Nothing happened. Toldja. The NBA trade deadline passed and Joe D made no moves. There were rumblings around players like Jason Maxiell (who's way out of depth as a starting PF but has an expiring deal), Will Bynum (hard not to like Bynum, also has an expiring deal), and Jonas Jerebko (reasonably price if his production returns to norm), but the Pistons stood pat. Here are a couple examples of what Joe could've done:
1) The Bucks sit not-so-comfortably in the 8th spot in the East (12 games back), sandwiched in between Boston in the 7th spot (10 1/2 games back) and Philly at #9 (15 1/2 back). Milwaukee is not going to set the world on fire. Yet they decided to pull a trade to rent J.J. Redick for the rest of the season in the hopes that... what? He'll help them stretch their series with Miami to 6 games? Kudos to Joe for properly assessing his team and not going that route.
2) Boston pulled a sneaky-good move by nabbing Jordan Crawford for a couple expiring deals, one of whom is done for the year. The Celtics are in the 7th spot and are slightly better positioned to do some damage in the post-season than Milwaukee is. But really the point is they got a solid player in Crawford who's going to be cheap for another couple years. I wouldn't have been mad at Joe D for doing a Bynum-for-Crawford swap (which works if you throw in Singleton), but I'm guessing Joe might've been a bit hesitant to add a player of Crawford's temperament at this point.
3) Probably the team closest to where the Pistons are is Sacramento. The Kings are obviously a bit more up in the air due to the sale of the team, but both Pistons and Kings have a lot of young assets and aren't very good as a whole. The Kings decided to bail on one of those assets less than a year after drafting him. Kevin Pelton with ESPN Insider graded the trades, and here's what he essentially had to say about Sacramento in this deal:
Let's start with the positive. Patterson is, today, a better player than Robinson. He's also plausibly a better fit next to DeMarcus Cousins because of his ability to space the floor. So the Kings have improved somewhat for the rest of a season that's on the Sleep Train to nowhere. All that will do is hurt their draft pick. Their focus, obviously, should be on the future, and there the story is much murkier -- even before we consider the pending sale of the team to new owners who don't yet have any say in operations.
............
We're not even eight months removed from Sacramento drafting Robinson over Damian Lillard and Andre Drummond and nobody batting an eye. So even if you believe Patterson is the better player and that he'll help former Kentucky teammate Cousins, that's not the only criteria for a good trade.Needless to say he wasn't complimentary. If the Kings decided Robinson isn't such a great fit next to Cousins, well, they should've seen that in his 3 years at Kansas. Anyway, Joe opted not to bail on the youth movement for... uh, LaMarcus Aldrich?
The final option was to stand pat, which the Pistons did. The Pistons will probably keep their pick this year, since it's lottery protected. Although Joe D doesn't believe in tanking (winning 2 of 3 at the end of last year cost them a couple spots in the draft, yet karma rewarded them with Drummond), this team is well-positioned to do so. Starting Singler at SF and Maxiell at PF is not a recipe for wins in this league. Don't get me wrong, I like Singler, just not as a starter.
Anyway, if the season were to end today, Detroit would have the 9th pick (which got us Drummond last year, but this is a weaker draft). I don't think they'll fall much farther than they have in the East, but it's possible a couple of those teams in the West could move up, giving Detroit the 7th pick. So their range is anywhere from 7th to 12th. Players potentially available in that range:
Shabazz Muhammad (PLEASE!)
Otto Porter
Michael Carter-Williams
Alex Polythress
Trey Burke
I was really looking at pure PGs and SFs, since we don't really need another combo guard, and the PF/C position is mostly locked up. If we win a top 3 pick in the lottery or a guy like Oladipo falls to the Pistons later in the lottery, I wouldn't be mad at them for taking a SG either.
The NFL Combine is on, be ready for some Lions draft posts next week. And now, let awesomeness ensue:
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