Comments on: Zach Lowe: Detroit enters offseason with ‘more certainty about what it needs’

By: Illest

Illest — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:43:17 +0000

I don’t understand any of ya’ll, getting Josh Smith should be plan A, B, and C; while at the same time getting rid of Charlie V, Maxiell, Bynum, and Calderon; why anyone would want to bring back losers is beyond me.

By: Huddy

Huddy — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:44:27 +0000

GM’s don’t clear their rosters at a position to make room for a rookie number 15 pick in the hopes that they will be the starter of the future, no GM would have done that for Daye because his talent doesn’t warrant that for the exact same reason it didn’t warrant 14 other teams drafting him before us. There are plenty of top 5 picks that ride the bench and slowly work their way in. He was not misused he was simply not as good as Tayshaun and too skinny to be a real PF option. He generally got about 15 min a game and didn’t do anything with it thats probably why Memphis is giving him about 10 min a game and he continues to not do anything with it. Detroit is starting an relying on Monroe and has since he came to the team, they handed the starting PG role to rookie knight he didnt work out and now he is starting at SG, Stuckey has been given chances for years and not worked out (hes the perfect example of why sometimes it makes sense to give up on a player before you resign him to a bigger contract), I think Drummond should have started this year but he will next year, Singler has been given a starting opportunity. How are the pistons not giving young guys opportunities? we just don’t have the talent.

The reason I suggest we could catch up in growth is because this is the first time we have had the flexibility to make changes because of all of our cap space for years. The slow growth that you point to is a pistons team adding a rookie each year and waiting for them to develop and I am simply saying that this summer we have a chance to add a rookie AND make a lot more moves that would change our rate of growth and a much bigger way than anything we have done for the last few years. Houston is obviously starting from a different place than Detroit since they have only dipped below .500 once in like 10 years. We were supremely set back by the CV BG signings and have been locked in to those contracts for years with our hands tied in many ways because they preformed so bad that we could not event get good trade value for them. The fact about why Houston is becoming a playoff threat this year is that they signed Harden and they did that via trade, but a trade that they could complete because they had the space to pay him what his current team wouldn’t. In other words they added an impact player to become who they are today, which is exactly what the pistons have the capability to do now.

By: G

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:14:04 +0000

Mediocre players would be an improvement on what we have. Who’s our 5th best player? Monroe, Calderon, Drummond, Knight… is it Singler? Jerebko? Bynum?

By: G

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:10:20 +0000

LAWSON! He passed on Lawson to draft Daye. Don’t ever forget that. And here we are, something like 4 years later, still without a PG of the future.

By: G

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:06:01 +0000

Millsap doesn’t shoot outside hardly at all. Having him, Drummond and Monroe in the game at the same time would completely clog the lane, & 2 guys could effectively guard all 3. Not good offense.

Drummond’s growth would be slowed by playing reduced minutes & by not playing with the starters, obviously.

There are 2 types of players you target in FA: guys that raise the bar & guys that plug holes. The Pistons have a lot of holes. Instead of getting a “raise the bar” guy at a position of strength (creating redundancy), get a solid wing player or spend your money plugging holes. THEN you can get a raise the bar guy next year, when you also have a lot of $ coming off the cap.

One thing that’s important to remember is YOU DON’T HAVE TO SPEND ALL YOUR CAP SPACE. Monroe’s contract runs out next year and there is a better FA market. Plus, cap space enables you to take on salary in a mid-season trade.

By: Tino

Tino — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:05:45 +0000

The Pistons have two players in Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond who are a formidable duo that can potentially anchor the type of hard-nosed defensive-minded team that I believe would be the ideal model to become a force in the NBA.

This offseason I believe the best way to improve the team has to be to sign 1 or 2 players who fit harmoniously in sort of a ‘meat and two vegetable’ dynamic. Of the players entering into free agency this summer here are the ones I find could help the team in few different scenarios:

-CP3
-Darren Collison
-Andre Iguodala
-Josh Smith
-Paul Millsap (sort of)

Plan A- Try to get CP3. Kind of like Kobe a few years ago. The Heat are the team to beat in the East by far. Maybe he notices that of the 7 teams that have beaten the Heat in the Eastern Conference 4 have size along with depth in the front court, one of those teams being the Pistons. Suppose we get Victor Oladipo or Otto Porter, and either trade (in the case of Oladipo) or keep (in the case of Porter) Knight and or Stuckey for ANY SF that can shoot. The Pistons lineup would be Paul/Oladipo/(Any SF i.e. Trevor Ariza, Danny Green, Caron Butler etc.)/Jerebko(can play away from the basket)/Drummond. Jerebko and Monroe would be a PF 1a/1b type thing with Monroe being utilized more in matchups when the Pistons want to dictate strongly to the post instead of spacing and creating. That would leave us with the ability to get the Pistons an 8th seed at the least where we could knock off the Heat leaving the playoffs up for grabs.

