The onslaught of proposed NBA trades is upon us and will only get louder after December 15th, especially for the Detroit Pistons.
That’s the date teams can trade free agents they signed last summer and the Pistons have a trio that fit into that category.
Whether Detroit will be buyers or sellers is yet to be seen, but the Pistons can set themselves up for a star if they are savvy at this year’s trade deadline.
A recent proposed trade from Bleacher Report doesn’t look like much for Detroit, but would potentially set them up for bigger deals.
Detroit Pistons trade rumors: 3-team deal with the Lakers and Nets
This deal is really about the Lakers, who are trying desperately to add talent to take advantage of the rapidly closing window of opportunity they have with the duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
The Nets have players that could help them, and the Lakers would likely mortgage their future for the chance at another title this season, which is what this trade does. The Pistons are just along to grease the wheels and are an afterthought until you consider the ripple effect:
This makes sense for the Lakers, who get two good players and it makes sense for the Nets, who want to tank anyway and are picking up two potentially valuable first-round picks in the deal.
I’d rather focus on the Pistons and how a deal like this could help them.
3-Team deal could lead to a star for the Pistons
Forget about all of the players involved, as none of them would be part of the future plans. Sure, they can take a flyer on Maxwell Lewis, who is young and putting up 20 per game in the G-League, but this deal wouldn’t be about the players.
The Pistons would keep most of their current cap space in the deal with ways to make more with the non-guaranteed contract of Paul Reed, and also be picking up a player in Lewis (essentially for free) that could be used as filler in a bigger deal.
Lewis is on the kind of minimum non-guaranteed salary that is predicted to be more valuable in the future because of the apron rules, especially if he shows he can play.
It gives the Pistons an asset to play with and potential ways to package more players and open more cap space if they wanted to make a bigger deal for a star-level player at this year's deadline or in the future.
Cap space and flippable minimum contracts may not be the sexist things, but they can help facilitate a bigger trade down the road.
In the end, this deal isn’t likely to happen and there are probably better ways (with similar results) that the Pistons could use their cap space, but it gives an idea of some of the possibilities that exist.