DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons are fully invested in making sure this season is better than the last, right down to a subtle but distinct change to the team dress code at practice.
“The vets can’t even wear hoodies,” said Malik Beasley, one of Detroit’s new players.
It was just after a shootaround prior to the Pistons’ second preseason game under new coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Scattered around at the various practice hoops were players in the more traditional practice jerseys and shorts. A few wore sweatpants, and at first glance, a couple wore Nike-issued Pistons hoodies. But the actual hood sewn onto the back of the sweatshirt? It was resting on the shoulders of every player wearing one, per Bickerstaff’s new rule.
“Just the last shred of that old-school mentality,” Bickerstaff said. “Just growing up with my dad (longtime NBA coach Bernie Bickerstaff), you don’t wear anything on your head during the game. You don’t wear jewelry. You practice how you play.”
Cade Cunningham, the Pistons’ franchise player, admitted in years past he occasionally had his hood over his head at practice but said he is in favor of the new standard.
“You know, in school classrooms a lot of times, teachers say, ‘Take your hood off.’ So it’s all the same thing,” he said. “It’s just about being professional and being ready to play.”
Coming off the worst season in franchise history — the Pistons won just 14 of 82 games and set the NBA record for consecutive losses in one season with 28 — the franchise has much bigger issues than what players are wearing to practice.
The Pistons hired Monty Williams last summer and gave him the richest contract ever awarded to a coach at the time (six years, $78.5 million). Things went so poorly that they fired him and turned to Bickerstaff, who had just completed one of the most successful seasons without LeBron James on the roster in Cleveland Cavaliers history.
Trajan Langdon, who had just been hired out of New Orleans to be the Pistons’ president of basketball operations, made the decision to bring in Bickerstaff. Langdon’s arrival technically preceded the franchise’s decision to cut ties with general manager Troy Weaver, whose four-year rebuild plan was leveled to the ground by a spectacularly dismal season.
Shortly after Langdon and Bickerstaff jumped on board, the Pistons formally committed themselves long term to Cunningham, 23, with a five-year, $224 million contract extension. The Pistons made him the No. 1 pick of the 2021 draft and have since lost 192 games, easily the most in the NBA. The lucrative extension shows the Pistons do not blame Cunningham for all the losing, nor have they lost faith in him. The same could be said of Cunningham, whose commitment to the organization remains strong. He said he “knew that a lot of new faces were in the building, a lot of change” was coming, but “I didn’t change my mindset about the team and organization at all.”
Rather, the changes the Pistons made, from personnel all the way down to the hoodie rule, were to help Cunningham live up to his draft status and, in turn, aid the franchise’s attempt to return to prominence.
“He wants to be great,” Langdon said of Cunningham. “He’s a worker. He wants to lead. And so I think it’s just helping him get to where he wants.”
Cunningham has played three seasons, but Year 2 consisted of just 12 games because of shin surgery. The growth between his rookie year and his third season is heartening – regardless of the Pistons’ record. Many of his personal statistics jumped dramatically; he averaged nearly 23 points and eight assists, with shooting percentages of 45 percent from the field and 35 percent from 3-point range, while posting fewer turnovers per game (3.4) than he averaged as a rookie.
Langdon, with quite a bit of consultation from Bickerstaff, sought to build around Cunningham last summer in two ways. One goal was to sprinkle in some success and experience to a roster that otherwise has 10 players age 25 or younger. The other was to add shooting.
Cunningham is the crown jewel of the Pistons’ young core, but the franchise remains excited about third-year center Jalen Duren (20), third-year guard Jaden Ivey (22), second-year forward Ausar Thompson (21) and rookie Ron Holland II (19), whom they selected fifth overall in June’s draft.
Beasley, 27, has played with James, Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo in his eight NBA seasons, reaching the Western Conference finals with James and the Lakers in 2023. He shot 41 percent from 3-point range with Milwaukee last season and was one of the Pistons’ big free-agent signings, inking a one-year, $6 million deal. Beasley said his mother is from Detroit, and he is “looking forward to bringing Detroit basketball back.”
Tobias Harris, 32, a former Piston who has played 13 NBA seasons, returned to the franchise on a two-year, $52 million free-agent deal. He spent the last five-and-a-half seasons playing alongside Joel Embiid in Philadelphia and is a career 37 percent shooter from deep.
Langdon also traded for Tim Hardaway Jr., 32, who is coming off an NBA Finals appearance with Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks. Hardaway shoots 36 percent from 3-point range. Renowned shooting coach Fred Vinson, who spent the past 14 years with the Pelicans organization, was a key addition to the coaching staff this offseason.
