Detroit Pistons: 3 takeaways from 2019 NBA offseason
1. They don’t plan to commit to tanking
The Detroit Pistons have steadily begun purging their books over the past year or so. Jon Leuer was traded away to the Bucks in exchange for draft compensation and Tony Snell. Ish Smith‘s expensive cap hold is off the books and they’re working to get rid of those bad contracts.
The problem though is they’re not ever going to commit to tanking. As they have for the last decade, they continue to fight to remain relevant every offseason.
Detroit is not the biggest free-agent destination, but they still managed to lure two decent free agents there. Then they added Frazier to give them some more depth in the backcourt. However, none of those pieces are long-term plays.
Rose and Morris both only got two-year deals and Frazier’s is just a one-year deal. The commitment is to remain relevant, but they can’t figure out how to push past that.
They traded away a lot of assets for Griffin in a bid to move into the realm of contenders near the top of the Eastern Conference. That didn’t work as planned because they don’t have a roster around him that allows them to compete against the conference’s best teams.
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With the moves they made this year, they chose to play it safe to remain in the hunt. The faces in charge may change, but the plan of action continues to remain the same.