NBA Coach Calls Pistons Pretenders Ahead of 2026 Playoffs, 'Don't Trust Them at All'
At least one NBA assistant coach is doubtful the Detroit Pistons' league-best record means Cade Cunningham and his team are finally going to make it past the first round this spring, according to ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Brian Windhorst.
"I don't trust them at all," an assistant coach for a Western Conference team told Bontemps and Windhorst. "They have no one besides Cade to attack. You can make any of their other guys try to beat you, and they will have a hard time."
The Pistons went 44-38 last season before losing in six games to the New York Knicks during the first round of the playoffs.
Detroit is on pace to beat that regular-season record after a 43-14 start to the season, which has the Pistons 5.5 games ahead of the Boston Celtics for the top of the Eastern Conference.
That's in large part thanks to Cunningham, who is leading his team with 25.4 points and 9.8 assists per game through 51 contests this season.
Even Cunningham's consistency and the Pistons' ability to succeed without him over short stretches this season— this team is 5-1 with Cunningham on the sideline— hasn't been enough to convince some pundits the franchise is about to complete a historic two-year turnaround.
The Pistons are less than two seasons removed from finishing the 2023-24 campaign with an NBA-worst 14-68 record.
Should Detroit manage to finish the 2025-26 campaign on top of the league standings, they would be the first MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL team since 1992 improve from the worst record to best in a two-season span, per Opta Stats.
No NBA team has pulled off that feat since the Baltimore Bullets in 1969, according to Opta Stats.
The Pistons are also looking to snap one of the longest playoff series win droughts in the league. Detroit hasn't won a postseason series since the team's trip to the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.
Cunningham and the Pistons could have a difficult time dispelling doubts the final 25 games of the regular season, during which Detroit is facing the ninth-easiest strength of schedule in the NBA, according to Tankathon.
It might take winning a playoff series for the first time in 17 years for some opposing coaches to see Cunningham and the Pistons as legitimate postseason threats this spring.
