The Pistons, coming off of last season’s unexpected run to the playoffs, are still working to iron out their formula around star point guard Cade Cunningham . One idea they’ve pushed in the preseason, according to Hunter Patterson of The Athletic , is giving third-year wing Ausar Thompson more primary ball-handling duties.
Patterson writes that while last year, Thompson’s ball-in-hand role was mostly limited to fastbreaks and dunks off drop-offs, it’s clear that during the lead-up to the season, they’re stretching his role to see how he handles it.
“That’s something we’re going to do more of,” head coach JB Bickerstaff said. “The tempo that [Thompson] plays at when he has the ball in his hands, and the threat that he becomes when he has the ball in his hands changes the way that teams have to guard him. He has the ability to make his teammates better.”
Patterson points to Thompson’s ability to change speed and use both his strength and quick-twitch athleticism to get to the rim or beat defenders as key parts of the appeal of giving him the ball more. Bickerstaff is also interested in exploring different ways to free up Cunningham off-ball to get him easier looks.
“Teams decide they want to pick Cade up full court, and sometimes because of the gravity he holds, people just hug up on him,” Bickerstaff said. “Now his defender has to play off a screen or off a shift, and it just makes him a better offensive player when people can’t get their hands on him to wrestle and hold him.”
While Thompson still has to tighten his handle, the team has seen encouraging signs.
“Ausar is a guy who can initiate offense at a high level,” Cunningham said. “Giving him room to get more and more comfortable with it as the preseason goes along, I think that’ll be a big weapon for us.”
We have more notes from the Pistons:
- Cunningham had a breakout year last season, being named to his first All-Star team in addition to making All-NBA Third Team and coming in seventh in MVP voting. According to Patterson, one area of his game so far in preseason is making it clear that he’s ready to reach another level: the shooting efficiency. Cunningham’s willingness to shoot off the dribble from behind the arc, or lack thereof, presented itself at times during the Piston’s playoff series against the Knicks, but so far there’s been no hesitation in the preseason. “I want to shoot more threes, the highest quality possible,” he said. “I’m confident, I feel good about my game right now.” Cunningham ranked 27th in threes attempted off the dribble last season and 11th in the playoffs and struggled with his percentages on those shots, hitting them at a 33.8% and 16.0% clip, respectively, with the latter number being the worst percentage among players attempting at least four such shots a game. Turning the pull-up shot into a real weapon could bear huge dividends for the Pistons’ offensive attack moving forward.
- Isaiah Stewart is another Piston who understands the team’s need for three-point shooting, Patterson writes. After shooting 380 total threes in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons, he attempted just 53 last year, hitting 32.1%. Patterson notes that both Stewart and Bickerstaff have touched on his regaining some of the previous years’ volume. While he has only attempted three threes over the first two games of preseason, he has made two of them. Given the Pistons’ lack of shooting, especially at the big man positions, Stewart being willing to let fly from deep could provide a different wrinkle to their offense.
- On the other end of the floor, Patterson notes that Bickerstaff had previously mentioned being interested in experimenting with zone defense due to the number of athletes with impressive wingspans on the team. “We have found some zones that we like. It comes down to the time to implement the zones so you can get good at them,” Bickerstaff said last week. That idea bore out on Thursday’s matchup against the Bucks, when the Pistons alternated between playing man-to-man and employing a 1-3-1 zone. Patterson writes that the Bucks seemed undeterred by Detroit’s zone efforts. Whether this is just preseason experimentation or a weapon Bickerstaff hopes to unleash during the regular season remains to be seen.