Free Agency

[vege]

This could have been our team, if our GM wasn't (Please Use More Appropriate Word).

Wood $13,015,873
Grant $19,047,619
Sekou $ 3,449,400
Bey $ 2,689,920 (either give away a future protected 1st or the 4 seconds we gave up with Kennard should be enough to acquire the #19 pick without Kennard who had 0 value in that trade)
Kennard $ 5,273,826 (don't give him away for free)
Brown $ 1,663,861 (only give him away for free if you really need)
Svi $ 1,663,861
Hayes $ 5,307,120

Blake $36,595,996 (try to trade him, but no one will touch him, so whatever)
Rose $ 7,682,927 (try to trade him)
Snell $12,178,571

Incomplete Roster (1 spot) $898,310

Cap Space $109,140,000

Total Salary at this point $109,467,284 (need to shove 327k from salaries, maybe give Brown away for free)

Trade Snell for Dedmon to balance the roster

Jahlil Okafor $2,000,000 (room exception)
Dewayne Dedmon $13,333,333

Wood / Dedmon / Okafor
Grant / Blake
Sekou / Bey / King(2way)
Kennard / Svi / Brown
Hayes / Rose / 2way PG

That's an exciting young team, especially after Blake and Rose are gone. No 5 years dead money eating our cap space, probably no future picks owed to anyone, and more young talent then what we have right now, including both Wood and Grant.

[vege]

There are some interesting Free Agents we could try to acquire.

We have 35 million in cap space.

Our priority should be bring Christian Wood back we should have at least 20 million in cap space after that, hopefully more. We don't have a lot of talent so we should acquire talent in Free Agency imo. We should take our chance in young high ceiling players.

There are particularly 3 players that are very interesting imo.

The first one is Bryn Forbes. He was developed in San Antonio and the Spurs are in a weird situation. There is no way in hell they pay the LT for the team they got. They have a lot of money invested in LMA and DeRozan.

Even tho Forbes started for them, and he is good, they have 4 guards in their roster under contract. Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Lonnie Walker and Patrick Mills. So maybe we could steal Bryn Forbes for cheap. I think he would be a fantastic scorer of the bench for any team.

Another interesting player in my opinion would be Maurice Harkless. The Knicks are a mess, so we could try to get him. He is a very good defender and an average 3 point shooter. I believe he would fit well with Sekou, since he can play the 3 and the 4, with Wood at the 4 or the 5, so Mo would fit well with our core and we need people who can actually play defense, since we just donated probably our best defender to Brooklyn.

The next guy I'd try to sign would be a center. Nerlens Noel should be cheap and he is also a very good defender. He is a big upgrade over Thon Maker.

I don't think any of those players would cost more than 7 mil per year. We should give them 2 years contracts with 3rd being a team option and by the time Blake contract is done and we're ready to do something, we could bring them back or just let them go. They're all 27 or younger and they're worth investing some money and see if they could become part of our future.

There are other cheaper options that we should consider as well. Harry Giles, Noah Vonleh and Josh Jackson are all interesting talented cheap young players and we need some of those in our roster.

I would rather take that aproach instead of invest a lot of money on FVV for example.

Bryn Forbes 27 SG MLE $ 2,337,145
Nerlens Noel 26 C Cap Space $ 5,000,000
Christian Wood 25 PF Sign-and-Trade $ 13,015,874
Maurice Harkless 27 SF MLE $ 3,623,000

Luke Kennard 24 SG Rookie $ 5,273,826
Bruce Brown 24 SG MLE $ 1,663,861

Blake Griffin 31 PF Bird $ 36,595,996
Derrick Rose 31 PG MLE $ 7,682,927
Sekou Doumbouya 19 SF Rookie $ 3,449,400
Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk 23 SG Cap Space $ 1,663,861
Killian Hayes 19 PG $ 5,307,120

Jerami Grant 26 SF Sign-and-Trade $ 19,047,619
Jahlil Okafor 24 C $ 2,000,000

$106,660,629

Josh Jackson 23 SF $ 0

Christian Wood / Nerlens Noel / Jahlil Okafor
Jerami Grant / Sekou Doumbouya / Blake Griffin
Mo Harkless / Josh Jackson
Luke Kennard / Bryn Forbes / Svi Mykhailiuk
Killian Hayes / Derrick Rose / Bruce Brown

[Canadafan]

^^^^ Solid 8seed team ^^^^
Just embrace the tank. Trust me you'll sleep like a baby lol

[Kilo]

Reggie Jackson, John Henson, Brandon Knight are still all unsigned. Means all are likely looking at vet minimum deals. Khyri Thomas as well, I assume he's weighing 2-way deals.

