Trajan Langdon made it clear ahead of next week’s 2026 NBA Draft. His team has a three-player core, and his primary job is to add players around that core.
That’s it. That’s his mission as he sees it, as he said Thursday, June 18: Build the Detroit Pistons around Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren. If it works, he’ll be around for a while. If it doesn’t, team owner Tom Gores has shown he isn’t afraid to make a change.
This is what Langdon believes. It doesn’t make him afraid, cautious or inordinately worried about his job. It makes him a president of basketball operations who thinks Cunningham − and especially Duren and Thompson − aren’t done getting better.
If you think they are? Have at it − lean into the notion that human beings stay who they are at 22. And some do, clearly; at the least, some basketball players do. But plenty more don’t.
In fact, most don’t.
For every player that finds his ceiling at 22 or 23 or 24, there’s 10 more who find theirs a few years later. We see it every year − and just saw it again in last week’s NBA Finals, where the New York Knicks won a title because a handful of players from their core played career-defining basketball.
OG Anunoby hit contested corner 3-pointers from the corner in a way he never had. Beyond that, he played with the kind of command that only comes from experience.
Karl-Anthony Towns played defense. So did Landry Shamet, a role player who got better in his role – he had been thought of as just a shooter before this postseason.
And Jalen Brunson?
All he has done, year after year, is get better.
The Knicks’ title may have been a surprise, but their players’ improvement should not have been. It happens all over the NBA, all the time. So, for Langdon to assume Cunningham and Duren and Thompson won’t get better would be a misread of the league he has been working in for a while.
And a misread of human nature.
A Pistons core that’s still getting better
Shoot, all three just got better over the past two seasons. Cunningham got stronger, tightened his handle and shot better from deep in the playoffs. Duren improved his passing, his finishing and his defense. Yes, he struggled in the playoffs, but Langdon is betting that was more mental than anything else.
And Thompson?
He changed games during the Pistons’ 60-win campaign in ways only he can. He was everywhere. And yet he is nowhere near finished growing.
Will he ever develop a 3-point shot? Maybe not. Probably not. But he doesn’t need to. Neither did Ben Wallace or Draymond Green, difference-makers who were integral to winning.
Maybe Thompson tops out. Maybe Duren’s step back in the playoffs will carry over into the 2026-27 season and he never tops his January 2026 peak. If that happens, Langdon will be wrong.
But I’d bet none of the three are done improving. And if that’s the case, then it makes sense to keep adjusting at the edges, to keep searching for the right mix of players to put around them.
As Langdon said Thursday: “It’s finding the players that fit our top three players and enhance what they can do. … That’s how we continue to grow and take steps.”
Just because he believes he has a core doesn’t mean he won’t seek legitimate players to help the cause. Maybe they won’t be superstars, but they don’t have to be.
Think of it this way: If Max Strus played for the Pistons this past postseason and Javonte Green played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Pistons would have beat the Cavs in the second round of the NBA playoffs.
Silly thought exercise?
No doubt. But a helpful one when thinking about the difference between winning and losing in the postseason, something Langdon has clearly though a lot about, and said so Thursday, when he met with reporters to preview the draft.
Well, preview isn’t quite the word. What’s he really going to say, right? How about: talk about the team ahead of the draft. Yeah, that’s it.
And here was the most important thing he said:
“We know that we need to be more equipped to compete in the postseason and that’s what we’re looking at doing.”
In the end, what else is there? He’s either going to succeed building on his belief, or he won’t. It’s not any more complicated than that.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
Feeling a draft?
What: 2026 NBA Draft.
Fast facts: Tuesday, June 23-Wednesday, June 24; Barclays Center, New York.
TV: Round 1 – 8 p.m. Tuesday, ABC/ESPN; Round 2 – 8 p.m. Wednesday, ABC/ESPN.
Pistons’ pick: Round 1 – No. 21 overall; Round 2 – none.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trajan Langdon betting his future on Detroit Pistons’ 3-player core
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