“Over the course of 82 games, if your habits aren’t right, you’re just going to wear down physically and mentally,” Langdon said. “If you’re not in physical shape, or emotional shape, mental shape, you can’t finish games. The last five minutes is when you’ve got to really be locked in and you have to have attention to detail. And I think the players that we’ve brought in have seen that in winning environments.”
Beasley said Cunningham needed “help a little bit with his voice” as a leader, something with which he and Harris could assist. Beasley also said Cunningham would benefit particularly by being surrounded by more shooting and is happy to explain why to anyone who asks, including Cunningham.
“The last game, I was really talking to him every free throw, letting him know that: ‘Listen, bro, like I’m not trying to be cocky or anything, but you have two elite shooters on your team now, like elite, elite, where they (opposing defenders) can’t help (on Cunningham) at all (on the pick-and-roll),”’ Beasley said.
Malik Beasley rises for a jumper against the Suns last week. (Joe Camporeale / Imagn Images)
At the Pistons’ practice facility, Beasley grew animated as he demonstrated how his presence creates more space for Cunningham to maneuver. He pantomimed the floaters Cunningham should have available to him if defenders jump Duren, the roll man, and the lobs Duren can catch from Cunningham for a dunk if opposing defenses stick to Cunningham. Should defenses send help, Beasley explained, “you’re going to get an assist. I’m going to knock it down for you.”
“When we sat down when we were done playing (in a recent preseason game) and the younger guys were playing, he was like, ‘Beaz, I didn’t even realize how much the floor is open,’” Beasley recalled Cunningham saying to him. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, so use me to your advantage.’”
It just so happens the Cavaliers’ bread and butter under Bickerstaff was the pick-and-roll. Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen ran it so well, so often that they became All-Stars under Bickerstaff in 2022. The best player on any Bickerstaff team in Cleveland was Donovan Mitchell, who enjoyed his best two seasons statistically with Bickerstaff as his coach.
Furthermore, when Bickerstaff took over the Cavs, they were in their own three-year stretch where they (and not the Pistons) were the NBA’s worst team. They won just 22 games in Bickerstaff’s first full season, then jumped to 44 wins the second year, followed by seasons of 51 and 48 wins and consecutive playoff berths.
With his stylistic compatibility and a track record of individuals and teams steadily improving under him, Bickerstaff would, on paper, seem like the ideal fit for where the Pistons are now — rebuilding off a rebuild.
But as Bickerstaff said in his office, “they (the Pistons’ players) don’t want to hear the stories of our past and what we’ve done with other players. They want to know, how do we help this team?”
Which is where the hoodie rule comes in.
Setting a standard of professionalism, discipline and conditioning (Beasley mentioned that Bickerstaff’s conditioning drills at the start of training camp were noticeably difficult) further establishes a structure in which the rest of the players aren’t looking solely to Cunningham for leadership.
“The conversations that I’ve had with Cade, the way that I see how his teammates follow him and the way that he engages his teammates, he wants to be amongst the elites and understands that winning matters in order to be respected by your peers in that way,” Bickerstaff said.
“We feel like we have a formula that helps players,” Bickerstaff continued. “All we’re trying to do is implement that formula to let all of our guys be successful. It’s not just about the one guy. If we’re going to get to where we want to go with this group, we have to develop everybody and help everybody be able to play with that confidence.”
Bickerstaff ultimately lost his job in Cleveland because the organization felt pressure to retain Mitchell, who was extension eligible this past summer and among the Cavs veterans who didn’t care for Bickerstaff’s coaching style, as The Athletic detailed in May. The organization traded most of its assets to acquire Mitchell in a trade in 2022 and moved on from Bickerstaff to secure Mitchell’s signature. The Cavs’ plan worked, as Mitchell agreed to a three-year, $150 million extension.
The Pistons made out well, too, gaining access to a coach whose skills and track record seem to match what the team sorely needs.
“We respect (Bickerstaff) all the way,” Beasley said. “And we’ll do whatever he needs us to do.”
“Having him come in as somebody that’s been there before, has done that with a young team, it’s exciting for all of us,” Cunningham added. “Just having a fresh start and just having, you know, new energy in the building is huge for me.”
For now, all involved seem to be thrilled with the new partnerships and chemistry being forged in Detroit. When the regular season starts and this young team is challenged, those relationships will, of course, be tested.
But if the Pistons’ basic plan is a good one — make changes around Cunningham to help him help the team — the enthusiasm being espoused in Detroit now will endure.
“Cade can be an All-Star for sure,” Beasley said. “I think we can help him get there.”
Required Reading
(Photo of Cade Cunningham: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
