The Detroit Pistons and Brooklyn Nets open their respective 2016-2017 NBA Preseason campaigns against each other at the Barclays Center on Thursday, Oct. 6.
Start Time and Streaming Info
The game starts at 7:30 p.m. ET. It can be viewed live online thru the NBA League Pass.
Preview
Last season, Detroit qualified for the playoffs for the first time in seven years with a squad composed of Andre Drummond, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Reggie Jackson. Small forward Tobias Harris joined them during the February trade deadline which further boosted their chances of advancing in the postseason.
The Pistons were then swept by eventual NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, but the matchup had seen the emergence of incoming sophomore small forward Stanley Johnson, who guarded LeBron James during the entire series.
Detroit is now considered as one of the best young groups in the NBA with the said core and is expected to give a lot of teams a run for their money.
However, recent reports went out that starting point guard Jackson is set to miss six to eight weeks of action to treat the point guard's knee tendinitis that had bothered him since he entered the league in 2011 when the Oklahoma City Thunder selected him 24th overall during that year's draft.
Head coach Stan Van Gundy is said to be exploring the free-agency market for a potential replacement.
Meanwhile, The Nets are also reportedly in the middle of a rebuild but the team is out of future draft picks to speed up the process. Rumors abound that they will be relying on trades to make it happen and their reported premier trade chip is Brook Lopez.
The 28-year-old 7-footer is the only player remaining from the "win-now" squad the club had formed in 2013 with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Joe Johnson, and Deron Williams with Lopez as starters.
Brooklyn lost a lot of valuable draft picks to pull off the acquisition of the said players, but all of them are with other teams right now and they are left with the repercussions of a failed experiment.
Jeremy Lin's summer signing was one bright spot for the Nets this upcoming season and he will be tested in this game versus the Pistons.
Prediction
A win for Detroit even with the absence of Jackson. Brooklyn is still in the process of building their chemistry with new head coach Kenny Atkinson and with only Lin and Lopez as their go-to-guys at the moment.