VOTE: Do you think the Pistons will make the playoffs

The Detroit Pistons are an improved team from a year ago. The Detroit Pistons made the playoffs a year ago. It’s not crazy to think that the Pistons will find themselves back in the playoffs at the end of the regular season.

But that logic isn’t necessarily penetrating the collective wisdom of NBA watchers. That’s no surprise in wild offseason for the Eastern Conference that saw Durant and Irving in Brooklyn, Walker in Boston, Jimmy Butler in Miami, Al Horford in Philly, somehow the Orlando Magic became the darlings of the discerning NBA-watcher and doesn’t seem far behind.

The Pistons’ offseason moves just didn’t register on the NBA Richter scale. Not surprising when your biggest storylines were NOT overpaying Derrick Rose to be a backup point guard and adding Tony Snell, who fell out of the rotation on a stacked Bucks team.

That doesn’t mean the Pistons didn’t get better, though. They are replacing some truly horrendous minutes deployed on the likes of Glenn Robinson, Zaza Pachulia, Stanley Johnson, Jon Leuer, and Jose Calderon.

Collectively, they played close to 3,000 minutes. Their on-off splits were Robinson (-0.6), Pachulia (-5.3), Johnson (-6.7), Leuer (-14.9!!), Calderon (-16.7!!!), In fact, the Pistons got rid of every “negative” player on their roster who saw more than 200 minutes of action except for Thon Maker who was a -2.7 in 563 minutes.

Team keep Christian Wood can keep that data point in their back pocket.

While the Pistons didn’t make any seismic changes, perhaps the collective impact of their moves is equal to one headline-grabbing addition of Butler in Miami.

What do you think? Are the Pistons bound for a repeat visit to the postseason or did everyone else in the East simply eclipse Detroit? Vote now, because I’m curious.