Official Detroit Pistons thread

[froot loops]

A guy like Chemiclord was screaming for them to tank. If you tank for 4-5 seasons straight and totally lose out in 3 of them, you are in danger of becoming what the Clippers were for 20 years. They didn't bone any of the draft picks when they were tanking. Cunningham, Ausar and Ivey were not reaches and Cunningham took another step this season.

The problem is when you bottom out to get more ping pong balls for 3 or more years you destroy any semblance of a team. If you take that gamble and lose, you are fucked. The team in October 2023 was much worse than the team they fielded in Cade's rookie year and that was by design. Now they are stuck until some picks start hitting. But everyone was on board for this. I don't think people realized how long these players take to develop if they develop into superstars.

[Whitley]

A guy like Chemiclord was screaming for them to tank. If you tank for 4-5 seasons straight and totally lose out in 3 of them, you are in danger of becoming what the Clippers were for 20 years. They didn't bone any of the draft picks when they were tanking. Cunningham, Ausar and Ivey were not reaches and Cunningham took another step this season.

The problem is when you bottom out to get more ping pong balls for 3 or more years you destroy any semblance of a team. If you take that gamble and lose, you are fucked. The team in October 2023 was much worse than the team they fielded in Cade's rookie year and that was by design. Now they are stuck until some picks start hitting. But everyone was on board for this. I don't think people realized how long these players take to develop if they develop into superstars.

i think there is talent on the team but it is a ways out. Right now there are two solid starters on the team (Cade and Tek) Everyone else can be improved on. The good news is if they keep the #5 pick they still have 50+ million in cap space. Since teams with restricted FAs only have 24 hours to match it mgiht make sense to give a big big offer to someone and see if they match it.

[whatever_gong82]

i think there is talent on the team but it is a ways out. Right now there are two solid starters on the team (Cade and Tek) Everyone else can be improved on. The good news is if they keep the #5 pick they still have 50+ million in cap space. Since teams with restricted FAs only have 24 hours to match it mgiht make sense to give a big big offer to someone and see if they match it.

Who wants to come here?

This isn't even the Going To Work Detroit Pistons team that got Antonio McDyess right after we won our last Championship, and he turned out to be a very solid Free Agency signing.

If Rasheed didn't leave Robert Horry open in Game 5 back in '05, McDyess would've gotten a Ring as well.

We've already stated at how terrible Weaver is at his job, and the total dysfunction that starts at the top of the Franchise.

I wished that Sheila Ford Hamp had the money to buy the team right out from Gores because right now, I don't even want to listen or watch a game while he's the Owner.

[chemiclord]

A guy like Chemiclord was screaming for them to tank. If you tank for 4-5 seasons straight and totally lose out in 3 of them, you are in danger of becoming what the Clippers were for 20 years. They didn't bone any of the draft picks when they were tanking. Cunningham, Ausar and Ivey were not reaches and Cunningham took another step this season.

The problem is when you bottom out to get more ping pong balls for 3 or more years you destroy any semblance of a team. If you take that gamble and lose, you are fucked. The team in October 2023 was much worse than the team they fielded in Cade's rookie year and that was by design. Now they are stuck until some picks start hitting. But everyone was on board for this. I don't think people realized how long these players take to develop if they develop into superstars.

I said tanking was the only way out for most teams in NBA purgatory. That was, and is, still very true. If you don't have the draw in FA, the only way you're going to get the impact superstar you need is through the draft.

It shouldn't take you 5 years playing the lottery to find the talent you need. Those aren't mutually exclusive statements. I'm not sure what gotcha you think that is, but it ain't, chief.

[froot loops]

When you tank, even if it is for 5 straight years, there's no guarantee you get anything that will get you out of the the shit are in. Just look at the drafts they have had since Cade. There wasn't an obvious miss on either Ivey or Thompson, but the problem is those were 5th picks. If they didn't get boned in the lottery they might have had a Chet, Paulo or Brandon Miller,.let alone Wemby and things would look a whole lot better. They definitely missed on Hayes over Haliburton, but wasn't the obvious miss people talk like it was. You are a welcome to go through the last 5 years and find the combination they should have done, but I don't think it's all that different.

In essence, they have traded a 28-30 win team with a 7-8th pick for consistently the worst team in the league with the 5th pick.

[froot loops]

Who wants to come here?

This isn't even the Going To Work Detroit Pistons team that got Antonio McDyess right after we won our last Championship, and he turned out to be a very solid Free Agency signing.

If Rasheed didn't leave Robert Horry open in Game 5 back in '05, McDyess would've gotten a Ring as well.

We've already stated at how terrible Weaver is at his job, and the total dysfunction that starts at the top of the Franchise.

