Like last season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit will play a home-and-away set of games to open the preseason, this time against the Toronto Raptors. Much like the Pistons, the Raptors feature a relatively young roster (four rookies and no one with more than seven years of NBA experience).Toronto’s 2011 top five pick Jonas Valanciunas will finally join the team after a drawn-out contract dispute with his former team, Lietuvos Rytas. Considered one of the top prospects in that draft, adding the Lithuanian should move former #1 pick Andrea Bargnani over to his more natural position of power forward.

Next up for the Pistons is the Milwaukee Bucks. Through a handful of trades and draft picks, the Bucks drastically reshaped their roster this past season. With Andrew Bogut sidelined with a broken arm, the team shipped the former #1 pick to the Golden State Warriors along with Stephen Jackson (who had fallen out of favor with head coach Scott Skiles) for Monta Ellis, Ekpe Udoh and Kwame Brown. Combining Ellis and scoring guard Brandon Jennings had mixed results, as both need the basketball to be effective. To balance the roster with some defense, the Bucks added defensive-minded centers Samuel Dalembert and Joel Pryzbilla, while drafting lanky John Henson from North Carolina.

Orlando comes to the Palace for the Pistons’ fourth preseason matchup, playing without Dwight Howard for the first time in eight seasons. The Magic traded away their former franchise center for six players – including former Piston Arron Afflalo – and five total future draft picks. Through that trade and the draft, the Magic redid essentially their entire roster, leaving them with just six players from last season’s team. Afflalo, J.J. Redick, Jameer Nelson and Glen Davis are now the team’s leaders, but rookies Moe Harkless, Andrew Nicholson and Kyle O’Quinn will get plenty of playing time to prove their future worth.

Detroit heads to Miami next to face off against the LeBron James and Dwyane Wade-led Heat, who added sharpshooters Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis in the offseason. Other than Chris Bosh, the team still lacks a reliable inside presence, but they did bolster their frontcourt by adding five first- or second-year big men that are all taller than 6’9”. The team’s ‘Big Three’ will continue to get their points, rebounds and assists, but it’s the team’s complementary pieces, including Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole and Shane Battier, that will help the team repeat as champions.

After finishing last year with the worst winning percentage in NBA history, the Bobcats will look to rebound this season despite a lackluster roster. Former Piston Ben Gordon will play his first game back in Detroit after being traded to Charlotte in the offseason and his backcourt mate Kemba Walker will have another season under his belt and plenty of expectations after a pedestrian rookie campaign. 2012 draftee Michael Kidd-Gilchrist will help the team’s defense immensely, but his offense is a work in progress; he’ll still get minutes because of the lack of talent on this team.

Kevin Love and the Timberwolves host the Pistons next, and much like the Bobcats, they’ll look to improve on a disappointing 26-40 record in 2011-12. Unlike Charlotte, though, this team has legitimate players and should prove more competitive. Barring injury, Love will be his usual consistent self, averaging double digits in both point and rebounds while also providing three-point shooting. Ricky Rubio is recovering from a torn ACL that ended his rookie season early, but all signs pointed to him being an exciting point guard pre-injury. General manager David Kahn also took chances on two former All-Stars – Andrei Kirilenko and previously-retired Brandon Roy – signing both to two-year deals; if either moves work and the team improves, the perpetually-criticized GM can prove doubters wrong.

Just five days before the regular season begins, the Pistons end the preseason against the now-Joe Johnson-less Atlanta Hawks. Al Horford and Josh Smith are now the team’s leaders, and with mostly bench players forming the rest of the roster, they’ll be needed. Third-year guard Jeff Teague emerged as the team’s future point guard as he averaged career highs in nearly every single statistical category; in fact, he started more than six times more games last seeason (66) than he had in his first two seasons (10).   Newly-hired GM Danny Ferry also added two more scoring options – Louis Williams and Kyle Korver – to help spread the floor.

Preseason records are irrelevant once the regular season starts, but building chemistry, especially with a young roster, is extremely crucial. If the Pistons can do that in the eight games leading up to their home opener against Houston, Detroit fans should be even more optimistic.

We’ll start in the Central Division, where one team (Chicago) is still tops, but is on shakier ground than they’re used to. Much like the “Central” divisions in MLB, picking a clear winner for this division is a tough task, as there are maybe one or two favorites but the very real possibility of a surprise finisher.

Chicago Bulls

PG: Kirk Hinrich
SG: Richard Hamilton
SF: Luol Deng
PF: Joakim Noah
C:  Carlos Boozer

Bench: Taj Gibson, Marquis Teague, Vladimir Radmanovic, Jimmy Butler, Mike James, John Lucas III, Brian Scalabrine, Marco Belinelli

The Hinrich signing this offseason is a temporary move, as the team’s star guard Derrick Rose recovers from a torn ACL suffered in last season’s playoffs. With no return date for Rose, it could be a tough year for the Bulls, who have enjoyed a great deal of success atop the division the last few seasons. One of the most defining factors of the team – their bench – has been decimated this offseason, with the losses of Kyle Korver, Omer Asik, CJ Watson, and Ronnie Brewer. Relying on the 34-year old Hamilton is also a gamble, as he hasn’t shown much since leaving Detroit.  After winning 50 games last season and running away with the Central, next season could be much more of a challenge.

