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The Detroit Pistons’ roster will shed some fat this offseason

By Duncan Smith

Apr 24, 2016; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; A general shot of the jumbotron before game four of the first round of the NBA Playoffs between the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 24, 2016; Auburn Hills, MI, USA; A general shot of the jumbotron before game four of the first round of the NBA Playoffs between the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports /
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Buzz around the Detroit Pistons’ coming offseason has focused entirely on free agency and the draft, but there will be losses to open up those roster spots.

With all the excitement around coming roster additions and upgrades through free agency and the draft, there comes a counterbalance. As new faces are added, familiar ones are sure to depart, and the Detroit Pistons have a number of surefire departures on deck.

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Recently, Pistons’ beat writer Keith Langlois broke down the prospects of every player on the roster to return, ranging from the locks to come back like Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond, all the way to the likely outgoing Steve Blake and Lorenzo Brown. He broke them down into categories of “locks”, exclusively Jackson and Drummond, “almost certain”, consisting of Tobias Harris, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Stanley Johnson, Marcus Morris and Aron Baynes, and “solid bets”, including Darrun Hilliard and Reggie Bullock.

What we’ll discuss here is Langlois’ “less than likely” tier, the final and most grim of all the categories. This category includes Anthony Tolliver, Steve Blake, Joel Anthony and Lorenzo Brown.

In the cases of all of the first three players, it’s possible that the Pistons may find room for them to return at least until the end of training camp when rosters are required to trim back down to 15 players. That said, if Tolliver or Blake return, their roles should be drastically reduced.

Tolliver won’t be the primary power forward off the bench nor will he be expected to spot start, and Blake will definitely not be the backup point guard as was the case for the majority of this past season. Both of them will become free agents on July 1st when their contracts expire and would likely be re-signed after all other roster business is concluded, if at all.

Joel Anthony is a great locker room guy by all accounts, but that is about where his responsibilities on this team begin and end. He played 96 minutes in 19 appearances this past season, and 25 of those minutes came in the regular season finale bench extravaganza against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

He is under contract for another season, valued at $2.5 million, making him far from a lock to be moved before the season, but it wouldn’t be a big surprise to see him get moved as part of a trade package at some point.

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Lorenzo Brown was an emergency multiple-time 10-day contract signing, but never sniffed the floor for the Pistons even with their point guard depth issues. There’s no reason to think he’ll be back.

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