{"id":157856,"date":"2025-07-09T08:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/157856\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T08:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:48:11","slug":"central-notes-pistons-ivey-nance-nesmith-mathurin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/157856\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Notes: Pistons, Ivey, Nance, Nesmith, Mathurin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking on Tuesday to reporters, including Keith Langlois of Pistons.com<\/a>, Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon spoke about the size and shooting that Duncan Robinson<\/a> will bring to the team and lauded Caris LeVert<\/a> for his defensive versatility, ball-handling, and \u201cunselfish brand of basketball.\u201d He also pointed out that both newcomers have plenty of postseason experience.<\/p>\n

However, Langdon also made it clear that the additions of Robinson and LeVert aren\u2019t the only reasons why he\u2019s enthusiastic about his team\u2019s potential in 2025\/26.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the one thing that does get lost in all of this, to be honest with you, is (Jaden Ivey<\/a>\u2018s) return,\u201d Langdon said. \u201cA lot of people are saying, who are you filling with these guys that are exiting. I say, well, we have a pretty good free agent pickup in J.I., so I think he\u2019s going to fill a lot of those point guard roles and play-making roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to getting Ivey back, the Pistons also expect young cornerstones like Cade Cunningham<\/a> and Jalen Duren<\/a> to continue improving.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a chance to compete next year,\u201d Langdon said. \u201cThe main thing for us is continuing to let these young guys develop and they\u2019re in the gym working their butt off. Like I said from initially in the summer, if they get better, we\u2019re going to be better. So it was finding pieces to complement our young players and their growth and ability to reach their potential. I think with our two additions, we got bigger and we want to continue to put them around guys who can play-make. That\u2019s going to continue to help Cade grow and develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from around the Central:<\/p>\n

After the Pistons generated a $14.1MM traded player exception in their sign-and-trade deal sending Dennis Schr\u00f6der<\/a> to Sacramento, Hunter Patterson of The Athletic<\/a> considers what sort of players it might make sense to target using that TPE. Herb Jones, Goga Bitadze<\/a>, and Brandon Clarke<\/a> are among the names he suggests.
\nA member of the Cavaliers from 2018-21, Larry Nance Jr.<\/a> has remained close with the organization since then and spent his summers in Cleveland in the years, writes Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com<\/a> (subscription required). That\u2019s one reason why it came as no surprise that the Ohio native signed a deal to return to the Cavs this offseason. \u201cIt just made too much sense, you know? I knew I would (be back one day). I didn\u2019t know when,\u201d Nance said. \u201c\u2026 This is a team that\u2019s really got a chance to win it all. And that\u2019s the goal. That\u2019s why I came back, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do this year.\u201d
\nAaron Nesmith<\/a> and Bennedict Mathurin<\/a> will be extension-eligible ahead of the start of the 2025\/26 regular season and the Pacers plan to discuss new deals for them, but president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard is preaching patience, per Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star<\/a>. \u201cCan I just have like 24 hours please?\u201d Pritchard said when asked on Monday about potential Mathurin and Nesmith extensions. \u201cLiterally, guys, we went straight from the Finals to the draft to free agency to Summer League. \u2026 We\u2019ll look at all those kinds of things. But I think that\u2019s a little premature. We have all summer and up until next year to do those.\u201d Dopirak views Nesmith (who will be extension-eligible starting in October) as a no-brainer candidate for a new contract but acknowledges that Mathurin\u2019s situation is a little more complicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking on Tuesday to reporters, including Keith Langlois of Pistons.com, Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon spoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[280,7,363,3882,4958,1018,2988],"class_list":{"0":"post-157856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-aaron-nesmith","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-bennedict-mathurin","11":"tag-caris-levert","12":"tag-duncan-robinson","13":"tag-jaden-ivey","14":"tag-larry-nance-jr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114822414636324904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}