Detroit Pistons forward Duncan Robinson has been one of the best 3-point shooters in the NBA since he joined the league in the 2018-19 season. He’s a career 39.7 percent shooter from deep on 7.2 attempts per game.
Still, Robinson has a long history of dealing with anxiety and uncertainty in his basketball career, as his struggles in those areas date back to far before he ever stepped foot on an NBA court. He noted that he still deals with those feelings to this day, though he put a positive spin on his modus operandi.
“I’ve always had this anxiety of like, ‘Am I good enough?’” he told The Athletic. “Obviously, I have some God-given talents and abilities. … I sort of feel my superpower has sort of existed in that space of, ‘I haven’t really achieved anything yet.’”
He also admitted that his own opinion about himself did shift once he established himself as a legitimate NBA player.
“The public perspective shifted my own perspective of myself,” he said. “The challenging part of that was realizing and coming to terms with the fact that a public perception should not be indicative of, or define how I think of myself or the process in which I take to get to the person that I want to be.
“As much as somebody can tell you, ‘Aw, don’t worry about what someone’s saying,’ or ‘Don’t worry about that,’ we’re all human beings. We see and hear things around us all the time. So, working through and getting to the other side of that — of I’m not defined by being an ‘underdog,’ I’m not defined by being ‘overpaid.’ I’m defined by what I show up and do every single day.”’
While it’s unfortunate that anxiety and uncertainty are persistent feelings that Robinson deals with, it seems he’s at least gotten to the point where those feelings don’t negatively impact him on the court. After all, he averaged 11.0 points per game on 39.3 percent shooting from 3-point range as a member of the Miami Heat last season.
After Robinson spent the first seven seasons of his pro career with the Heat organization, he got moved to the Pistons in a sign-and-trade deal earlier this offseason. The Pistons traded Italian forward Simone Fontecchio — who averaged 5.9 points per game with the Pistons last season — to the Heat as part of the deal.
Robinson and the Pistons agreed to a three-year, $48 million deal.
The sharpshooter is a new member of a Pistons team that was one of the biggest surprises in all of the NBA a season ago. Just one season removed from finishing with the NBA’s worst record at 14-68, Detroit won 44 games in the 2024-25 regular season and secured the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference and a spot in the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
Robinson could very well prove to be a highly effective floor spacer next to the likes of guards Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey in the coming 2025-26 season. With any luck, his 3-point shooting chops will add a layer of lethality to the Pistons’ offensive attack as they look to build on their 2024-25 season.
