The Detroit Pistons have a roster of young talent and hope to improve on the 25-41 record from last season.
The team ranked near the bottom of the league in nearly all offensive categories and will have to play much better defense to be a contender.
The Pistons put their hopes this season on Andre Drummond when they drafted him with the 9th overall pick. The team will pair him with center Greg Monroe to form what should be an explosive and athletic front court. Monroe has a solid season last year, scoring nearly 16 points with 9.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists. If Monroe can average a double-double, the Pistons should be much improved.
The team has gone 3-3 this preseason and has lost all three games they have played on the road. Coach Lawrence Frank has tried to instill confidence in his team and he has put together a solid crop of bench players to give Detroit depth.
The team drafted rookie Kyle Singler and they still have forward Tayshaun Prince to help give guidance and play tough defense. Some veterans on the squad include Jonny Flynn, Corey Maggette, Jason Maxiell and Rodney Stuckey, who will be tasked to lead the team at point guard.
For the Pistons to have a chance at the playoffs this season, they will have to better than scoring 90 points per game, which was good for only 27th in the league. The addition of Drummond should help in the rebound department, where the team was also ranked 27th in the league.
Lawrence Frank helped turn around some pretty bad Nets teams and will have to do the same as the starts his second year as the Pistons coach.
The Minnesota Timberwolves also enter the 2012 season with high hopes.
The team has a core of young talent and brought in a number of veterans that management hopes will help the Timberwolves make the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
Unfortunately for the Timberwolves, they are defined as much by their roster as they are defined for the players they have that are injured.
Both Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio, two players the team is building on, are rehabbing from serious injuries and may not get on the court together until December. Rubio tore his ACL last March, while Love broke his hand last week and will miss six to eight weeks.
"I think all of our fans anticipated this season with great enthusiasm. We knew we were going to have to wait for Ricky, and now we have two guys to wait for," said team owner Glen Taylor to the Associated Press. "But again, I'm going to be positive about it and say we've got some young guys and let's see them step up."
Love signed a four-year contract extension worth $62 million in January and is one of the most important pieces to the franchise. For the past three seasons he has averaged a double-double in points and rebounds and last year he posted his career-best stats, averaging 26 points and 13.3 rebounds per game. In the 2010-11 season, he led the NBA in rebounding, averaging 15.2 per game and also had the longest consecutive double-double streak since 1976 with 53 games.
"We have a great training camp and we can get off to a good start and guys stay healthy, there's really no telling what we can do," Love said just before training camp opened. "I know a lot of teams in the Western Conference have loaded up, but I still feel we can knock those teams off and have a really good year."
Second-year player Derrick Williams, who was the No. 2 pick last season in the draft, and Dante Cunningham will take the place of Love in the rotation.
"I think he's really an energy guy," coach Rick Adelman has said about Cunningham. "Very good defender. Does all the little things. Him and Lou are very similar. The things that maybe we didn't do so well last year, running down loose balls, getting to the offensive boards, keeping the boards alive."
The Timberwolves could hold steady until their stars return, due to the fact that they brought in numerous veterans to complement their young players, including Brandon Roy and Andrei Kirilenko.
So far this preseason the Timberwolves have won all three games they have played at home.
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