The 5 worst free agent signings in Detroit Pistons history
By Corey Rausch
The Detroit Pistons have some pretty famous free agency missteps but which were the worst? We’ll rank the five worst signings in team history.
Free agency has not been kind to the Detroit Pistons. As a small market they often struggle to lure in the top free agents, instead having to build through the draft and the trade market. That being said there have been some disastrous dalliances into using their money to try to swing for the fences in recent memory. Fans will rightly credit much of the mediocrity over the last 10+ years to poor spending when the chance presented itself.
So why look back at these tough times? Well, the Pistons are entering a free agency period this offseason with a decent amount of cap space. All signs point to the Pistons using that space on young players or on trades but that does not mean it is not instructive to look at the past in an attempt to not repeat it.
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Some of these players played well for the Pistons and it is more an issue of contract than play. Others are the players we joke about to this day as a way to laugh to keep us from crying. The scope of this is limited to the last 15 years. This is partly because that is the time I have the most frame of reference but it is honestly more than that.
Free agency was a rather limited venture before that and there were not many, if any, crippling free agency moves before the Goin’ to Work days.