The Detroit Pistons are the best team in the Eastern Conference and the hottest team in the NBA, which is probably not what anyone outside of the Mitten would have scried before this season began or after simply looking at the Games Played column on the team's Basketball Reference page 17 games into the year.
Of the seven Pistons who mattered in last season's incredible first-round series against the Knicks, two have left the team for more dire circumstances (gambling investigation; Sacramento), and one has left the team for greener pastures (Denver). The other four have played, but each has missed time. Meanwhile, Jaden Ivey is just now getting back to playing spot minutes off the bench following the broken fibula he suffered on New Year's Day last season, joining a guard rotation buffed out by various underachieving alumni of the University of Michigan. The thinking heading into the season was that while Cade Cunningham was going to be incredible, the team might take some time to get going on account of the thin backcourt and general lack of shooting, weaknesses demonstrated by the fact that a Marcus Sasser injury registered as a legitimate problem. Yet they are 15-2, on a 13-game winning streak, with the league's eighth-best offense and fourth-best defense.
There are many interesting arguments to make here and 80 percent of a regular season left to make them, so I will limit the scope of this blog to Jalen Duren, the player who epitomizes the internal improvement that has sent the Pistons to the top of the conference. Duren went 13th in the 2022 NBA Draft, which was about right for someone of his combination of physical profile (perfect) and skill level (low). He was basically Dwight Howard with slightly longer arms and significantly less proprioception, and as such spent three years finishing lobs, making straightforward plays around the basket, and getting cooked anytime he had to do anything in open space. By the playoffs last season, you could start to see some growth in that last area in particular, as the Knicks targeted him over and over again. He was mostly bad in the series, yet he averaged more than four offensive rebounds per contest; more importantly, he got a quick education in playing off the short roll against Tom Thibodeau coverages and defending a really tricky Jalen Brunson–Karl-Anthony Towns pick-and-roll.
This year, Duren has applied those lessons and then some. Duren is kicking everybody's ass, both by expanding his game and by flexing his considerable muscles. After three seasons basically not dribbling the basketball, Duren is showing off an expansive floor game, attacking people off the bounce, creating advantages on his own, and even blowing by slower defenders. It's still shocking to see him face up and pop a midrange jumper or hit a crossover into a dunk, but his drive game has been a legitimate weapon for the Pistons. This broadly mirrors the evolution of the game toward distributed opportunities to drive and make plays with the ball, and while most of the beneficiaries have been underrated ball-handlers given new responsibilities like Collin Gillespie, Jaden McDaniels, and Deni Avdija, Duren is so physically dominant that he too can cook off the dribble. You see it in his improved scoring numbers (20.3 points per game, up from 11.8) though the most obvious improvement is in how often he gets to the line (7.4 times per game, more than twice as many as the 3.1 he posted last year).
Watch Duren for a game, however, and the thing that leaps off the screen is less his dribbling than his physicality. Duren appears to be bound by a different law of gravity from everyone else. His shoulders are avenue-broad, he leaps with a shocking sproinginess, and he can't be dislodged by anyone. Duren is a capable anchor for the defense, all but shutting off the rim for opponents: Detroit allows the second-fewest rim attempts in the NBA and the second-lowest percentage at the rim, because that's where Duren is. He is third in the NBA in offensive rebounds per game, behind two offensive rebounding specialists, second in true shooting, and beloved by all the holistic advanced metrics, which paint him, inaccurately, as a top-five player in the whole-ass NBA. What those numbers capture is one of the most physically dominant players in the NBA, someone who creates problems on both sides of the ball and on the glass no matter who his opponent is.
Combine that physicality with a more polished floor game, and you have a first-time all-star. Duren's coach J.B. Bickerstaff deserves a ton of credit for deputizing his big man to spread his wings. This type of raw, athletic big man is one of the harder archetypes to develop, and after using Duren as essentially a battering ram for years, the Pistons have turned him into a big man capable of playing the modern game while also gleefully beating the shit out of opponents.
Detroit has a neo–Bad Boys thing going, which starts with Duren. One gets the sense that the Pistons are miserable to play against, with even Cade Cunningham determinedly bullying people and flying in on the weak side. With Duren now putting your big under pressure and into foul trouble, everything is harder to deal with. It is important to remember that Duren just turned 22 and clearly has more room to grow. With that athleticism, he can do anything.
