There’s an old cliche around big NBA trades that says the team that gets the best player wins the trade, something the Detroit Pistons know isn’t always true.
The Pistons were forced into trading superstar Grant Hill for what looked like an unbalanced return. Instead, Hill’s career was plagued by injuries and the Pistons got Ben Wallace, the anchor of their title team.
The Denver Nuggets were also forced to trade superstar Carmelo Anthony, with the Knicks giving up a slew of players in a 3-team deal that involved 13 guys. You can read the full details here.
None of the players the Knicks gave up were anywhere close to as good as Carmelo, so it looked as if New York had won the trade, they got their superstar in his prime, though they were left without much else.
New York never made it out of the second round of the playoffs with Carmelo and missed them entirely in four of the six full seasons he was there. The Knicks were never able to put the right team around their star even though he had a Hall-of-Fame career there and made the All-Star team in all six full seasons.
The Nuggets struggled initially after the trade, though they did make the playoffs the first two full seasons after Carmelo left.
But the benefits are still paying off in Denver more than a decade later, as one of the pick swaps the Knicks gave up in the deal turned into Jamal Murray, who has already won a title in Denver and is chasing another one this season.
You can’t kill the Knicks or Magic for these deals and you could argue they worked out well for all of the teams involved, but it shows that you never know how a deal is going to turn out for the long term, a lesson the Pistons should consider this summer.
The Detroit Pistons can’t trade for the wrong guy
I’m on record many many times as saying I don’t think the Pistons are going to make a move for a superstar this summer barring an extremely unlikely trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Even that would take consideration, as like the Carmelo trade for New York, the Pistons would be gutting their roster for one guy, be left with no draft picks and big challenges trying to build a deep team.
The big difference is that the Pistons have Cade Cunningham, a 23-year-old superstar, already in place, something the Knicks and Magic didn’t have when they traded for their stars.
Devin Booker is another name we’ve heard a lot, though the Suns have repeatedly said they aren’t trading him, and he’s made no indication he wants to leave. It would take at least three players to match salaries, plus most of the Pistons’ future draft capital, which is a steep cost when they might be able to get a good chunk of his production from Jaden Ivey for a third of the cap hit.
This is not to say the Pistons shouldn't take a swing if the right player comes up, but they had better be sure it is the right guy and that they don’t entirely mortgage their future for short-term gains that they might be able to get in house.
Roster depth and team chemistry matter. The Pistons have that right now and should be careful about giving it away. Look at the Pacers, who are headed back to the Eastern Conference Finals.
They got there by drafting well, developing players and making a trade for a star (Siakam) that didn’t gut their roster. The Pistons just have to be patient and wait for their own Siakam-like deal or for that option to emerge from the young players they already have.
We are going to talk about big trades all summer, as that is the nature of the NBA media machine, but the Pistons don’t need to make one. They can rely on continuity by bringing back some of their own guys along with one impact addition that comes now or in the future.