggled in two main areas: self-creating shooting looks and knocking down three-point attempts. During the draft, Detroit targeted point guard Ebuka Okorie to solve the former issue, then the Pistons completed several trades to bring in long-range shooters, thereby solving the latter issue as well.
On the perimeter scoring front, second-year guard Chaz Lanier is one player who is on the fringe of regular playing time in the Motor City. As a rookie, Lanier primarily checked in during mop-up duty, so he never had an opportunity to catch a rhythm during his first season in the NBA. But when Lanier did have a chance to play, the Tennessee product looked like a steady shooter with non-stop off-ball movement to boot.
But during the summer, the Pistons traded for Isaiah Joe, Taurean Prince, John Collins and Gary Harris— four players who all hit triples at a 40% rate last season. Collins plays a different position, so he’s not a threat to playing time for Lanier, but the other three players could conceivably earn minutes that would otherwise go to the youngster.
Now, the first opportunity for Lanier to solidify himself as a bona fide rotational option came in the Summer League in July. With Okorie setting up looks on the perimeter, Lanier found a hot streak from beyond the arc and hit over 50% of his three-pointers in back-to-back Summer League games contests after a slow shooting start in game one.
“I feel like I went out there and was aggressive, displaying all of the things that I've really been working on since the season ended in May," Lanier told The Detroit News. "But since Summer League ended, I've continued to stay in the gym and [be] hungry. My goal is to continue getting better."
Since Lanier is an off-ball guard, there are a number of players that he’s slated to compete with for minutes: Duncan Robinson, Isaiah Joe, possibly Daniss Jenkins, Kevin Huerter, Gary Harris and even Taurean Prince could log time at the two during the 2026-27 season. Based on that contingent of veterans, Lanier has a backlog of talented wing players to go up against, but basketball is truly a two-way game in the Motor City, so the defensive component is important to consider as well.
When Robinson starts for Detroit, which is every game that he’s healthy for, the Pistons are sacrificing a bit of defensive rigidity right off the bat, so Lanier could possibly separate himself from that group by working to become a consistent long-range scorer who also is tenacious and creates turnovers on the other hand. Defense is a non-negotiable aspect in Detroit, so head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and his assistant coaches are going to take that element of the game into consideration when doling out minutes this year.
