Grade the trade: Proposal has Pistons moving two young players

We are officially into fake trade season and few teams are involved in as many as the Detroit Pistons. 

This could just be wishful thinking from the fanbase, as the team needs a shakeup, and fans dream of the best-case scenarios that could take the Pistons from the worst team in the league to a playoff contender. 

Should the Detroit Pistons trade their young players? 

The biggest question looming over the Pistons when it comes to trades is whether they will be willing to part with any of their young players in exchange for proven talent. 

There are risks to both, of course, but overrating your own guys and holding onto them for too long has far worse consequences than trading them too early, as we saw recently with Killian Hayes, who the team had to cut with nothing coming in return. 

There’s also the issue of assets, as in, if you take away the young players, the Pistons don’t have any outside of their 2024 draft pick, which will be in the top five, but in a draft without any highly coveted prospects. 

That draft pick alone isn’t going to get you much unless it is the #1 pick and even then won’t reap nearly the assets it would have in the past, so if the Pistons want to improve this summer, packaging the pick with one or more of their young players is likely the only way to do it. 

That’s exactly what happens in a recent trade proposal.