The Pistons will host the best team in the East Friday night at Little Caesars Arena, and "it's wild in the arena," said Michael Blackstone, Trajan Langdon's right-hand man. "Every game is like a party now, which is incredible."
"I'm happy for the fans, I'm happy for the city and of course our players. I'm ecstatic for them," Blackstone said on the Restore the Floor podcast.
Blackstone came with Langdon from the Pelicans last summer, joining the Pistons as executive vice president of basketball operations. With the Pistons in the midst of a revival, Blackstone, who has also worked in the front office of the Cavaliers, has quickly come to appreciate the passion for sports in these parts.
"If you're not from here, which I'm not, you only learn once you get here, the pride that the people, the sponsors, the fans, the community have in their teams is unlike many other places," he said. "You can feel how excited they are when their team does well.
"We saw it obviously with the Lions this year, the Tigers were a surprise and the support that they got, now you have us, the Red Wings might be playing for something, too. You absolutely can feel the energy in the building start to grow and grow and grow as the season goes along."
With their next win, the Pistons will triple their win total from last season -- an incredibly rare feat in NBA history. They're 41-32 and fifth in the East a year after finishing a franchise worst 14-68 and last in the league. They're eyeing their first playoff win since 2008. Even Blackstone admits, "I certainly would never sit here and tell you we expected what's happening right now."
"It's been a fantastic ride so far," he said. "We're not done. We still have work to do here."
And the Pistons aren't looking for shortcuts. Asked if their success this season accelerates the organization's timeline, Blackstone said, "It doesn't speed up the process in the way that I think you're referring to it. What it does is change what you thought you would be doing."
"There are some teams where you know, we're one piece away or we're really close. But we were coming into a situation where we were trying to get this thing right," he said. "In terms of sped up, no, we still know we have a ways to go and work to do and we can't skip steps. But it does change some of the calculus with how things have come together and what you might have thought you were playing into."
For example, the Pistons will forfeit their first-round pick this year if it falls outside the top 13, stemming from the prior regime's draft-night trade for Isaiah Stewart in 2020. The Pistons expected to retain that pick entering this season, but now they find themselves -- at long last -- outside the lottery.
"With where things are, it looks like we won't keep our own draft pick, so that changes the scenario in which you're operating," said Blackstone. "But in terms of sped up, I would say, no, not sped up at all. We're still sticking to exactly what we have planned for the long term here."
The Pistons' best move last summer was signing Malik Beasley to a one-year, $6 million deal. The veteran guard now leads the NBA in threes. They also signed Tobias Harris and traded for Tim Hardaway Jr. to add more shooting around Cade Cunningham and more leadership to a young locker room. The Pistons haven't typically been a free-agent destination, but their roster is full of players who either chose to be here or want to stay.
"It's incredible," said Blackstone. "It's what every team -- you dream for players who want to be there. You can dance around it all you'd like, but certainly, I was in Cleveland before, we were just in New Orleans, there are certain cities that are more difficult in terms of the stereotypes that people have of these places. Tobias wanted to be with us, Malik wanted to be with us. When we traded for Tim, he was happy about being here.
"Having those types of players helps the situation we're in right now and what we're trying to build. That's almost priceless in terms of what it means to what we're trying to do. And the guys that were already on the team like Cade and (Jaden) Ivey and (Jalen) Duren and Stewart and all those guys, it matters that these guys want to be here and their attitude is right."
While Blackstone wasn't here for the struggles of years past, he can sense a difference in how the Pistons are being perceived around the league as they climb back up the ladder.
"And we hear it," he said. "Teams are coming for us now. They're strategizing for us in different ways than they would have. The totality of what the team is doing and the fact that they believe and they're playing for each other, yes, when we go other places, some of it's said and some of that energy, that vibe you can feel is different.
"People are coming for us, they absolutely are now, and we know it."
