The Detroit Pistons won’t play again until Thursday. That gives us a chance to reflect and analyze. Over the last couple of days, we have done so by evaluating all of Stan Van Gundy’s moves, and deciding which ones where his best as President of Basketball operations. Today’s post will cover his trades.
The Detroit Pistons may be off until Thursday, but there is much to discuss.
With a break in the action, we decided it would be a fun exercise to evaluate all of Stan Van Gundy’s moves, pick his top few from each category–free agent signings, draft picks, and trades–and then evaluate which of those was his best move overall.
The posts will break down as follows:
Tuesday, Best free agent signings in Stan Van Gundy era.
Wednesday, Best draft picks in Stan Van Gundy era.
Thursday, Best trades in Stan Van Gundy era.
Friday, Best overall move in Stan Van Gundy era.
We will jump into the trades in the Stan Van Gundy era, but before we do that, a few clarifying points.
I will only be including a handful of Van Gundy’s trades, in an effort to determine the best overall trade. That means I will not be including the Spencer Dinwiddie for Cameron Bairstow trade, for example. (Which of course, was terrible, retrospectively).
Trades:
Brandon Jennings, Ersan Illyasova for Tobias Harris
Second round pick for Marcus Morris, Danny Granger, Reggie Bullock
Two second round picks for Reggie Jackson
Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, Boban Marjanovic, first round pick for Blake Griffin
What was Van Gundy’s best trade to date?
This one, might be the most difficult to evaluate, particularly because of the relationship between moves. For example, the Brandon Jennings, Ersan Illyasova for Tobias Harris Trade and the second round pick for Marcus Morris, Danny Granger, and Reggie Bullock trade, lead to the Avery Bradley for Marcus Morris trade, which lead to the trade that netted the Pistons Blake Griffin.
It’s best, instead, to evaluate the trades independent of the relationship it has with other trades that took place at a later date.
If we are evaluating each trade based on how the moved played out for the Pistons at the time the players were exchanged to the time the player(s) moved on to a new team, I believe the best trade of the group is the trade that netted the Pistons Tobias Harris.
Harris was acquired on a team-friendly deal (thanks to the NBA’s TV deal and salary cap spikes), and he was acquired at just 23 years old, with his best NBA days ahead of him. With the Pistons, Harris went on to be one of the team’s most consistent and talented players.
The acquisition of Harris also helped propel Detroit to its first playoff run in half a decade, and his style of play and professionalism made him one of the fans most favorite players.
Next: Detroit Pistons: Who’s been the best draft pick in SVG Era?
That’s my take, what’s yours?
Runner Up: Second round pick for Marcus Morris, Danny Granger, Reggie Bullock