DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons’ locker room was silent. The bulk of the fans who remained after their blowout Game 7 loss at Little Caesars Arena were there for the Cleveland Cavaliers after being bused in by owner Dan Gilbert.
As disappointing as Detroit’s performance was Sunday evening, coach J.B. Bickerstaff refused to view his team’s overall season that way.
“Not ever will I be disappointed in these guys,” Bickerstaff said after the Pistons lost 125-94 to the Cavaliers. “These guys, every single day, give us what they’ve got. So it is not a disappointment. It’s a loss, and it’s a tough loss. But that adjective will never be used with this group.”
Considering how the Pistons struggled to produce consistently in the playoffs and that they went to back-to-back seven-game series as a No. 1 seed, it was a fair question.
They plowed through the regular season to win 60 games for the first time since 2006 and overcame a 3-1 first-round series deficit against the Orlando Magic. But Detroit’s damning offensive flaws, which its defense compensated for during the regular season, were exposed by the Cavs.
The Pistons’ 110.4 offensive rating and 104.9 points per game were the lowest of all remaining playoff teams entering Sunday. Outside of Cade Cunningham, Detroit couldn’t generate enough quality offense to keep pace with the Cavaliers, who had four players average double figures in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Cunningham has logged the most minutes (571.5), points (394), assists (105) and turnovers (79) in the playoffs. The 24-year-old guard’s 31.5 usage percentage was the highest of anyone to play at least 10 games during the postseason, highlighting how much responsibility he shouldered. Cunningham will enter next season on the second year of a five-year, $269 million max contract.
“It was a great opportunity this season, to move forward and continue to experience new things we hadn’t been exposed to,” Cunningham said. “We fell short. We were right there, but we fell short. So I think that chip, that sting is going to sit for a while. We’ve got to work through it and continue to grow.”
Veteran Tobias Harris was Detroit’s second scoring option. The 33-year-old, whom Bickerstaff has routinely referred to as his “safety blanket,” averaged 18.1 points per game, good for the second most in his playoff career. But Harris scored a combined 11 points on 2-of-13 shooting in the final two games of the second round. Harris will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason.
As valuable as Harris was to start the postseason, he couldn’t sustain his level of offensive production as the playoffs pushed on. Harris will likely have multiple suitors around the league, in addition to the Pistons, this summer.
Although Detroit collapsed in the second round, the front office’s confidence in Bickerstaff, who signed a contract extension the day after the Pistons ousted the Magic in the first round, hasn’t wavered. The Pistons view him as the coach of the future, and the expectation, per league sources, is for Bickerstaff to be around long term. He’s established meaningful relationships throughout the locker room and has cultivated a culture that the organization believes is sustainable, given the team’s youth.
Now the focus shifts to the offseason, and Detroit has decisions to make — most importantly, how to handle Jalen Duren’s restricted free agency after he and the Pistons were unable to agree on a rookie-scale extension ahead of the season. Duren severely underperformed in the postseason after having a career year.
He recorded just 10.2 points and 8.5 rebounds per game on 51.4 percent shooting in the playoffs, far off from the 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds on 65 percent that earned him his first All-Star nod.
Duren was the Pistons’ clear second scoring option throughout the regular season but looked like a shell of himself in the playoffs, being outplayed first by Wendell Carter Jr. and then Jarrett Allen. Bickerstaff occasionally turned to Paul Reed for reinforcements, even benching Duren for Reed for the entirety of the fourth quarter and overtime in Game 5.
While his second postseason experience was undoubtedly a disappointment, Detroit will try to retain the Philadelphia native this offseason — just at a lower rate than expected. Duren could make an All-NBA team, which would make him eligible for a five-year max contract worth 30 percent of the salary cap. Given his postseason showing, the widely held belief around the league is that he has little to no leverage to negotiate for the max.
That said, Duren still boasts a unique skill set at 6-foot-10 and 250 pounds, with an offensive feel for the game he showed during the regular season but abandoned him during the playoffs.
There aren’t many options for the Pistons to upgrade from someone his age, with his talent and frame. As underwhelming as Duren’s showing was, it could prove to be a vital piece of motivation to develop further this offseason. Duren has been aware of his shortcomings over the last two seasons. He even mentioned last year he was “on some soft s—.” There’s optimism that he can recover from this postseason and improve as a result of it.
Ausar Thompson is also extension eligible. Per a league source, Detroit views Thompson as part of its core and will seek to get a rookie-scale extension done with the third-year wing in the offseason. Thompson tallied more “stocks” than anyone in the postseason (28 steals and 25 blocks), and his impact was undeniable despite his offensive limitations.
“People can judge however they want to judge, but you’re looking at this big picture and long term,” Bickerstaff said ahead of Game 6 when asked if he’d considered a lineup change away from Thompson and Duren. “Those guys are going to be a huge part of what we do for a long time. What does it say about us, if in their difficult times, we choose to give up on them? That’s not building the environment we want to build.
“That’s not giving people your trust and the security and belief in them. When guys are at their best is when they know that people are around them, support them and believe in them the most. That comes to fruition over time. These guys are young guys. This is their first experience in this. Think about all of us individually; when we went through difficult times for the first time, it wasn’t always pretty. It didn’t always look good. But we had people around us that supported us and helped carry us through it, and that’s our responsibility as an organization.”
Isaiah Stewart, though he played just 11.8 minutes per game in this playoff run, is also extension eligible. Another caveat is that only $2 million of Duncan Robinson’s $15,992,957 salary is guaranteed for next season, which could offer Detroit more flexibility.
Along with Harris, Javonte Green and Kevin Huerter will also be unrestricted free agents. Harris has occupied Detroit’s starting power forward spot since he signed with the team during the 2024-25 offseason.
Green, who the Pistons signed to a one-year deal in August, played in all 82 games for the first time in his career and shot a career-best 38.1 percent from 3-point range. He’s meshed well with the team both on and off the court and averaged a career-high 1.2 steals per game this season.
Detroit acquired the No. 21 pick in the upcoming draft in the three-team trade that brought Huerter to the Pistons and sent Jaden Ivey to the Chicago Bulls before he was waived. The Pistons swapped the 28th pick with the Minnesota Timberwolves in what’s shaping up to be one of the deepest drafts in recent seasons.
Though Detroit didn’t reach the Eastern Conference finals, it built on last year’s playoff experience and won a series for the first time in 18 years. The Pistons will almost certainly seek to build around the core of Cunningham, Duren and Thompson during a pivotal offseason. They opted to keep this group together to see how it would fare during the postseason. They got an answer.
“I’m grateful for the whole season,” Cunningham said. “We’ve bonded more than any other team I’ve had in the NBA. A lot of that is a credit to coach, the environment he instilled, (GM) Trajan (Langdon) and the environment they instilled …
“I can’t thank everybody enough for creating that environment, allowing us to grow in the way we did and all the support I’ve had and the whole team has had this season.”
