The Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs are two of the best young teams in the NBA and could end up fighting each other at the trade deadline, a battle in which the Spurs have a decided advantage.
The Pistons and Spurs are old-school rivals, but that has dissipated over the years as both teams cycled out of their sustained success into a rebuilding era.
They are in similar positions now, even though the Pistons did make the playoffs last season in the watered-down Eastern Conference. Both teams have a superstar to build around but aren’t yet sure if all of the pieces fit together.
They aren’t tanking or rebuilding but are still evaluating what they have before making big roster decisions about the young guys or pulling off risky trades.
Both teams are also in the position where the right addition could push them into title contention sooner rather than later, but the Spurs will have advantages over the Pistons if they are both active at next season’s trade deadline.
Detroit Pistons trades: The contracts to match
I’ve been saying this for months, but one of the things holding the Pistons back from making a big move is that they don’t have big contracts to match salaries, which means they’d have to send out 3-4 players in a trade for any star on a max or near-max deal.
Fans love talking about trading for a guy like Lauri Markkanen until they find out it would take Tobias Harris and two more players to get it done and that’s before you even get to the draft capital.
Same for the Tyler Herro trade that is going around, as it would cost the Pistons all of their power forward depth and leave them with a guard-heavy roster with big defensive liabilities.
The Spurs are in a better position to make a trade. They not only have $40 million in expiring contracts next season, but they are guys who aren’t part of the long-term plans. Sending out Harrison Barnes, Kelly Olynyk and Jeremy Sochan would not hurt the Spurs in the least and would be enough to match salaries in most trades.
The Pistons could get to around that amount with Tobias Harris’ expiring and Duncan Robinson (whose contract is only partially guaranteed next season) but those guys figure to play key roles next season, with Harris being the starting power forward and Robinson their best 3-point shooter.
It would be tough to give those two up unless the guy coming back was a power forward who can shoot and even then, it might be too devastating to their depth.
Both of these teams will look to make big moves over the next season or two and the Pistons need to keep collecting bigger, short-term contracts that they can use to match salaries in a trade for a star.