Detroit Fixed the Close-Game Problem. It Left the Center Problem Alone.

The Pistons spent this offseason doing something rare: they actually diagnosed what was wrong and then addressed it. A 60-win team that won barely more than half its games decided by five points or fewer had a specific kind of problem — not talent, but execution in tight moments, a reliance on the wrong players in the wrong roles when the margin shrank. So the front office moved out Isaiah Stewart and Caris LeVert, brought in Taurean Prince and Gary Harris for perimeter defense, locked up Kevin Huerter's spacing on a three-year deal, and made John Collins the marquee summer addition at $51 million over three years. That is a coherent answer to a real question. Give them credit for the diagnosis.

But there is a second question they haven't answered, and it is the kind that tends to surface in May rather than August.

Jalen Duren is one of the better young centers in the league — 17.7 points, 9.9 rebounds, shooting 64.8% from the field this past season. He is not just good; he is the gravitational center of everything Detroit wants to do in the frontcourt. John Collins beside him makes the power-forward depth real. What doesn't exist, anywhere on this roster, is a credible backup center. The depth chart at the five position is Duren and then nothing with meaningful playing time. That's not a rotation; that's a single point of failure.

Here is why that matters more in the playoffs than the regular season. Playoff opponents game-plan for stars. They hunt foul trouble. They push pace in the minutes when a team's best big is resting. Against a team with Detroit's defensive ambitions, an opposing offense that can attack the rim freely for eight minutes a game — because the backup center is either undersized or not a real NBA rotation piece — is not a minor inconvenience. It is a structural crack that good coaching staffs will exploit every single night. The Pistons won just 14 of 20 close regular-season games. Imagine those margins with Duren on the bench and no viable replacement holding the paint.

The case for optimism is still real, and I want to be precise about where it lives. Cunningham at 24.6 points and 9.3 assists per game is a genuine first option who can manufacture offense when possessions get ugly. Collins gives them a power forward who can slide toward the five in small-ball lineups, and that's not nothing — it is, in fact, the most common modern workaround for center depth. If Collins can guard fours and occasionally fives while Duren rests, Detroit's defensive identity doesn't have to collapse entirely. That is the narrow path.

What breaks that path is straightforward: foul trouble, injury, or a playoff opponent that is simply too big to small-ball against. Any one of those conditions turns a moderate roster vulnerability into a series-altering problem. My read is that the front office knows this and is betting either that Collins covers enough ground or that the trade deadline provides a fix. Both are reasonable bets. Neither is the same as having solved it. The Pistons built a smarter, deeper team this summer — but they built it with one load-bearing column and no backup column. That is worth watching very carefully when the games stop being played in August and start mattering again in April.