PHILADELPHIA – It’s early – really early, before-the-sunrise early – but the Detroit Pistons are off to their best start in nearly a decade.
They're 3-0, their best start since the 2018-19 Pistons started 4-0, a run that also included a Game 3 win over the Philadelphia 76ers, just like Sunday, Oct. 25. Of course, that leaves 79 games in this 2026-27 regular season – so keep that in mind, obviously.
Not that you won't, not with all the Pistons still have to prove, not after last season's 60-win season ended in the second round of the NBA playoffs.
Not after the Jalen Duren contract drama (from the outside, anyway), not after a modest offseason from the front office
and not after the fanbase that tuned out for more than a decade is back in – and is part of a region home to three other pro teams whose decision-makers have, most recently, generally played it safe.
No one wants safe.
Not after a Detroit title drought that's stretching longer than a Michigan construction season. Not after three of the four teams – the Pistons, the Lions and the Tigers – finally wobbled up off the mat to make the postseason, then topped out in the playoffs while refusing to take home run cuts in the offseason.
At least not compared to the Philadelphia 76ers, who have LeBron James and Jaylen Brown currently, following Jimmy Butler and James Harden and Paul George in the City of Brotherly Love, where the tank-draft-develop methodology – known as "The Process," for short – gave way to chasing the big name and turned NBA cognoscenti frothy, once again, at the prospect of basketball bliss in Philly.
Best starting five in the Eastern Conference, right?
Maybe so.
Best team?
Hard to know.
Mostly because it's early, and also because star center Joel Embiid will be load-managed, and James will be load-managed, and, hey, the playoffs are all that matter anyway.
Right?
Right.
But at least the 76ers took another massive swing.
Stars aren't everything
The Pistons did not. Not the swing so many wanted. They did, however, take a few savvy cuts in their offseason.
The results of those cuts were on display again Sunday at Xfinity Mobile Arena, home of the 76ers, and home, on this night, to a full house enjoying the team's new theater lighting – meant to highlight the stars on the court the way lights on Broadway highlight its stars on the stage.
The 76ers have more stars than the Pistons. They do not have more talent. Or depth. Or toughness. Or defense.
Nor do they have the best player, between the two teams. Not as long as Cade Cunningham plays for the Pistons. That matters, too.
It also matters that the Pistons spent the offseason listening about how mightily the stars were aligned in Philadelphia and how nice it was that the Miami Heat traded for Giannis and how lovely it was that the Boston Celtics had Jayson Tatum back and all that shooting and Mitchell Robinson to boot.
They heard all the pontificating and the prognosticating and how they'd played in a depleted Eastern Conference that was now the big-boy conference, and they'd be lucky to finish in the top four.
Then they saw the schedule of their first four games:
Boston. Miami. Philadelphia. New York.
"I mean, you get to find out who you are early, you know?" said Duncan Robinson, who hit six more 3s and a few timely shots Sunday and is flowing about as well as he has on a basketball court. "That's not to say these teams are finished products because they're not, but we're not either, right? But getting thrown into the fire is great. ... Especially this group [that] wants to go out and prove that, you know, we can hang with anybody."
You better believe they felt a little extra juice when they saw the schedule, and heard the dismissals, and watched ESPN pivot its NBA coverage – slightly, at least – from Los Angeles to Philadelphia just as James pivoted from the West Coast to the East. He's earned the attention, no doubt. And Philadelphia's offseason earned its attention, too.
Pistons don't need stars to silence a crowd
Big swings do that. Stars do that. The Pistons don't mind at all.
Perhaps one day they'll take a major swing, too. Maybe even this season. But likely not. Not while they're still in the middle stage of their own process.
And not as long as they keep stacking up nights like Sunday, rolling into a buzzy arena filled with eager fans who'd arrived early enough to tailgate (and did) and take the starch out of those fans almost immediately with a 15-1 opening run.
Not on nights when they spread the floor on offense in a way that they didn't a year ago and defend the floor in a way that they did a year ago and hit every critical shot to answer every 76ers' run.
Yeah, Philadelphia was missing its third-best player (Embiid) and its fifth-best player (VJ Edgecombe), but Brown and Tyrese Maxey and James – Nos. 1, 2 and 4 in my personal Sixers power ranking – all played. Besides, the Pistons were missing their own Nos. 2 and 3, Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson.
So, let's call that a wash.
And let's call what happened impressive – a clinic, even and an early sign – again, before-the-sunrise early – of something potentially special.
The 76ers may end being great ... based on what happened in the offseason. The Pistons may end up being great, too. But that will be based on what they do in-season.
As for the stars that have shifted and realigned, from west to east, mostly?
"It don't matter," said Cunningham. "We are going to keep on going, and, you know, let people that are talking about us say what they want to say about us ... We just wanted to be ready. Beyond that, we want to be the best team in the world."
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor
Next up: Knicks
Matchup: Pistons (3-0) at New York (0-3).
Tipoff: 8 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27; Madison Square Garden, New York.
TV/radio: NBC; WXYT-FM (97.1).
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: The 76ers have the stars. But the Pistons may have the better team
