How will the Detroit Pistons attack free agency?

The free agency madness begins tonight at midnight. After the Detroit Pistons traded Jodie Meeks to free up $6-plus million in cap space, they have around $21 million to work with this offseason. What will their plan of attack be?

We know that the Detroit Pistons are looking for a backup point guard. We know that Stan Van Gundy said last week that the team will be going after two more big men. But now we know that the Pistons are trying to get a meeting with Al Horford as well.

Via Zach Lowe of ESPN.com:

"“The Hawks are reluctant to offer Horford the fifth year only they can dangle, and if they hold firm, they are at grave risk of losing him for nothing, per league sources. (Watch out for the Pistons on Horford; with Wednesday’s trade of Meeks, they are one tiny move away from being able to fit his max. They are working to schedule a meeting with Horford over the first 48 hours of free agency, sources say. Horford’s fit alongside Andre Drummond is another question entirely.”"

Curious. Whatever happens, we can certainly say that free agency just got a little more interesting for Detroit. We can also say with certainty that — regardless of whether or not Horford would actually sign with the Pistons — the team will still need a backup point guard.

Yesterday, Nate Duncan charted a list of the free agent point guards :

The more I look at this list, of which I happen to agree with most of, the more I don’t want the Pistons settling for a Shane Larkin, Aaron Brooks or Donald Sloan type. And there is no way that they could land Horford and still afford any of the “rotation” guys, let alone make a serious offer to one of the restricted guys.

Horford may have ties to Michigan, but I’m also struggling to see why he’d want to sign in Detroit. (1) They can’t offer him his max as of this writing. (2) There’s the whole “How does he fit alongside Drummond?” thing. And (3) He’s one of the top free agents on market – he can pick and choose where he wants to go and that’s probably not Detroit.

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The Pistons may well get their meeting, but I would call it a long shot at best for them to actually land him. And even if they did, how would they fill the rest of their roster holes? It would certainly require SVG and the front office to jump through some hoops.

But again, we have to come back to the backup point guard spot.

Would the team be willing to sign Horford if he wants to come and spend another season with a liability backing up Reggie Jackson? Or are they better off using the extra money from the Meeks deal and spreading it out between some of the more interesting mid-tier free agents?

My money’s on the latter.

The need for a point guard is too great, and team also wants to add two big bodies to add some versatility to the roster. I’m thinking they look to sign a Brandon Jennings/D.J. Augustin/Ramon Sessions type alongside a Darrell Arthur/Jon Leuer/Mirza Teletovic tier forward.

The Meeks trade does free up some room to get more aggressive however, so maybe they’ll go hard after a Ryan Anderson or Jeremy Lin, or restricted free agents like Jordan Clarkson or Seth Curry.

Next: Pistons still on track to max out Andre Drummond

But it all depends on how much the front office likes any of these guys and, more importantly, how much any of these free agents want to play for the Pistons. What do you guys think will be the Pistons plan as free agency kicks off tonight?