Detroit Pistons: Risks and benefits of extending Jerami Grant
Detroit Pistons: Jerami Grant’s play and production
Signing Grant to a four-year extension means the Detroit Pistons would potentially be paying a 32-year-old (who will certainly be in decline at that point) $28 million a year. But just because the Pistons extend him, it doesn’t mean he won’t be traded, in fact, he could have more value in a year or two.
Jerami Grant’s play: The Risk
The biggest risk in signing Grant is that he continues to get injured and miss a big chunk of the season, as he has the last two years. Grant has played in just 101 games combined in the last two seasons, although you could ague that some of these “injuries” were just the Pistons tanking.
Grant had been very reliable before joining the Pistons and I do believe he would have played through some of those minor injuries if the team were actually trying to win.
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There is also a chance that we’ve seen the best of Grant and that he will regress in the coming years, lowering his trade value and forcing the Detroit Pistons to pay a guy big bucks who is in decline.
We’ve been down this road before and know how bad it can get (hi Blake Griffin!), so there is real risk to signing a guy at this age to a long-term extension, as his trade value and production are likely to go down.
The benefit
Right now teams don’t really know what they are getting with Jerami Grant. Is he the 3-and-D role player who played for the Nuggets or the 20 ppg. scorer he’s become with the Pistons?
The answer is probably somewhere in between, so if Grant can show that he can play impact minutes on a good team without needing to be the focal point, then he will still have value to the Pistons, as well as to contenders around the NBA that might want to trade for him.
He can remake his game around Cade Cunningham, and while he doesn’t have to go back to being a 4th option, showing he can thrive on a team that has a star will actually increase his value, as no one is trading for Jerami Grant in the hopes that he will be the superstar that leads their team to a title.
The NBA Finals are also showing us that versatile wings who can defend all over are increasing in value. You need guys like Grant to succeed in the modern NBA.
If the Pistons extend him, Grant will have the chance to show he can be a key part of a “Big 3,” more than just a role player, but not a guy who is going to be the focal point of a team. He was doing this when he returned from injury, and he, Cade and Saddiq Bey had some huge games.
Grant can hit that sweet spot, remake his game around defense, show he can be the second or third option on a good team, and have even more value than he does now.