Pistons' Trajan Langdon got 1st-place votes for NBA Executive of the Year

For the second year in a row, Detroit Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon is getting big recognition for his work. Langdon finished third in the 2025-26 NBA Basketball Executive of the Year Award vote, finishing behind Boston Celtics executive Brad Stevens (now a two-time winner) and Atlanta Hawks executive Onsi Saleh. Langdon got six first-place votes, behind only Stevens' 11.

Langdon also finished third in last year's vote , getting six first-place votes and losing out to Oklahoma City Thunder executive Sam Presti. Langdon has steered a historic turnaround for the Pistons, who went from a 14-win season in 2023-24 to a 44-win season in 2024-25, marking the biggest one-year win jump in franchise history and making the playoffs for the first time since 2019. The Pistons reached even higher this season, going 60-22 in the regular season and getting the 1-seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs for the first time since 2007.

The Pistons came into the 2025-26 season having made relatively few moves in the offseason, pivoting away from shooting guards Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley (the latter because of Beasley's legal troubles ) and signing Duncan Robinson and Caris LeVert to fill the roster gaps. The Pistons also drafted only one player ahead of the season, second-rounder Chaz Lanier out of Tennessee , who appeared in 34 games for the Pistons in his rookie year.

Otherwise, this year's Pistons came into the season looking about the same as last year's team. The "run it back" strategy appeared to work for nearly six months, with the Pistons staying atop the East for essentially the entire season. And though the Pistons showed a need for secondary scoring, especially from the perimeter, Langdon avoided big moves at the trade deadline.