3 Detroit Pistons whose roles aren't safe after the trade deadline

Marcus Sasser

Initially, I thought Sasser would be one of the big beneficiaries of the Pistons' trade deadline moves and I still believe that.

But we may see him sharing more minutes with Shake Milton as the Pistons try to figure out whether to keep Milton around. Shake has a non-guaranteed year left on his contract at $5 million, so might be worth having as a deep-bench reserve.

The only way to find out is to play him and see what happens, which could come at the expense of some of Sasser's minutes. In the loss to the Clippers, Sasser played 14 minutes, while Milton played 12, though Sasser did pick up four quick fouls which may have led to him spending most of the night on the bench.

That could (and should) be a one-off, as Sasser was red-hot coming into that game and is just a smidge away from becoming the first rookie to join the 50/40/90 club.

But in the short term, we may see some of the new guards get a shot, as Sasser is already a part of the Pistons' future, while they've not seen how Milton or even Malachi Flynn might fit in.