Cade Cunningham reacts to Detroit Pistons’ Game 6 loss to NY Knicks
“The immediate one is disappointment. … That feeling will stick with us this summer,” Cade Cunningham said after Game 6 vs New York Knicks, May 1, 2025 at Little Caesars Arena.
Pistons president Trajan Langdon will hold a press conference Wednesday following their playoff appearance.Langdon oversaw a historic turnaround, tripling the team’s win total from the previous season.The Pistons hold the 37th overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
After a remarkable first-year turnaround, Detroit Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon met with the media on Wednesday at the team’s facility.
Langdon was asked many times how the team would proceed with offseason transactions, but he gave no clear indication on how the Pistons would approach the draft or free agency.
He also left open the possibility of the team signing young players Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren to rookie extensions, saying it was still to be determined.
The Pistons’ season came to a depressing end last week when the New York Knicks pulled off a last-second comeback with Jalen Brunson sinking a dagger to send the Pistons home for good.
As heartbreaking as the end of the season was, Year 1 under Langdon was an unbridled success. The Pistons became the first team in NBA history to triple its win total in just one year, going from 14 wins to 44.
Langdon helped the Pistons get back on the right track by adding a handful of veterans in Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. who made everything easier for the young core on the team.
While the NBA community recognized Langdon for his work in rebuilding the Pistons, he lost out on the Executive of the Year award on Tuesday, with Oklahoma City’s Sam Presti instead getting the nod.
With the Pistons finally snapping their incredibly long playoff drought, all eyes are now towards the future.
Here are the highlights from Langdon’s press conference below:
On if he knows who could be the team’s second-leading scorer next season: “I don’t, and I’m excited to see who that will be.”On potentially re-signing Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren to rookie extensions: “Still TBD.”On continuity: “Once that group is put together, you have a couple months, and you have a training camp, and that group can gel in those months. Whereas in a trade deadline, you’re bringing new players in and you don’t have time.”When you have continuity, you can just go and get off to quicker starts in term of practice time, because the practice time in this league is so minimal, when you’re able to start with that time you can start taking steps to getting better and faster.”On changing expectations: “It definitely creates different discussions and expectations of what [we] might do and what [we] could possible do. And so we’re going to stick to our guns and we’re going to make the decision that we feel is right for the team.”We’re never going to put out there what we’re doing and let people know what we’re thinking. But we are exploring all avenues.”On adding a big-time free agent star: “I would assume it would have to happen via trade. I don’t know how many All-Stars come here in free agency right now. I think the amount of cap space that we have doesn’t allow that, so it would have to be in a trade.”On the draft: “I can’t tell you that there’s a specific thing we’re looking at doing in the draft. We’ll, again, understand the landscape of it and see if we can move up if there’s a player we really like, but that we have to look at how much that cost is to the kind of player we think we’re going to get.”On next steps for Cade Cunningham: “People that knew basketball already knew that he was a hell of a talent…he was our main driver of winning this year, and that’s the hardest step to take.”The big thing for him, and we’ve talked to him about it, is just getting into elite shape. [He’s] obviously incredibly skilled, incredibly talented, understands the leadership part of it.”If you’ve never experienced playoff basketball, you can’t understand the level you have to go to. And now he understands now that he’s felt it.”Langdon so far hasn’t mentioned any free agent or trading options, saying multiple times that he isn’t going to bring up his team’s offseason plans just yet.On potentially adding another player in the offseason: “The questions will be there about what do we do. Do we add another person or do we just build from within? And again, like I said before, we’ll look at all avenues and decide what the best avenue is for us.”On Ausar Thompson’s season: “For him to have the season that he had without a summer, without really a training camp, without the first month is pretty incredible.”On working with Pistons owner Tom Gores: “Going into last year, we had a lot of different discussions in terms of last draft and free agency season, about the options we were going to look at, and how that was going to impact our roster…we’ll have similar dialogues in the offseason with him.””A big thing for the summer is developing the young guys that we have…[if] those guys take steps, we get better.”Responding to the Free Press’s Omari Sankofa II: “The guys buying into their third coach in three years, buying into the system that JB [Bickerstaff] taught them from day one, the defensive side of the ball, the selflessness on the offensive side…[it’s the] next man up mentality.””Culture is a word that’s used a lot. And it’s not saying it’s built, you have to sustain it.”Langdon begins by reflecting on the past year: “Hell of a season for us, don’t know any other way to put it.”
What draft picks do the Pistons have in 2025?No first-round pick (owned by Timberwolves).One second-round pick (No. 37 overall) from the Raptors (via the Mavericks and Spurs).
The Pistons don’t have their own first (traded in 2020), but have one second-round pick acquired from the Mavericks in the Hardaway trade at last year’s draft.
When does NBA offseason start for Detroit Pistons?NBA draft combine: May 11-18.NBA draft date: June 25-26.Free agency start: June 30 at 6 p.m.NBA Summer League in Las Vegas: July 10-20.