The Pistons made a big move this season. Trajan Langdon doesn't sound inclined to make one of his own this summer.
While adding a major piece is tempting after the Pistons stormed into the picture in the East, Langdon believes they may already have the pieces they need. He's in no hurry to jostle the core to jolt the roster.
"For us, I've always said, stay patient," Langdon said Wednesday as he reflected on a season that he called both surprising and gratifying. "I'm not going to change in that regard."
Langdon acknowledged he would view it differently had the Pistons just hit their ceiling with a roster full of vets: "That would be a little bit more daunting. You probably do have to make a lot of changes to get better." But the Pistons are scratching the surface. They tripled their win from last season, climbed nine spots in the East and fought the Knicks tooth and nail in the playoffs while relying on players aged "23, 22, 21, 19," said Langdon.
Cade Cunningham and Isaiah Stewart, 23. Ausar Thompson and Jaden Ivey, 22. Jalen Duren, 21. Ron Holland II, 19. The six former first-rounders comprise the Pistons' foundation.
"Those guys can grow. Those guys are on the upward trajectory of their career and their development and they were able to make this run," Langdon said. "Whereas if you have guys that are outside their prime, they're probably going the other way. You can look at getting better through a different lens with a core group of this age than you would an older age."
That's not to say the Pistons are closed for business. Langdon was sure to note that they will "listen to calls, see opportunities and look at all avenues" to bolster their roster, just as they did at the trade deadline. But whatever comes their way, Langdon was clear about this: "We have to make the right decision for sustainable success."
"And I think we have a group of guys that we can do that with," he said. "At what level, right now we don't know. But a big thing for this summer is going to be developing the young guys we have that are 19 to 23 years old and have them continue to grow. If those guys take steps, we get better."
Langdon knows there will be noise around the Pistons this summer. He's well aware that the conversation boils down to, "do we add another person or do we just build from within?" He fielded a version of that question Wednesday and answered it like this: "We have to learn more about our players."
That is, it's too soon to say whether they need to acquire another star to support Cunningham. They might yet have one in Ivey, who was in the midst of a breakout season before fracturing his leg on the first day of 2025.
Of course, the rumor mill has started to churn. The speculation has already run rampant. Stars like Zion Williamson and Kevin Durant have been theorized as fits for the Pistons; trade packages have already been imagined. Langdon did say that ... "hypothetically" ... if the Pistons were targeting a player of that caliber ... "don't put that as something we're going to do" ... "it would have to be in a trade." And it would cost them at least one, likely two members of their core.
"I don't know how many All-Stars are going to come here in free agency right now, and the amount of cap space that we have doesn't allow that," he said.
This is the cost of success, and Langdon is happy to pay it. The Pistons' sudden rise ratchets expectations externally. It "creates discussions of what they might do," Langdon said, only some of which will be rooted in reality. The upside is that the Pistons matter again. The downside, if there is one, is that the hype can distract from the larger plan.
The challenge internally is to "stay focused," said Langdon, "and not let our attention waver to maybe something that sounds good but might not be good for sustainable success."
