With Stan Van Gundy entering his second season as head coach, the Detroit Pistons should be looking at a marked improvement over their 32-50 record last year.
Flash back to last year, and even the more generous preseason predictions likely had Detroit as No. 7 or 8 seed in the Eastern Conference, with an early exit from the playoffs to follow.
Then, the Pistons entered the month of December with a 3-14 record. They fell to 5-23 before deciding something needed to be done to turn their fortunes around. That something turned out to be waiving Josh Smith.