B/R proposes the Detroit Pistons trade Griffin and Rose to Chicago

Bleacher Report proposed a trade for each team that wasn’t invited to Orlando. The Detroit Pistons trade was certainly interesting.

The Detroit Pistons are one of the eight total teams that were left out of continuation of the NBA season. While there was still technically something to pay for with these teams, it’s in safety’s best interest to keep them at home.

So, fans of each of those teams will be pretty bored for the next few months, as the 2020-2021 season isn’t set to pick up until December.

Bleacher Report kept these fans in mind and created one trade for every single team stuck at home.

Detroit’s proposal was interesting to say the least. Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose get sent to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Thad Young and Otto Porter Jr. There were no draft picks involved.

At first glance, Pistons fans would naturally be a bit irritated at the lackluster return for their top two players. It’d be one thing if there was at least one draft pick involved, but maybe if this were a real scenario, there would be.

In reality, what this does for Detroit is continue to shed salary. As the author of the article at hand (Andy Bailey) correctly notes, if Griffin can’t return to at least 85-90 percent of the player that we was during the 2018-2019 campaign, then his remaining salary will be quite the load.

Admittedly, even with the size of his contract, it’s really not all that damaging to Detroit’s cap situation. They’re set to have around $30 million in open cap space this season alone, and it’s set to go up as the seasons move along. (Assuming COVID-19 doesn’t have future financial implications for the league, which it likely will)

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However, as much as fans love him, the reality is that having even more money to play with is always going to be the more ideal scenario.

If this were to hypothetically happen, Porter is set to make $28.4 million next season, but is on an expiring contract. Detroit would likely let him walk in 2021.

Chicago would be taking a pretty significant gamble with Griffin, but would be getting a surefire talent in their hometown hero Rose. His homecoming would be quite the spectacle.

That’s where the main issue with this proposal may lie. While it’s understandable that Detroit will in all likelihood need to bite the bullet and accept a similar package for Griffin that they received for Andre Drummond, (a boring but necessary one) this may not need to be the case with Rose.

He reignited his former self in recent years, and especially broke out with the Pistons this year. He was nearly selected to the All-Star team and was inarguably the most consistent option in the rotation.

Because of this, one would think that there’s got to be something worthwhile out there for him. Something that goes beyond just shedding salary.

However, it’s been reported numerous times that the market on Rose just wasn’t what we had anticipated it may be. That, and he himself stated that he wanted to stay with the Pistons. So, once again the Pistons may have to bite the bullet.

This trade would be a bit of a bummer, in that the Pistons gave up assets in order to acquire Griffin in the first place, only to have to move him for virtually nothing later on. Again, boring, but necessary.