Sunday NBA Fix 9-7-14: Greg Monroe Playing For 2015

1 of 7

Apr 13, 2014; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; Detroit Pistons forward Greg Monroe (10) dribbles around Toronto Raptors forward Tyler Hansbrough (50) in the fourth quarter at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports /

Welcome to the Sunday NBA Fix for Sept. 7, where we are not signing the qualifying offer to gamble on 2015.

But that’s what Detroit Pistons center Greg Monroe has reportedly done, after talking about doing it for several weeks.

More from NBA

The Associated Press, citing a “person with knowledge of the deal,” reported this week that Monroe, after not being able to get an offer to his liking as a restricted free agent, signed the Pistons’ one-year, $5.48 million qualifying offer and will be an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Monroe was the seventh overall pick of the Pistons out of Georgetown in 2010 and has been a consistent performer for a consistently bad team while playing for a revolving door full of coaches that includes a season of John Kuester, two seasons of Lawrence Frank, 50 games of Maurice Cheeks and 32 games of interim coach John Loyer.

Stan Van Gundy, then, will be Monroe’s fifth head coach as he enters his fifth season in Detroit, but his future has never been more uncertain.

The Pistons had the right to match any offer sheet Monroe signed as a restricted free agent, but there was never an offer he felt was worth putting pen to paper for and the Pistons never came forward with a mutliyear offer to his liking.

With less than a month to go before training camp opens, it looks as if Detroit will have the same overstuffed, oversized frontcourt that performed so poorly as a unit last season, with Monroe playing out of position at power forward, Josh Smith playing out of position (and out of his mind oftentimes) at the small forward and rising star Andre Drummond manning the middle.

As a three-man unit, the Drummond-Monroe-Smith conglomerate appeared in 76 games and was on the court an average of 17.9 minutes together. Despite Drummond and Smith having considerable defensive chops, this group was outscored by eight points per 100 possessions (102.5 offensive rating, 110.5 defensive rating).

Both of those ratings were worse than the team’s overall marks of 102.9 and 107.3, respectively. Interestingly, that was not the Pistons’ most effective rebounding trio, either, according to NBA.com/Stats.

As a unit, Drummond, Monroe and Smith grabbed 53.2 percent of available rebounds. That didn’t match the effective rebounding ability of the Drummond-Monroe-Kyle Singler or Drummond-Singler-Smith trios among units that played in at least 60 games and averaged at least 10 minutes together.

There’s a lot of optimism in Detroit with the arrival of Van Gundy, a coach who took the Orlando Magic to the NBA Finals in 2009 and also led the Miami Heat to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2005.

Monroe’s individual numbers ticked down just a bit in 2013-14, to 15.2 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.1 steals in 32.8 minutes per game and he shot .497/.0-for-1/.657.

His Player Efficiency Rating, however, dropped from 19.5 to 18.1—still well above the accepted average figure of 15, but still a significant fall.

The Pistons haven’t been to the postseason since 2009 as they’ve burned through coaches and players at an alarming rate.

And it seems, at least as of now, that Greg Monroe will be adding his name to the list of former Pistons just as soon as he can.

Here’s a division-by-division look at what’s making news around the association: