The Detroit Pistons had a busy offseason, but one move that should not be overlooked was their acquisition of sharp-shooting former Oklahoma City Thunder guard Isaiah Joe
During his first season in the Motor City, Duncan Robinson walked into a Detroit Pistons locker room that benefited immensely from the veteran’s experience and sharp-shooting ability. After spending the first seven years of his career with the Miami Heat, Robinson had already been through several deep postseason runs, so those high-pressure reps were valuable to the Pistons given the relative youth of their core.
With Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson all under 25 years old, that group had one been through one playoff series together before Robinson arrived. So, the Pistons leaned on Robinson’s guidance throughout the course of the regular season en route to 60 wins and top-seed acquisition, and the Michigan product checked in as the team’s top three-point shooter at 41% on the year.
In truth, Robinson was the only player on the Pistons to eclipse the 40% threshold from distance, so the veteran sniper stood as the team’s primary perimeter threat essentially all year long. Detroit sought to change that during the offseason and give Robinson some company downtown, so over the summer the Pistons have been busy trading for Isaiah Joe, John Collins, Taurean Prince and Gary Harris— all players who hit the deep ball at a 40% clip during the 2025-26 season. And in terms of Joe’s value to the squad, Robinson is finally going to have some legitimate competition for the role that he plays in Detroit because even though there were other players who logged minutes at the two last season, no one could quite replicate Duncan’s reliable outside profile.
While both Robinson and Joe ranked as two of the top 10 movement three-point shooters in the NBA last season, the similarities run deep between the two players. From a defensive perspective, Robinson is often shielded away from the toughest one-on-one matchups since Ausar Thompson is also a Detroit starter and Cade Cunningham has the size to guard players one through three without issue. Joe, on the other hand, lacks the size to defend bigger players at the three on the outside, so his matchups will likely be limited to backcourt duels.
In the modern NBA where the shooting guard, small forward and sometimes even the power forward can share similar offensive responsibilities on the wing, it is perhaps better to categorize Robinson and Joe as shooting specialists who won’t be tasked with high-leverage defensive responsibility on a regular basis. Thompson’s versatility and Cunningham’s defensive ruggedness give the Pistons the unique flexibility to deploy players like Robinson and Joe who are much more effective on one end of the court than the other, but that is part of what makes Detroit’s roster construction so uniquely effective because it is adaptable.
Last year, Robinson started a career-high 77 games for the Pistons, so his value to the Detroit squad is firmly established after logging 27.4 minutes per game last season. That amount of playing time dovetails perfectly with Joe’s typical workload, which was 21.2 minutes per game for the Oklahoma City Thunder. With the two dangerous shooters lined up on the perimeter in Motown, the Pistons will finally have multiple players who can hit big triples for Detroit moving forward.
