Defending the Detroit Pistons’ offseason moves so far

Defending the Detroit Pistons’ offseason moves so far

#2: Troy Weaver is dedicated to not having bad long-term deals

In the past, the Pistons have tried to plug gaping holes with overpaid role players, which is one of the reasons why they haven’t won a playoff game since LeBron James still had a hairline.

One of the things Weaver has constantly talked about is not getting bogged down with long-term deals that hamper the team’s flexibility. While you can argue that he did exactly that when he signed Marvin Bagley III, it’s still not as bad as paying a role player (who played the same number of games as Bagley last season) $30 million a season.

You can also argue that if Weaver hadn’t taken shots on MBIII and Wiseman he could have had even more cap space and there is validity to that, especially if both of these guys bust out. But having more cap space wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference in this case.

Teams like the Pistons don’t get a lot of shots at max guys, and signing the wrong one can be devastating for years to come. They clearly decided that none of these free agents were worth that risk, and I tend to agree, as there wasn’t a star player on the market that had any intention of coming to Detroit.

They could have signed a deal like one of the ones the Rockets did, bringing in players like Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks at a hefty cost, but chose not to and it’s easy to understand when you see the price tag.

Adding a highly-paid role player will make sense at some point, but right now is not that point in Weaver’s mind. Is he right? We’ll see, but I do appreciate that he is not trying to skip steps and add the wrong guy just to satisfy impatient fans.

The Pistons now have the flexibility to make a number of different moves (more on that later) and more importantly haven’t overpaid for the wrong guy as they have so many times in the past.