NBA Playoffs: Detroit Pistons vs. Cleveland Cavaliers - April 19, 2016

The February trade for Tobias Harris (34) changed the Pistons' outlook.

(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)

The difference between No. 1 and No. 8 in the NBA Eastern Conference was made clear by the Cleveland Cavaliers-Detroit Pistons series: Four games, three of them competitive, and a discernible gap to traverse before that changes.

The difference between No. 2 and No. 8 has proven not nearly so stark.

Here is the value of making the playoffs. Most mysteries are solved and concepts are overlaid with results.

The Pistons, finally unshackled from the draft lottery and given a chance to measure themselves against the best in postseason, then study how the rest of the tournament bracket played out after their elimination, like what they have seen.

The Pistons thought they got better after the All-Star break, specifically after the Tobias Harris trade and his insertion into the starting lineup, which began a 17-9 finish to a 44-38 regular season. But they couldn't quite know because of the waning interest and varying motivations that affect teams late in seasons.

To wit, 10 of the wins came against teams that didn't make the playoffs.

Another win came on a night Oklahoma City rested Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka, and yet another came in the regular-season finale at Cleveland when both the Cavaliers and Pistons rested all starters.

And one of the losses came by the alarming margin of 43 points and sent researchers scouring the record books.

About that same time, as it was clarified that Detroit would make the playoffs and be served up as first-round fodder to the Cavs, Pistons czar Stan Van Gundy already was planning for an honest internal assessment of the team, whether it was as good as its finish, and what had to change moving forward.

Then came the playoffs and the realization that with the exception of Cleveland, the Pistons don't have that far to go within the conference.

Cleveland was 10-0 in postseason entering Saturday night's Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, which the Cavs lost to Toronto, 99-84. The undeniable truth of the East postseason is that no one has answers for the Cavs, who look every bit the part of NBA champions.

The subtext is that the Pistons had more answers for the Cavs than anyone else, more than an Atlanta team that has won 108 games the last two seasons but couldn't play within single digits even once and lost by 15 points per game in a 4-0 sweep by the Cavs, more than a Toronto team that lost the first two games of the conference finals by 29 and 19 points.

The Raptors may be weakened by the loss of Jonas Valanciunas to injury, but he isn't enough of that team, nor nearly talented enough in general, to make the difference in a 24.5-point average. The Raptors have Bismack Biyombo; they aren't playing 4-on-5. It just seems that way.

They were the No. 2 seed in the East, by the way.

After just more than a month of postseason, and with almost a month remaining, the Pistons have taken regular stock of the East opposition.

Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Toronto -- not that different from the Pistons in a seven-game series, it turns out. All are vulnerable when injuries hit. None had a solution for Cleveland when given that opportunity.

That 17-9 Pistons finish already carried the weight of pushing them into the playoffs and signaling improvement.

Now, it serves as something of a beacon for the possibilities next season.

Extrapolated over an entire season, that win rate would translate to 54 victories. Only eight Pistons teams have won that many games.

"I think as the year unfolded we saw that we really were competitive within all those groups of teams," Pistons general manager Jeff Bower said. "I think the other thing that the playoffs showed is the value of getting in, the value of getting into the playoffs, and competing, and seeing what could happen. When you look at how the injuries have made an impact on teams and series, you don't know what's going to happen unless you're in. So that's the takeaway that we will walk away with."

The Pistons are the young team, on the rise, already comparing well against all but the Cavs in the East, a team which already made some serious financial concessions to get this far and face more major fiscal decisions ahead.

The Cavs have a payroll of about $107 million, or about $22 million over the tax line. For the luxury of putting together such a team, they will pay something in the range of an additional $52 million in luxury tax.

After this season, whether the Cavs win a championship or not, they have to decide whether to keep this roster together, and to what degree they can. Even with the ballooning NBA salary cap for 2016-17, the Cavs will have a difficult time getting below the tax line if they try to keep this group together. And because they paid luxury tax last season, doing so next year would put them in the repeat taxpayer category, when the luxury tax is far more punitive.

LeBron James figures to opt out of his contract this summer and get a big raise, from about $23 million to something in the range of $32 million, so the tax burden won't ease.

Dan Gilbert has done an owner's primary job in Cleveland, he cut the check when a real opportunity to win a championship presented itself with James' return to the Cavs.

Incrementally, and with great financial prudence, the Pistons are working their way into a position from which they might force their owner Tom Gores into the same decision in a couple of years.

The Pistons have their core group. They need some depth at a couple positions, most notably point guard and power forward. They need more reliable perimeter scoring.

They also have seen already that there is not a big difference between scraping into the playoffs and being a mid-pack East team, and that pending this summer's roster changes they are more upwardly mobile with their current group than any of the other contenders.

The playoff loss was not a celebration. But the playoffs as a whole may foretell something to celebrate.

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