Key Takeaways
- Detroit Pistons legend Grant Hill believes the best is yet to come from his former team.
- Hill sat down with RG and explained why he sees the Pistons as a legitimate contender out East next season.
- JB Bickerstaff just led the franchise to a 44-win campaign, taking the New York Knicks to seven games in the playoffs.
Ausar Thompson #9 and Cade Cunningham #2 of the Detroit Pistons (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
It's no secret that Grant Hill is one of the most accomplished basketball players of all time.
The 53-year-old is a basketball Hall of Famer who carved out a prolific career at Duke after winning two national championships and advancing to three title games. Hill quickly followed that up by living up to expectations in the NBA, winning Rookie of the Year (with Jason Kidd) and emerging as one of the top players of the 90s.
The No. 3 overall pick went to the All-Star game in each of his first four seasons with the Detroit Pistons and clinched All-NBA bids in the final four years of the 90s. Fast forward 25 years later, and the Pistons are once again a force to be reckoned with, with a young core led by Cade Cunningham.
Detroit pushed the New York Knicks to seven games in their first playoff appearance since the 2018-19 season.
"They had an incredible year, magical season," says Hill of the Pistons in a one-on-one interview with RG. "That team, you talk about resilience, and they went through just a difficult year the year before, but it gave them some grit -- it gave them some resolve. They reflected the spirit and mentality of Detroiters in a lot of ways, just fighting, collaborating, working together, figuring out and getting through it."
In his first season as Pistons head coach, J.B. Bickerstaff led Detroit to a surprising 44-38 season a year after Detroit finished with the league's worst record at 14-68. While the 30-game improvement was already a monumental improvement, Hill feels the Pistons can take it even a step further entering next season now that the young core has some playoff experience.
The Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers aren't the contenders they once were with both Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton coming off of Achilles tear injuries. Haliburton has already been ruled out for next season, with Tatum expected to miss the majority, if not the entire season, next year.
That means the Eastern Conference should be a wide-open race, with only the Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers appearing to be the elite teams of the conference.
"With the injuries, the roster changing in Boston and then certainly a really talented Pacers team," says Hill. "But also the injury to Haliburton. There was a window there. New York's there. I think Detroit has an opportunity to take a step as well and be one of the better teams next season in the Eastern Conference."
Time will obviously tell whether or not the Pistons take that leap forward, but they have key cogs in Cunningham -- he finished seventh in MVP voting -- and offseason additions in Duncan Robinson and Caris Levert. Robinson previously made Finals runs with the Miami Heat, and Levert is an established scorer who has been in the playoffs multiple times.
However, it's worth noting that they have to replace a number of key role players from last season, including Malik Beasley, who finished as a runner-up in Sixth Man of the Year voting. Beasley is under federal investigation for gambling and placing prop bets on NBA games. Detroit also lost Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dennis Schroder, who both averaged over 10.0 points per game last season.
We'll see how the Pistons play with their new additions, but it helps that they play in a weakened conference following the serious injuries to Tatum and Haliburton. One thing is for certain, and that's the fact that the Pistons are a team on the rise.
