Giving up on Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren could be the biggest mistake of Detroit’s offseason
Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2024 6:01 pm
Photo by Brian Sevald/NBAE via Getty Images Everyone is quickly willing to sacrifice young players at the altar of a 40-win team, but the Pistons must focus on decisions best for the franchise not just the ones that save them from embarrassment The Detroit Pistons were an embarrassment of a franchise in 2023-24. A do-nothing offseason after winning just 17 games, an NBA-record losing streak, a record-setting coaching contract for someone already on the chopping block, a franchise-record for losses, and stalled development for young players. This is the objective reality. And yet ... and yet ... I think people are going overboard in the kind of changes they are arguing the team needs to make this offseason. The Pistons fundamentally lost two seasons. The first was to a Cade Cunnigham injury that nixed nearly his entire second season of development and chemistry. The second was this past season, when organizational malpractice saw the team run back 90% of a 17-win team and expected it not to be terrible. Just because you lost two years, however, doesn’t mean the franchise can skip ahead two years in one offseason just because they wish it to be so. Fast forwarding out of fear of Cunningham wanting out, out of embarrassment for how sorry this team is, or simply because we are “sick of losing” is a blueprint for winding up right back where this team has been since 2009. Don’t get me wrong, Troy Weaver and 95% of the front office must go. Monty Williams, record contract be damned, should also go. The Pistons are hiring a president of basketball operations, and they will reportedly have full authority to clean house. And clean house they should. They need to fumigate this franchise after years of losing an inept leadership. If you ask many fans and pundits, that fumigation stretches all the way to the players on the roster. The Pistons are surely ripe for a makeover. Still, I’m puzzled why so many people are so convinced that the change necessitates them sacrificing just about every young asset not named Cade Cunningham to absolve the franchise of its past sins. Bad choices beget bad choices, and there is so much anxiety around catching up after the failure of the past year that folks are trying to skip steps. That is a path that will only lead to trouble and disappointment. I don’t want to sound like an incrementalist neo-lib writing for The Atlantic here, but I will make a not-so-bold proclamation. The Pistons are not required to trade Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren, Marcus Sasser, Ausar Thompson, and a pending top-5 pick just so Cade can finally be surrounded by players with a pulse. Look, the Pistons aren’t getting plus assets in trade without giving up a lot in return. The latest iteration of this move is outlined by James Edwards in The Athletic. He suggests trading the first overall pick (assuming lottery luck), Jaden Ivey, and Jalen Duren for Mikal Bridges, Dorian Finney-Smith, and a 2025 first via the Suns (lottery protected). That’s two clear starting upgrades at the wings. In this scenario, the Pistons are also signing Nic Claxton to a free-agent deal. The cost is high. The return is ... fine. It could signal the end of embarrassing years of losing. But it might not lead to much winning. The question is whether it is a return required by this past season’s utter failure and the failure of the seasons preceding it. I would argue trading lottery picks (three, in this scenario) should be reserved for making an OK team really good instead of making the worst team in the league the 2025 version of the already disappointing Brooklyn Nets. This is the underappreciated aspect of the Houston Rockets' spending $200 million in the offseason last year. Sure, it only raised them to a .500 win ceiling, but they kept almost all of their young assets. Now, they are sprinkling in the high performers with the starting lineup and letting those with slower growth curves come off the bench. If those bench players get better, they graduate to starters on a potentially great team. If they remain disappointments, they are easily expendable. The Pistons should work from that model. Keep the assets in place if possible. Add players, even starters, through free agency when possible. Instead, folks are trying to put Detroit’s rebuild into overdrive. It feels like fans are trying to take huge swings to overcome the embarrassment they feel when really they should be focused on smart moves that overcome the incompetence of this organization’s leadership. As disappointed as I was with Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren this season, they are 22 and 20, respectively, and their team controls their future for many years. As much as I need players better than Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren on next year’s Pistons roster, it doesn’t mean I’m against the idea of both players returning. If the Pistons are able to add players who should start in front of Ivey and Duren then great. That just means two more quality players and players who could get better on the bench. In five-man lineups last season, 13 charted with all of Cunningham, Ivey, and Duren on the floor. Seven of those lineups were negative in plus-minus and six were positive. Let’s look at who shared the floor in the worst-performing lineups:
Source: https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2024/4/2 ... al-bridges
- Trio + Thompson, Stewart = -29 in 145 minutes
- Trio + Bogdanovic, Livers = -14 in 101 minutes
- Trio + Msucala, Thompson = -10 in 18 minutes
- Trio + Bogdanovic, Thompson = -10 in 20 minutes
- Trio + Umude, Evbuomwan = -8 in 26 minutes
- Trio + Brown, Evbuomwan = -6 in 20 minutes
- Trio + Burks, Bogdanovic = -5 in 39 minutes
- Trio + Bogdanovic, Stewart = +24 in 40 minutes
- Trio + Sasser, Thompson = +22 in 14 minutes
- Trio + Stewart, Fontecchio = +16 in 90 minutes
- Trio + Hayes, Stewart = +11 in 19 minutes
- Trio + Fontecchio, Thompson = +7 in 113 minutes
- Trio + Bogdanovic, Knox = +5 in 89 minutes
Source: https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2024/4/2 ... al-bridges