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This is no longer a lottery team imo. I will play it safe n say 44 wins at least. Why? Lets start with Drummond. He has already improved since he played his last college game. Will he be fluid n smooth initially? Probably not. Even so he is a marked improvement over Maxiell even at this stage of his development. He will improve between now n training camp as well. I was intially turned off by the Middleton pick. Now I envision him as a Rip Hamilton. Tall guard, good midrange shooter. English is as advertised. Good shooter with range. Will help spread floor. Bk benefits from having shooters space the floor. One of the shooters I am expecting to show up is Daye. As we saw in summer league he does better in pick n rolls rather than run to the corner behind the3 point line and heave up shots. igler, Prince Maggette all factor in. To be seen how well Slava fits in bute does seem to be an athlete n provides size n depth. 44 wins at least. Ur opinion

Way to optimistic.....which i like


knight is a second year guard, though he'll improve from last year, i think due to the complexity of the position he'll still have moments of struggle.

Stuckey- we all seem to think he's finally going to be a dominant SG this year. i don't see any reason why he won't be the same stuckey, that gives us a month of hope and then fades away

Magette/tay- they'll have some games where they carry us and about the same amount of games where they destroy our offense

English- probably be the only player that will provide what we think

Drummond- if he can stay out of foul trouble, he'll see a lot of playing time

Maxiell- he's pretty much peaked. i think he'll get quite a bit of minutes as its a contract year. however if Frank goes away form him due to drummond and slav. then i fully expect him to get fat and depressed.

Middleton- he'll be in the D-league. Tons of talent, hasn't put it together.

Daye- he'll have 2 25pt games, and another forgettable season.

35 wins.

^We played at a 31 win pace last year based on win %, had it been a normal 82 game season. You really think only a 4 win improvemet? I'm with OP on 44 wins. We've addressed all our weaknesses from last year. Albeit with mostly inexperienced guys, but we proved capable of playing .500 basketball for a half a season last year without those guys. So I think they'll at least be good enough to bump us a few wins over .500. By the start of next year we'll have upgraded almost every position, if not by addition, by current players improving through experience/development.

imo, all of these improvements should add up to at least a 10 win improvement over that 31, which would put us at 41 wins or .500. I'll be optimistic and give us a few over that at 44 wins.

Its hard to go from a .500 team to a great team. Its not that hard to go from a lottery team to a .500 team. I think ppl are forgetting that and thinking its harder than it really is to be a .500 team in the weak East. This team is capable of winning 41 games, imo.

i had forgotten that last year was a lockout season. i still think that we as piston fans have a little to high expectations. i can see us .500 or better. but we are also 1 injury away from sub .500.

2011-2012: 37.9%
2012-2013: 50%... at least.... yea right

FlipTSO wrote:^We played at a 31 win pace last year based on win %, had it been a normal 82 game season. You really think only a 4 win improvemet? I'm with OP on 44 wins. We've addressed all our weaknesses from last year. Albeit with mostly inexperienced guys, but we proved capable of playing .500 basketball for a half a season last year without those guys. So I think they'll at least be good enough to bump us a few wins over .500. By the start of next year we'll have upgraded almost every position, if not by addition, by current players improving through experience/development.

imo, all of these improvements should add up to at least a 10 win improvement over that 31, which would put us at 41 wins or .500. I'll be optimistic and give us a few over that at 44 wins.

Its hard to go from a .500 team to a great team. Its not that hard to go from a lottery team to a .500 team. I think ppl are forgetting that and thinking its harder than it really is to be a .500 team in the weak East. This team is capable of winning 41 games, imo.

Yeah I totally agree with this. You can put me in the optimist's camp. I think we will fall in the 41-45 win range and if we somehow end up in the lottery again then at least we can look to add another impact player. I can't wait for this season to start. This is the most excited I've been about this team since 2008.

I wish i knew how to do gifs id have one with the kool aid man breaking through a wall right about now. lol

I think we'll be at about 38-44 this year. we got a green frontcourt, stuckeys a big ? and we got maggette and charlie V on our team, the lottery twins. the futures bright but next years still lookin a little cloudy.

I still got us 40-42 going to the playoffs as an 8th seed...I see Knight improving his FG%, Stuckey will have his best season as a pro, Moose will be Moose, Penguin will show flashes of a defensive Stoudemire, Prince will play consistent, hopefully we trade Spaghetti before it's too late, and my boy Charlie V will prove the haters wrong...

As long as BK shows noticeable improvement, Dre shows flashes and Moose stays Moose with a little more consistency ill consider this season a success regardless of our record. if stuckey can finally turn the corner it would be gravy, but im not going to hold my breath.

joseph mamah wrote:I think we'll be at about 38-44 this year. we got a green frontcourt, stuckeys a big ? and we got maggette and charlie V on our team, the lottery twins. the futures bright but next years still lookin a little cloudy.

ya, me too 38-44

i'll be real disappointed if we finish <30 wins
all hell breaks loose if that happens

joseph mamah wrote:I wish i knew how to do gifs id have one with the kool aid man breaking through a wall right about now. lol

that would be an awesome gif and very appropriate to use anytime someone gets too giddy about their team, lol. I think I'll try and make it.

