When the Detroit Pistons decided to trade Jaden Ivey for Kevin Huerter and a pick swap, the obvious question to ask their coach was whether Huerter was actually going to play.
Zach Lowe recently questioned the Pistons and the Huerter trade on an episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast after both hosts agreed there was no reason to panic over their current losing streak.
They reflected my long-standing position, which is understanding why the Pistons wouldn’t make a splashy move that could disrupt their chemistry or future but also thinking they should have done a bit more than they did at the trade deadline.
Jaden Ivey was not going to fetch a big return on his own, but Langdon might have done better than a guy who doesn’t play unless it’s an emergency, which makes you wonder how much communication there was between head coach and front office.
The Jaden Ivey trade is looking worse by the day
I talked myself into the Ivey/Huerter thing even after it was clear that Huerter wasn’t going to play, mostly because it looked as though the Pistons might move up significantly in the draft because of the pick swap.
For a short time, the Pistons would have swapped the 30th pick for the 21st, but as of right now, they’d move up from 28 to 26, so hardly anything to get excited about. There could certainly be more shuffling, but that pick swap isn’t looking like much.
And when you consider Huerter is barely playing, you do have to wonder if there was a better trade out there for Ivey or at least a player they could have targeted who could actually crack the rotation.
The Pistons are playing Javonte Green, Caris LeVert and Daniss Jenkins big minutes and there wasn’t anyone out there who could be an upgrade from one of them? I find that hard to believe.
This is all speculation of course, and I am sure that JB Bickerstaff was in some of the conversations, but did the Pistons trade for Huerter knowing he might never play or did Trajan Langdon think he had upgraded his shooting and that Huerter was at least a minor addition to the rotation?
It’s a fair question to ask, as the Pistons traded away a top five pick for a whole lot of nothing. If you're telling me it was for the pick swap or to get off Ivey's cap hold, I can accept it, but that's not how this was sold. I can also accept that many of the players we talked about weren't actually available or would have been prohibitively expensive to acquire.
I’ve said this a million times at this point, but there was a huge gray area between the type of “all-in” move Langdon didn’t want to make and trading for a guy who can’t crack the rotation.
I have to agree with Lowe that the Pistons’ trade deadline now looks baffling in retrospect, as they seemed less interested in adding a player and more interested in the financial flexibility it brought.