Another year, another failed season. The Detroit Pistons need to figure out who they are.
How’d the Detroit Pistons end up here?
We were talking about postseason aspirations before the season began. Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond, and Derrick Rose were supposed to be a formidable trio.
Yet, the Pistons are yet again competing for lottery balls rather than playoff seeding. They are 20-43 and it just keeps getting worse.
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Blake Griffin has missed a huge amount of time with yet another injury. Luke Kennard went down in December. Reggie Jackson and Markieff Morris were bought out. Derrick Rose, perhaps the only bright spot on this season, recently was put on the injured list.
Beyond all that, the bigger move was moving Drummond to the Cleveland Cavaliers for essentially a bag of beans. His game might not fit the modern NBA, but Drummond leads the league in rebounding despite the Pistons being the second-worst rebounding team. The front office moved him off the books like it was nothing.
With the whole team blown up and we still have another month left in the season, the Detroit Pistons just seem lost.
If we look ahead to next year, they are at an ultimate fork in the road. It is fair to put pieces around Griffin and Rose, but the oft-injured duo would make fans hold their breath every time they went to the basket. What would be the pitch to free agents? That you’ll have the chance to go to the playoffs just as long as our two stars who are unfortunately always injured avoid injury? Unlikely.
If they decide to blow the whole roster up, then what do the young fellas look like? Well, Christian Wood and Sviatoslav Myhailiuk have contributed so far this season. Bruce Brown, Tony Snell, and Langston Galloway have been important pieces as well, but are any of these guys building blocks? Even if you try and package them in some sort of trade, what would the Pistons get in return if the best they could get for Drummond was a second-round draft pick and salary dumped contracts?
This is not to say that the Pistons have done everything wrong. Dwane Casey was a sound hiring choice as their head coach, but his defense-first mindset has not translated as they are 21st in the league defensive rating.
So if you are particularly good on either side of the ball, do not have the draft capital to make moves, not really a free agent destination, and not a trade savvy front office then what are you?
This franchise is not used to this level of losing. From the Bad Boys era to the early 2000s, the Palace of Auburn Hills was always the place to be. Opposing teams went in there knowing it’d be war. We don’t see that with the current Detroit Pistons and we might not for a long time.