Pistons make baffling trade in proposed deal with Trail Blazers

The ink isn’t even dry on Trajan Langdon’s new contract with the Detroit Pistons, so it’s difficult to predict what moves he’ll make when he arrives in the Motor City. 

Whether you think the front office, coaching staff and roster need to be completely torn down or just tinkered with, the Pistons will be busy this summer trying to fix the mess that led to the worst season in team history. 

There has been rampant speculation that the Pistons might try to trade Jalen Duren for a wing player and replace him with a better rim protector, which does make some sense. 

Even if the Pistons balk at the idea of trading a 20-year-old double-double machine, they need to add another center with a different set of skills, namely rim protection and the ability to spread the floor. 

The exact opposite happens in this deal proposed recently in Bleacher Report, which makes zero sense for the Detroit Pistons. 

Detroit Pistons trade Evan Fournier and 2030 1st-round pick to the Portland Trail Blazers for Deandre Ayton 

Please, make it make sense. I thought the Deandre Ayton noise was finally over, but I was wrong. 

In this deal, the Pistons trade an expiring contract and future first for Deandre Ayton, a player they have been connected to in the past. And in the past, it made some sense, but now that they have Jalen Duren on board, adding Ayton should be the furthest thing from their minds. 

Duren and Ayton are very similar players as more traditional centers who get most of their points around the rim and grab plenty of rebounds. Neither of them can shoot and neither average even a single block per game. 

I see no way in which adding another Duren makes sense for Detroit. He could very well surpass Ayton in points per game and rebounds next season and he’s five years younger and still on a rookie deal. 

I can’t think of a player the Pistons need to trade for less than Deandre Ayton. 

That’s not to mention the inclusion of Evan Fournier, who has a team option left on his deal at $19 million that the Pistons would have to opt into. Why in the world would Portland want to take on $19 million of dead money for a guy who can’t play when they could just send Ayton into the Pistons’ cap space? 

The trade makes no sense for either team, especially the Pistons, who need a rim protector and floor spreader, not another center who does neither. Hard pass.