The Detroit Pistons 2018 off-season guide

The Detroit Pistons’ roster looks to be set as the NBA off-season starts to slow down. They currently have 15 guaranteed contracts on their books for the coming season, with two players signed to two-way deals. Let’s take a look at how their off-season played out.

It was a busy off-season for the Detroit Pistons, both with players and personnel. Let’s start with the off-court changes.

There were massive changes to the front office, with Stan Van Gundy being let go of both his coaching and front office role. He was eventually replaced by reigning Coach of the Year Dwane Casey.

Tom Gores then hired Ed Stefanski as the team’s

GM

senior advisor (GM in all but name). With Arn Tellem still on board, the Pistons got to work in filling out the front-office and coaching vacancies.

The Detroit Pistons added:

Ed Stefanski – Senior Advisor

Dwane Casey – Head Coach

DJ Bakker – Player Development Coach

Malik Rose – Assistant GM

Sean Sweeney – Assistant Coach

Sidney Lowe – Assistant Coach

Sachin Gupta – Assistant GM

Sammy Gelfand – Analytics

As for the on-court changes, it was expected to be a very quiet off-season for the Pistons. They didn’t have a lot of money to spend, and had very little coming off the books. But for a team with no money to spend, the changes still came.

Players In:

Khyri Thomas – Drafted at pick No. 38, and signed a multi-year deal.

Bruce Brown Jr – Drafted at pick No. 42, and signed a three-year, $3.9 million contract.

Glenn Robinson III – Agreed to a two-year, $8 million deal during free agency.

Jose Calderon – Signed for one-year, $2.4 million in free agency.

Keenan Evans – Signed a two-way deal as a free agent.

Zaza Pachulia – Signed in free agency, agreeing to a one-year deal worth $2.4 million.

Players Out:

Jameer Nelson – Currently a free agent.

James Ennis – Signed with the Houston Rockets to a two-year, $3.5 million contract.

Anthony Tolliver – Signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves to a one-year contract worth $5 million.

Dwight Buycks – Waived, currently a free agent.

Eric Moreland – Waived, currently a free agent.

Some of these moves were forced due to how tight Detroit’s salary situation was, and some moves were always inevitable.

The waiving of both Buycks and Moreland, combined with the signing of Calderon and Pachulia, saved the Pistons roughly $300,000 (according to their cap hit) and kept them out of the luxury tax.

Tolliver was always going to get a well-deserved pay-day, and I don’t know any Pistons fans that would’ve wanted Nelson to re-sign.

Overall, the Detroit Pistons had a surprisingly active off-season and improved their roster. They filled their most glaring weakness by adding another forward in Robinson, and their draft picks could arguably have been first-round talent if not for injuries.