During the summer, the Detroit Pistons sought out to improve their perimeter shooting while freeing up money from a cap perspective at the same time
Over the offseason, the Detroit Pistons set out with firm intentions to bolster the team’s three-point shooting arsenal during the summer, and President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon has executed a series of trades that underscore the same intention. After the draft concluded, the Pistons worked out deals to land Isaiah Joe, John Collins, Taurean Prince and Gary Harris on the trade market since they’re all credentialed, proven long-range assets.
With four new 40% downtown shooters in the Motor City, the Pistons have a lot more firepower and gravity from the perimeter before the 2026-27 season kicks off, but their offseason approach was multi-fold. While Detroit certainly wanted to enhance their threat from distance, Langdon made sure to work carefully enough that the Pistons would save money on the books in the process.
Since Tobias Harris left during free agency and the Pistons traded away Marcus Sasser, Isaiah Stewart and Caris LeVert, Detroit was able to clear up a marginal amount of cap space while taking in those new perimeter investments. At the beginning of the offseason, the salary cap for the next league year was slated to come in at just above $174,000,000 for each time in the NBA, but there’s a new figure that was recently tossed about that would give teams like the Pistons slightly more wiggle room 12 months from now.
If the cap does increase by $2 million ahead of the 2027-28 campaign, the Pistons would position themselves as one of the less fiscally-encumbered teams in the association. Right now, the Pistons only have five players locked up on guaranteed contracts through that season in Cade Cunningham, Duncan Robinson, Kevin Huerter, Ebuka Okorie and Collins. Detroit does have Chaz Lanier in the fold, but his $2.5 million deal is non-guaranteed, so there’s some flexibility there. The Pistons do hold team options for both Ron Holland II and Isaiah Joe for a combined $22.8 million, and considering how cheap that total is for their combined impact, there’s a good chance the Pistons are comfortable with those salaries.
Now, the five-player combination of Cunningham, Robinson, Huerter, Okorie and Collins comes in at just under $100 million, so even with Holland and Joe, Detroit still would have just roughly $123 million committed to cover seven key players. But because the Pistons will presumably be signing Jalen Duren to a long-term extension in short order and Ausar Thompson to a rookie scale extension not long thereafter, those two players are likely to account for at least a combined $60-65 million per season, roughly slotting Detroit in the ballpark of $185 million in payroll.
With Duren and Thompson in the fold, the Pistons would have nine players spoken for, which means several role players still need to join on team-friendly deals. The most important aspect is for Detroit to remain under the second apron once they have their pillar pieces signed long-term in order to retain trade exceptions and overall roster flexibility.
Up to this point in his tenure with the Pistons, Langdon has prided himself on making sure the team retains as much optionality as possible, so that aligns with the team’s intention to avoid going over the second apron. Of course, Detroit will need to sign more players to round out their squad, so the specifics of the team’s financials are going to change before that new salary cap arrives, but it’s a positive development for the Pistons as they work out a solution for the ongoing Duren saga this offseason.
