Three Things NBA Preview: Detroit Pistons
As I detailed a couple weeks ago, I’m once again re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2025-26 campaign.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows:
- Sept. 1-5: Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR)
- Sept. 8-12: Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL)
- Sept. 15-19: Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS)
- Sept. 22-26: Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC)
- Sept. 29-Oct. 3: Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA)
- Oct. 6-10: Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS)
So without further ado, let's get to the Detroit Pistons, who lost a hard-fought first-round series to the New York Knicks after a highly-impressive season where they avoided the play-in and captured the No. 6 seed in the East.
Jaden Ivey, returning
The Pistons went on their run last year largely without Ivey, who broke his leg on January 1 and played in just 30 games. Before that, though, he was having by far the best season of his career and delivering on every bit of the promise that he showed coming into the league.
The biggest thing, of course, was the improvement of his jumper. After shooting just about 34% from deep in each of his first two years (34.3% and 33.6%), Ivey made nearly 41% of his treys in Year 3. He actually had the lowest shot quality on threes of his career, according to GeniusIQ, but instead of underperforming his expected conversion rate on those shots, he exceeded it by around 3.4 percentage points.
That's a massive swing in shooting ability. The question is how real we can expect it to be and whether it will carry over to next season and beyond. Guys can have 30-game stretches where they shoot really well, and then come back down to earth.
Eyeballing it while watching some clips of the jumper, I feel pretty good about it carrying over. It does seem like he tweaked some things with both his gather and his release. His base is a little bit wider, and he gets a bit more lift. He releases the ball from higher up in the air and he doesn't have quite as much flare in his elbow. It's encouraging stuff.
There's still the question of whether it's best for him to start next to Cade Cunningham or come off the bench as a kind of super-sub scoring sixth man who plays like 30 or so minutes a night, but I really want to see what he does for an encore. (I also really want to see whether he and the Pistons come to an extension agreement. That's a fascinating discussion.)
I just hope his year isn't spoiled by the injury, so that he essentially loses two years because of it. You don't always see guys looking like they're full strength right away, and even if he's back for the start of the season it will only have been like 10.5 months since he literally broke his leg. It would be totally understandable if he wasn't at full strength until at least midway through the year, so that's important to keep in mind as we watch him try to come back.
