Detroit Pistons: Former Pistons in NBA Finals show Detroit’s past mistakes

It’s official: the 2021 NBA Finals will be played between the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks. Both are teams who did it the right way– mostly through the draft and trades. Some big-ish free agents were signed, but both teams were honest about how they built conference champions, which should give the Detroit Pistons hope that it can happen in the Motor City.

While the Bucks and Suns were rebuilding, the Detroit Pistons were floundering. Drafting the likes of Luke Kennard, Stanley Johnson, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is not how you build a championship.

Fortunately for Detroit, it looks like the Pistons are finally on the right track, Blake Griffin is out of town, and even though his contract is still looming large at least the vision for the future is clear. Jerami Grant has said he’s here to stay, Dwayne Casey is a good coach with plenty of young talent, and the draft should just bring more riches to the Motor City.

Detroit Pistons: Current Pistons in the Olympics and former Pistons in the NBA Finals

However, the draft isn’t here yet. There is still basketball to play, and Detroit has plenty of representation this summer. Bey and Stewart were selected to the Team USA Select team, and Jerami Grant is heading to Tokyo for the Olympics. In the Finals, both the Suns and Bucks have players who formerly played for Detroit. Both had forgettable careers for the Pistons and were better once they left.

If the Bucks win, Kris Middleton will not be sending his ring to Detroit, as they shipped him out as an afterthought in the disastrous Brandon Jennings trade that also cost the Pistons Brandon Knight. And if the Suns win, when Langston Galloway takes the stage with Bill Russell and Adam Silver, many Pistons fans will scratch their head and think the name sounds familiar.

Looking back on the two Pistons’ connections in the Finals, we’re left wondering what could have been and what probably should not have been.

Langston Galloway was not a product of a Detroit draft pick. During the 2017 offseason, he signed a three-year, $21 million contract that made some degree of sense. He was a consistent shooter and a good backup guard who could have maybe blossomed into a good starter.

It didn’t exactly work out. Galloway started his contract by having the worst shooting numbers of his career up until that point, and never became the player Detroit hoped he would be. In Phoenix, he hasn’t emerged as a legitimate threat either, so at least the Pistons don’t look bad. He’s played nine NBA seasons, none of them that good, and he’s never been on a good team up until now.

The most noteworthy part of his career was being traded to the Kings from New Orleans in exchange for DeMarcus Cousins, but that was before he played in Detroit.

In the instance of Kris Middleton, he was taken in the second round after a decent, but not stellar, stint at Texas A&M. He barely played for the  Detroit Pistons during his rookie season, which made sense at the time. He was an okay scorer who showed promise, but he was young and inexperienced. Detroit wanted Brandon Jennings and shelled out way too much for him. Until 2016, it didn’t seem to be that big of a mistake, but then Middleton started scoring and winning, eventually reaching an All-Star game in 2019 and 2020.

Jennings for Knight and Middleton (and other assets) is one of the more poorly aged trades in recent memory, but Detroit flipped Jennings for Tobias Harris, who is currently one of the better players in the league and was a promising young star in Detroit. But then the Pistons decided they wanted Blake Griffin in a poorly thought out “win now” push, and the rest is history. Middleton might become a champion and possible Finals MVP (He has the fourth-best odds at plus-700). Either way, Detroit missed a chance to develop a star, and now they’re stuck with a dead contract.

Galloway and Middleton didn’t work out for the Detroit Pistons but now both are headed to the NBA Finals, so we wish them luck and hope the Pistons will follow them there soon.