The Detroit Pistons will enter this offseason with little cap space, so it’s very unlikely that they will make a big splash in free agency.
Troy Weaver said that the Pistons were mostly looking for internal improvements, so fans should lower their expectations when it comes to NBA free agents.
Given how the Pistons have done in free agency in the past, not having any money to spend could be a good thing.
The Pistons have consistently made poor choices in free agency, generally overpaying for middling players that no one else was even bidding on, which kept the franchise mired in mediocrity for over a decade.
Detroit Pistons: Making a bad free-agent signing is far worse than doing nothing
Time and time again the Pistons added overpaid veteran free agents to their roster in a misguided effort to make the playoffs, usually failing and ending up as the 9th or 10th seed, which prevented them from ever rebuilding the team properly after the Goin’ to Work era was finally over.
Troy Weaver is obviously taking a different approach and unlike regimes in the past, will be given more time and patience to build a team the right way and not try to patch glaring holes with band-aid veterans.
The Detroit Pistons have a pretty grim history in NBA free agency and it was actually difficult to narrow this list to just five players, as there were a number of others who could have made it.
Here are the top-five worst free-agent signings in Pistons’ history.
Detroit Pistons: Bison Dele
Brian Williams, aka Bison Dele is the saddest entry on this list for several reasons. He did have two pretty good seasons for the Pistons after signing a massive 7 year, $45 million contract.
This was before the new rules on max contracts, which had to be put in place to protect teams from signing deals like this. SEVEN YEARS?!? Seems unthinkable by today’s standards.
Dele retired unexpectedly after his second full season in Detroit and ended up being murdered (allegedly) at sea along with his girlfriend in 2002. It was a sad ending to a bizarre life and career that is definitely worth reading about.
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.
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.
Detroit Pistons: Charlie Villanueva was a complete bust
Both Gordon and Villanueva were signed on the same day, a day that will forever live in free-agent infamy.
Charlie V got a 5 year $40 million deal, so if you are counting, that’s $95 million for two bench players. It’s not hard to see why the Pistons sucked for so long.
Villanueva is one of those guys who might actually be better now, as the game has evolved and the stretch-four is far more valuable.
He was also coming off a pretty good season in Milwaukee, but again, you don’t give guys these kinds of deals for “pretty good.”
Villanueva seemed like a really nice guy, so I don’t want to rip on him too much, but he and Gordon set the Pistons’ franchise back five years with their horrible deals. That is not on the players, as you can’t blame them for cashing checks, but it shows just how impactful the wrong signings can be.
Detroit Pistons: The Jon Leuer signing was baffling
With Gordon and Villanueva, you could kind of sort of talk yourself into them at the time, as both were very good role players who might have had potential to be more, but the Jon Leuer signing was baffling then and remains so.
Leuer signed a 4 year $41 million deal with Detroit at age 26 after never having a single year in which he scored in double digits. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE was bidding on Jon Leuer, wanted him or would have paid half that to get him.
He was an un-athletic unknown who Stan Van Gundy mistakenly thought was going to blossom into the type of stretch-four that is now common. He definitely didn’t.
Leuer absolutely STUNK for the Pistons, so much that it was hard not to put him at number one on this list. He never shot more than 29 percent from 3-point range and in fact stopped shooting them at all in his final two years in Detroit, which would be his final two seasons in the NBA.
Leuer is one of the most overpaid players in NBA history, a baffling signing that never made sense and still doesn’t. Honestly, it’s surprising SVG even got another job in basketball after making this deal.
Detroit Pistons: Josh Smith was the worst free-agent signing in team history
Leuer was probably the worst free-agent as far as talent, but Josh Smith takes the honors as the worst free-agent signing in Pistons’ history.
Joe Dumars’ downfall was that he always thought he was the smartest guy in the room. After having a few brilliant seasons and winning a title, Dumars thought he had the Midas touch and decided to build his team around three big men while the rest of the league was loading up on 3-point shooters.
He signed Josh Smith to a 4 year, $54 million contract that went so badly the Pistons ended up paying Smith to leave and then continued to pay him for five seasons after he was jettisoned.
He’s one of the few NBA players who I can honestly say I could beat in a shooting contest, as Smith was one of the All-Time bricklayers from behind the arc, which didn’t stop him from launching them anyway.
The Smith era was defined by the groans that would come from the arena whenever he decided to hoist a long-range shot and the sound it made colliding with the backboard. They must have had to reinforce the hoops back then because Smith might as well been firing those shots out of a medieval cannon.
These five players should be a warning to the Detroit Pistons that overpaying for free agents because you think you have to is not the way to build a team.