Pistons: 3 competitive goals for the 2021-22 season

Competitive goals for the Detroit Pistons: 3. Make the play-in tournament

The NBA came up with a brilliant addition to the Orlando bubble scheme when they introduced a play-in component to the playoffs. It’s gone through a couple of iterations now, but the current form involves the seven, eight, nine and 10 seeds in each conference doing battle for the final two playoff seeds.

The return of the play-in tournament could be perfect for a team like the Pistons. They likely won’t be nearly good enough to be one of the top six seeds and make the NBA playoffs proper, but their tenacity and talent infusion in the form of Cade Cunningham should make them competitive enough to at least battle for that 10th seed.

The Charlotte Hornets took 10th this past season with a 33-39 record, which would extrapolate to a 38-win mark over an 82 game season. In 2019-20, the Hornets were 10th again with a 23-42 record, which would work out to just 29 wins in an 82-game season. Obviously, there was no play-in eligibility for them that season and thus teams weren’t battling for the spot, but needless to say, a losing team that just tries really hard has a very good chance of getting 10th.

Even winning a play-in berth usually just means your best-case scenario is first-round fodder for the top two seeds, but Pistons fans would gladly take that chance if it means more opportunities to watch this young, up-and-coming team perform on a bigger stage.