NBA players often talk about the environment they begin with being just as significant to their development as their own talent and work ethic. How losing can destroy young players. How bad habits developed on impotent teams — and having careers blossom in cultures steeped in failure — tend to be detrimental to NBA newcomers.

Such speaks well of these Detroit Pistons, the league’s most impressive .500 team.

This young Detroit core has an intimate relationship with losing. The Pistons lost 28 consecutive games last season, an NBA record. They became one with defeat. Experienced its depths. Felt its twists and constrictions. Endured its humiliation.

“Some days, it didn’t feel real,” Isaiah Stewart said. “But the ones who have been through it know how it feels. And we don’t want to feel that s— again. Straight like that.”

How the Pistons have responded to last season’s debacle inspires even more confidence about their potential. They’ve been through basketball trauma together. They were ridiculed as the basketball world, even casual fans, tracked their historic futility — even worse, pitied.

It takes something to come back from that. Five of their top eight players in minutes per game — Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson and Stewart — were all part of last year’s squad. They’ve taken back their respect.

Through it all, they are better for the losses. Instead of breaking, they found their resolve. Instead of the losses tearing them apart, they bonded them. The Pistons are easy to root for because of how they’ve acquitted themselves.

It seems with this team, pride cometh before the rise.

“It really just humbled us,” Duren said. “That’s the worst thing that’s happened, I feel like, in all of our careers — even before the NBA. Nobody’s ever went through something like that. It showed us how hard it is to win in this league. It prepared us for what you see now.

“Obviously, we haven’t done much, but we’ve had more success. We understand the game and the league more.”

One of the primary reasons they’ve become a factor in the Eastern Conference is Cunningham. He’s proven himself to be a true face of the franchise. The 2021 No. 1 pick had gotten lost in the losing. This season has been a loud reminder he deserves mention among the league’s elite young talents.

He puts the Pistons on his back nightly. It shows in his numbers: 24.8 points, 9.4 assists, 6.4 rebounds per game. He’s on the cusp of his first All-Star selection.

But if you want to know the core of why the Pistons are here, the spirit fueling this turnaround, it’s evident in Cunningham’s retort to last season.

“The losing streak almost made me more sure,” he told The Athletic earlier this season.

Cunningham lost the majority of his second season to injury. His third season ended with 68 losses. The next Pistons win will be the most he’s ever experienced in an NBA season. All that adversity has produced promise. He’s got those square shoulders for a reason.

“Cade is not only a special basketball player, but he’s a special human being,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff told the “Run It Back” podcast. “You talk about a young guy with leadership qualities that are through the roof, a young guy who understands not only the game of basketball but his teammates and what they need. A guy who stands for something. Every single day, he has his principles and his beliefs, and he stands on those beliefs. I think that’s most important for a young guy who is the No. 1 guy on a team.”

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The internet is a warehouse of clichés about the impact of adversity. In the NBA, it doesn’t always work out like some Instagram post declares. Losing in the NBA is hard. It attacks confidence, and success is not possible in the world’s best basketball league without confidence.

But a way to survive losing is to get fed up. To go searching for ways to stop the pain of defeat. To not become numb to the inevitability. Some of that was visible with the Pistons even during the losing streak. They fought to end that streak. It wasn’t a fluke. They came close a number of times. They endured some gut-wrenching defeats in their desperation. And Cunningham and his cohorts built on that.

No doubt, swapping out Monty Williams for Bickerstaff fixed the culture and the vibe. Adding veterans like Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley put some professionalism in their midst. The youngsters have good examples in their presence from which to learn.

But the mindset undergirds it all. Cunningham embodies it as the spear of the Pistons, and he’s got some hardcore types with him. Either they were just built in a way that allowed them to handle this, or what they’ve been through forced them to find it. Either way, those core elements are present.

These Pistons are tough, physically and mentally. They won’t back down from a fight. Ever. They may even look forward to them.

Isaiah Stewart and Wendell Carter Jr get tangled up and things got a little escalated pic.twitter.com/BDHfGOPMwg

— Pistons Talk (@Pistons__Talk) January 26, 2025

But they will also fight within themselves. Against complacency. Against their own limitations. And especially against the better teams in the league. They’ve already beaten the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers twice. They won in Houston recently after nearly beating the Rockets in November. They took the Bucks to overtime in Milwaukee and almost knocked off the Boston Celtics.

The Pistons (23-23) opened the season 0-4 but haven’t lost more than three straight all season. They’re in a slump now, having lost four of their last six. But that’s light work compared to what they’ve been through.

“We’re still in a good spot,” Stewart said. “In a good position to be able to climb forward. We’re OK. We know that.”

Their sturdy mentality doesn’t fully compensate for their talent deficiencies, but if they get a couple of pieces, they could be a problem. They could certainly use another star next to Cunningham, and a few are available at this trade deadline. A true center also would help.

The Pistons are 2 1/2 games behind the No. 5 seed in the East, the Indiana Pacers. Should they make the playoffs, they could be a candidate for an upset. Even if they face one of the top seeds, they’ve got the kind of build as a team — athletic, youthful, hungry, resilient — to extract a pound of flesh from a top seed and impact how the East goes.

Playoff experience would only add to this momentum. The foundation of what they build is stronger because of their proven resolve and competitive spirit. This team has a character about it. Just get them some talent upgrades in a couple of places, and some more experience. They’re shaping up to be a problem.

Straight like that.

— The Athletic’s Hunter Patterson contributed.

(Top photo of Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)