Pistons: Sekou Doumbouya trade completes Troy Weaver’s roster turnover

Since hiring Troy Weaver as general manager, the Detroit Pistons have been all about righting the wrongs of previous regimes and paying off their bad gambles.

The most recent instance of this comes in the form of Sekou Doumbouya who was traded on Friday afternoon along with Jahlil Okafor to the Brooklyn Nets. Doumbouya was the 15th overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft, one led by senior adviser Ed Stefanski who acted as de facto general manager for the Pistons in what was, at the time, a most peculiar front office organization.

Detroit Pistons general manager Troy Weaver has fully turned over the team’s roster in under 10 months after trading Sekou Doumbouya to the Brooklyn Nets.

Doumbouya was the longest-tenured Piston on the roster coming into the offseason, and considering the scorched-earth trading/waiving campaign Weaver has been on to replace anybody he didn’t bring in himself, it wasn’t hard to see the writing on the wall. Especially considering the fact that he hasn’t really wowed anybody in his time in Detroit, outside of a handful of games sprinkled here and there, he was essentially on borrowed time until Weaver could find a deal.

That deal materialized with the Nets, and it looks like this:

The Pistons plan on buying Jordan out of his contract which has $19.8 million remaining over the next two seasons. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Jordan will give back about $4 million of the remainder of his contract. They also worked their way out of a roster crunch, so instead of having one player too many, they have one open spot going into training camp.

The Pistons will also re-stock their depleted war chest of second-round picks. They’re not worth much, but they’re not worth nothing either.

Brooklyn will save $47 million worth of salary and luxury tax dues as a result of this deal, and they get to bolster their depth with yet another young Detroit Piston. One of Weaver’s first moves last offseason was to trade Bruce Brown to the Nets in what became a sprawling, multi-team deal taking several days to fully consummate, and Doumbouya will be joining his former teammate.

Blake Griffin is another former Detroit Piston on the Nets roster, although he chose the Nets from a host of interested contenders last season after the Pistons bought him out in order to accelerate their rebuild.

Doumbouya was a raw project when he was drafted, and selecting him at 15 was a no-brainer thanks to the upside he displayed. Sometimes gambles don’t pay off, though, and there are gambles that may pay off but don’t pay off as quickly as you want or need. Weaver decided that he wasn’t seeing what he wanted from Doumbouya and decided to solve the roster crunch thusly.

In his two years in Detroit, he averaged 5.6 points per game and his numbers regressed across the board from his rookie season. There were flashes, but not enough to justify his continued presence with the Pistons in Weaver’s estimation.

With Doumbouya gone, now Killian Hayes is the longest-tenured Piston. Hayes was the team’s first-round draft pick, meaning a player who wasn’t even officially in the NBA until mid-November last season is their elder statesman. The roster turnover in Detroit has been momentous and is now complete.