How the Detroit Pistons earned the bleakest future in the NBA

Even the worst teams offer slivers of hope for the future. Despite the losses that continue to pile up, the Detroit Pistons only find ways to sink deeper.

Travel back to April 24, 2016. The Detroit Pistons sulked off their homecourt, swept out of the playoffs by the eventual champion Cleveland Cavaliers.

What Detroit lacked in wins was made up for in a level of competitive fervor that bred hope for the future. Games 1 and 4 were decided by a total of seven points. Game 3 was only clinched by Cleveland in the final minute thanks to a deep corner triple by Kyrie Irving.

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All five Detroit starters averaged double-figures across the four games. Rookie Stanley Johnson, the reigning eighth overall pick, turned heads for his unwillingness to bow before The King.

Reggie Jackson blossomed as a full-time starting point guard during the regular season. Andre Drummond had been named a first-time All-Star. Tobias Harris proved to be a commendable acquisition after coming over from the Orlando Magic in February.

Their season was over, but the groundwork had been laid. Maybe not for a title contender, but for that which Detroit had been lacking since parting ways with the glory days of the 2000s: A perennial playoff team with room to grow.

Four years later and the Pistons have been worse than bad. They’ve been so frustratingly mediocre, really for the entirety of the last decade, that progress towards either end of the competitive spectrum has been non-existent.

After those encouraging 2016 playoffs, Detroit fell victim to the excess amount of cap space at their disposal, signing Drummond to a five-year, $130 million contract. And risk losing him for nothing, they had little choice but to acquiesce to the lofty figure when it came to re-signing their first All-Star since Allen Iverson in 2009 following their first playoff appearance in seven years.

As talented a rebounder as he is, however, that type of money is reserved for those capable of single-handedly moving the franchise needle, which Drummond never showed.

Jon Leuer had averaged 8.5 points per game with the Phoenix Suns and was promptly given $41 million over four years by the Pistons as team president Stan Van Gundy overestimated his ability to produce as a stretch-4.

To get anywhere worth going in the NBA, you need stars to help take you there. An offensively-limited center wouldn’t be enough. That much was proven when the Pistons failed to return to the playoffs in 2017, prompting the acquisition of Blake Griffin in January of 2018.

His name was a significant boost to the roster sheet, but Griffin hadn’t been an All-Star since 2015 and hadn’t played in more than 70 games since 2014.

That didn’t stop the LA Clippers from handing him a five-year, $173 million contract. A questionable sum Detroit happily absorbed in exchange for Tobias Harris, whose perimeter-based game is perhaps a smoother — and cheaper — fit alongside Drummond, and the 2018 first-rounder that netted LA Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Committing over $300 million for a relatively antiquated frontcourt is not a recipe for success at a time where lineup sizes are trending in the opposite direction.