Indiana Pacers

PG: George Hill
SG: Paul George
SF: Danny Granger
PF: David West
C:  Roy Hibbert

Bench: DJ Augustin, Lance Stephenson, Gerald Green, Tyler Hansbrough, Ian Mahinmi, Orlando Johnson, Jeff Pendergraph, Miles Plumlee

The Pacers lost just two players this offseason – Darren Collison and Dahntay Jones –  but both played a fairly important role in last season’s successes. While Jones is mainly a defensive specialist, Indiana traded for Collison in 2010 to be the team’s point guard of the future. Unfortunately for him, Hill has emerged as a capable replacement and George has shown NBA ability at the shooting guard, so the team decided to trade the former UCLA Bruin to the Mavericks for Mahinmi. This team’s strengths lie in their frontcourt, however. After resigning Hibbert, the team now has him, West, Granger, Hansbrough, and Plumlee locked in down low. League-wide that may not be the most impressive lineup, but in the weaker Eastern Conference, it could very well win them the division and possibly a high playoff seed.

Detroit Pistons

PG: Brandon Knight
SG: Rodney Stuckey
SF: Tayshaun Prince
PF: Jonas Jerebko
C: Greg Monroe

Bench: Will Bynum, Kim English, Andre Drummond, Khris Middleton, Austin Daye, Corey Maggette, Charlie Villanueva, Kyle Singler, Slava Kravtsov, possibly Ben Wallace

After three straight seasons of lucking out in the NBA Draft, the Pistons have three potential building blocks for the team’s future. Monroe is an emerging center, Knight showed flashes of brilliance last season, and Drummond has already turned heads at the Summer League games in Orlando. That said, they range in age from 18 to 22, meaning there will likely be more learning bumps along the way, but since a title run isn’t likely in the near future, the team can play with lower expectations. Fans may not like that, but it’s the truth, and it could prove more invaluable to the development of all their young players. Stuckey will continue to evolve as a shooting guard alongside Knight. Four-year college players English and Singler should be logging minutes next season as two “veteran” rookies, while players like Bynum, Daye, Villanueva, and Maggette will be playing for either another contract or simply the chance to stay with the team. Sneaking into the playoffs as a low seed could happen, but another lottery trip is just as likely.

Milwaukee Bucks

PG: Brandon Jennings
SG: Monta Ellis
SF: Mike Dunleavy
PF: Drew Gooden
C: Samuel Dalembert

Bench: Carlos Delfino, Beno Udrih, Doron Lamb, Ersan Ilyasova, John Henson, Ekpe Udoh, Larry Sanders, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Tobias Harris

The Bucks have been in a strange purgatory-esque place for several years now: never good enough to win a title but never bad enough to get a top draft pick. After drafting Andrew Bogut first overall in 2005, Milwaukee made the playoffs just twice (2005-06 and 2009-10) and lost both times in the first round (Detroit and Atlanta, respectively). Apparently that was enough for the Bucks, and they traded Bogut for Monta Ellis and Ekpe Udoh last season, leaving the team with two shoot-first point guards in Jennings and Ellis. It should be an interesting experiment next season as the duo has had a chance to learn more about each other’s games during the offseason, but my money is on both players jacking up ill-advised shots. The rest of the roster is littered with some intriguing young pieces (Lamb, Henson, Udoh, Harris, Mbah a Moute) and other serviceable parts (Gooden, Dalembert, Udrih, Dunleavy), but overall, this could be another average year for the Bucks.

Cleveland Cavaliers

PG: Kyrie Irving
SG: Daniel Gibson
SF: Omri Casspi
PF: Tristan Thompson
C: Anderson Varejão

Bench:  Dion Waiters, Tyler Zeller, Donald Sloan, Kelenna Azubuike, Luke Harangody, Samardo Samuels, Alonzo Gee, Jon Leuer, Jeremy Pargo

If this was owner Dan Gilbert’s grand scheme for rebuilding post-LeBron, he may want to rethink it. After a 19-win season netted them a star point guard in Kyrie Irving, Cleveland has gone on to to collect an assortment of lower-level NBA talent and several players who spent more time in the NBDL than the big show. They are essentially a lesser version of the Bucks – not a good comparison. They traded a possible young star in JJ Hickson to the Kings for a tweener in Casspi, and drafted Thompson – another small-ish forward – with the fourth pick after drafting Irving. Varejão has always been a frustrating player to defend, as his tough low-post play and questionable flopping have gained him notoriety around the league, but he suffered a broken wrist last season and missed all but 25 games. With Irving breaking his hand in Olympic warm-ups earlier this month, things haven’t gotten much better for the Cavs. Unless a major (unforseen) move is made, the next few seasons could be much of the same for the Wine and Gold squad.

What do you think? Are the Bulls and Pacers the class of the Central, or could a surprise team top them both?

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