The most important date for Jerami Grant and the Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons have a big decision to make this offseason when it comes to Jerami Grant.

The Pistons’ leading scorer will be heading into the final year of his contract, which means Detroit will either need to extend him, trade him or risk losing him for nothing.

The final option is not really an option, so the Pistons will either have Grant under a shiny new four year deal heading into next season, or he’ll be headed to another team. Most experts believe that team will be Portland, but Grant will have plenty of other suitors if he hits the market.

There has been a lot of talk about the Pistons’ cap space this summer, but if they re-sign Marvin Bagley III and exercise team options on guys like Frank Jackson and Hamidou Diallo, they will not likely have the cap space to make a big move without trading Grant in a deal that brings back significantly less money.

This is why Portland makes sense, as they have a trade exception and could send back a pick without a contract that matches Grant’s.

There are many important dates this offseason, but none more so than August 9th, which is an important deadline for Jerami Grant.

Detroit Pistons: Jerami Grant’s value will plummet after August 9th

If Jerami Grant is going to be traded, it will probably be before the 2022 NBA Draft, as the Pistons would undoubtedly be looking for draft assets in any potential deal.

But they could also wait until after the draft and early free agency to see what their roster looks like before they make a decision on Grant.

August 9th is the most important date, as after that, Grant’s trade value will go down.

Teams that acquire Grant after that date would not be able to extend him, meaning he would become a free agent at the end of the season. Of course, teams often do handshake deals in these situations, but it would still be a risk for a team to trade for Grant without any assurance that he’d be more than a one-season rental.

A team could potentially give up assets just to watch Grant leave in free agency.

This would likely lower his trade value significantly, as there are definitely teams out there that would only trade for Grant if they knew he was going to sign an extension.

There is a pretty short window of when the Detroit Pistons can trade Jerami Grant to reap maximum value, so if he is going to be traded, it will be sometime between draft day and the end of July.

If Grant hasn’t been traded by then, expect the Pistons to announce his extension in early August.