The Detroit Pistons have made plenty of mistakes over the years, as running an NBA franchise is not an exact science.
Teams often get hung up on names instead of production, signing free agents because they are well known, paying them for what they once were instead of what they are.
This has happened in just about every era of Detroit basketball, but here are some of the most egregious examples of paying for a guy whose best days were behind him. These are listed in no particular order.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Tracy McGrady
Tracy McGrady was one of the biggest “what ifs” in the history of the NBA, as he was once considered one of the best in the game before injuries derailed his career. He made the All-Star team seven times and twice led the league in scoring.
But by the time Detroit signed him, he was a husk of his former self. The 31 year old averaged just 8 points per game in the 2010-11 season on an awful team that only won 30 games.
He was far from the guy who once averaged 32 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game, numbers we hope Cade Cunningham will match next season.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Chris Webber
Chris Webber always wanted to play for the Detroit Pistons, the team he grew up cheering for before becoming a member of the Fab Five and going on to have a great NBA career.
He finally got his chance to play for the Pistons in the 2006-7 season but unfortunately, by then he was already 33 years old and well past his prime when he was a five-time All-Star and one of the best all-around forwards in the league.
Webber, like McGrady, is another guy who never quite lived up to expectations even though he had a very good career. He had the skillset to be an All-Time great but it never quite panned out.
With his ability to pass and spread the floor, Webber would probably be even better now, and is the exact type of player the Detroit Pistons need at power forward. He did average 11 points, 6.5 rebounds and three assists in his stint with Detroit but was laboring around the court and wasn’t nearly what he once was.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Elden Campbell
Elden Campbell was actually an underrated player for the Detroit Pistons who helped them win a title, providing a big body to combat Shaquille O’Neal.
He had two stints with the Pistons, but I will mostly remember him a member of the Lakers, where he spent most of his early career.
Campbell was never great, but he did average 15 points, 8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game for the Lakers in his best season, but he only averaged five a game for Detroit and was a much different player by then.
He was one of those big guys who stayed in the league forever, so by the time he got to Detroit he was already 35 years old and well past the stage of his career when he was relied on to score.
He was mostly just a big body inserted for a few minutes per game to provide some tough defense and a few hard fouls for the Pistons.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Joe Smith
Joe Smith could probably be on a list of “worst number-one picks of all time” even though he ended up having a solid career.
He was a monster in college, which is why the Warriors selected him first, though he never lived up to those expectations.
He did average 18 points, 8 rebounds and over a block per game in his best season for the Warriors, but he was already starting to slide by the time he joined the Detroit Pistons as a 25-year-old.
He did put up 12 points and 7 rebounds per game, so he wasn’t terrible, but he only played one season in Detroit before heading back to Minnesota. Smith played for 13 different teams over a career that was marred by injuries.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Lindsey Hunter
Hunter was one of my favorite Pistons to watch, as he was an absolute dawg on defense who would harass offensive players for the entire length of the court.
He helped the Pistons win a title and had seven great seasons with the team after being drafted to Detroit.
His first stint with the team was better for him statistically, but the teams were mostly horrible.
By the time he came back in 2003-4, Hunter was no longer a scoring threat, though he was still a tenacious defender who was a big part of that title team even though he was playing fewer minutes and not getting many shots.
He’ll go down as one of the most underrated Pistons of all time due to his contributions to a title that are often overlooked.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Orlando Woolridge
Orlando Woolridge had an excellent career even though he never made an All-Star appearance, starting with going to the Final Four on a Notre Dame team that also had Pistons’ legend Bill Laimbeer.
He was still pretty good in 1991-92 on the Detroit Pistons, when he averaged 14 points per game as a 32-year-old, albeit on terrible shooting splits.
But when you look at some of the seasons he had just prior to joining Detroit, it was obvious that the Pistons had signed a guy whose career was in steep decline.
Just the season before Woolridge had averaged 25 points and 7 rebounds per game for the Nuggets, so his scoring average plummetted by nearly half in the Motor City.
Woolridge was another guy whose career was undone by injuries, but he definitely was not at his peak by the time he got to Detroit.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Gerald Henderson
Henderson had some solid seasons for the Celtics and SuperSonics early in his career, but he had dropped off the map by the time he got to Detroit.
He played parts of three seasons with the Pistons as a 35-year-old, but never managed to average more than five points per game after having seasons early in his career where he averaged 13 points and 7 rebounds as a starter.
Loy Vaught
The Detroit Pistons didn’t have much luck signing players from Michigan, as Vaught was another guy who was great for the Wolverines but never did much as a pro in Detroit.
He went from averaging nearly 15 per game for the Clippers to a guy who scored just over 2 points per game for the Pistons over two seasons.
Injuries once again derailed a pretty good career, as Vaught dropped off the map after turning 29 years old and battling injuries.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Ben Gordon
Most fans of the Detroit Pistons will recoil at the name Ben Gordon, who was one of the biggest free agent mistakes in team history.
This was the end of an era in a way, as Joe Dumars was still trying to keep the Pistons relevant after a long run of success when he probably should have been looking for ways to rebuild.
Gordon was an outstanding bench scorer for the Bulls, who had won 6th Man of the Year, and he had just scored over 20 per game as a starter the season before signing with Detroit.
Detroit tried him as a starter and eventually brought him off the bench, but Gordon was never able to regain what he had in Chicago, averaging just 13.8 per game in his best season in Detroit.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Josh Smith
Another of Detroit’s worst free-agent signings, Josh Smith was terrible for the Pistons after having a really good career with Atlanta.
People tend to forget that Smith was really good for the Hawks, leading mediocre teams to the playoffs in six straight seasons before coming to the Detroit Pistons as a free agent.
He never made an All-Star appearance for Atlanta, but did average 18 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists per game in his best season.
What Pistons’ fans will mostly remember is yelling “NOOOOOOOOO!” at the TV every time Smith took a shot from long range, as he was an abysmal 3-point shooter. Part of the problem was that the Pistons tried to pigeonhole Smith into a lineup that already had two bigs who couldn’t shoot, pushing him to the perimeter, where he had no business touching a basketball.
He did average 16/6/3 in his best season in Detroit, but did it on woeful shooting splits for awful teams.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Antonio McDyess
McDyess had five very productive seasons for the Detroit Pistons after re-inventing himself as a role player on some good teams that came achingly close to winning a title.
He was an efficient scorer from the mid-range for the Pistons, and a very important part of the team, but he wasn’t the star that he once was or that people thought he could be after being drafted second overall.
McDyess did make one All-Star appearance for the Nuggets, though it probably should have been more, as he multiple seasons in which he averaged more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Devastating knee injuries ended all of that, so he was a much different player for Detroit who never averaged double digits as a Piston.
12 players the Detroit Pistons signed who were past their prime
Derrick Rose
Rose would definitely be listed as one of the biggest “what ifs” in NBA history, as he was a dynamic guard who won an MVP before knee injuries messed with his unbelievable speed and quickness.
We saw flashes of that guy in Detroit, as the 31-year-old re-invented himself as a bench scorer for the Pistons who did get 18 per game in his best season. He also has the distinction of having some of the most psychotic Stans in the business, as if you even whispered a negative word about him, his minions would swarm, as I found out many times firsthand.
But he was a far cry from what he once was and injuries limited him to only 65 games total over parts of two seasons in Detroit.
He’s been decent for the Knicks in limited action since but you have to wonder what Rose’s career would have been without the bum ACLs.