I wished that Sheila Ford Hamp had the money to buy the team right out from Gores because right now, I don't even want to listen or watch a game while he's the Owner.

Players like money and the Pistons have a lot to spend. It's unlikely a game changer moves in free agency and more unlikely that they move to the Pistons but players move today less in free agency and more by trades. The biggest complaint I've had with Weaver is he has helped facilitate other teams moves by taking on bad contracts for nothing more than a couple second round picks. Jalen Brunson is a Knick because they took on the contract of Noel and Burks for a measly second rounder. Last year he did the same for Joe Harris for a measly second rounder. It's not very creative.

They might be able to get a decent player, people keep on mentioning Tobias Harris, but he appeared to be washed up this playoffs.

Weaver sucks, but this process of tanking might take another 5 years, they are at the mercy of ping pong balls. This latest outrage is bad but this draft is blah.

[El Axe]

Weaver has been poor to bad at trading. He consistently fails to maximize value in the deals he makes and the trade to get the Stewart pick has been epically terrible in that it's handcuffed the franchise for nearly a decade. His draft picks have been mediocre (anyone could have picked Cunningham). His "strength" of evaluating talent hasn't panned out in any meaningful way.

This year was my first year in over 40 years that I did not follow the NBA. The Pistons are broken and the NBA's system isn't working for them. They are the modern Clippers, but unlike that corrupt franchise, they don't deserve this karma.

[froot loops]

I don't mind the Stewart trade handcuffing the ability to trade because I don't think they should be trading further 1st round picks. I don't like Weaver and think he should be gone but the problem is bigger than him. When you go through something like The Process the problem is you gut your team so you don't win games so you increase the ping pong balls. The end result is you have a team designed to lose, it's very hard to win after 3 or 4 years of that.. Everyone was on board for this. I'm not even sure they weren't tanking last year even though Weaver said they were going to be competitive. The coach managed the team like a team trying to tank and last year's off season looked like a team trying to tank.

The end result of all of this is they have Cade, 3 young guys who have shown flashes and the third straight #5 pick. Good luck with that.

[whatever_gong82]

Players like money and the Pistons have a lot to spend. It's unlikely a game changer moves in free agency and more unlikely that they move to the Pistons but players move today less in free agency and more by trades. The biggest complaint I've had with Weaver is he has helped facilitate other teams moves by taking on bad contracts for nothing more than a couple second round picks. Jalen Brunson is a Knick because they took on the contract of Noel and Burks for a measly second rounder. Last year he did the same for Joe Harris for a measly second rounder. It's not very creative.

They might be able to get a decent player, people keep on mentioning Tobias Harris, but he appeared to be washed up this playoffs.

Weaver sucks, but this process of tanking might take another 5 years, they are at the mercy of ping pong balls. This latest outrage is bad but this draft is blah.

We both agree: Troy Weaver needs to be gone ASAP.

The problem is that Tom Gores is still allowing him to make draft selections, and that scares me just as much as when Al Avila (Tigers) or Matt Millen (Lions) were making draft picks in their respective sports. On top of that, the management system with the Detroit Pistons is totally awful. Who's in charge when Gores allows someone to make a decision?

And Gores himself is in the running for the logical replacement for William Clay Ford Sr., and we all remember how terrible he was at running the Detroit Lions.

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Pistons’ president of basketball operations search: The latest we’re hearing

By James L. Edwards III and Shams Charania
2h ago


CHICAGO — The Detroit Pistons could come to a hiring decision on their president of basketball operations within the next few weeks, league sources tell The Athletic.

Whomever the Pistons tab for the position won’t have the benefit of a top-three pick at their disposal, as the organization fell to No. 5 for the third straight year during Sunday’s NBA Lottery, but even so, Detroit has been speaking to some promising candidates to fill the role, which has been vacant since 2018.

Part of the hold up, league sources say, is that Detroit appears interested in making a run at Minnesota Timberwolves head executive Tim Connelly, whose team is currently in the midst of a second-round playoff matchup with Connelly’s former team, the defending-champion Denver Nuggets.


Whether or not Connelly returns to the Timberwolves, league sources say he is likely to opt out of the final year of his contract. It seems likely that Connelly will return to Minnesota, but if Pistons owner Tom Gores is willing to offer something like $15 million annually, that could be enough to pry him away.

The Pistons were denied permission to interview Milwaukee’s Jon Horst last week, league and team sources tell The Athletic. It is possible that the Bucks were posturing to get assets from Detroit in order to take Horst, who signed a multi-year deal with Milwaukee in 2021. However, the Pistons have decided to move on to other candidates.


