John Niyo: East-leading Pistons still must make the right move at deadline

DETROIT — You could argue this is no time for half measures.

But that’ll be the dilemma now with these Detroit Pistons, who are halfway to a place they haven’t been in 20 years and perhaps nowhere near their full potential.

How best to reach it? And how far should the front office extend itself to try to expedite that process in the coming weeks, now that J.B. Bickerstaff and his team have quickly — and forcefully — established themselves as the best team in the Eastern Conference this season?

Those won’t be easy questions for Trajan Langdon and the rest of Detroit’s front office to answer ahead of the NBA’s Feb. 5 trade deadline. And for a Pistons fanbase that just a couple of years ago was suffering through the worst season in franchise history, this has to feel a bit like whiplash, doesn’t it?

The Pistons hit the midseason mark Monday night with a 104-103 victory over Boston at Little Caesars Arena, the latest in a string of statement wins — this one on national TV — for a team that’s now 5 1/2 games clear of the Celtics atop the East standings. At 31-10 overall, the Pistons already have won as many games this season as they did in the 2022-23 and ’23-24 seasons combined. And they’re on pace to at least threaten the single-season franchise record of 64 wins set in 2005-06, when the Pistons started 36-5 and went on to make their fourth straight trip to the Eastern Conference finals.

Twenty years later, they’re in position to make a similar run, it seems. New York, the preseason favorite in the East, has lost nine of its last 11 and just got booed off the court at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. Last year’s No. 1 seed, Cleveland, has been a sub-.500 team since Thanksgiving. Boston remains a threat, particularly if star Jayson Tatum makes an early return from his Achilles injury in the next couple of months. But Philadelphia, Toronto and Orlando hardly feel like true contenders at this point.

Time to splurge?

And after Langdon was surprised to find himself as a bargain shopper at last year’s trade deadline, when the Pistons used some of their cap space to add veteran point guard Dennis Schröder, this year he just might feel compelled to make an even bigger splurge. But at what cost? And is it too soon now for the sort of all-in move that some fans undoubtedly will be clamoring for these next couple of weeks?

A deal for, say, Brooklyn’s Michael Porter Jr. would help address arguably the Pistons’ biggest shortcoming at the moment, adding a legitimate No. 2 scoring option next to Cade Cunningham and another volume 3-point shooter to a rotation that really doesn’t have one beyond Duncan Robinson.

Yet a trade like that — and some around the league aren’t convinced the Nets will move Porter — likely would mean giving up Tobias Harris, Caris LeVert and multiple draft picks for a player who’s only signed for one more season beyond this at nearly $41 million.

So if you’re Langdon, is that really the kind of trade you want to give up all your salary-cap flexibility and future draft capital for right now? Not to mention the team chemistry that’s fast becoming the envy of the league? If it was for a player like Trey Murphy III (New Orleans) or Lauri Markkanen (Utah), it'd be a different story, albeit with a higher price tag.

Sure, the Pistons look like they’re in the driver’s seat in the East, but this team still hasn’t won a playoff series and is far from a finished product. So the more prudent route here ahead of the deadline might be to try to add without really subtracting. The Pistons still have the trade exception they created with last year’s Schröder acquisition, and maybe Langdon can use it in a deal to find some 3-and-D help — Milwaukee’s Bobby Portis? Chicago’s Ayo Dosunmu? — or simply another shooter off the bench to lessen some of Robinson’s load down the stretch.

At least in theory, that’d be the best of both worlds, improving the Pistons’ odds of making a breakthrough playoff run this spring while giving the front office more time — and evidence — to figure out just what this young core really needs to be a championship contender.

Heavy mettle

In the meantime, fans should enjoy this for what it is, because Monday’s game certainly did have a playoff feel to it, from the raucous crowd and flaring tempers — Isaiah Stewart and Celtics star Jaylen Brown both drew technical fouls after a first-quarter scrap — to the tight quarters (14 ties, nine lead changes) and dramatic finish, as Brown’s jumper at the buzzer clanged off the rim.

“Anytime you get an opportunity to play one of the better teams in the league, it tests your mettle a little bit,” said Bickerstaff, whose team won the season series with the Celtics (3-1) and a potential tiebreaker for playoff seeding. “It’s how you sharpen your tools. ... You can tell both teams really wanted it. They raised the level of intensity and they were battling. I think it’s a great experience for our guys, and even better to come out with a win.”

They won it the way they so often do, by dominating in the paint (outscoring the Celtics by 16 there) and creating some easy offense in transition (a 20-5 advantage in fastbreak points) while doing their best to make life miserable for Boston at the other end of the floor. Brown led all scorers with 32 points Monday, but he needed 28 shots to do it, and the Celtics, who rank No. 2 in offensive efficiency this season, shot just 39.8% from the floor and finished with more turnovers (14) than assists (13) on the night.

They also won despite another off-shooting night from Cunningham, who was 4 for 17 overall and 0 for 4 from 3 — the lingering effects from a right wrist injury — but still managed another double-double and finished with 14 assists and no turnovers in 40 minutes

Earlier in the day, the NBA announced Cunningham as one of 10 starters for next month’s All-Star Game in Los Angeles, his first such honor — he was an All-Star reserve last winter — and also the first for a Pistons player since Allen Iverson (remember those days?) was named a starter back in 2009. Cunningham notably ranked first in the player balloting in the East this winter, ahead of two-time MVP and 10-time All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo, among others.

“Yeah, it means a lot,” Cunningham said. “I think it’s just a testament to the amount of success we've had as a team. I think the league has to respect that, being the No. 1 team in the East. Night in and night out, finding ways to get wins. … That's what I appreciate, and that's what we all want, is the respect from our peers.”

More and more, that’s what they’re getting. A couple of weeks ago, in a rematch of last year’s first-round playoff series, the Pistons blasted the Knicks by 31 despite missing both Duren and Harris due to injury. Afterward, Knicks coach Mike Brown didn’t mince any words, saying, “It’s pretty simple: They just physically kicked our ass.”

Monday, it was the Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla who was praising not only Detroit’s defensive intensity, but the depths to which they can drag an opponent with their style of play.

“There’s no real place to hide, there’s no real place to relax when it comes to the physicality that they play with on both ends of the floor,” he said. “They can come at you with a bunch of different guys, but the standard of their physicality remains the same.”

That’s proving to be a championship trait in today’s NBA, by the way. Depth and defense are the biggest reasons why Oklahoma City is a heavy favorite to defend its title this season. But Indiana won the East last season — and nearly upset the Thunder — thanks to its own strength in numbers. And if you ask Bickerstaff, he’ll tell you that’s an integral part of the Pistons’ success, too.

“Our guys have a clear idea of what Detroit Pistons basketball is,” he explained recently. “And because there is that connectedness and that understanding of what it should look like on both sides of the ball, it becomes almost a plug-and-play. I keep giving credit to Trajan and the front office staff for putting together a team — and not just guys who have talent or whatever it may be, but guys that fit the mold and compete at a high level. Again, I’m confident in one through 18, whoever we have to put on the floor is going to help us win.”

And if there’s more help on the way? Well, the Pistons don’t want to break that mold, nor should they.

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