Pairing Frenchmen
Imagine a team in 2024 led by a 6-foot-6 point guard with a 7-foot-1 wingspan paired with a 6-foot-9 combo forward with a 6-foot-11 wingspan. That’s a heck of a two-way lineup built around Ntilikina and Doumbouya. Of course, it’ll be up to Casey and the Pistons coaches to develop those abilities.
But it also allows you to keep Johnson and Wood at the expense of future draft capital. It’s the best of both worlds – keeping a leader in the locker room and an energizing talent that could build for the future.
If things were to go awry, pairing Ntilikina with Doumbouya and having Kennard in the mix is a solid start to a rebuild, on top of the assets Drummond and Griffin would bring in.
This is the roster you go to battle with:
PG – Reggie Jackson/Derrick Rose/Tim Frazier/Frank Ntilikina/Jordan Bone (two-way)
SG – Bruce Brown/Luke Kennard/Langston Galloway
SF – Tony Snell/Joe Johnson/Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk/Sekou Doumbouya/Louis King (two-way)
PF – Blake Griffin/Markieff Morris
C – Andre Drummond/Christian Wood
Ntilikina doesn’t move the needle much but having Johnson and Wood allows for a slight improvement. Detroit wins 44 games, due to the impact of load management and minor injuries, earning the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, but losing in five games to the Philadelphia 76ers.
If you wish to start over, click here.
Hopefully this fun exercise sheds light on the difficulty of what the front office deals with, even if the timing isn’t realistic.