Start bench cut: Detroit Pistons big man logjam edition

Start bench cut: Detroit Pistons big man logjam edition

Cut: Marvin Bagley III

So MBIII is not going to be cut per se, but there is a good chance that one or he or James Wiseman will not be on the roster by the end of the season.

Bagley III is probably better than Wiseman right now but he’s already played 208 games and is a couple of years older than Wiseman, so his ceiling is less of an unknown.

We know Bagley III can score efficiently around the rim, but he can’t do much of anything else.

There’s also the issue of his contract, which extends for two more seasons, so Detroit would probably love to get that off their books and open up some more cap space or find a player who helps balance the roster.

Bagley III is also an injury waiting to happen, as he has only played over 60 games once in his career (his rookie season) and has since played 13, 43, 48 and 42 games in the seasons that followed.

At best you’re paying a guy $12.5 million for half a season’s worth of games, which seems like bad value for money. Of course, the contract and his injury history will make him more difficult to trade, which could be why we see Wiseman shipped out instead.

It’s not easy to choose between the two, and you could argue that they should keep them both in the eventuality of an injury, but spending $25 million on backup centers is not an efficient allocation of cap space, so it’s likely one of them has to go.