New Orleans’ Trajan Langdon, Dallas’ Dennis Lindsey and Chicago’s Marc Eversley, among others, have established themselves as viable targets for the role, league sources tell The Athletic.

Langdon was a scout for the San Antonio Spurs from 2012-15 before becoming the assistant general manager of the Brooklyn Nets in 2016. He held that role through 2019 until he became the general manager of the New Orleans Pelicans, where he has helped build the Pelicans into one of the more intriguing young teams.


Lindsey is currently in an advisory role with the Dallas Mavericks. Lindsey held several roles with the Utah Jazz from 2012 to 2021 including general manager and executive vice president of basketball operations.

Eversley, the current general manager of the Chicago Bulls, was on the Pistons’ radar in 2020 before hiring general manager Troy Weaver. He has worked in NBA front offices for over 15 years, including stops in Toronto, Washington and Philadelphia before taking on his largest positions in Chicago.


Could the No. 5 pick be more valuable than originally thought?


The Pistons dropped as far as possible in one of the weaker draft classes in recent memory. However, because of the jumble of prospects at the top, could the No. 5 pick be a little more valuable than originally thought?


In talking to people around the league prior to the NBA Lottery, it was believed that the No. 5 pick in this draft would be equivalent to the ninth through 12th pick in a normal class. While that feels right, it should be noted that because there aren’t clear-cut prospect tiers this time around that teams could covet the fifth pick over, say, the second or third pick. Of course, that is working under the assumption that there will be a few teams with interest in moving up. In talking to people around the league after the Pistons’ fate was revealed, a few of them said they could see the No. 5 pick being decently valued if teams do, in fact, like a prospect or two enough to move up.


Let me explain.

There is a world where front office and evaluators see the prospects expected to go in the top five or seven all in the same tier or with very little separation. The difference in rookie pay between the No. 1 and No. 2 picks vs. the No. 5 pick is pretty significant. For example, 2023 No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama will make between $12 million and $16 million annually for the remainder of his rookie deal. No. 2 pick Scoot Henderson made $9.7 million his first year and will make between $10 and $13 million yearly from next season on. Ausar Thompson, who the Pistons took at No. 5 in 2023, made $7.9 million this past season and will make between $8.3 million and $11.1 million annually during the duration of his rookie deal. So, there is a difference of a few million dollars when examining the difference in rookie contracts based on where they’re picked.


It wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that a team that wants to move up believes it could get the best player in the 2024 NBA Draft at No. 5 instead of No. 2 or No. 3 — and maybe even No. 1 — while saving money in the process.

Just something to chew on.

[froot loops]

We don't know that Weaver is making draft decisions. If they actually hired Tim Connelly, I can guarantee you Weaver is not making any decisions of note. But again one of the issues is are they committed to actually getting better or are they looking to tank for next season, which is supposed to be a season you tank for. This is the problem with commiting to tanking. You can be really bad and its unclear when you are supposed to get off the carousel.

[chemiclord]

If the GM doesn't know when to get off the carousel, then the GM is the problem.

They SHOULD have gotten off the ride when they landed #1 and the rights to draft Cade. Once that happens, once you win the lottery, you start building around that guy.

If Cade wasn't the guy, they shouldn't have been tanking. If he IS the guy, then they shouldn't have been angling for another bite of the apple.

[froot loops]

So in your mind you only tank when the player in hindsight is a generational player? Back in the days where you were complaining that they weren't tanking it was irrespective of the incoming players. In your words they just needed to blow it up no matter who was in the draft.

If you thought Cade Cunningham wasn't the guy, would you have argued they should keep on competing for the 30 wins and only blow it up when Wemby was in the draft?

[chemiclord]

If they thought Cade was their guy, then they should have built around him. This isn't hard to grasp despite your willful obtuseness.

It's a gamble. The draft always is. But the question remains "Is Cade their guy?" If yes, they should have built around him. If no, they should have moved on by now.

And I'm still waiting to hear your genius idea out of purgatory that no other team in the NBA has figured out yet.

[froot loops]

I'm not being obtuse, absolutely nobody said anything when they continued to tank after they drafted Cade including you. When you blow it up to collect ping pong balls, this is what you get. You say build around him, but it's not that easy when the only assets you have are potential high draft picks. Nobody objected when they traded Jerami Grant to draft Jalen Duren. This is the problem with tanking, you get.in a vicious cycle where you are talking about moving on from Cade Cunningham and that might ensure this conversation goes on for another 5 years

We have no idea if Cade Cunningham is going to be the guy, he's too young and there is nothing around him because they blew it up. But he is the best player they have and it isn't close. But there is nobody in the league who can do it all by themselves.