Luke Kennard’s extension casts the Detroit Pistons in a strange light

The LA Clippers extended Luke Kennard on Monday afternoon after acquiring him for what could generously be called a salary dump from the Detroit Pistons.

The Detroit Pistons made deals with plenty of teams around the NBA during the week of the draft and free agency. Among those teams was the LA Clippers, who acquired Luke Kennard and four unprotected second-round draft picks in exchange for Rodney McGruder and they received the 19th pick in the 2020 NBA draft, Saddiq Bey, from the Brooklyn Nets.

It was an expansive three-team deal with the Pistons also sending Bruce Brown to the Nets for Dzanan Musa and the Clippers sending Landry Shamet to the Nets. McGruder was originally planned to be stretched and waived so the Pistons could make their other free agency moves fit under the salary cap, but they ended up stretching Dewayne Dedmon’s contract instead, rendering McGruder’s original acquisition moot.

In the end, the Pistons sent out Kennard, Brown and four second-round picks in exchange for McGruder, Musa, a late 2021 second-round pick and the Saddiq Bey.

McGruder barely played in the preseason, Musa was waived on Sunday, and time will tell what Bey’s career will turn into. Luke Kennard, in particular, was treated as a preemptive salary dump in order to avoid having to pay him an extension. It seemed as though the 24-year-old’s knees were of such great concern after holding him out for the final two months of last season that the Pistons were willing to pay a premium to simply not have to deal with the potential problem anymore, and they were eager to get it done as quickly as possible.

It turns out the LA Clippers had no such concerns. On Monday afternoon, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Clippers had signed Kennard to a four-year extension worth $64 million.

So while the early assumptions were that Kennard’s knees were going to be such an issue that the Pistons were willing to throw a bunch of middling assets into a package to simply offload him, the Clippers have embraced the situation. Somehow they turned Landry Shamet and Rodney McGruder into their young combo guard of the future and got four second-round picks out of the deal to boot.

What does Luke Kennard’s extension say about the Detroit Pistons?

This speaks to the fascinating aggression with which new Pistons general manager Troy Weaver operates. The act of getting his guys, whoever they may be and for whatever reason their acquisition is paramount, reigns supreme. An overpay here or there to get a missing piece of the puzzle is part of doing business in the NBA, but overpaying as a tent-pole of your team-building philosophy is somewhere between reckless and madness.

With the Stan Van Gundy administration, the Detroit Pistons exercised poor judgment in plenty of their free agent signings, but they were shrewd in their maneuvers via the trade market and gained value in most of their deals. In the early days of Troy Weaver’s administration, there have been two principles on display thus far, and those are getting his guys at all costs, and sweeping out whoever his guys are not, even if that costs the Pistons as well.

Clearly, the Pistons had no interest in paying $16 million per season for Kennard, much as they had no intention of paying $14 million annually or more for Christian Wood.  However, getting nothing for either of them (especially since they had until the trade deadline to find something better for Kennard) is absolutely bizarre and a strike against this front office.

In the early days of Weaver’s time in Detroit, patience is warranted. Many deals are best judged in the long-view, with plenty of time to take shape. Mere weeks after so many big moves is too soon to take full stock of the situation. However, it’s not too soon to start getting the creeping feeling that something is badly amiss in the team-building strategy employed by the Detroit Pistons.