Many Detroit Pistons fans spent the offseason talking about trading for a star, and one of the names we repeatedly heard was Lauri Markkanen, who went for 51 points last night in a win over the Suns.
Markkanen in Detroit makes sense strictly from a talent fit, as they need a second scorer, and his game is a good match with Cade Cunningham.
I was waiting for Markkanen to have a monster game, which he did last night, and given that the Pistons were also blown out of the gym by the Cavaliers, it makes sense that I woke up to a million posts about how the Pistons should trade for Markkanen.
It’s a rumor we aren’t going to stop hearing until the trade deadline has passed, and Markkanen is still somewhere other than Detroit, but all of the same challenges remain.
The Detroit Pistons would still have a hard time trading for Lauri Markkanen
Because the Pistons lack big contracts other than Cade Cunningham’s, it will be difficult for them to trade for a star on a max deal, as they would have to give up at least three players to do it.
We saw this yesterday in a proposed trade for Jimmy Butler in which the Pistons gave up Tobias Harris, Jaden Ivey and Isaiah Stewart. You can argue about that deal all you want from a talent standpoint, but it’s nearly impossible for one player to make up for the loss of three rotation players, no matter how good he is.
There’s also the issue that Jaden Ivey, who is the Pistons’ best trade asset, is currently sitting on the bench in street clothes, so you can forget about any big deal until he is healthy and playing well.
You also have the issue of Danny Ainge to deal with, and he must be salivating after last night’s game thinking about the demands he’d make in any Markkanen trade, which is undoubtedly going to include several players and a pile of draft assets.
Markkanen is still injury prone, still a bad defender, would still cost a fortune and would still leave the Pistons with little depth, so it doesn’t matter how many monster games he has, trading for Markkanen is still laden with challenges.
Some of these could be mitigated or overcome by getting multiple teams involved, but for now, the Pistons would have a hard time dealing for Markkanen without gutting their roster, which would be a big risk for a guy who has only played 65 or more games twice in his 8+ year career.