Building up and tearing the Detroit Pistons down
Tearing down the Detroit Pistons
Troy Weaver
Troy Weaver was supposed to be the guru who would gather the elite talent the Pistons needed to rebuild the franchise. So far, his roster has one player ranked in the top-100, a bunch of kids who don't know how to play or win and veterans who are not long for the league.
For the last three offseasons, he has sat on his cap space or spent it on salary dumps while the rest of the league is trying to build coherent rosters.
The worst part is that the NBA is wide open. There aren't any super teams right now, the Timberwolves and Thunder are atop the Western Conference and the Magic are top-3 in the East. You don't have to have four superstars to be competitive in the NBA and there are probably 7-8 teams with a realistic shot at the title.
The Pistons have enjoyed none of this parity, and Weaver hasn't even tried. When he first took over he talked about "empty clips" and people were calling him Trader Troy. What happened to that guy? He has been terrified to take any sort of risk and it shows in this roster, that doesn't have a single free agent on it from the last three offseasons.
Worse yet, this team is completely mismatched, isn't built to complement its best player and doesn't have the personnel to match up against a modern NBA team. There's been no discernible plan from the beginning, no team building and absolutely no logic to how this team has been constructed.
You can blame Monty Williams (I will in a second) but this is Weaver's team and he has to be held responsible for his failure to improve it. The silence from the front office during all of this has been deafening, as all we've heard is how we need to see if the team "gels" or if getting Bojan Bogdanovic back will help them "win a few games." They haven't and it hasn't.
Given his lack of activity and the lack of progress, I don't see how Troy Weaver can be allowed to rebuild this team again this summer, as they will have as many as eight open roster spots.