On Day 2 of Free Agency, the Pistons List Makes More Sense Than You Think

I fell asleep early on the first day of NBA Free Agency. Rookie error, I apologize. I had a good reason, one you’ll never know.

But when I fell asleep, the Pistons had just brought Josh Jackson home. They had yet to put Jerami Grant all-in, had yet to call in Delon Wright to consolidate the backcourt, had yet to trigger all Detroit Pistons fans with flashbacks of Josh Smith using the Provision Stretch.

However, falling asleep when I did, weirdly, helps put the whole list in context this morning. While the individual movements themselves run the gamut of gut reactions, the whole is not as bad as some of the reactions I was reading this morning have led me to believe.

This team is very different from what we all thought. Overall, however, these important list building points are still pretty true:

This list is not of qualifying quality

This is the most important thing. This list is not good enough to make the playoffs, even in the Eastern Conference (which, spoiler alert, is going to be more difficult this year), even if we find Blake Griffin, All-NBA caliber, in full health.

Blake Griffin might be as good as he was in 2018-19, but he’ll be backed by Mason Plumlee instead of Andre Drummond, Delon Wright instead of Reggie Jackson, and a collection of unproven wings (Josh Jackson? Sekou Doumbouya? Saddiq Bey??) Instead of Reggie Bullock. Of course, this list goes deeper than the one from 2018-19 – Derrick Rose instead of Ish Smith, Jerami Grant instead of Stanley Johnson / Thon Maker, a bunch of save centers instead of Zaza Pachulia) – but the depth is young and not particularly proven. Like, Dzanan Musa is now the backup shooting guard. And the starting shooting guard is Svi Mykhailiuk, who was good last year but wouldn’t be the starting shooting goalie in a playoff-level team.

If it’s not a playoff team – and it isn’t – then it’s a lottery team. And the lottery is more forgiving of “winners” than it has ever been. I’ll remind you all (again) that the top two picks in the 2019 NBA Draft were New Orleans (after a 33-win season) and Memphis (after a 33-win season). The Charlotte Hornets were at a pace of around 35 wins last season and were rewarded with a top 3 pick in the lottery (And with that top 3 pick, they got the player most people have. said to be the best talent in the draft).

Teams have a lot less incentive to put together a roster designed to win 19 games, which the Pistons don’t. Troy Weaver has said he won’t be chairing a rebuild, and while I think he could have gotten away with it from a fan appetite standpoint, he didn’t.

This list is full of tradable assets

The list is full of a variety of asset types, most of which are movable as individual coins.

Are you trying to trade a lot of salary? The Pistons have Blake Griffin and Jerami Grant. (My fat Jerami Grant Take is that if Western Conference runner-up Denver Nuggets was willing to offer him the same deal as Detroit – which was reported by members of the Denver media – so maybe it’s not as overpaid as everyone thinks.)

Trying to negotiate a mid-size deal? What about Delon Wright? And Mason Plumlee? What about Derrick Rose? What about one of those guys plus a Dzanan Musa to get into the $ 12 million range? All of these players are making similar money for varying number of years, I’m sure Detroit has something you will like.

Just want a low cost filler? The Pistons have Josh Jackson and Jahlil Okafor at the minimum for the veterans. Tony Bradley earns less than $ 4 million and was / is a very functional vault.

It used to be hard for the Pistons to make deals because they paid guys like Reggie Jackson more than anyone wanted. Teams couldn’t get a cheap plane on Reggie Jackson because to get it you had to put something worth around $ 15 million on the trade. Now if you want to do a deal with Detroit they have the flexibility to give you good contract values ​​to do so.

This list is well built for life after Blake

Some true statements: Blake Griffin owes $ 74 million over the next two years. He plays in the same position as the Pistons’ last big signing and their 2019 first-round pick. The last time we saw Blake Griffin after a long period of injury recovery, he was an All-Star and All-level player. -NBA.

These statements lead many of us, myself included, to believe that Blake Griffin will not be a Piston forever. And if you wave a magic wand and turn Blake Griffin into an unusable pile of contracts and draft picks, spinning without him makes more sense:

(You trade Derrick Rose and things get even clearer, but I think that’s less likely at the moment.)

Blake Griffin is the most talented player in the Detroit Pistons roster. His presence is the only thing that makes people think that this team is anything that comes close to the competition. Finding a place for Blake (who might just be ‘wait until the teams see him healthy’) is the last piece of this puzzle. Replace it with an auxiliary salary and a first-round pick, and the image most fans had in their heads of a rebuilding Pistons squad falls into place.

This team should be defending, playing hard, and running in transition (when the kids are playing), but getting too talented most nights. They have few valuable sources of consistent shooting, although you might think Saddiq Bey is going to enter the league as a 38% three-point shooter. They added more shot creation, but most of that addition came from a rookie playmaker.

Ultimately, Troy Weaver said he would create a team that competed every night, and so far he has. It’s not the same as building a team that will WIN every night, which the Pistons are decidedly not.