Detroit Pistons: Potential offseason trade with the Nets

Detroit Pistons: Trade for Joe Harris

The Brooklyn Nets

Taking the first trade would give the Nets back a veteran who can spread the floor and is a good fit with the guys they have.

Olynyk missed a lot of games this season with injury, but he’s been a solid big throughout his career, so the Nets know what they’d be getting.

They’d also save nearly $6 million that they could use to sign another veteran player looking to chase a ring (depending on what happens with Kyrie), so they’d potentially walk away with two guys and improve their depth.

Olynyk only has one more guaranteed year left on his contract, so the Nets would also be getting out from under Harris’ deal, which has two fully guaranteed years left at $18.6 and $19.9 million.

Of course, the Nets may see Harris as part of the long-term plans, and he is expected to be back at full strength next season, so they would walk away if they thought Olynyk wasn’t a fit or didn’t think that money would yield a better player.

The Detroit Pistons

Harris is coming off ankle surgery so this would be a risk for the Detroit Pistons, but not much of one really, as he only has two more seasons left either way, so even if things didn’t work out, the Pistons wouldn’t be making any long-term commitments.

This is a guy who has led the NBA in 3-point percentage twice and shoots over 43 percent from long range for his career, so he’d be an obvious and huge upgrade to the shooting.

Kelly Olynyk is not likely part of the Pistons’ long-term plans anyway, so getting a shooter back for him would be a huge win for Detroit.

If the Nets just wanted the Pistons to eat his deal, it would leave them little money to make any other moves, but shooting is their biggest need and Harris would fill that role.

This would really only be an option if Detroit didn’t think they had a chance to sign a big-time free agent, but tying up their cap space in guaranteed money would also prevent them from eating a bigger salary in a trade, so they may be content to bide their time and wait for a better deal to come.

It’s an interesting proposition that carries some amount of risk for both teams, but could potentially help them both.