Lauri Markkanen trade rumors have been everywhere lately, and a lot of pundits see his best fit with the Detroit Pistons. Detroit has a long-term need at power forward, needs a second banana next to Cade Cunningham, and potentially has the assets to get him. The biggest obstacle may be Danny Ainge.
The positives of adding Markkanen are easy to see: He’s a seven-footer who can shoot. He’d be a perfect sidekick for Cade on offense as a guy who deadly in the pick-and-roll and can create his own shot.
But there are red flags. Markkanen is not a great defender, and there are questions about how he would coexist with Jalen Duren, who is also not a great. Would the offensive improvements (especially in the half-court) be worth the defensive trade-off? There’s also the argument that Tobias Harris isn’t elite himself, though he is better than Markkanen.
Then there’s Markkanen’s injury history as a guy who has never played more than the 68 games he played as a rookie. He’s also getting paid a ton of money, between $46-53 million over the next four seasons and I do think there are real questions about how good a team can be if Markkanen is the highest-paid player, which he would be on the Pistons.
These are valid concerns that publications like The Ringer left out of their evaluations.
And the biggest concern at all may not even be Markkanen himself, but the CEO of his team, Danny Ainge, a guy who is going to play hardball in these trade negotiations.
The Lauri Markkanen trade: The Detroit Pistons are not going to overpay
Given all of his red flags, there is a price tag that the Pistons would have to walk away from, but Danny Ainge is going to try and squeeze every bit of value out of Markkanen and treat him like a franchise player even though he isn’t.
The most commonly suggested trade is Tobias Harris, Jaden Ivey, Bobi Klintman and a couple of draft picks, which would be a steep price, but given that Harris and Ivey are on expiring deals, they are guys who might not have a long-term future with the team anyway.
And they could always bring back Harris as a free agent.
But Ainge isn’t going to settle for that, as he wants a haul for Markkanen, evidenced by the fact that he’s still on the team. Ainge is banking that a strong EuroBasket tournament and start to next season will increase his value, allowing him to demand a haul for Markkanen.
He’s going to want Harris, Ivey and Ron Holland and at that point the Pistons should walk away. They’d be far better off giving up draft picks than players, as most of the players in their core were top five picks and their future picks figure to be outside of the lottery.
Ainge may end up being the biggest obstacle for this trade, as Trajan Langdon isn’t going to mortgage his team for a guy with his injury and salary concerns.