Fans of the Detroit Pistons were getting nervous about the offseason the team was having after they lost Dennis Schroder, Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr., but that panic was somewhat dampened by reports that the Pistons have signed sharpshooter Duncan Robinson to a 3-year deal in a sign-and-trade for Simone Fontecchio.
The deal was reported by Shams Charania, but full details of the trade are not yet out, so it’s unclear if the Pistons are sending anything else to Miami in the exchange.
I wrote about Fontecchio’s expiring contract being useful for this exact trade, and the Pistons clearly needed to address shooting after losing 614 made 3-pointers from last year’s playoff team.
We know Robinson can shoot it at an elite level, but he’s improved in other areas offensively and has championship experience and several deep playoff runs, appearing in 70 playoff games in his career shooting 40 percent from 3-point range on over five attempts per game.
He adds the kind of shooting the Pistons were missing and should be a nice fit with Caris LeVert off the bench.
Simone Fontecchio had a down season and didn’t play in the playoffs, but he does leave a hole that was already a problem for the Pistons.
Detroit Pistons need a power forward
Ron Holland II and Ausar Thompson can both play some time at the four to spell Tobias Harris, so the Pistons don’t need to do anything drastic, but they do need more depth at power forward.
Sending Fontecchio in the deal will hopefully leave the Pistons enough financial flexibility to sign some depth, as they are small at forward and that didn’t change with the Robinson signing.
There are still options out there for the Pistons to explore, but for now it appears they have salvaged an offseason that was looking fairly underwhelming.
But the Pistons have now arguably upgraded or at least matched both Beasley and THJ, kept their core intact and still have some wiggle room for another move.
The biggest addition will be the return of Jaden Ivey, and big leaps from Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland will be more important than any free agent they were going to chase.
Trajan Langdon’s work isn’t done yet, but he has made decent go of it after being handed a tough challenge with the Beasley situation forcing them to change plans at the last second.