Competency Is Key: Free Agency and the Pistons Front Office

NBA Free Agency likely won’t have a “splash” move from the Detroit Pistons, but that doesn’t lessen how important this offseason is.

One of the strangest storylines in the NBA offseason right now is all the dysfunction within the Lakers organization and how it affects their team building. Unfortunately for the other 28 teams, the Lakers and the Clippers have one tremendous advantage in Free Agency and that’s simply where they’re located.

It’s possible the Lakers can go from having their President of Basketball Operations abruptly quit before the season ends, go on national TV and call the current GM a backstabber, only for them to get Anthony Davis and Kawhi Leonard in the same offseason.

For teams like the Detroit Pistons, that’s a scenario that simply could never happen with the same results. Detroit is hardly a free agent destination spot and that level of incompetence would have the Pistons more likely fighting for the first pick rather than the top players in the league.

For those reasons, the trade the Detroit Pistons recently made for Tony Snell has increased significance for a team that lacked depth in many key areas last season. Snell, a career 38.2 percent from three is a huge improvement from the last few seasons of Stanley Johnson being unreliable on offense.

Its moves like that will push Detroit forward to being a better team. In the trade, they got rid of Jon Leuer, one of the last remaining failures of the Stan Van Gundy era. They also used up some of their cap flexibility for next summer, but I’d caution Pistons fans from being too tied up in that flexibility.

Next year’s free agent class doesn’t appear to be as deep as this year’s where over 50 percent of the league is a free agent. Also as long as Detroit stays under the luxury tax, which they’ve been able to do, they will still have that $9.2 nontaxpayer mid-level exception to use which would be larger than any cap space they could open up assuming Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond are still on the team.

I’m encouraged by the front office and the moves they’ve made in the last calendar year. They didn’t make any long term messes with the Glenn Robinson deal which they opted out of this summer, while by comparison Langston Galloway will make $7 million next year and has been an abysmal shooter in his Pistons tenure.

The Snell trade showed they’re a team who is aware of what their window is while Blake’s still here and can find value at premium positions. $12 million for a guy who can play 30 minutes a game and shoots 40 percent from three is not a bad deal at all for Snell, especially when you consider Leuer would’ve made $9 million this year just to be an end of the bench guy.

Stacking as many good players together as possible has to be the strategy, there’s no homerun move the Pistons are going to make for an Anthony Davis type talent. There’s no trade for Griffin or Drummond that’s going to take them to the next level. The closest they came to one of those guys was Mike Conley who was recently traded to the Utah Jazz.

This year’s free agency will be very important for the direction of this franchise, this team has a chance to add depth around Griffin and Drummond. This team desperately needs a backup big man better than Zaza Pachulia and cannot survive when one of their point guards sustains an injury. This team cannot afford another Galloway or Leuer signing.

Another reason this offseason is so imperative is next year’s expiring contract of Reggie Jackson and how it looms over the team. Last season the three-man lineup of Jackson, Griffin, and Drummond played the 11th most minutes of any three-man lineup and had a relatively decent net rating of 6.2 per 100 possessions. But, the idea of paying Jackson into his early to mid-thirties combined with his injury history will certainly factor into how much he’s worth and if he’s worth keeping.

My guess is that he isn’t worth what he’s going to want, therefore whoever they sign this offseason very well might be the starter next year. With the sudden retirement of Darren Collison, the point guard market is going to ratchet up and it might price the Detroit Pistons out of some of their targets.

How the team maneuvers this offseason will be interesting and my hope is they don’t view long term flexibility as important as getting good players. The Griffin trade happened before this front office took control, but they appear committed to seeing it through.

Adding to this core and building a consistent playoff team would be huge for the fanbase and getting people to show up to Little Caesars Arena, blowing it up simply isn’t an option.