After John Beilein’s resignation, Detroit Pistons fans should be happy with team’s rebuild

After the resignation of John Beilein in Cleveland, Detroit Pistons fans should look at the Cavs organization for satisfaction with the Pistons rebuild.

If any Detroit Pistons fan wants to complain about the competitiveness of the team right now, tell them to look at the Cleveland Cavaliers for why they should be happy with the direction that the Pistons are going.

Outside of two four-year stints from LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers have been irrelevant for the past two decades. After LeBron’s second stint in Cleveland, the Cavaliers were left with a roster full of old veterans and bloated contracts a la Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson. The whole organization was put in between a rock and a hard place: Do they try to compete with the players they have or do they trade those who had value and start all over again? The Cavaliers decided to do neither of those while simultaneously doing both.

In the 2018 NBA Draft, the Cavs selected Alabama guard Collin Sexton with the Nets draft pick they acquired in the Kyrie Irving trade. In their first year without LeBron since 2014, the Cavaliers went 19-63 and selected fifth in the NBA draft that year and landed Vanderbilt guard Darius Garland.

To start this season, the Cavs roster seemed to be going in two different directions. On one hand, Love and Thompson are both players that want to win now and on the other hand, they had two young raw prospects in Sexton and Garland. To make matters worse, the Cavaliers traded for two-time All-Star Andre Drummond. This trade added to the confusion with what direction the Cavaliers were heading.

During the 2017-18 season, in a desperate move to become a contender, the Pistons traded for star forward Blake Griffin. While his only full season resulted in an All-NBA Third Team selection and a spot in the playoffs, this season has shown that this move of desperation may have just locked down $35+ million until 2022 for an aging star.

However, the team still did make a few good picks throughout the years. Drummond was a force in the paint for the Pistons for almost a decade, while Luke Kennard and Sekou Doumbouya have both shown flashes of potential this year.

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With Drummond traded, and Reggie Jackson now a Clipper, this era of the Detroit Pistons has finally come to an end. Their long run of trying to win while rebuilding has finally ended.

Owner Tom Gores and senior adviser Ed Stefanski have publicly backed a full-scale rebuild. Given his history with developing young talent like DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, Dwane Casey is the right head coach for the job, and young players like Kennard, Doumbouya, and Christian Wood have shown the potential to form a contender in a few years. It’s not going to be easy to watch for many fans, but the end result could make all of the pain worth it.

And at the end of the day, just remember what is most important: at least we’re not Cleveland.