Examining Matthew Dellavedova’s fit with the Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons are in need of a point guard, and if guys like Seth Curry and Jordan Clarkson aren’t available, Matthew Dellavedova may be the play.

The Detroit Pistons are (say it with me now) in need of a point guard. There are players who the team may pursue in free agency like Seth Curry of the Sacramento Kings and Jordan Clarkson of the Los Angeles Lakers, but those guys are restricted free agents, meaning that their current teams have ultimate control of whether or not they stay or leave.

The teams of restricted free agents have the right to match any offer presented them by other teams, essentially limited by the tolerance the team in question has of the punitive luxury tax. That means that Curry and Clarkson will be difficult and expensive for teams like the Pistons to get their hands on.

In light of the fact that the Pistons would probably need to use most or all of the $16 million or so of cap space they have to get either of those players, Clarkson in particular. Given the prohibitive cost to the Pistons, it may rule out those top tier free agents. That brings us down a notch to guys like Brandon Jennings, D.J. Augustin, Jeremy Lin and Matthew Dellavedova.

All of these players have been covered by Piston Powered writers, including our own Justin Brouckaert who covered the Dellavedova possibility, but the Delly buzz is growing and Wednesday’s trade of Jodie Meeks to the Orlando Magic for the sake of cap relief has now provided the Pistons with about $21 million in cap space.

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According to Brian Windhorst on the Lowe Post podcast with Zach Lowe, Dellevadova (who is a restricted free agent) is expecting to command offer sheets from courting teams in the vicinity of $10 million annually. Scouts and officials from both the Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks attended playoff games, and Windhorst posited that Delly was the priority:

"“For some reason, and I got a pretty good idea why, the Milwaukee Bucks attended Cavs games in the playoffs like they were a fan of the team. They had scouts there, Jason Kidd came to one of the games. I think the Bucks have zeroed in on Dellavedova. I think they intend to offer him a bunch of money. The Detroit Pistons were hanging around in the playoffs a lot, sending scouts. They weren’t sending scouts to evaluate J.R. (Smith), I think they intend to go after Dellavedova.”"

The Cavaliers have a monstrous payroll, with $103.2 million already on the books, well over the 2016-17 salary cap of $94 million but under the luxury tax threshold of $113 million. With players like Timofey Mozgov, James Jones and Richard Jefferson (who now plans to not retire after all) also needing to be re-signed, do the Cavaliers want Dellavedova to be the guy who pushes them into the luxury tax?

Maybe not.

If the Cavs can be outbid for his services, the Pistons could surely use them. They had the worst bench production in the NBA last season, and a big part of that was the carousel of sadness that was the reserve point guard rotation of Steve Blake and Spencer Dinwiddie. The first trade of the offseason was the offloading of Dinwiddie to the Chicago Bulls for Cameron Bairstow and Steve Blake is now a free agent, leaving a vacuum at that vital position.

Dellavedova is not an offensive juggernaut, but he can shoot the three-pointer. That was a significant weakness for the Pistons last season, and shooting off the bench from a position that has the ball a great deal could be a huge bonus.

Delly averaged a mere 7.5 points per game, shooting 40.5 percent from the floor, but hit 41 percent from the three-point line. He takes decent care of the ball, turning it over just 2.2 times per 36 minutes, but that’s a bit misleading because often LeBron James ran the point when he was on the floor.

A more accurate representation is his turnover rate of 16.7 turnovers per 100 possessions, which is not actually all that great. That said, it’s miles better than Steve Blake’s turnover rate of 24.6. Some small silver lining there.

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The final configuration of this roster remains to be seen, as there really isn’t much of a primary scorer off the bench for the Pistons, but Delly might be a more than adequate reserve point guard. He’s not my favorite pick (that’s still Seth Curry), but there is merit in practicality and affordability where Matthew Dellavedova is concerned.