Detroit Pistons: Why the Pistons will pursue Deandre Ayton
Why the Detroit Pistons should not pursue Deandre Ayton
The Pistons are a young rebuilding team that has a lot of nice pieces in Cade Cunningham, Saddiq Bey, Isaiah Stewart and Killian Hayes, but they are not on the brink of contention, so going for a guy like Ayton might be a reach at this stage.
The Pistons already have a young talented center in Isaiah Stewart who they have locked up through 2023-24 on a cheap rookie deal.
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Center is no longer the most important in the NBA, in fact, you could argue that it is the least important given the way the game has changed and Ayton is a bit of a throwback who doesn’t shoot from long range or really spread the floor yet (though that is probably coming).
Signing Ayton would force the Pistons to either move on from Isaiah Stewart, make him a backup center or move him to power forward and we haven’t seen him shoot enough to know if he is capable of making such a move.
If not, the Detroit Pistons suddenly have two bigs again, and the last time that happened it was a disaster for Detroit.
Of course, Ayton is not Andre Drummond, and Isaiah Stewart is not Greg Monroe, so it wouldn’t be exactly the same and there are some compelling reasons to go after Deandre Ayton if he hits the free-agent market.