The Detroit Pistons are currently gearing up for the upcoming 2025-26 NBA season, which is slated to begin in less than three weeks. The Pistons are coming off of a playoff loss against the New York Knicks last season in which they let multiple games slip through their grasp and ended up losing in six games.
In that series, Pistons big man Isaiah Stewart was injured in Game 1 and did not return the rest of the way, and recently, at Pistons media, he made a bold claim on how he thinks things would have played out had he been healthy.
“It was frustrating. It was definitely frustrating. I felt have I played, the series would have turned out different and we would have been able to advance — adding what I do on defense and my task with guarding KAT (Karl-Anthony Towns) in that series. So, I feel like it would have been a different outcome,” said Stewart, per Paul Terrazzano Jr. of TalkBasket.net.
Stewart indeed likely would have presented a challenge on the interior for the Knicks, who are not known for having a strong presence around the basket on either end of the floor. Perhaps he also would have been able to crash the glass and offensive rebound some of the bricks Detroit was launching at the rim down the stretch of Game 6.
Can the Pistons compete?
This year, the Pistons enter the season with their first real expectations in well over a decade, thanks in large part to the presence of budding star Cade Cunningham. Cunningham was up and down in his first playoff series vs the Knicks but is still clearly one of the best young guards in the NBA.
This offseason, the Pistons added some bench depth in the form of Caris LeVert and Duncan Robinson, and there's a chance that Malik Beasley will also be back now that his gambling scandal seems to be in the rearview mirror.
In any case, the Pistons are set to kick off their 2025-26 season on October 22 on the road against the Chicago Bulls.
