Detroit Pistons: 3 players who are already expendable

The Detroit Pistons’ roster appears to be complete going into the 2018-19 season, but that doesn’t mean every player’s job is safe.

For a team that entered the 2018 NBA offseason without a lot of money to spend in free agency, without a first round draft pick, and without a head coach or general manager in place, the Detroit Pistons have done a commendable job this summer.

Pistons owner Tom Gores fired coach/president Stan Van Gundy in May, following SVG’s third sub-.500 record in four seasons running the show in Detroit. Ed Stefanski was brought in as a front office adviser and has essentially performed the job of GM, while Dwane Casey was hired as head coach about two weeks before he won the league’s 2017-18 Coach of the Year award for his accomplishments with the Toronto Raptors.

The new leadership group proceeded to fill out the Pistons’ roster with a respectable collection of promising youth and experienced role players, while coming within a Happy Meal of the league’s luxury tax limit.

The Pistons’ roster is now filled out with 15 full-time players under contract and two who are on two-way deals.

That doesn’t mean management is done making moves, however.

Any NBA player can be traded or let go, but some are obviously more likely to be dealt or cut than others. Not counting the two-way players — who are by definition always on the roster bubble — here are three expendable Pistons who may not know the feeling of job security until after the February 2019 trade deadline has passed.