Detroit Pistons: Ramifications of trading Blake Griffin

The Detroit Pistons are going nowhere in the weaker Eastern Conference and their best trade chip is Blake Griffin to help rebuild the franchise.

At just 6-13, the Detroit Pistons have had an awful start to the year. Their starting point guard, Reggie Jackson has played two games and there is a question mark as to his return. Worse for the Pistons is that Blake Griffin has been out of action for most of the young season, only playing a possible seven games so far.

This has led to the Pistons, a playoff team from last season, being down the bottom of the Eastern Conference.

This from a franchise who played in six straight Eastern Conference finals since the turn of the century, winning a title back in the 2003-04 season. This fan base is used to winning, especially if you look back to the Bad Boys days as well.

Unfortunately, as stated above, they are not winning, and have not for a while. They need to bring fresh talent into the Motor City and by far the player with the highest trade value is Blake Griffin. He is a 6’10” power forward with a career 21.8 per game scoring average

Griffin can beat you on the drive as well as now from beyond the arc, making him an incredible inside presence and outside threat. Griffin has also collected 8.9 rebounds per game over his career and can distribute the basketball better than most positional contemporaries.

Part of the reason trading Griffin would not be the end of the world for the Pistons is the presence of starting-caliber power forward Markieff Morris and backup in the forms of Christian Wood and Thon Maker.

Wood is a one-dimensional effort player while Maker is a floor-spacing stretch-5. If the Pistons play it smart in the trade, they should get another solid forward, but they mainly need to be searching for a point guard to share the ball-handling duties with Derrick Rose.

The problem is that Blake Griffin is not going to lead the Detroit Pistons to the promised land. His body has not held up to a full season or at least 80 games since 2013-14 with just a single 70-game campaign in that stretch as well. He is injury prone and has never experienced deep playoff basketball, even when he had Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan.

The other damning number for Griffin, when it comes to what are the ramifications of a trade is that the Pistons have a 4-7 record without him this season. It is 2-5 with him in uniform. They have a worse win/loss record when he is off the court as to when he is playing.

It will be a good thing that the Pistons can shed the next three years of Griffin’s contract. This will mean that next year the Pistons will only have $66 million in guaranteed contracts for next year, giving them plenty of room to sign some quality.

The Pistons reached their ceiling last season when they claimed the eighth seed in the east. This squad is not going to get much better than that despite the addition of Derrick Rose in the off-season.

It is time to let some of the younger guys experience as Wood, Maker, Jackson, Langston Galloway and Tim Frazier are all off-contract next season. This will give the coaching staff some good in-game analysis of their talent and fit.

Trading Griffin may leave the Pistons a little worse off this season. However, the benefits far outweigh the potential ramifications of trading Griffin.