Kendrick Perkins came up with a revolutionary way for the Detroit Pistons to land Giannis Antetokounmpo and it starts with Cade Cunningham picking up the phone.
Perkins suggested Cade should be on the phone to trying to recruit Giannis to the Motor City, saying that it’s a “great basketball city” with a “rising superstar” and that pairing him with Cade “puts them in the championship conversation.”
The first two things are certainly true, as Detroit’s fanbase is elite and showed it in the playoffs and Cade Cunningham is fresh off his first All-NBA season with plenty more to come.
What Perkins ignores is that trading for Giannis would not be adding him to the exact team the Pistons had this season, which is where the problems start.
The Detroit Pistons aren’t trading for Giannis whether Cade Cunningham picks up the phone or not
The first challenge is that Giannis has not yet requested a trade and may not. He clearly likes Milwaukee and wants to win another title with the only team he’s ever known. The Bucks aren’t trading him without that demand, and so far, it has not come.
Even if Giannis was to be traded, the entire league would be making offers, and there are teams who can put together better deals than the Pistons.
It’s not happening.
But just to play along with the hypothetical Perkins suggested, let’s say the Pistons could trade for Giannis.
It would take at least three players to match salaries, so you can likely say goodbye to Tobias Harris, Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson and/or Isaiah Stewart.
Giannis is one of the best players in the world, but the Pistons would be losing a lot of depth in this exchange would have few ways to replace it.
You’d essentially have Cade and Giannis at the top of the roster with Jalen Duren and then what? Don’t get me wrong the idea of Giannis is beyond tempting, but how are the Pistons building out the rest of their roster?
This is the type of trade that shows what the Pistons are up against, as they don’t have stackable contracts to make up money without shipping out a sizeable portion of their roster or getting several teams involved.
The counter argument is that the Pistons would have two top 15 players and you can figure the rest out from there, but it would be a lot to figure out and would require big leaps from guys like Ron Holland and Marcus Sasser.
This is all chat, as it’s not happening, but a lot of these trade proposals ignore the reality of what it would take to land a player making upwards of $54 million.