Detroit Pistons: The Luke Kennard trade has gotten a lot bigger

The Detroit Pistons traded third-year guard Luke Kennard on draft night, and further details were released by the team on Thursday evening.

The Detroit Pistons took wheeling and dealing to a whole new level on Wednesday’s draft night. Starting on Monday morning when they dealt guard Bruce Brown to the Brooklyn Nets, they unleashed a barrage of trade after trade for both minor and major parts of their roster.

The Pistons entered draft night with one first-round pick, and by the end of the night they had made three first-round picks and a second-round pick, as well as adding Trevor Ariza and Tony Bradley. Of course, there was a price to pay for all these transactions, and guard Luke Kennard was the biggest name involved.

He was traded during the middle of the first round for the 19th pick, which the team used on Villanova’s Saddiq Bey. Of course, as time goes on, especially when you’ve got a creative tradesman like Pistons’ new general manager Troy Weaver, more elements can be added to a deal.

It turns out that was very much the case with this transaction which has now spanned all the way back to Monday’s Bruce Brown trade. On Thursday night, the Pistons made the components of the deal official, although the LA Clippers and Brooklyn Nets have not yet followed suit as of the writing of this article.

Let’s break down the elements of the trade:

It’s worth noting that these are only the pieces of the deal that touch the Pistons, and the Clippers and Nets may have further transactions that don’t involve them. Case in point, the Pistons’ release did not include the trade of Landry Shamet to the Nets, which was part of the Kennard trade at the time. So we’re going to ignore those components and simply focus on what the Pistons release informs us of.

As of Wednesday night when the deal was announced, the Pistons were sending Kennard to the Clippers in exchange for the 19th pick and Rodney McGruder. What the official completion of the trade added to the mix was Justin Patton and those four second-round picks heading to the Clippers.

Patton was the first player Weaver signed when he became general manager during the NBA’s pre-bubble transaction window, so his departure is a good indication of what we’ve known for a couple days now: Everybody can be traded on this team.

The four second-round picks are more interesting. According to Andrew Greif, who covers the Clippers for the LA Times, the picks they will receive are the following: Portland’s 2023, and the Pistons’ 2024, 2025 and 2026 second-round picks.

This drastically depletes the Pistons’ stock of second-rounders, leaving them just the 2021 pick they got in the deal for Bruce Brown and the 2023 pick they received in exchange for Andre Drummond at the trade deadline, which is the less favorable of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors.

As things stand right now regarding evolving trade situations, the Pistons traded Khyri Thomas and Tony Snell to the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday afternoon in exchange for Dewayne Dedmon, who is expected to be traded as well.

Somebody send a round of coffees to Troy Weaver and his staff in the Detroit Pistons war room, because they’re going to need it.