Grade the trade: Pistons accelerate rebuild with huge draft move

The Detroit Pistons rebuild on the fly 

My first reaction to this trade is YES PLEASE. 

If the Pistons can add two impact 3-and-D wings without giving up a young player AND stay in the lottery, they would do this deal 100 times out of 100. 

Grant fills their biggest need for a two-way wing. He’s a plus defender and a guy who is now a knockdown 3-point shooter hitting over 40 percent. Some of the concerns with his fit with Cade Cunningham have disappeared, as Grant has evolved more into a pure 3-and-D guy who can get to the rim as a secondary scoring threat. 

He wouldn’t have the kind of usage he did in his first go around with Detroit and will slot in as a guy who does most of his damage off the catch and shoot. 

With Thybulle also on board, the Pistons would have a nice mix of defense and shooting in their wing ranks. They’d have three defensive dawgs in Ausar Thompson, Matisse Thybulle and Quentin Grimes to go along with Simone Fontecchio (assuming he’s re-signed) and Grant knocking down 3’s. 

The Pistons could completely revamp their defensive identity and shooting at the same time with plenty of cap space left over to address needs at point guard and center. 

This is a rotation that can at least compete for the play-in right away and still doesn’t have any egregiously bad contracts: 

-Cade Cunningham/FA/Marcus Sasser 

-Jaden Ivey/Matisse Thybulle/Quentin Grimes 

-Ausar Thompson/Simone Fontecchio

-Jerami Grant/Isaiah Stewart 

-Jalen Duren/FA center 

You can shuffle this up however you like (and add the 14th pick as well) but the point is the Pistons would have 11-12 NBA players with complementary skills that would be easy to mix and match in myriad ways to always have shooting and defense on the floor around Cade Cunningham. They would have plenty of depth as insurance against injuries and finally have an actual team that makes sense.

And I didn’t even have to give up one of the young players to get it? Sign me up. 

Grade: A