Detroit Pistons: 5 worst free-agent signings of all time
Detroit Pistons: Ben Gordon was overpaid
When the Detroit Pistons signed free-agent Ben Gordon for 5 years $55 million he was just coming off winning the 6th Man of the Year for the Chicago Bulls.
Gordon was a dynamic scorer but the Pistons missed the part where he was a SIXTH MAN and essentially paid him like a starting guard.
Gordon went from a consistent 20 point per game scorer off the Bulls’ bench to scoring 13.8 for the Pistons and it just kept getting worse.
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Joe Dumars thought he was being smart by locking up Gordon on the first day of free agency and ended up overpaying for a guy that no one else was even bidding on.
Since the Pistons have never really been a free agent destination, the thinking was that they had to overpay to get guys to come to Detroit.
That strategy turned out to be asinine and ensured that the Detroit Pistons were mediocre for more than a decade. Ben Gordon is proof that doing nothing is a much better option than signing a guy just to say you did something. Gordon was the beginning of the end for Joe Dumars in Detroit.