Two seasons ago, the Detroit Pistons went 14-68. They were not merely bad — they were historically bad, the worst team in the league by a significant margin. This season, they are 51-19 and sitting at the top of the Eastern Conference. That's a 37-game improvement in two years. No franchise in recent NBA history has made that kind of jump that fast.
The Pistons' rise is built on a clear foundation: Cade Cunningham is becoming one of the best guards in the league, J.B. Bickerstaff has turned Detroit into a genuinely hard team to score on, and the organization made the right moves without overreaching. Their defensive rating of 109.6 is second in the NBA. Their net rating of +7.8 is also second. These are not a team riding a soft schedule or a statistical mirage — they are a legitimate contender.
What makes the story more remarkable is that they've done it shorthanded. Jaden Ivey, one of the key contributors to their surge, broke his left fibula on New Year's Day against the Magic and missed a significant portion of the season. The Pistons kept winning anyway. That kind of depth and defensive structure doesn't happen by accident.
For context on the turnaround's steepness: from 14-68 in 2023-24, they jumped to 44-38 in 2024-25, went deep into the first round against the Knicks, and now sit atop the East at 51-19 with the regular season winding down. The Play-In Tournament doesn't apply to them. They'll enter the postseason as the top seed in the conference. Cade Cunningham earned his first All-Star nod last season. The question now isn't whether Detroit belongs — it's whether they can sustain this level into a deep playoff run.
The Pistons won their last championship in 2004, beating the Lakers with a team built on defense and depth, with no single superstar carrying everything. There's an argument that this current squad rhymes with that one more than any Detroit team since. The city has been waiting a long time for a reason to believe. They've got one now.
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