Winning games this season frequently led to dance parties on the Detroit Pistons` team plane. The youngest players, 19-year-old rookie Ron Holland and 21-year-old third-year center Jalen Duren, are typically responsible for the music, earning praise from teammates for their diverse song choices spanning various time periods.
Players would move through the aisle, showing off their best dance moves until a request for an old-school favorite, like `Family Reunion` by The O`Jays, prompted 32-year-old Tobias Harris to display his moves, much to the amusement of his younger teammates.
“He hits his little one-two every now and then,” Duren told ESPN. “We really might have put some youth into him.”
“Give Tobias a 9.5,” Pistons forward Ausar Thompson told ESPN. “The 0.5 is the stiffness, but he`s just tall and he`s just built like that so he can`t control it. And he`s getting up there in age. Maybe younger Tobias would have a 10.”
Harris, who is roughly a decade older than most of his teammates, is in his second tenure with the Pistons, having recently completed his 14th NBA regular season. His return was part of an initiative by first-year Pistons president Trajan Langdon to integrate experienced veterans with the team`s collection of high draft picks. The younger players affectionately refer to Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Malik Beasley as “uncs” or the team`s uncles.
“Him and Beasley pulling out little unc moves we like to call it,” Holland told ESPN. “They got a little handshake they got going on.”
“I`m not part of the unc crew,” Beasley clarified. “I`m still that cool cousin that`s a little bit older.”
Harris simply smiles. He isn`t even the oldest player on the team – that distinction belongs to Hardaway Jr., who is 33. But Harris understood the situation when he signed a two-year, $52 million contract with the Pistons, a team that began the season with an average age of 24.3 years, ranking as the fourth-youngest in the NBA. The young squad was also coming off a dismal 14-68 season, one of the worst records in league history.
“There`s a lot of talent here, kind of just need a few adults in the room,” Harris told ESPN. “Guide these guys a little bit, and really boost their confidence up, boost the professionalism, morale of the whole team, and see where they could take us. I knew that coming in that this was going to be a breath of fresh air for me, but I`ve truly enjoyed it. It`s the most fun I`ve had playing basketball my whole career with this group and this team.”
Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff, in his inaugural season with the franchise, has a different term for Harris and the team`s veterans: “My safety blanket,” he said earlier this month. “Every time things are going awry, I can put those two guys in the game and I know they`re going to settle it down.”
And they have, providing a steadying influence to an inexperienced but talented team, featuring 2021 No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham, who earned his first All-Star selection and is a strong candidate for an All-NBA team. Bickerstaff established clear roles for both his young and veteran players from the start of training camp, emphasizing the defensive intensity and toughness characteristic of past successful Pistons teams.
What was unforeseen was the speed at which Detroit could achieve such a dramatic turnaround.
The Pistons finished last in the league at 14-68 in 2023-24, enduring a record 28-game losing streak. This season, they surged to a 44-38 record, securing the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference and achieving the franchise`s first winning season since 2015-16. They are the only team in NBA history to *triple* their win total from the previous season, and no team has ever won fewer games in one season and made the playoffs the following year.
Recently, the Pistons won a playoff game for the first time since the 2008 Eastern Conference finals, defeating the New York Knicks 100-94 at Madison Square Garden. This victory ended a streak of 15 consecutive playoff losses, also the longest in NBA history. Their first-round series, a possibility that seemed impossibly distant just a season ago, is currently tied 1-1 and returns to Detroit.
“It feels like it`s been a two-to-three year thing, but for us to have done it so quickly, it`s just a testament to the group of people that we brought into the building,” Cunningham said recently. “The guys that have been around, we`re super thankful for that. Now it`s about trying to find ways to win the championship.”
Langdon smiled and shook his head when reflecting on his initial approach. When he first took the job running Detroit`s basketball operations last May, making the playoffs — especially as a top-six seed — wasn`t even among his most ambitious goals.
Shortly after the Pistons made significant changes — general manager Troy Weaver resigned, and former coach Monty Williams was dismissed after the first year of his large contract — Langdon began formulating a strategy to quickly make the team more competitive. He believed the existing talent provided a foundation. He started by hiring Bickerstaff, who had been let go by the Cleveland Cavaliers after a playoff exit. Langdon knew him as a direct leader capable of defining roles and team identity, a key focus after Williams used 36 different starting lineups in 2023-24.
Three days later, the Pistons acquired Hardaway in a trade; he was a prolific 3-point shooter who had just contributed to the Dallas Mavericks` NBA Finals run. He joined a roster that ranked low in offense, 3-point attempt rate, and overall 3-point percentage.
That same day, Langdon signed Beasley, another high-volume shooter, to a one-year deal after he shot over 41% from deep on nearly seven attempts per game with the Milwaukee Bucks. Two days later, Harris was added, following a disappointing conclusion to his time with the Philadelphia 76ers.
