Should Pistons tank after Cavaliers trade for Donovan Mitchell?

The Detroit Pistons should tank

First off, no players are going to step onto the court with the idea of losing on purpose, and if they do, the Detroit Pistons shouldn’t want them on the roster.

Tanking is not a player thing, it’s an organizational thing, as guys like Cade Cunningham are not just going to lay down and lose so that they can add another draft pick.

Tanking happens when teams rest players longer than they need to, use minor injuries as a reason to sit players during important games, trade veteran players away and replace them with rookies, or sit veterans with dubious injuries down the stretch to avoid winning games.

The Pistons have employed all of these tactics in recent seasons, though not as egregiously as teams like the Thunder, who were running out lineups last season that wouldn’t have competed in the G-League.

The pro-tanking argument simply comes down to the idea that collecting as many top-5 draft picks as possible gives teams the best shot at landing a superstar, since that is where most of them are taken.

Next year’s draft has a few guys at the top who are projected to be stars, so adding a third (possibly 4th depending on Jalen Duren) star pick would give the Detroit Pistons a chance to be a dynasty in 4-5 years when these players are all entering their primes.

Tanking in and of itself has never really fully worked, but it lays the foundation for big trades, and gives teams a base of stars to build upon. Adding one more young star to the core couldn’t hurt and would give the free-agent deprived Pistons a chance to build something organically, a team that should be good right around the time some of the current top talent is shuffling out of the league.

It makes sense, though results have varied.