FlipTSO wrote:^We played at a 31 win pace last year based on win %, had it been a normal 82 game season. You really think only a 4 win improvemet? I'm with OP on 44 wins. We've addressed all our weaknesses from last year. Albeit with mostly inexperienced guys, but we proved capable of playing .500 basketball for a half a season last year without those guys. So I think they'll at least be good enough to bump us a few wins over .500. By the start of next year we'll have upgraded almost every position, if not by addition, by current players improving through experience/development.

imo, all of these improvements should add up to at least a 10 win improvement over that 31, which would put us at 41 wins or .500. I'll be optimistic and give us a few over that at 44 wins.

Its hard to go from a .500 team to a great team. Its not that hard to go from a lottery team to a .500 team. I think ppl are forgetting that and thinking its harder than it really is to be a .500 team in the weak East. This team is capable of winning 41 games, imo.

People that keep saying this needsto look that schedule over. 15 of those wins during that .500 period were against bottom feeders, and non playoff teams like Mil, No, NJ, Sac, Cha, Tor, Was, and Cle.

Then you have the 4 wins against playoff teams like Celtics who were struggling because they were an older team getting used to post lockout basketball, a Magic team that was going through a Dwightmare and not to mention the Pistons have always their number, and a Philly team that sat players because they were already locked in with their matchup against the Bulls in the playoffs. Then there are the two other wins against the Lakers and Hawks.

Imo that .500 number is deceptive, and no one should be looking at that as a sign of future success.

I think we'll hover around .500 as well.

I expect more consistency with regards to effort, defense and rebounding. We'll be in most games, but will lose the close ones and will just be flat out overpowered by a few. More important than wins is developing the core. They should be building and growing through out the season. If we aren't playing our best ball and around .500 post-All Star break I'll be a lil disappointed.

Anywhere from 40-44 wins seems about right to me. We'll be in the hunt for a playoff spot and may get it in a relatively weak EC, but we'll have to earn it down the stretch and this is suddenly a very young team. Wouldn't really be shocked with 34 wins... but I'm always an optimist this early in the year!

I think we will win anywhere from 32-42 games next season. We have a shot to make the playoffs as a 7/8 or we can end up with the 11-14th pick in the lottery.

I mean, we have 5 rookies on roster, 5. I cannot any playoff team that has that many rookies on their team. And, I think that 4 of those rookies will be in the regular rotation (Singler, English, Drummond, Kravtsov). Anytime you have that many rookies in the rotation you have to expect growing pains, and I do think that it will cost the team several games.

We also don't know if Knight will make the necessary improvements to his game, or if Monroe will have his breakout year. If both those things happen, It think we will be closer to the 40 range, if not, we may be looking at 30. It really just depends, we are a really young team.

princeofpalace wrote:I think we will win anywhere from 32-42 games next season. We have a shot to make the playoffs as a 7/8 or we can end up with the 11-14th pick in the lottery.

I mean, we have 5 rookies on roster, 5. I cannot any playoff team that has that many rookies on their team. And, I think that 4 of those rookies will be in the regular rotation (Singler, English, Drummond, Kravtsov). Anytime you have that many rookies in the rotation you have to expect growing pains, and I do think that it will cost the team several games.

We also don't know if Knight will make the necessary improvements to his game, or if Monroe will have his breakout year. If both those things happen, It think we will be closer to the 40 range, if not, we may be looking at 30. It really just depends, we are a really young team.

Great assessment. This basically falls in line with how I view the team.

From the first post, I agree with the fact you said Knight will benefit from having more shooters with Middleton and English.
If you think about it, who is Knight going to pass to last year to get assists. And still kind of this year, unless Kim and Khris play a lot.

Stuckey is a slasher, not much of a jumper. Prince never spots up, has to do his typical black hole nonsense. Daye was awful. Gordon was terrible. Charlie didn't play. Only big that can hit a jumper well is Monroe and we didn't really utilize that.

For Knight to succeed we need to surround him with some jump shooters that can move off the ball and get open. So he doesn't have to force things as much. Kim and Khris could potentially be those guys, and if they aren't we need players like them. Too many guys on the roster as is rely on having the balls in their hands too much. It disrupts the offense too much.

You're a top6 Draft team, I can see 5 teams being worse, but no more, you will be the 12th in the East, 25th in the league, Charlotte, Orlando, Cleveland, NOLA and Houston could be worse.

^Raptor fans are so delusional... You've lost your noodle if you don't think the Pistons will be fighting for the 8th seed this season, be serious...

^obviously not a detroit fan