With cap space, young players and tradable contracts, Trajan Langdon has set the Detroit Pistons up to make future trades.
Teams trade for various reasons, some looking for the final piece to push them over the top, others looking to shed salary or to add assets to a rebuild or a star to build around.
Within the next two seasons, the Pistons are set up to make a big trade, but in the meantime, we could see them make smaller moves, take on an onerous contract for assets or take a flyer on a project player or one on a team-friendly deal.
The Pistons have set a two-year timeline to gather as many assets and future expiring contracts as possible, so some of these players are ones they would flip as expiring deals.
Here is one possible trade target on every team in the Eastern Conference. Some of these are far more realistic than others (at least for now) but there are a few big names the Pistons could pursue if things break the right way.
Washington Wizards: Corey Kispert
Teams can always use shooting and the awful Wizards are likely tanking next season, so they don’t really need Kispert as they lean into a youth movement.
He’s on an expiring contract that pays him just $5 million next season, so the Wiz may look to flip him.
Kispert is only 25 and is a career 39 percent shooter from long range. He’ll likely be on a value deal and it might be worth giving up a future second to get a value shooter, as the Pistons did with Simone Fontecchio.
Guys like Kispert are getting shut out of the big contracts in free agency (look what Gary Trent Jr. and Fontecchio just signed for), so the Pistons could get a very good shooter for practically nothing.
Charlotte Hornets: Nick Richards
Another guy on a value deal, Richards is the kind of rim protector the Pistons could use coming off their bench.
The Hornets are probably thinking the same thing, as Richards is on a team-friendly deal that pays him just $5 million this season and isn’t fully guaranteed the next. That’s 3rd center money for a guy who might be more.