The Detroit Pistons are building around Cade Cunningham and may already have two of the other foundational pieces in place.
Midway through the season, it seemed to be a lock that the Pistons would trade Jerami Grant, as the offers were reportedly pouring in and rebuilding Detroit had a chance to cash in on their best trade asset.
But the Pistons never got the offer they wanted, and in the end, weren’t as close to trading Grant as we thought.
They could certainly still trade him in the offseason, when there might be even more teams looking to add the versatile forward to the their roster.
One of those teams is Portland, who is reportedly very interested in Grant and looked to be recruiting him last night in the Pistons’ loss to the Trail Blazers.
If Portland ends up with a top-10 pick in the NBA Draft, I am sure those talks will heat up once again.
But I think the Pistons (and their fans) are coming around to the idea of keeping Jerami Grant to put with Cade Cunningham and Saddiq Bey and there are good reasons why.
Cade Cunningham, Saddiq Bey and Jerami Grant producing as the Pistons’ Big 3
At the beginning of the season, Jerami Grant was still playing as the Pistons’ number one option, dribbling the ball too much, working in isolation, taking long 2-point shots and basically doing all of the things we were worried about coming into the season.
But since coming back from his injury, Jerami Grant has adjusted his game to be more of a complementary offensive weapon behind Cade Cunningham and Saddiq Bey.
And it is working.
In the last 20 games the three played together, they are averaging 57.2 combined points per game, 15.5 rebounds and 11.8 assists, and doing it on fairly efficient shooting splits.
Grant is taking fewer shots, the offense is running through Cade and Bey is getting plenty of looks in isolation as well as the catch-and-shoot.
All three are versatile defensively and can fit in with a variety of different players.
This is a trio that will average more than 60 points per game on most nights, even more next season, and all of them are currently on favorable contracts. What am I missing here?
It seems like the Pistons should be building around these three, not looking to break them up.