Detroit Pistons: Top 5 most ‘Trust Troy’ moves of the off-season

Detroit Pistons general manager Troy Weaver has received pretty good marks overall since taking over in June, 2020. However, no one is perfect.

With the off-season about to wind down, lets look at five moves that, we won’t call them mistakes, but ‘Trust in Troy’ transactions.

Weaver’s most positive off-season moves are covered here:

Captain Hindsight is probably the only true person who can make basketball evaluations; as you really have to give it a year or two to see how moves pan out. How many people were upset when the Pistons signed Jerami Grant to a three-year, $60 million contract last year? Pretty much everyone panned it as a major overpay.

Now, Grant’s contract is seen as a bargain. He probably (not counting the late add-ons) made less than any other member of the USA Olympic team.

So, how a move is seen can change over time (but some don’t, like drafting Henry Ellensan and Stanley Johnson will always be known as wrong). Bearing that in mind, we are not going to call these ‘errors’, as whether they were bad moves won’t be known for a while.

Let us just call them ‘Trust in Troy’ moves, as, we might not understand them at the moment, but trust Weaver had a reason to do it.

All Pistons transactions after May 16, 2021, the date of its last game, will be considered.

The  top 5 ‘Trust in Troy’ moves of the 2021 NBA off-season

(all official transactions information is from basketball-reference.com)

5. Bye Sekou (and Okafor), hello 2nd-rounders

When Sekou Doumbouya was drafted with the No. 15th overall pick in the NBA Draft, it was a popular choice in Detroit. Here was an 18-year-old, 6-foot-9 athlete with tons of potential that many mock drafts had going in the top 10.

Doumbouya played well with the Drive in the G-League and had flashes of fine play in Detroit. But, only flashes (like 24 points against the Lakers the year they won NBA title).

Weaver showed what he thought of Doumbouya this off-season by drafting Isaiah Livers of Michigan and signing free agents Kelly Olynyk and Trey Lyles, all of whom can play Sekou’s position.

Don’t forget, the Pistons starting forwards are Olympic gold medalist Jerami Grant and Team USA Select team member Saddiq Bey, so it not like there is a lot of playing time for subs as it is.

With not enough room for all the players with guaranteed contracts, Weaver shipped Doumbouya as well as Jahlil Okafor, to the Brooklyn Nets for DeAndre Jordan’s contract and  four second round draft picks.

The Nets had 47 million reasons to find someone to take on Jordan’s contract. Doumbouya and Okafor’s were probably the choice of players Weaver wanted to give them. On a loaded Brooklyn team, any player the Pistons sent them in the deal would be a benchwarmer.

The four second-rounders replaces the four second’s Detroit sent to the Clippers as part of the Luke Kennard trade (they were sent because the Clips said they needed insurance on Kennard’s creaky knees, then they turned around and signed him to a long-term deal).

But giving up on a 20-year-old who just two years ago you used a high draft pick on, that is a bit eyebrow-raising. As many have pointed out, Doumbouya was the only player left not acquired by Weaver

Was this simply dumping off a player with no lane to playing time, and you think never will. Or, is there some desire to make the team ‘all yours’. We will have to see how Doumbouya’s career develops for the real answer.

Right now, we have to just ‘Trust in Troy’.