Not yet, says Trajan Langdon. Not quite. The Pistons lead the East and have a real chance to reach the NBA Finals, but Langdon still wants to see what this team is capable of before committing to a bigger move. Ultimately, he might not need to make one.
After standing pat at the deadline other than to acquire veteran wing Kevin Huerter in a trade that shipped out Jaden Ivey, Langdon said that the Pistons "looked at everything that was out there ... had a lot of good conversations on different directions that we could’ve gone, and at the end of the day we felt that this was the best direction for us right now."
Langdon acknowledged there were some trade possibilities that tempted him but didn't work out, "whether it was the other team pulling out or us just saying, now’s not the right time for that." It's fair to wonder if Michael Porter Jr. was one of them. He was linked frequently to the Pistons ahead of the deadline and likely would have cost multiple first-round picks as a proven scorer signed through next season, but wound up staying with the Nets.
The Pistons clearly need more shooting, which might be their undoing in the playoffs. Langdon is hoping that Huerter can provide it. He's having a down year from three at 31.1 percent, but has been much more reliable over the course of his career. Langdon also likes the size and offensive versatility that the 6'6 Huerter brings to the floor.
"You can look at the teams he’s been on and the way different teams play him, his gravity has been good and it gives his teammates more space to operate," Langdon said. "We felt whether that’s playing with Cade or playing in non-Cade minutes, it gives us another option on the floor to score the ball or just space it and make plays, and I think he’s gotten better defensively as well. Just the size will be a good fit with our group."
Ivey will be a restricted free agent this summer and the Pistons were unlikely to re-sign him. He looked like a player who needed a fresh start after a pair of injuries in the past two seasons led to a much smaller role on this year's team.
"We wish JI the best," said Langdon. "He’s been great here. For us, it was trying to find the right fit moving forward that would give us a better chance to give JB (Bickerstaff) a little more optionality in terms of lineups, and we needed spacing. We thought Kevin did that."
It's unclear how close the Pistons came to any major moves. The East might not be this winnable again for a while, with the field weakened by multiple injuries to star players. It doesn't sound like that influenced Detroit's approach to the deadline. Langdon said he was searching for players who could boost the team beyond this season: "It wasn’t just, let’s take a shot for one year and have that impact us (negatively) going forward."
"Philosophically, that didn’t fit," he said.
The Pistons' defense has been elite all season. The question now is whether they will have enough scoring around Cade Cunningham to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them. Most championship-caliber teams in today's NBA have two high-level scorers who can handle the ball and create their own offense. The Pistons do not.
"Sometimes it will be difficult, sometimes we’ll have to be creative," Langdon said. "What’s been good for our team is different people step up every night. Cade obviously has been consistent, (Jalen Duren) has taken a step. We’ll have to have other guys be aggressive and step up at different times, we’ll have to be creative in the way we play.
"But I think our identity has always been defense, and we can’t stop doing that. I hear what you’re saying, but there’s different ways to skin a cat, and I think we’ve been doing it different, doing it on the defensive end and really getting after it. We’ll continue to do that, and we’ll see who steps up."
Over Langdon's first two years in Detroit, the Pistons have gone from one of the worst teams in the NBA to one of the best. He's spent most of that time evaluating what he has, to determine what he needs. He's in the final stages of that process now, with a couple more questions to be answered in the months ahead.
"In the last 30, 35 games of the season, what can we do and what are we going to do in the postseason? What’s our rotation? Who are the guys that step up in crunch time?" Langdon said. "The hope is, we give ourselves a chance to play some real meaningful basketball in the postseason, and that will allow us to assess what this team is and who we are going forward."