Given COVID, I'm surprised the league didn't expand rosters. Two-way players can play up to 50 games flat, but they're limited to four years pro experience or under IIRC.

Elie Okobo was a guy linked to the Pistons in the PHX/Kennard trade talks last season. But Detroit has Saben Lee on a 2-way and likely the PG in GR Drive already.

I think Detroit is prevented from signing Patton or Thomas to contracts even though other teams waived them. I wonder if two-way contracts are different.

[Snakebites]

Reggie Jackson, John Henson, Brandon Knight are still all unsigned. Means all are likely looking at vet minimum deals. Khyri Thomas as well, I assume he's weighing 2-way deals.

Given COVID, I'm surprised the league didn't expand rosters. Two-way players can play up to 50 games flat, but they're limited to four years pro experience or under IIRC.

Elie Okobo was a guy linked to the Pistons in the PHX/Kennard trade talks last season. But Detroit has Saben Lee on a 2-way and likely the PG in GR Drive already.

I think Detroit is prevented from signing Patton or Thomas to contracts even though other teams waived them. I wonder if two-way contracts are different.

Yeah, I’m also surprised they didn’t expand rosters. You’d think the union would want that too.

This season has the potential to be REALLY chaotic.

[bstein14]

No surprise that they didn't expand rosters. In reality, when someone is out with COVID for 2 to 3 weeks they'll be placed on IR and then teams can sign players to 10 day contracts twice so it pretty much covers 3 weeks of a covid absence. Honestly its probably better for the league to have some of these types of players to be able to bounce around a few different teams to help out different teams when needed rather than having a healthy team with 16 or 17 players and an unhealthy team get hit with 6 or 7 guys out with Covid and not having enough players to field a team.

[bstein14]

Also, Reggie Jackson not having any deal at all right now just shows you how bad SVG was to give him that deal. He's known around the league to not be a difference maker and Leonard seemed really frustrated with him in LA last year. He eventually fell out of favor completely with Doc. Wouldn't be surprised to see Reggie sign a vet min deal with the Cavs just to be reunited with Drummond for the season.

John Henson for the min would have been a better deal for us than Plumlee for $25 million Weaver really should have practiced patience in FA instead of the attack attack attack mentality. That works for teams like LA or Miami but for Detroit its about finding the best bargains out there which sometimes is trying to pick the best of what's left over.

[Kilo]

No surprise that they didn't expand rosters. In reality, when someone is out with COVID for 2 to 3 weeks they'll be placed on IR and then teams can sign players to 10 day contracts twice so it pretty much covers 3 weeks of a covid absence. Honestly its probably better for the league to have some of these types of players to be able to bounce around a few different teams to help out different teams when needed rather than having a healthy team with 16 or 17 players and an unhealthy team get hit with 6 or 7 guys out with Covid and not having enough players to field a team.

In the past 10-day contracts were only available around mid-January. Given the league is starting a few months later will this be pushed back to late Feb/early March or is it a special allowance this year to have 10-day contracts available from the jump?

Also I believe you need to have an open roster spot to sign players to 10-day contracts and IR'ing players doesn't open one up. That might have changed recently or I am mis-remembering how it all works.

[bstein14]

The NBA expanded to 17 player rosters for the restart. I guess I'm uncertain if that carried over to this year or not. Are teams allowed to have 15 players plus two 2-way players as well?

[vege]

The NBA expanded to 17 player rosters for the restart. I guess I'm uncertain if that carried over to this year or not. Are teams allowed to have 15 players plus two 2-way players as well?

15 players + 2 2-way players was the normal last season.

[Kilo]

2-way players I believe can play 50 games each this year as well. Before it was something about "days with the team" or something. I don't think days matter, it's all about games. So realistically 2-way players can be up with the NBA team all year but only be active for a max of 50 games.

Issue is that 2-way players have to be four years or less years post draft year I believe. I guess that is good in that it prevents the Lakers and Clippers from signing 12 year pros coming off 8-figure AAV deals to 2-way deals to ring chase.