Plan B- Jose Calderon and Darren Collison are a toss up to me. Collison has been dissappointing this season and I do not expect he could get any better then Mike Conley money, about $8 million a year which is also how much Calderon could be looking for. Whoever the Pistons go with might be determined by how well Calderon can play with Drummond when he gets back from his injury. Next, sign Josh Smith. He is in his prime, he is a gifted shot blocker and versatile scorer. That is enough for me. There has to be a fairly simple way that starting Calderon/Knight/Smith/Monroe/Drummond can win basketball games and since winning solves all problems Josh Smith should not be one. But if we choose not to go down that road, there is always plan C.

Plan C- Same as Plan B only instead of Josh Smith, get Andre Iguodala. I happen to be on #TeamIggysDeclining but if he can play good defense he won’t have to do much if his declining skills are offset by the improving skills of Monroe and Drummond and we are winning, I won’t mind if his paycheck is All-Star level but his play is not quite there (like Kevin Garnett).

By: tarsier

tarsier — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:30:59 +0000

In what basis do you say Drummond’s growth would be slowed coming off the bench? Do you have any evidence that one factor in development is starting rather than minutes played? And yes, Millsap is not primarily a 3, but are you honestly saying you don’t believe he could effectively play the position for 12 minutes per game?

Hickson, Speights, and Landry are not quality big men. Their function is to sponge minutes without hurting a team too much. Millsap would actually help the team.

More to the point, if you just want to have a bunch of cheap guys, what do you want to do with cap space? Do you just want to use it to pointlessly have serviceable players 15 deep? It only has value if used. It doesn’t have to be used in FA, but that is where it is a lot easier to find value than in the regular season when teams are increasingly unwilling to part with picks just to shed salary.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:41:05 +0000

“We could easily be a comparable team by next year.”
i guess. sure, anything is possible. if i started buying lottery tickets i could possibly win the lottery.
facts: detroit’s record over the last few years has been sub-500, including a 23-39 record this year.
houston has had pretty decent records -considering they are rebuilding/retooling, also – and this year they have a 33-28 record. the facts indicate their strategy is working better than detroit’s.
you can paint and/or imagine all sorts of scenarios that suggest future success for detroit, but facts are facts. it aint happening now.
regarding lin, houston is in a strong position if they move lin or if they keep him. if they keep him it probably means he’s turned into the player they thought he could be. if they trade him, they will only have invested 10 million over 2 seasons in salary, plus whatever hit they take that third year.
and if they want, they can trade him.
atlanta could have traded smith, if they wanted to. they decided not to take one of a couple of proposed trades – milwaukee was a potential partner, but they would not throw in a first round draft choice, supposedly and that killed the deal -and they will make use of the cap space.
now, i am not sure that is the route i would take, but it is a reasonable choice.
not sure how you make a connection between the pistons calderone trade and possibly moving lin two years from now.
the pistons have repeatedly said that they want to resign calderone, so the trade was not about getting cap space. and daye is a young guy that the team had yet to really find out about – imho – and that is not where lin will be in 2 years.
unlike detroit, which has consistently refused to clear roster space – and PT – for young guys – unless their names were stuckey and knight – houston, within 8 days, traded a young veteran guy – lowrey – let another young vet walk – dragic – and basically gave lin the ball and said the PG spot is yours to lose. he will have every opportunity to prove that he can play or that he cannot play. whatever you say about daye, no one can make the argument that he was given that type of opportunity. if a team is truly rebuilding, that is what you have to do in order to move on and give your young guys a real chance.
that is something detroit has routinely refused to do.

By: City of Klompton

City of Klompton — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:07:31 +0000

The draft is pretty much a crap-shoot outside of the first few picks. I’d love to see a “batting average” for GMs when it comes to the draft. I’d be willing to bet Joe’s would be somewhere near the top. As for everything else you said, that is all definitely true. He has an incredibly bad habit of overvaluing “his” guys. I was actually stunned when he shipped out Afflalo.

However, he did draft every one of those guys. Whether he kept them or not, he should still get the credit for drafting these guys. He missed a bit on the Daye pick, and there were some quality players chosen after him, but none of them really fit team needs as much.

When looking at most of the picks and evaluating them based on where they were in the pecking order, you’ve got to give Joe props.

Drummond, Knight (I’ll give you credit, the jury is still out here), Singler, Monroe, Jerebko, Stuckey, Afflalo, Maxiell, Johnson, Delfino, Prince, Okur… considering where these guys were picked, they have all been pretty quality.

By: City of Klompton

City of Klompton — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:51:23 +0000

“And his strong suit was not flipping assets. It was getting a pair of stars on MLE sized contracts. And drafting late.”

What is wrong with that? He tends to flip bad assets or leaving assets into real assets. Am I the only one who seems to remember Joe flipping several “failed projects” for draft picks that panned out. Am I also the only one who seems to remember the only big piece we signed from the 2000′s teams was Chauncey? The rest came from trades (with the exception of Tay, whom we drafted.) Rip came from a trade for Stackhouse. Ben came from Orlando via the Grant Hill trade. We obviously remember where Sheed came from. How is this not flipping assets?

He took Stack, who was getting older and older and more of a ball-hog in the process, for a young, up and coming RIp. He traded Grant “I’m peacing out of here whether you like it or not” Hill for Chucky and Ben. That’s a nice flip if you ask me. An aging ball-hog and a superstar who was leaving regardless of scenario turned into a super-conditioned mid-range sniper and one of the greatest defenders of the 2000′s.