The pistons play basketball today! So I wanted to share a list of 5 things I’d like to see most from the team this year while I sit bored waiting for my car to be done with its maintenance. I’m sure many will disagree or see some as unrealistic but that’s okay, I have a lot of optimism about this team. I don’t need all of these things to happen to deem the season a success and I don’t expect all of them to occur. I also would love to see many more things than what’s listed but these are the things highest on my wish list.

1. Most obvious one so let’s get it out of the way. I want to Cade shows he’s the guy. This might look different for me than it does for others, but I believe the league consisting of mostly dynamic, scoring guards has made many think that Cade needs to score 25+ a game to be the guy for us. This is probably due to player comps people throw out there for him often as well. Personally, I don’t need him to be that, instead of seeing him as Luka, I would like to see him dominate the game in more of a jumbo-sized Chris Paul way. This would mean maintaining scoring numbers between 18 to 22 a game (fingers crossed its closer to 22) but upping his assist numbers closer to 10. His impact should be felt most from the way he elevates other.

2. Would love us to become a top 15 defense, even at the expense of some spacing. I think we saw some flashes in pre-season of a potentially elite defense, especially with killian in the starting group. While volume 3PA along with a high 3P% seems to be the trending recipe for success, that doesn’t mean it has to be especially at this stage of our team. Shooting is important yes and I obviously want our core guys to keep developing the shooting part of their game. I’d much rather the team develop a strong, team defensive identity.

3. I want to see some competitive edge from our guys. Want to see our guys take things personally. I want to see them talking shit, stand over some guys after putting them on their ass or on a poster, get technicals, hell get ejected! Sometimes an ejection or tech can have a positive impact, just have to make sure if the techs or elections do happen, that there is some smartness about when and how they do occur.

4. I want to see Stew shoot 32% from 3 at a decent volume (5 attemptsa game). This is a very low expectation, I believe he can shoot better than this (I know I’m one of the few at this point), but this would be enough in my opinion. People get caught up in these small differences in percentages and it blows my mind. 36% seems to be the number people would be happy with. I’m not sure that the difference between 32 and 36 really matters. If he shoots 5 a game for all 82 that’s a difference of 17 3’s throughout the season, less than a 1 ppg difference.

5. Last on the list, I want to see Duren establish himself as one of the best young centers in the league. I think he already has in many of our minds but he has not yet done enough to get there on the national scene. This means we need to see more consistency from him as a interior, defensive presence and also prove to be an elite roll man. I’m already sold that he is going to be the latter, especially with Cade being the lead ball handler, but proving he can be more consistent defensively without getting in frequent foul trouble will be the big one. There will obviously be inconsistency, as he’s young, but there is no reason he can’t be considered a top 10 to 15 center by the end of the year.