2015-16 Finish: 17-65

Season Highlight:

Looking to the future. This team wasn’t built to win anything this season, so it’s hard to get too disheartened by the record. But it’s also easy to see that there are some pieces that are going to make it better. Winning the lottery was easily the peak of the year for the Pistons, especially in a draft where there was a consensus #1 pick. They also got another lottery-level talent in the draft while holding onto their 2017 pick (controversially) and also pulling in another likely-lottery pick in that draft. Ben Simmons is a guy you can build around and they just need to make sure they keep building.

Season Lowlight:

The past – pretty much all of it. GM Mavs4Life seems reenergized after being granted a second life by the ownership group but will look to build towards making the playoffs before the lottery streak gets too far over the 10 year mark. Detroit’s last playoff appearance occurred in 2008 – before most of their current players were in college, let alone the league, and it’s not like they almost made it… in none of those seasons did they crack the 40 win mark and several of them they were in the near-record-setting teens area. At one point last season, Patrick Patterson was easily the best player on their team and the rest of the starting lineup was just hoping to be on an NLL roster next season. It was bad in Detroit, it needs to get better.

Best Trade:

The Detroit Pistons send Paul Pierce to the Houston Rockets. The Houston Rockets send Tony Snell and JaKarr Sampson to the Detroit Pistons.

The Detroit Pistons send a 2nd-Rounder (NY) to the Houston Rockets. The Houston Rockets send a 2nd-Rounder (Por) to the Detroit Pistons.

Certainly not a blockbuster, but these are the kinds of small/subtle moves you have to achieve as a rebuilding team (trust me). Pierce wasn’t going to provide anything of value for the Pistons… best case, they would have a worse chance of landing Ben Simmons. They intelligently got good value in order to get him to the playoff-hopeful Houston Rockets. Snell is a good prospect, Sampson could possibly amount to something and they got an early-second as well.

Worst Trade:

(Part of a larger deal, clipped out the relevant pieces) The Boston Celtics send Pau Gasol and Shaun Livingston to the Detroit Pistons. The Detroit Pistons send Al Horford and DeJuan Blair to the Boston Celtics. The New Orleans Pelicans send Spencer Hawes to the Detroit Pistons.

The Detroit Pistons send a 1st-Rounder (Det) to the Boston Celtics.

For all of the good I said about holding onto/stock piling draft picks, this seemed to be a step in the wrong direction. This deal saw the Pistons send out one of their valuable future 1^st round picks in order to trade Horford for an older replacement in Gasol and add a couple of rotation players that are no longer with the team. I have to assume the logic at the time was that pairing Gasol with Bledsoe could have them strike playoff gold, but that obviously didn’t come to fruition. Let’s not forget, this is only 9 months after they mortgaged most of their young assets in order to bring Horford in as a franchise cornerstone.

Other Notable Trades:

The Detroit Pistons send Spencer Hawes to the Washington Wizards. The New York Knicks send Jameer Nelson to the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards send Joe Ingles to the Detroit Pistons. The Washington Wizards send J.J. Hickson to the New York Knicks.

The New York Knicks send a 2nd-Rounder (NY) and 2nd-Rounder (NY) to the Detroit Pistons.

The small amount of positive press the Pistons got for the Horfold deal (pulling in Hawes for depth) was undone here. The Pistons sent Hawes packing after a couple of months in exchange for a non-difference maker in Ingles and a couple of future late second round picks.

The Brooklyn Nets send Dante Cunningham and Avery Bradley to the Detroit Pistons. The Detroit Pistons send Eric Bledsoe to the Brooklyn Nets.

The Brooklyn Nets send a 1st-Rounder (NO) to the Detroit Pistons. The Detroit Pistons send a 1st-Rounder (Phi) to the Brooklyn Nets.

This one could REALLY go either way. Bledsoe was really the team’s only could-be star outside of Ben Simmons, and would likely be the only guy to make the on-court product look respectable in the next year or two. That said, he’s coming off of yet another major injury and the Pistons were able to get an under-appreciated ironman that isn’t foreign to the rebuilding process in Avery Bradley in addition to a likely-lottery pick in the next draft... and with it being unprotected, that could turn into another huge franchise building block. At worse, it’s a border-line allstar for a solid two-way player and a lottery pick. At best, it’s a first team all-defensive team player and a very high lottery pick in exchange for an injury burden. Time will tell…

A lot of other small/shuffling-type moves.

None of these were particularly direction-setting. Many of the deals seemed to zig-zag, trading youth for vets, then vets for youth and the like. The team feels like it is starting to head in a cohesive direction under the GM’s second tenure, so we’ll try not to belabour anything else here.

Best FA Signing:

Marcelo Huertas - Detroit struggled to fill the roster and meet the minimum salary, but one bright spot for them, was bringing in Marcelo Huertas to backup Eric Bledsoe. After Bledsoe went down, Huertas started more than half of the remaining games. He put up 6.6 points/game and 5.6 assists/game. The assists especially are impressive due to averaging only 23 minutes/game due to his early-season bench role and the lack of finishing ability of his teammates.


