DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons have set the expectation that the 2025 offseason will be a pragmatic one.
President of basketball operations Trajan Langdon won’t rule anything out, but anticipates the team will avoid getting overly aggressive as they try to capitalize on their latest playoff appearance.
That approach could be on display for the first time during the 2025 NBA Draft, which runs Wednesday and Thursday.
The Pistons currently hold just one pick at No. 37 overall, the seventh pick in the second round.
If the right player pops up, the Pistons surely could make a trade to move up in the order and secure a new member for their roster, but Langdon seems fit to stay at No. 37 — or possibly move back if the opportunity presents itself.
The top of the list for Langdon at the pick: taking the best player available.
“We have our qualities we’re looking for: high character, hard working and competitive. Size for position is important throughout the league,” Langdon said Tuesday, “but as we’ve looked at that pick, there’s a lot of wings that are intriguing there are some bigs that are intriguing and there’s some guards that can shoot the ball that are intriguing. So we’re trying to find out who’s going to be there. But I think we’ll find a player we like at that number.”
The Pistons still have some work to do re-signing free agents from last year’s team or potentially finding their replacements, but the roster is currently set up where they can use the draft to primarily add depth at any position.
That’s keeping the options wide open for the draft where the Pistons could go just about anywhere once it reaches them, including whoever the best available is.
HoopsHype reports at least 19 players taking part in a pre-draft workout with the Pistons, including some high-profile college standouts like Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier and Auburn’s Johni Broome.
The list will be far from complete as the Pistons will have hosted more players that don’t leak out publicly.
After last year’s draft, Langdon spoke on the difficulty of getting some of the top prospects in the draft to visit for a workout — despite picking at No. 5 overall — saying that many agents didn’t want their players visiting.
Their eventual selection, Ron Holland II, didn’t visit before getting picked by the Pistons.
Langdon shared the challenges were a bit different this year, given their pick being all the way back at No. 37 and there’s still a “game they play with the agents.”
Even so, Langdon said the Pistons got the players in they wanted, save for some who were injured.
The other major shift in the NBA Draft process is the impact of college athletes being able to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL).
This has led some players who might be late or borderline first rounders to return to college rather than enter the field.
This particularly affects teams like the Pistons in the early second round and Langdon said there were a couple players they hosted early in the process that opted to return to school he expected to be in the 25-45 range of the draft.
At this point, it’s looking like a waiting game.
If the Pistons are staying true to their reserved method, they’ll wait for 36 players to be taken before finding the next member of their roster. That could make for a quiet Wednesday night.