In year one under Trajan Langdon, the Pistons are both playing for the present and planning for the future.
Langdon would have liked to acquire more draft capital at the trade deadline than he did last week, but still walked away with two second-round picks and necessary support for the roster in guard Dennis Schroder. While those picks won't convey until 2027 and 2031, they could serve as trade assets for Detroit in the coming years.
Restocking the cupboards remains a priority for the Pistons, who don't have a first-round pick this year as a result of the trade for Isaiah Stewart in the 2020 draft under former GM Troy Weaver.
"Accumulating all these assets, they’re almost used as ammunition at times to get what you want at a certain time that you want it," Langdon said this week on 97.1 The Ticket. "There’s, I think, four or five teams that have the majority of assets in this league right now. So if a player or a pick becomes available that you want to go get, if you don’t have the assets to get it, you’re just not going to have the ability to do it."
Thanks to a series of seismic trades over the last several years, four teams entering this season -- the Nets, Thunder, Jazz and Spurs -- controlled 53 of the first-round picks over the next seven drafts, per ESPN.
"Right now, we feel we’re probably a little asset-deficient, given where we are, so when we have the opportunity, we try to gather more," Langdon said. "So when that opportunity does arise, if there’s a player — whether it’s in the draft or on the trade market or in free agency — that we want to go get, we’ll have the ability to get that player."
With the Pistons positioned to make the playoffs for the first time in six years, Langdon said last week that they considered "pushing the chips in now" to seriously upgrade to the roster at the deadline, "but nothing got close." While the team is further along than he thought it would be, "it doesn’t mean we’re going to do things that put ourselves in a difficult position," Langdon said.
"The things that we looked at were really expensive and for us, right now, it was add a piece, where we didn’t have to give up a lot, that could really help this unit and help Cade (Cunningham)," he said.
The Pistons' other aim at the deadline was using their cap space to acquire picks, as they did in taking on KJ Martin's contract from the 76ers. Langdon said they had "the opportunity to bring in more, but there were some deals that fell apart with other teams that would have brought in more assets."
"We always want to stay flexible and be opportunistic, and I think the things that we did here keep us in that place," he said.