Third-year guard Marcus Sasser could make his season debut for the Pistons on Friday, having been listed as questionable to suit up against Portland, tweets Hunter Patterson of The Athletic.
Sasser, who starred in college at Houston prior to being selected 25th overall in the 2023 draft, missed the first 22 games of 2025/26 after sustaining a right hip impingement during the preseason. He was assigned to the G League to practice on Sunday and head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said the 25-year-old was doing 3-on-3 scrimmages on Monday.
Starting wing Duncan Robinson may play tonight as well — he’s also questionable after missing the past two games with a right ankle sprain, Patterson notes.
We have more from Detroit:
- In a feature story for The Athletic, Patterson takes a look at the growing bond between All-NBA point guard Cade Cunningham and rising young center Jalen Duren, a candidate to make his first All-Star appearance following a strong start to the season. As Patterson writes, Duren has made a conscious effort to spent at least a few weeks with Cunningham each of the past two offseasons — over the summer, they went on trips to Colorado and Rome, Italy. Both players the believe time spent together in the offseason has improved their on-court chemistry in addition to strengthening their off-court connection. “(These trips) have just tied into us sticking together, us having each other’s backs,” Cunningham said. “And pushing each other to be great. We can only help each other get better. We can only help each other get to that point. So, (it’s) really just about us being brothers and having each other’s backs. I think that’s all you can ask for, and we’ll take care of the rest on the court.”
- Bickerstaff also spent two weeks with Duren over the summer, according to Vincent Goodwill of ESPN, who writes that the Pistons’ coach challenged the 22-year-old big man to “improve his on-ball skills” and be in peak condition entering his fourth season. Duren appreciated Bickerstaff’s hands-on approach to his development. “That was the first time since I’ve been in the NBA where that happened,” Duren said. “I don’t know if he knows how much that meant to me, [but] that showed me how much he cared about me.”
- Goodwill’s story, which features several more interesting quotes, is centered on the Pistons going from the worst record in the NBA (14-68) two years ago to currently holding the best mark (17-5) in the Eastern Conference. While head of basketball operations Trajan Langdon said the front office will be “opportunistic” if the right trade opportunity presents itself, he also said he’s not aggressively seeking win-now help. “I’m always pushing my group, whether it’s from an analytics or personnel standpoint, on how can we get better? Can that happen internally? Or do we need to do something, add something, to get better? There’s obviously [the risk of] what those things cost and how they can hamper your future,” Langdon said, per Goodwill.