NBA free agency is officially underway, and the Detroit Pistons already missed out on one of their reported targets when Santi Aldama signed a three-year, $52 million deal to stay in Memphis.
Aldama had been linked to the Pistons, who sniffed around several stretch bigs including Naz Reid, who also stayed with his team and re-signed a big deal in Minnesota.
The Pistons’ offseason has been thrown into complete disarray by the Malik Beasley news, as we assumed his new deal would be the first thing we heard from the Pistons. Detroit had to quickly shift to other plans and with each signing, fans are getting more nervous.
Beasley has not been charged with anything, so there is a chance he’ll be cleared as Terry Rozier was, but it’s hard to imagine that happening in time for him to sign a contract this offseason, so it’s going to be interesting to see if some team takes that risk anyway.
I’m sure Trajan Langdon has something up his sleeve, but we have to hope Plan B or Plan C can compensate for the loss of Beasley.
Detroit Pistons free agency: Malik Beasley, Santi Aldama and what come next
The timing of the Beasley news was about as inopportune as it can get, as it came on the eve of free agency and it does seem to have caught the Pistons off guard along with everyone else.
With Beasley off the table, I thought we might see the Pistons pivot harder towards a stretch big, but Memphis reportedly made it clear that they were going to match just about any offer for Aldama and the Pistons don’t want to get into a bidding war for what amounts to a bench player.
But with a fairly shallow free agent class and some of their other targets already signing or expected to (Myles Turner), the Pistons may be left relying far more on internal growth than they had hoped.
We’re not even an hour into free agency yet, so there is no reason to panic, but there are concerns that the Pistons had to change their strategy on the fly.
In better news, Detroit did sign Paul Reed to a two-year, $11 million deal, which solidifies their center group and is probably a solid indication that they won’t be chasing another one.
The focus can now shift to players like Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Caris LeVert, but one of the Pistons’ early targets is already off the board.