{"id":683882,"date":"2026-03-28T09:45:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T09:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/683882\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T09:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T09:45:30","slug":"pistons-2026-draft-pick-depends-on-timberwolves-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/683882\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons’ 2026 draft pick depends on Timberwolves’ success"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Pistons<\/a> are rooting for the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> to lose, but not too much, as they have the right to swap 2026-NBA Draft first round picks under certain conditions.<\/p>\n

The Pistons picked up the pick swap in a three-team trade on Feb. 3 involving the Pistons, Timberwolves and Chicago Bulls, with Jaden Ivey going to the rival Bulls and the Pistons receiving Dario Saric (who was later waived) and Kevin Huerter. (In a salary dump, Minnesota sent veteran point guard Mike Conley Jr. to Chicago.)<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Pistons enter their game with the T’wolves on Saturday (5:30 p.m., ABC\/FanDuel Sports Network Detroit) owning the No. 28 overall pick; Minnesota sits at No. 22<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Detroit<\/p>\n

Detroit Pistons guard Kevin Huerter (27) shoots in the second half against the New Orleans Pelicans at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on Thursday, March 26, 2026.<\/p>\n

The potential pick swap, however is protected from spots 1-19, meaning for the Pistons to want to swap, Minnesota will need to finish with a better record than 19 other NBA teams, but worse than Detroit.<\/p>\n

The Pistons (52-20) sit atop the Eastern Conference<\/a>, with a magic number of five to clinch the top seed in this spring’s playoffs<\/p>\n

Detroit is on pace for roughly 60 wins and close to clinching their first Central Division title since the 2007-08 season (which was also the last time the franchise won a playoof series).<\/p>\n

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The Timberwolves (45-28) sit in the middle of the pack in the Western Conference at No. 5.<\/p>\n

Pistons schedule, upcoming games<\/p>\n

Full\u00a0Pistons 82-game schedule<\/a>\u00a0for the 2025-26 regular season. Here are the next five games:<\/p>\n

Saturday, March 28:\u00a0at Minnesota Timberwolves<\/p>\n

Monday, March 30:\u00a0at Oklahoma City Thunder<\/p>\n

Tuesday, March 31:\u00a0vs. Toronto Raptors<\/p>\n

Thursday, April 2:\u00a0vs. Minnesota Timberwolves<\/p>\n

Saturday, April 4: at Philadelphia 76ers<\/p>\n

Pistons beat writer Omari Sankofa II contributed reporting.<\/p>\n

Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pistons’ 2026 draft pick tied to Timberwolves. Where they need to fall for it to be profitable<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Pistons are rooting for the Minnesota Timberwolves to lose, but not too much, as they have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,329,10877,188,1018,307,152,3954,6,179,207,308,476],"class_list":{"0":"post-683882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-chicago-bulls","10":"tag-dario-saric","11":"tag-detroit-pistons","12":"tag-jaden-ivey","13":"tag-minnesota","14":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","15":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","18":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","19":"tag-timberwolves","20":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116306166102506807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683882","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=683882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}