Written by Joe Mags at Bloguin
Preseason predictions are tricky. We basketball prognosticators pride ourselves in crunching the numbers, on reviewing months of months of games, and faithfully keeping up with a near-12 month sport with a financial landscape that’s transforming like the platforms in Super Smash Bros Melee. All the while, we’re praying we haven’t unconsciously subscribed to someone else’s confirmation bias — I’m reading other’s analysis as much as I’m writing down my own.
I was bullish on Detroit heading into the season — not necessarily as a playoff team, but as an organization finally facing the right direction. Stan Van Gundy has the unenviable burden of running and coaching the team, but if anybody could handle it, Van Gundy is the man. He’s a particular fellow — he’s been around the game long enough to know what he wants; Van Gundy knows how to shop for his own groceries.
Van Gundy spent the summer reconfiguring the roster, predating the draft by acquiring Ersan Ilyasova, and consciously letting Greg Monroe walk in free agency. Detroit got better this summer, to be sure, but how much better left analysts uneasy about catapulting the East’s driest well into the Top 8. The Pistons opened their schedule against the Hawks and Jazz, the former a 60-win contender a season ago, and the latter the NBA’s best second-half defense and the consensus pick to steal the No. 8 seed from a droopy Dallas team.
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