Worst FA Signing:

Anthony Tolliver - When you give a guy a non-minimum deal, you expect him to contribute. Tolliver was so lacklustre in his 15 appearances with the team, that he didn’t even make it to the trade deadline. He was brought in as a 3pt marksman and hit only 37% while also not contributing much else in his time on the floor.

Star:

Pau Gasol – This is awkward… Not really, but the top three choices for this spot (Gasol and former-teammates Eric Bledsoe and Joe Johnson) all spent only the first half of the season on the court with the Pistons. This obviously shines a lot of light into why they were able to position themselves to land Simmons. Nonetheless, Gasol probably played the best 2 months of his career with the Pistons, getting his scoring average back above 20 points/game to go along with an insane 14+ rebounds/game (somebody has to get them). He looked so great that a powerhouse Philly team agreed to multiple trades to bring him in for their championship pursuit.
 
Surprise:

Patrick Patterson - When the Pistons sent Shaun Livingston out for Patrick Patterson, it wasn’t met with much interest. Most felt like both the Bulls and Pistons were rotating bench players. Patterson continued on to put in easily the best season of his six-year career. He obviously had the ball more than the team should have asked him to handle, which hurt his efficiency. However, 12 ppg and 7 rpg along with an assist, steal, block and reasonable turnover numbers is very solid for how heavily the team expected him to step outside of his typical role.

Goat:

Eric Bledsoe – It’s certainly unfair to put this label on Bledsoe, who was making a strong push for his first-ever all-star appearance prior to a freak injury. That said, the Pistons seemed to be making a lot of moves in order to put players around Bledsoe and get fans excited about the current generation of Pistons. It was obviously for naught, but had Bledsoe stayed healthy, they could’ve earned several more wins and probably saved themselves firing their GM, tearing the franchise down, rehiring the same GM and moving forward from here.

Draft Report Card:

For most teams I wouldn’t be a big fan of trading down from #12 for a mix of late first and second round picks. However, the Pistons are desperately in need of depth and hope. Henry Ellenson was a guy that some teams had higher on their boards that late-lotto guys like Sabonis, Baldwin and Valentine… so it certainly could be said that the Pistons got way more for their money than just taking Ellenson where they were to begin with.

Simmons is obviously the main show here… He looks like the real deal and will get every single chance to prove it in his rookie year. If he doesn’t win rookie of the year it is either because he couldn’t shoulder the whole load or the Pistons were ugly enough that nobody cared to watch.

Kay Felder could be a sleeper pick in the second. He’s looking like he may actually have a role this season, which is more than you usually hope for from late-seconds. Hopefully this trio of rookies in addition to the other recent moves the Pistons made show that the GM is now on top of his game.

Looking to the Future:

I’m not going to say it’s bright… because it’s way too early to say that. It’s still pretty bleak, but there are positive sights to be seen. Avery Bradley is on a super-affordable contract and should be a guy that can fit in with whatever direction the Pistons go for the next couple of years. Simmons is the alpha and omega in Detroit right now… if he’s a superstar in the making, then this team looks like a team on the rise. If he’s Anothony Bennett Part II, then this team has a couple of guys that could start on other teams and a bunch of others that are trying to stay in the league. Hold onto those picks, be patient and try to find a couple of diamonds in the rough while you’re waiting… it will be a couple of years.

Upcoming Free Agents:

Joakim Noah – Noah is most likely gone, but usually you don’t trade for somebody as the centerpiece of a deal in February only to watch them walk away a few months later. Noah isn’t necessarily the direction the Pistons need to be headed in, but can they expect to do any better on the open market or standing pat and starting Splitter instead? The reputation of the GM may be killing them here, as the lack of respect veteran players have for him and the record last year may seal the deal – making Noah one of the more coveted players on the open market.

Chase Budinger – Budinger had a good run with the Pistons, starting an unbelievable 82 games in the last two seasons. Many around the league feel like he should stick with a team that he can get playing time with, but he looks like he’s got the ring-chaser look about him.

Kirk Hinrich – Kirk may be at the end of his run in the NLL, and even if he isn’t, he’s probably following Chase out the door to chase a ring somewhere else.

Darrell Arthur – If Noah was intended to be the mainstay of the deal that saw Joe Johnson leave the Pistons, Arthur may end up being the main takeaway. Arthur put up very meager numbers in his time with Detroit this last year. However, if the Pistons will match his high asking price, he looks more than happy to come back and collect that paycheck. The Pistons could use the proven-NBA talent of a guy like Arther, but the GM has a tough decision on his hands, as he opted out of his contract and is slotted to make more than 8 million this coming season.

Tyler Zeller -  This is another piece of that same deal. Also another piece that wants 8 million per year without enough skill to warrant much of a look for a starting spot. Between his fairly young age and that he’s willing to suit up for a rebuilding team, I think Tyler will be back in 2016-2017.

Jakar Sampson/Marcelo Huertas/Dewayne Dedmon ­– All of these guys are going to be training camp invitees that may or may not making the final cut. It’s hard to tell where they’re leaning, and they will have to fill the roster. However, with a few draftees incoming and a pile of money to spend in free agency, these guys may have to wait until late-November to find out their fate.