Pistons Executive Details Battle With Lung Cancer

Pistons executive vice president of basketball operations Michael Blackstone discusses his ongoing battle against Stage 4 lung cancer in an interview with Hunter Patterson of The Athletic.

Blackstone has mostly kept the experience private since he was first diagnosed in 2023 while he was part of the front office in New Orleans, but he’s speaking out now to encourage others to get checked if they have unexplained aches and pains. Blackstone began feeling a pain in his right shoulder and later learned that it was cancer that had metastasized from his lung to his shoulder and spine.

“The reason I’m talking about it now versus the past three years is because time is basically all I have now, right?” the 54-year-old Blackstone said. “Time is what matters. … If I didn’t pay attention to the discomfort I was having and ask a very innocent question, I wouldn’t be here right now. It was already Stage 4 when we found it; it had already gone too far.”

The five-year survival rate for someone with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer is only 12 percent. Blackstone, who’s under the care of doctors at the Mayo Clinic, accepted his current position in July of 2024, knowing that he might have a limited time to work with president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon to rebuild the Pistons’ roster.

Blackstone cites his love of basketball and the city of Detroit as inspirations that help him deal with the radiation treatments. He has no plans to stop working, viewing his job as a chance to make a statement against the disease.

“This logic side of my brain sort of dominates; it helps me get through what this whole thing is,” Blackstone said. “It is what it is, I have what I have. I don’t control any of it; there’s nothing I can do. I do what the doctors tell me to do. I ask a ton of questions. … The truth is, if it all ended tomorrow, I’ve lived a great life. I am so lucky with the types of things I’ve been able to do. … The people I’ve met, the places we’ve gone, the friends I have, the support system, this job, the people (in Detroit) — all the way down the line. Of course I don’t want it to end tomorrow, and nobody is telling me it’s going to.”

Patterson notes that Blackstone remains active in his role and refuses to let his health issues get in the way of his duties with the team. He spends much of his time at the Pistons Performance Center and attends shootarounds, practices and games — both home and away — to get insight into what’s needed to make the team a contender.

Only in the last few weeks has Blackstone chosen to share his cancer fight with Pistons staff members. Although he recognizes the severity of the disease and the long odds that he faces, Blackstone hasn’t lost the belief that he can eventually overcome them.

“There’s hope,” he said. “There’s hope because of different advancements made, especially in lung cancer, that we could ultimately get to the place where this becomes a chronic disease versus a death sentence. … Pay attention to the signs, don’t ignore them. My drive is to do everything I can for this team, keep doing my job as long as I possibly can at a high level, but also try to help as many people as I possibly can. There’s only one way to do that, and that’s with awareness. If I can get one person to do a double take, to have a conversation, to go to their doctor, to make different choices, it will all be worth it — even if I don’t know about it.”