Detroit Pistons fans think it may be time to rebuild

Following back to back losses and a season that has gone off the rails, fans of the Detroit Pistons think it’s time to commit to a rebuild.

The Detroit Pistons are in a bad position. They’re currently 6-13 and sitting in 11th place in the Eastern Conference. They’re coming off of back to back losses to the Charlotte Hornets, both in heartbreak fashion. They’ve now lost nine consecutive games to the Hornets.

Defensive lapses have become a regularity, and at times there doesn’t seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. When even your star players are struggling, what do you do?

Fans have become more and more vocal this season in favor of a rebuild. Trading away most of the Pistons assets for draft capital and young talent seems to be the majority favorite route. We took to Twitter to ask our followers what their thoughts were on the future of this team.

This has more or less been the collective sentiment throughout the fan base. The Pistons don’t necessarily have to commit to losing in order to secure a top draft pick, (New Orleans received the first overall pick last season after winning 33 games. Courtesy of the re-structured Draft Lottery) so that could at least keep the team watchable.

The future of Reggie Jackson in a Detroit uniform has been in question for several years now, but with him being set to become a free agent this summer, it’s not likely that the Pistons will re-sign him regardless of their situation. Letting both him and Andre Drummond walk with nothing in return would be a tough pill to swallow.

So, a direction should be chosen before the trade deadline in order to maximize their value.

Fans have long wondered what exactly Drummond is worth, and if the plan is to re-sign him this summer when he inevitably opts-out, then he’ll likely receive somewhere in the ballpark of a $180 million dollar extension.

It’s safe to assume that regardless of what a potential return in a Blake Griffin trade would look like, the Pistons would be mailing it in at that point. Trading away your franchise player is more or less a sign of the times. If that does happen, you should expect that Drummond would be next.

If both are traded, then you could also add the likes of Langston Galloway and Derrick Rose to that list. Galloway is an expiring contract who’s playing above his value so far this season, and would be an impeccable fit on almost any contending team. Every single team could use more three-point shooting.

Rose is a reliable backup point guard, who would also be a solid fit for any fringe playoff team or title contending team. The Pistons currently fall under neither or those labels.

This means you’re centering your future on Luke Kennard, Christian Wood, Bruce Brown, Sekou Doumbouya and whoever is selected in the upcoming draft. That could be promising in the future.

It’s certainly true that for the last decade the Pistons have refused to pick a direction that they want the team to head in. Maybe they have, but they’ve consistently come up short performing moves that they think are going to benefit the team, and they seldom have.

That failure to pick a direction has sent Detroit into NBA purgatory, and they have bottomed out as an (at best) eighth seed talent with again – no certain light at the end of the tunnel. If they were to make a “win now” trade, even that will only get you so far, as the window on Griffin’s prime will only get smaller and smaller.

In a severely crippled Eastern Conference, even one trade for a big name player could propel this team into a legitimate position. However the odds of that happening are incredibly low, and it is likely time to just bit the bullet.

This is something that a lot of people don’t realize.

When fans advocate for a player to be traded, it’s more often than not due to their recent struggles and fans’ frustration with said player. What they don’t seem to realize is that other teams aren’t going to want that player for whatever you’ve valued them at, because that other team can also see that they’re struggling.

That principle applies to a large majority of the Pistons current roster. This is not exactly the most opportune time to blow things up considering the value of over half the roster is at an all time low.

You aren’t going to get the picks you may think you can get, and what young assets are you going to get?

No matter what, the Pistons have to wait until December 15th to make any decisions. This date marks the official availability of nearly every single NBA player to be traded. Once that day arrives, things may have picked up in Detroit, and maybe we won’t be having this conversation.

However if we still are, then something has to be done, and it has to be done fast.