Stan Van Gundy: Detroit Pistons must be urgent in offseason retool to help Cade Cunningham

Former Detroit Pistons president/head coach Stan Van Gundy believes the team will have a sense of urgency to get better fast this offseason because they are lagging behind other young teams in the NBA.

Van Gundy, in an interview on the WXYT-FM “Restore the Floor” podcast hosted by Mike Stone and Evan Jankens, said the Pistons will have to be aggressive with the roughly $60 million in cap space available this summer because the young core that produced a 14-68 record in the 2023-24 season is not good enough.

“The problem I would think from Detroit’s perspective is what are you going to do with that cap space now?” Van Gundy said last week. “When are you going to try to win? My guess is (owner) Tom Gores wants to get this thing going quickly, they’re not going to sit around and just wait on a young core.

“And I think that’s probably the right approach because Orlando is as young or younger than they are and they’re better than Detroit, San Antonio’s got a brighter future, Oklahoma City is the youngest team in the league by minutes played and they’re the number one seed in the West. So, you might like your core, but it’s clear its not the best young core in the league or even one of the top two or three.”

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The Pistons announced Monday they are starting a search for a president of basketball operations — a position vacant since Van Gundy was fired in 2018.

Van Gundy said guard Cade Cunningham, the former No. 1 overall pick and Pistons’ leading scorer, is a “really good player” to lead the team, and said the idea of trading him was absurd. But he added the caveat he wasn’t sure if Cunningham was a “superstar.” He also said the roster needs to be upgraded because the other young players on the roster around Cunningham are fourth or fifth starter-level.

“You’re going to have to supplement it as you go along,” Van Gundy said. “I think they got other good pieces. I think (Jalen) Duren is certainly a very good rebounder. (Ausar) Thompson can defend. I personally really like Marcus Sasser. Jaden Ivey I like. But those guys are all either I think low-level starters, fourth or fifth starters, or rotation pieces. They need two other guys, at least two other guys to put with Cade Cunningham to have a chance to get better.”

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Van Gundy then said the moves are easy to point out from an outside perspective. The hard part will be figuring out how to actually get it done, because he thinks it is imperative to upgrade the roster around Cunningham as soon as possible.

“The hard part is figuring out how to get that done and add two really good pieces around Cade Cunningham,” Van Gundy said. “But I think they’re making a mistake if they think any of those other guys are good enough to be second or third players on a contending-type team.”

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Van Gundy spent four years with the Pistons from 2014-18, leading them to the playoffs once and a 152-176 record. He went 31-41 in his lone season coaching the New Orleans Pelicans in 2020-21, and currently serves as a game analyst for the NBA on TNT.

On the podcast appearance, Van Gundy said misses in the draft coupled with impatience with the timeline and the resulting moves were the ultimate reason for failure during his Pistons tenure as president and coach.

“I think we did more positive things than we got credit for but you’re there to win and we didn’t put enough together to get that done,” Van Gundy said. “And I’ve gotta take the full responsibility for that.”

The Pistons have a crucial offseason ahead after completing the worst season in franchise history, despite amassing a collection of lottery picks leading the team. The Pistons’ pending incoming president of basketball operations will oversee the path forward, and help decide the fate of general manager Troy Weaver and head coach Monty Williams.