Team Needs: Shooting, Defense, Wing Depth, Frontcourt Depth
The Detroit Pistons weren’t anticipating to be the worst team in the NBA this season, not with Cade Cunningham back healthy and Monty Williams being brought in as one of the league’s highest paid coaches. However, the Pistons finished with the league’s worst record and entered the 2024 offseason with plenty of uncertainty about how they will proceed.
They started by firing Troy Weaver and bringing in Trajan Langdon to run their front office, who then let go of Williams after one year and they still have yet to hire his replacement. That said, the Pistons will have ample cap space this summer to try and upgrade their roster around Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson, and Jalen Duren. They also landed at No. 5 in the Draft (again) after some lottery balls bounced the wrong way, and had a number of options for which way they could go on Draft night after the first four picks went mostly chalk.
They decided to stick with the fifth pick and take the first big swing of the Draft, going with the hyper-athletic Ron Holland out of the G-League Ignite to add more youth to Cunningham and Ivey in the backcourt.
Ron Holland (No. 5 Overall), A-: I’m higher on Holland than most, but there are several people I trust that had Holland firmly in the top three coming into the draft. He’s quite polarizing, largely because of his shooting questions, but Holland is the type of athletic, physical, competitive wing that can pop if things come together. The overall fit in Detroit isn’t the best because they need shooting and Holland won’t bring it anytime soon. But he does fit snugly with Cade Cunningham, and Holland is a true upside bet for a new front office.