3 New Year’s Resolutions for the Detroit Pistons

2. I will not dig this franchise into a deeper hole

The Pistons are currently 12-22, sitting in the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference. They are only 2.5 games out of the 8 seed, which is a testament to just how much the East is struggling this year. It is not an overstatement to say that whoever ends up as the 8 seed will be one of the worst teams to ever make the playoffs in the NBA.

Realistically, the Pistons are ten games back from being meaningful in the East and have shown no signs of making the type of run they would need to get there. Did I mention that they haven’t even been through the toughest part of their schedule? In other words, this season is effectively over and there probably isn’t a player the Pistons could get via trade that would change that.

This is why the Pistons must vow not to trade for another veteran in an effort to win now. The Pistons have been attached to rumors involving veterans like DeMar DeRozan, which our own Nicolas Henkel rightly judged as a bad move, but in my opinion it would be the height of stupidity for the Pistons to make any such move.

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They are not one player away from being relevant and trying to patch holes with veterans to secure the 8 seed is exactly how the Pistons got into their current mess. The Pistons should not be buyers, but should look to sell any assets they have to secure future draft capital or salary cap flexibility.

But that doesn’t mean the Pistons should blow it up either. Trading depreciated assets that are at an all time low in value is not worth it when the Pistons are effectively tanking anyway. There should be no rush to jettison Griffin or Reggie Jackson until they have some value, which in Jackson’s case, probably isn’t going to happen. The most attractive assets the Pistons have are Langston Galloway and Derrick Rose, both of whom are having nice years off the bench and could be useful for a contender.

If the Pistons can pry a future asset or draft capital away from a team, they should be happy to do so. The big splash many fans are hoping for isn’t likely to come, but the Pistons can still make some savvy moves to help rebuild without totally blowing things up. What they can’t do is dig themselves deeper into mediocrity by trading for a band-aid to put over a gaping wound.