Detroit Pistons: 2017-18 NBA season preview

Best-case scenario

Two years ago, the Pistons had the league’s No. 14 ranked offense. Last year, they had the No. 11 defense.

There is no reason to expect them not to repeat that defensive showing. Drummond, Johnson and Bradley give them a fantastic core, while Galloway, Tolliver and Marjanovic can fill the holes off the bench. They lost Morris, but Bradley is an upgrade over Caldwell-Pope.

If Jackson returns to his 2015-16 form, the offense should approach average. Add in the offseason shooting boon and improvement from a couple of the youngsters (say two of Drummond, Harris and Johnson), and a No. 12 or No. 13 offensive rank is within reach.

Shedding Morris and adding Tolliver should also improve the team’s chemistry, which may have played a bigger role in their forgettable 2016-17 season than most realize. It is hard to quantify this statistically, although the team did underperform its point differential a year after outperforming it.

With an above-average two-way roster in the weak East and a little more success in the clutch, the Pistons can easily reach 47 wins and the No. 5 seed.

Worst-case scenario

The offense cannot get worse, but the defense can. Morris may not be the defender Bradley is, but he was the team’s most versatile switch guy. Replacing his minutes with Leuer and Tolliver is a bigger downgrade than moving from Caldwell-Pope to Bradley is an upgrade. It is not inconceivable that the unit slips from No. 11 to No. 15.

While the offense cannot slip much, it is possible that it does not improve much, either. Jackson may not be the same player anymore, and Bradley’s spacing may not be worth more than Caldwell-Pope’s. If Drummond and Johnson stagnate while Kennard struggles to stay on the floor as a rookie, this team will be difficult to watch yet again.

The Pistons have a decent floor. So much went wrong last season, and they still won 37 games. If the defense slips a little more than the offense improves, they could fall to 35 and miss the playoffs, but lower than that is hard to fathom.