Jalen Duren became an All-Star and Detroit's second-leading scorer while anchoring the franchise's toughest defense.
Speakers pumped out music while the team's best highlights from the past two decades replayed on the video board above.
Four groups of fans stood in the court's corners, moving steadily through the line to offer handshakes, fist bumps, and brief words of encouragement.
Duren, dressed in gray Pistons sweats, a black Detroit Tigers cap, and a black jacket, kept moving through the line.
He greeted each person, spun a basketball in his hands occasionally, posed for photos, and spoke sparingly.
Then a fan in a red Pistons cap and matching sweats stepped forward and shouted a phrase echoing the franchise's past.
Over the last two seasons, the Pistons climbed from the league's basement to the top of the standings, reviving memories of their championship-era past.
Duren, the team's center, has grown in importance alongside them.
Point guard Cade Cunningham remains the engine, leader, and primary playmaker, but Duren has become equally vital.
The 6-foot-10, 250-pound big man punishes opponents in the paint, anchors the defense, and embodies the franchise's longstanding gritty identity.
This season, he earned his first All-Star selection after averaging a career-high 19.5 points, up more than seven from last year, on 65% shooting.
Duren's role expanded during Cunningham's 11-game absence due to a collapsed lung, and Detroit kept winning.
The team went 8-3 with the Boston Celtics in position to capitalize had they faltered.
Offensively, Detroit averaged 116.8 points in Cunningham's absence, while defensively they tightened, holding opponents to 107.7 points—more than two points better than before the injury.
Duren has refined the physical parts of his game but still attacks the rim when needed.
'I'm just proud of how we just keep at it and keep fighting through adversity,' Duren said, adding that his progress 'is not anything that just happened.
This is months and months and years of work that I've been putting in and now the world is starting to see.'
The best Pistons teams across eras measured themselves by toughness, not flash.
This legacy shaped past championship squads led by Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, and Bill Laimbeer in the late 1980s and later mid-2000s teams guided by Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, and Ben Wallace.
The current Pistons team carries that lineage forward, striving to establish the necessary mentality to do so.
In a February win over Charlotte, Duren absorbed a foul from Hornets center Moussa Diabaté that left him stumbling.
The two quickly went forehead-to-forehead before Duren pushed his right palm into Diabaté's face, sparking a brief melee that resulted in four ejections and multiple suspensions, including a two-game ban for Duren.
Two months later, in the regular season finale, the teams met again in another tense game.
There was more talking and a few shoves, but no fight.
After the final buzzer, the victorious Pistons walked off without exchanging handshakes, a moment Duren helped initiate.
'He's super young, but he's super assertive,' reserve forward Paul Reed said.
'He knows what he wants.