“The main thing was trying to put together some people around these young guys that could help them develop,” Langdon told ESPN. “It`s not only the on-the-court and between-the-lines that I thought was important, but also the character, the experience and the postseason experience.”
Harris, who previously played for Detroit from 2016-2018, has embraced his role, guiding younger teammates on off-court matters like managing finances, diet, and sleep. He has also been a significant on-court contributor, averaging 13.7 points and 5.9 rebounds over 73 regular-season games, and elevating his performance in the playoffs with an average of 20.0 points and 9.5 rebounds through the first two games.
“I think it`s amazing to have somebody like that in your locker room on your team,” Cunningham said. The other veterans have also been crucial. Hardaway started 77 regular-season games, shooting 37% from 3 on nearly six attempts per game. Beasley set a franchise record with 319 made 3-pointers, ranking second in the league this season. He joined a select group of players in NBA history to make at least 300 3s in a season.
“This group has definitely been a blessing to be around,” Beasley told ESPN. “I`ve been a part of teams where I came in the gym and I don`t want to be there every day. I come in here, no matter what I got going on in my life, I feel like these guys bring me energy, they bring me life.”
Langdon recalls seeing a spark during training camp due to the high level of competition. However, it was a December road trip where the Pistons defeated the Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, and Sacramento Kings that he began to raise his expectations for the season.
Following a 10-6 January, the Pistons put together an eight-game winning streak around the All-Star break, highlighted by decisive wins over the LA Clippers and Boston Celtics. This was the longest win streak for the Pistons since 2008 and propelled them into the top six in the Eastern Conference.
“That was probably the first time I was like, `Oh, we`re beating some pretty good teams,`” Langdon said. “We have a chance to compete, be as competitive as we`d like to be. But playoffs still wasn`t in that thought process at that point.”
Langdon remained focused on changing the team`s culture, turning previous losing experiences into positive results. Before this season, Cunningham had never been on a team with a winning record five games into the season.
“When you`re losing, it compounds every single day,” Harris said. “Coming in, I could tell that was something that happened for them last year. To see their excitement, like, winning is fun, how can we get some more of that? I had very high expectations for this team and this group, and I knew that with the pieces that we were bringing in as well, that we could make something happen. So could you say it was a little gamble? Yeah, from a team that hadn`t won that much. But I was very confident that this team was going to be better than a lot of people expected.”
Isaiah Stewart gestured towards the championship banners from 1989, 1990, and 2004 hanging over the court at the Pistons` practice facility.
This was a few days after the Pistons forward returned from a two-game suspension following an altercation. His gesture was clear and deliberate. Despite being ejected multiple times in his career for physical confrontations, he has become known for a playing style reminiscent of the “Bad Boys” era, when the Pistons were known for their grit and physicality in the late `80s and early `90s.
“You talking about Detroit value,” Stewart told ESPN. “You got to have that grit, physicality.”
Detroit finished 10th in defense this season, their first top-10 finish in seven years. The Pistons also ranked high in offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding, and overall rebounding percentage, were second in transition points, and fifth in points scored off turnovers.
As the closest defender, Stewart holds opponents to 43% shooting in the paint, the second-best mark in the NBA. Teammate Ausar Thompson, who missed time recovering from a blood clot, ranks second in the league in field goal percentage allowed and total steals since January 1.
“We know that even a lot of the older Pistons guys come to the game, they watch, they got our backs,” Thompson tells ESPN. “I feel like we try to compliment them by kind of playing their style of ball. We don`t necessarily have a thousand superstars on the team, so just everybody come in and do their piece, and everybody go as hard as possible and bring that Detroit energy.”
The connection to the franchise`s history is intentional. Bickerstaff aimed to cultivate this awareness in his young players. “Those who come before you are extremely important,” Bickerstaff said. “That`s what we`ve done is try our best to pay respect to those who come before us and emulating what`s been successful for this organization in the past.”
This defensive foundation complements the dynamic offense provided by Cade Cunningham. The former No. 1 pick achieved career bests this season in points per game (26.1), assists per game (9.1), effective field goal percentage (52%), and 2-point field goal percentage (52%), positioning him as a leading candidate for the Most Improved Player award. According to ESPN Research, Detroit is shooting 53% off Cunningham`s passes this season, ranking sixth among players with at least 500 assists.
“Sometimes you get lost in the shuffle of what happened last year,” Harris said. “But he`s a great leader for this group. His voice is impactful in the locker room and he`s a real deal and what he brings to the table night in and night out.”
However, when the Pistons clinched their playoff berth with a win late in the season against the Toronto Raptors, and they boarded the plane back to Detroit, there was no dance party, no music blaring, and no elaborate celebration.
Inside the quiet plane, the Pistons acknowledged their achievement but understood that more work remained.
“We`re still hungry,” Stewart said. “Yes, we`re thankful and we`re proud of ourselves for putting ourselves in this playoff setting, but, man, we some dogs. We want more. We don`t want to just be happy to be in the playoffs. We want to go do some things.”
