Trajan Langdon defends Detroit Pistons deadline approach: 'Won a lot'
· Yahoo Sports
During media day on Sept. 29, Detroit Pistons president Trajan Langdon was asked about his team’s priorities in Year 2. Would player development still be the primary goal? Or would wins and losses determine the team’s success?
The Pistons, Langdon said, are trying to walk both paths.
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“Our hope is they merge,” he said. “The hope is our, and what I’ve spoken about at the start of the summer was, as our young guys and our young core develop and get better, I think we will get better as a team. Everybody hopes that that means more wins. Sometimes it always doesn’t.”
The Pistons passed the 50-game mark on Friday, Feb. 6, and, so far, have successfully threaded that needle to win more games than anyone could’ve predicted. They were 37-13, atop the Eastern Conference and second in the league entering their home game against East 2-seed New York Knicks, who trailed the Pistons by 4½ games.
External expectations have adjusted accordingly for a team that’s on pace for 60 wins and homecourt advantage throughout the East playoffs. But there’s a sense around the league that the Pistons remain a move away from being a genuine championship contender. They own a top-two defense and an above-average offense, but lack the second star that most of the league’s top teams boast.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has Jalen Williams in Oklahoma City. Nikola Jokic is flanked by Jamal Murray in Denver. Even Donovan Mitchell now has James Harden (or vice versa) in Cleveland. Who will the Pistons lean on when teams relentlessly double-team Cade Cunningham in the postseason?
As the trade deadline reflected, Langdon is comfortable finding an answer to that question later, rather than now. The Pistons executed one trade this week, a three-way deal that sent Jaden Ivey to the Chicago Bulls for Kevin Huerter and Dario Saric and swapped 2026 first-round picks with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Huerter has a chance to lift the Pistons’ offense, which can struggle to knock down 3-pointers and generate good shot attempts in the halfcourt. But he’s not the proverbial “No. 2” star that theoretically will push them over the top. For now, they’re confident in a young roster that’s soaring past the preseason predictions, one they believe has earned an opportunity to prove itself in the playoffs.
“I think we’re playing good basketball this year as a team,” Langdon said before Friday's game. “The guys have understood what J.B. (Bickerstaff) and staff want. I think with one another they understand what it takes to be successful. We’ve won a lot of games since this time last year. This group has won a lot of games. Now in the last 30, 35 games of the season what can we do and what are we going to do in the postseason, right? What’s our rotation? Who are the guys that step up in crunch time?
“The hope is that we give ourselves a chance to play some real meaningful basketball in the postseason and that’ll allow us to assess what this team is and who we are going forward,” he continued.
The front office likes Huerter’s game and determined that Ivey no longer fit into their long-term plan. The fourth-year guard was in the midst of a career season in 2024-25 but had his role decline since returning from a 2025 broken leg that prematurely ended his breakout campaign.
Ivey shot the ball well with the Pistons this season after making his debut in November, knocking down 37.2% of his 3-pointers. But with steep competition in the backcourt and with his restricted free agency approaching this summer, the Pistons determined that they were better off with a more proven shooter and ball-handler this season.
Huerter is among the NBA's best role-playing wings at finishing at the rim and handling secondary playmaking responsibilities. The Pistons thrive in transition and on second-chance opportunities. Their halfcourt offense only ranks 20th leaguewide in points per play, according to Cleaning The Glass.
Huerter isn’t a “No. 2,” but he directly addresses their offensive weaknesses on offense. And the reality for Ivey is that the team emerged as a playoff threat – and seemingly solved the mystery of winning tough games – while he was sidelined with his leg injury. With extensions potentially looming for Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson this summer, Ivey no longer was a priority.
“We wish JI the best, he’s been great here,” Langdon said. “For us it was just trying to find the right fit for us going forward that would give us a better chance to give JB a little bit more optionality in terms of the lineups. We know we needed spacing. We thought Kevin did that.
“You look at the teams he’s been on and the way different teams play him, his gravity has been good and it gives his teammates more space to operate,” he continued. “We felt whether that’s playing with Cade or playing in non-Cade minutes it gives us another option on the floor to score the ball or just space and make plays. I think he’s gotten better defensively as well, and the size will be a good fit with our group.”
But the pressure is now on the Pistons to show that they can continue their winning ways as currently constructed. Their lack of secondary scoring was glaring in the playoffs last year, as the Knicks hounded Cunningham and challenged their other offensive players to step up and fill in the gaps. The Pistons lost to the Knicks in the first round in six games, in part, because their offense faltered late in games.
As good as they’ve been during the regular season, this team ultimately will be judged by its playoff success. For now, the gamble is that his team is built to win not only in January and February, but May and June as well.
‘We’ll have to be creative in the way we play,” Langdon said. “I think our identity has always been defense and we can’t stop doing that. And so I hear what you’re saying. I think there’s different ways to skin a cat and I think we’ve been doing it different, doing it on the defensive end and really getting after it. I think we’ll continue to do that, and we’ll see who steps up.”
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Contact Omari Sankofa II at [email protected]. Follow him on Bluesky and/or X @omarisankofa.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons exec Trajan Langdon defends trade deadline approach