Detroit Pistons season preview: Betting odds and predictions for 2024-25

With the 2024-25 NBA season starting on Tuesday, the Detroit Pistons hope this upcoming year marks the beginning of a new era. The Pistons endured one of the worst seasons of all time last year, finishing with the NBA’s worst record for the second consecutive season. With a new coach and veteran leadership in the building, Detroit remains a title long shot across Michigan betting sites but hopes to avoid another dubious campaign and foster growth from its young stars in the midst of a lengthy rebuild. We’re breaking it all down as part of our Pistons season preview, betting odds, and predictions for 2024-25: Pistons look to erase stain of last season There’s no other way to say it: the last 12 months have been an abject disaster for Detroit basketball. Nobody expected a playoff run for a team that hasn’t posted a winning record since 2015-16. But the Pistons took that futility a step further last season - posting the worst record in franchise history (14-68) and setting the NBA record for the most consecutive losses (28) in a single season. Their reward for such a historically inept campaign? Dropping to fifth (again) in the NBA draft, where they took Ron Holland to bolster a promising but unproven group. Last year’s dysfunction resulted in a pink slip for coach Monty Williams with five seasons and $65 million left on his initial six-year pact. Pistons fans are hoping for brighter days ahead under J.B. Bickerstaff, who led the Cavaliers to the postseason each of the last two years. He’ll have a better roster to work with than his predecessor after Trajan Langdon - the team’s new president of basketball operations - made offseason moves to acquire veterans Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr., Malik Beasley, and Paul Reed. Ahead of the season opener, all six of the best Michigan sportsbooks have Detroit priced as the NBA’s biggest title long shot. The Pistons are trading at +100000 to win the NBA championship, which means a $10 bet would return a $10,000 profit if they hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Detroit is also dealing as high as +50000 at FanDuel Sportsbook to win the Central Division, which would turn $10 into a $5,000 profit. Incredibly, the Pistons' win total (25.5) is only the fourth-lowest at FanDuel, which features the best Over odds at -108. If you’re pessimistic about a jump of 10-plus wins this year, Caesars Sportsbook has Detroit’s O/U total at 26.5 wins with -110 odds to the Under. The Pistons will likely need another 10-15 wins beyond that to make the playoffs for the first time since 2018-19. If they do, a $10 bet at BetMGM Sportsbook would return a $140 profit at +1400 odds, which imply a 6.67% chance that Detroit makes a postseason run. How will young guards progress under Bickerstaff? The quickest way to ruin a young guard is to cycle through head coaches. That seems to be the modus operandi for Detroit under owner Tom Gores. The Pistons spent a top-seven pick on a guard in four consecutive drafts from 2020-23 before selecting Holland, a 6-8 attacking wing, with the No. 5 pick in June. They’ve also cut a check to three different coaches over the last 18 months, which is a surefire recipe for stagnation for the cadre of young talent in the Motor City. Killian Hayes was run into the ground in Detroit and left this summer. Jaden Ivey and Ausar Thompson are off to inauspicious starts after posting a negative VORP (value over replacement) to open their NBA careers. The jury is still out on Cade Cunningham, the former No. 1 pick who featured a sky-high approval rating on draft night but hasn’t shaken the doubters in three years since. While Cunningham is yet to play 65 games in a season, he did post career highs in points (22.7), assists (7.5) and shooting percentage (44.9%) in an otherwise dismal season for Detroit. Cavaliers fans grew tired of Bickerstaff‘s sometimes curious rotations in Cleveland, but the coach did help turn Darius Garland’s career around and could do the same for the Pistons’ young pieces. Fittingly, the Pistons' best chance at hardware this season might come in the form of the NBA Most Improved Player award. Cunningham is among the favorites to win that award with odds as short as +1800 via DraftKings Sportsbook. Only six players have shorter odds, led by favorite Victor Wembanyama (+750). You’re better off placing that wager at FanDuel or BetMGM, both of which feature +3000 odds that could turn a $10 bet into a $300 profit. Ivey features +6000 odds to win the MIP award at BetRivers Sportsbook, while teammates Jalen Duren (+10000) and Ausar Thompson (+30000) are both ultra-long shots at FanDuel. Holland is dealing at +3000 odds to win NBA Rookie of the Year at FanDuel - tied for the 11th-shortest odds and the longest of the top five picks from this year’s class. Bickerstaff is catching +6000 odds via Fanatics Sportsbook to win NBA Coach of the Year in his debut season in Detroit. He finished in the top five in two straight seasons in Cleveland entering last year, when he received one third-place vote en route to a ninth-place result before getting fired. Can frontcourt lead Detroit out of NBA cellar? The biggest move the Pistons made this offseason (besides firing their coach) was signing the highest-paid non-All Star in NBA history. Harris will have earned more than $300 million in 15 years after signing a two-year, $52 million deal to return to Detroit, where he played 157 games across three seasons from 2015-18. The 6-8 forward was effectively chased out of Philadelphia after nearly six seasons with the 76ers, but he still averaged 17.2 points last year and should help steady this young Pistons squad. He leads a quietly deep frontcourt unit for Detroit that also boasts the 20-year-old Duren and 23-year-old Isaiah Stewart, both of whom are still looking to prove their value as NBA starters. The league has gotten smaller, faster and more 3-point centric in recent years, which makes it tough to project confidence in a rotation featuring traditional post scorers. That said, if Cunningham and Ivey can develop into an explosive 1-2 punch - much like Donovan Mitchell and Garland in Cleveland - there’s enough frontcourt talent here for an entertaining ensemble. Player props are few and far between for the Pistons, as Cunningham and Duren are the only players with odds available for their season stats. Cunningham is projected to average 24 points and eight assists at DraftKings, where the Over and Under are both priced at -115. He’s dealing at 100/1 odds to lead the NBA in assists at FanDuel, which is also offering 500/1 odds on him to lead all scorers. A more realistic bet? Cunningham is +500 via DraftKings to make his first All-Star team, which has been a point of discussion entering his fourth season. Meanwhile, Duren is projected to average 11.3 rebounds (-115) at BetMGM after grabbing 11.6 boards per game as a sophomore. He’s +1400 via Fanatics to lead all rebounders. If he averages at least 15 points and 12 rebounds - he came 1.2 points and 0.4 rebounds short last year - a $10 bet on a premade +270 parlay at DraftKings (under “team specials”) would return $27 in profit. If you’re looking for a major long shot, Thompson is +15000 at FanDuel to lead the league in steals as a sophomore. He averaged 1.1 steals in 25.1 minutes per game last year and ranked 15th in steal rate (2.1%). It’s easy to make the case for fading the Pistons after watching them labor through a comically and historically bad season last year. Yet it feels like the additions this summer, while uninspiring on the surface, should help elevate the floor for a group brimming with young talent. Williams also appeared completely disinterested at times last year - as did his players - and I suspect the switch to Bickerstaff is worth a few wins, too. We’ve already seen this win total creep up from an opening mark of 24.5, and I like the Over 25.5 wins at these -108 odds via FanDuel. Just don’t go crazy in the futures market for this team; we’re likely still two years away from being two years away on that.