{"id":741709,"date":"2026-05-23T06:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T06:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/741709\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T06:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T06:54:15","slug":"pistons-notes-thompson-langdon-contention-window-offseason-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/741709\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons Notes: Thompson, Langdon, Contention Window, Offseason Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pistons are facing a critical offseason as they continue to try to build themselves into a contender. One decision they will face is whether or not to extend Ausar Thompson<\/a>, who was recently named First Team All-Defense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the playoffs exposed some of the limitations of the current roster, it also illustrated the importance of Thompson to what Detroit wants to do, writes Coty M. Davis of The Detroit News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Thompson) was big-time,\u201d team president Trajan Langdon said. \u201cHe took a huge step last year, and as the season went on, you saw how much he impacted the game on both ends of the floor. \u2026 He competes at a high level. He is team-first. He is going to put in the work. We are excited about our future with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a majority of Thompson\u2019s impact comes on the defensive end, Langdon believes Thompson can continue to grow his offensive skillset.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, last year, he did not play a full season,\u201d Langdon said. \u201cHe worked through the summer, but it wasn\u2019t like he was going to this year. We won\u2019t have as many restrictions on him this summer as he had last year. He will be able to go out and do some serious work, and I know he is excited about it. You will not have to worry about Thompson putting in the work and competing.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have more Pistons notes and news:<\/p>\n

Langdon didn\u2019t make a major move at the trade deadline, preferring to move Jaden Ivey<\/a> to bring in Kevin Huerter<\/a> and a pick that landed at 21 in this year\u2019s draft. The lack of added firepower may or may not have hurt the team in the playoffs, but it helped show where the team really is, Omari Sankofa II writes for the Detroit Free Press<\/a>. Now the question becomes whether Langdon will make a bigger swing to bring in a true second scoring option next to star Cade Cunningham<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re always going to feel like we can get better and that\u2019s the goal, is to be a championship contender,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t think it would come this fast, these questions about being a championship contender after Year 2. We have to factor that into the equation as well. Two years ago when I took the job, nobody in here thought I\u2019d be getting championship contender questions two years later. But here we are.\u201d
\nWhile Detroit\u2019s regular-season success raised its playoff expectations considerably, losing in the second round was not the end of the team\u2019s window of contention, but rather the start of it, Sankofa writes<\/a>. The Pistons have all their future first-round picks, including five tradeable firsts, as well as 15 future second-round picks, while also having considerable financial flexibility moving forward, especially relative to some of their peers in the Eastern Conference. \u201cWe\u2019re still super young,\u201d Langdon said. \u201cAll of our guys are going to iterate and get better. They\u2019re going to all be better players next year than they were this year, just like we saw from last year to this season. We\u2019ll take a deep dive, we\u2019ll figure out what we need to add and we\u2019ll step out, we\u2019ll look at it at 35 thousand feet. We won\u2019t look at us as a 1-seed. We look at us as, \u2018How do we get better?’\u201d While the Eastern Conference is expected to improve next season as the Pacers and Celtics get back to full strength, the Pistons expect to improve as well, both internally and externally.
\nOne key area the team will need to address this offseason is adding more ball-handling, Shawn Windsor writes for the Free Press<\/a>. This is not only to take some of the burden off Cunningham, but also to add more variability to the attack. \u201cThe more ball-handling you can have on the floor, the better,\u201d Langdon said. \u201cI think you see these teams that are successful have a lot of people that can \u2026 whether it\u2019s initiate [offense], bringing the ball up, or actually execute in the halfcourt in terms of getting paint touches and making decisions. I think the more guys like that you have, the more difficult it is to guard.\u201d Thompson\u2019s improvement as a ball-handler will be crucial, but they may also need to turn to outside help to maximize their offensive potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pistons are facing a critical offseason as they continue to try to build themselves into a contender.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[1026,7,296,188,3860,6,297,6244],"class_list":["post-741709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-pistons","tag-ausar-thompson","tag-basketball","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-detroitpistons","tag-nba","tag-pistons","tag-trajan-langdon"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116622581042224285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741709","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=741709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}