Pistons: 1 Cade Cunningham lineup we most want to see next season

The Detroit Pistons are on the way back up after one of the worst two-year stretches in the team’s history. Over the last two years, they’ve gone a combined 40-98 with a winning percentage of 28.9, and that provided them the seventh overall pick in last year’s draft and the first overall pick in this year’s NBA draft.

In the 2020 draft, the Pistons selected point guard Killian Hayes, and in 2021, the projected top pick is Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham. With control of that first selection, the Pistons are likely to draft him when they start their time on the clock on July 29th.

The Detroit Pistons are going to be a new-look team when they play next, likely with Cade Cunningham. Here’s the lineup we’re most looking forward to.

Cunningham alone will dramatically change the lineup equation in Detroit. This past season, the Pistons had somewhat lackluster backcourt options with Wayne Ellington starting 31 games alongside Delon Wright, Cory Joseph and Killian Hayes. Frank Jackson was another go-to option at the two-guard. While Ellington and Jackson provided some knockdown shooting, only Hayes amounted to much of anything on defense,

This season, with the expectation that the Pistons will draft Cunningham, things should look very different.

They’ll be adding him to a young and versatile roster full of players looking to make a mark next season after a 2020-21 campaign where they became known as a team that would lose most of their games in spite of playing hard. Next season’s team could be one that doesn’t just play hard but wins more games than you’d expect as well.

Let’s take a look at one lineup that we’re most looking forward to from next season’s team and explore what might make it so special.

• Point guard – Cade Cunningham
• Shooting guard – Killian Hayes
• Small forward – Saddiq Bey
• Power forward – Jerami Grant
• Center – Isaiah Stewart

The construction of this lineup assumes a bit, beyond the obvious that they do select Cunningham and don’t trade the first pick for the second pick and “stuff”. It also assumed that none of last season’s rookie core of Hayes, Saddiq Bey or Isaiah Stewart find themselves traded away.

The Pistons defense should be absolutely hellacious

This lineup could also be one of the most hellacious lineups full of rookies and sophomores the NBA has seen in recent years. At times last year, Hayes was the best or second-best defender on the floor for the Pistons and adding Cunningham’s 6’8″ height and 7-foot wingspan to the backcourt mix provides them with incredible length and size on the perimeter.

Jerami Grant came to Detroit as an outstanding defender already, looking to show what he could do on the offensive end as the top scoring option. While he did indeed demonstrate that scoring acumen, his defense never took a step back as a result. Between Cunningham and Hayes in the backcourt and Grant, Bey and Stewart in the frontcourt, absolutely nothing will come easy for opposing offenses.

This Pistons lineup will be hard to stop

On the offensive end, the Pistons should take a massive leap forward. Replacing Jackson or Ellington with Hayes, and replacing Hayes with Cunningham will make for a gigantic improvement in the offensive creation category. While Cunningham didn’t really have the opportunity to show his playmaking ability last season with a pretty mediocre Oklahoma State team, he was a human highlight film at Monteverde Academy alongside elite teammates.

Hayes flourished off the ball in small samples late last season, and Jerami Grant’s life is going to get so much easier not having to create every bit of his own offense in the halfcourt. Similarly, Saddiq Bey isn’t known for creating his own scoring opportunities, so playing off of Cade Cunningham will do wonders for him.

This lineup also has multiple ball-handlers and offensive facilitators, as Hayes’s own reputation is built off providing opportunities for teammates.

Ultimately, the offensive and defensive versatility this lineup brings to the table will be unlike anything the Detroit Pistons could put on the floor in the team’s recent (or even distant) history.