The Detroit Pistons have the chance to begin a new era in the 2020 offseason. Let’s take a look at which pending free agents they should bring with them.
The Detroit Pistons have been buried under the weight of bad contracts for years now. Thanks to the sins of the Stan Van Gundy regime, they’re only now able to shrug off the crush of big money and big year deals. They traded Andre Drummond to the Cleveland Cavaliers and Reggie Jackson’s contract ran out after they bought him out, allowing him to join the LA Clippers.
The Pistons have a new general manager, Troy Weaver, and he’s the first person truly qualified to run an NBA team since Joe Dumars was considered one of the best executives in basketball in the mid-2000s. It’s been a long time since the Detroit Pistons have had a competent man at the top of the organization, and they’ve paid a deep price for that.
They still have Blake Griffin’s contract on the books, but for the first time since 2016, they have cap space and the flexibility to do something besides simply run out the clock on their bad contracts. It’s the closest thing they’ve had in a long time to the freedom to set their own course as a franchise, and Weaver’s decisions will be crucial in the process.
The first decisions he’ll have to make will be to assess which Piston free agents will be retained. Let’s take a look at the pending free agents and assign a “buy” or “sell” for each.
Note: This exercise assumes that Tony Snell will opt into his $11.5 million final year salary, which he absolutely will. We’ll also assume that Jordan Bone and Louis King will be retained under team control as restricted free agents with no market for their services outside of Detroit.