This offseason, the Detroit Pistons decided to make a change at head coach. Monty Williams was dismissed after finishing with the league’s worst record, and Trajan Langdon brought on J.B. Bickerstaff as his replacement.

Earlier this week, Bickerstaff joined Richard Jefferson on his Road Trippin podcast to discuss an array of topics. As expected, most of the conversation was steered towards his new opportunity in Detroit.

When talking about his expectations for the Pistons in year one, Bickerstaff harped on building an identity for people to resonate with. He also touched on how he’s already started drawing inspiration from some of the franchise’s most successful teams.

“When you guys turn on the TV, I want you to be able to see oh that’s Detroit Pistons basketball,” Bickerstaff said. “There’s a style that we want to play…The old Bad Boys teams that so many people loved and admired. The Rip, Chauncey, Rasheed, Ben Wallace, Tayshaun Pistons team. Really going back and studying those teams. Those teams were elite defensively, they were blue collar.”

In just his first few weeks on the job, Bickerstaff seems to have already done a steep amount of homework on the franchise. Seeing that the teams he mentioned won three championships between them, he has found a good source of inspiration.

With the current core, Bickerstaff is smart to try and build a defensive identity. For starters, the roster has a pair of super athletic wings who pride themselves on that end in Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland. Detroit also had two physical frontcourt presences as well with Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart. If this group as whole brand themselves on defense, the Pistons could certainly take a big step forward under Bickerstaff’s guidance.

Undrafted rookie center Kingsley Eguakun has drawn attention from the Detroit Lions coaching staff due to his solid start to training camp.

An ankle injury derailed his senior season at Florida, giving Detroit’s personnel department an opportunity to extend the 6-foot-3, 304-pound lineman an undrafted rookie free agent contract with solid guaranteed monies ($245,000).

Eguakun impresssed many scouts at the Senior Bowl, regularly winning reps against top collegiate prospects.

According to Justin Melo of The Draft Network, “Eguakun is a strong prospect with the base and leverage necessary to combat a variety of skill sets at the point of attack. He’s an experienced prospect with 30 career starts in the SEC and 42 total appearances. Eguakun was credited with allowing zero sacks in 901 career pass protection reps.

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“Eguakaun also put forth an impressive pre-draft workout. The Jacksonville native had a 32-inch vertical and 9-foot-1 broad jump. He also ran a 4.51 shuttle and 7.57 three-cone. The results led Eguakun to capture a 9.09 Relative Athletic Score, though an official 40-yard dash time was notably absent.”

Against the Giants, the 23-year-old successfully sealed off defensive tackles and was able to levy a successful block on a linebacker, which should give the coaching staff additional confidence to play him more the next couple of weeks.

Detroit’s depth along the offensive line took a hit, as Conor Galvin suffered a torn MCL against the Giants, ending his 2024 season.

Rookie Christian Mahogany has missed the early portion of training camp dealing with an illness.