RealGM

I know everyone here is probably sick and tired of the darko talk but I was thinking about these two moves the other day and honestly im more mad at the Iverson trade. We've been in shambles ever since and I think we still had a bit of juice left in us if we kept Chauncey. Just curious what others think.

I think our days as a contender were over by the time we traded for AI, and honestly, I don't hate that trade, what killed us was that Joe took the cap space created by that move and gave it all to Ben Gordon and Charlie V. Other than that, I agree with you, they AI trade and ensuing butterfly effect were worse for the franchise than drafting Darko.

Yeah, this thread probably won't get much traction because anyone that is a Pistons fan is sick to death of Darko talk. But here is my basic point whenever it comes up,

If we don't draft Darko, we draft Chris Bosh. Period. Tayshaun already had the fulltime keys to the SF position at that point so Joe was never going to take Melo. If we draft Bosh, he is obviously a bigger contributor than Darko was which means we probably don't trade for Sheed.

No Sheed=No Chip. Absolutely zero regrets about taking Darko.

This place is pretty dead, so I'll bite. IMO, the Darko pick was the far greater blunder. The immediate impact was less, but the long term affect on the team was much greater. The other trade was just swapping fading PGs. The Darko pick was an opportunity at dynasty status.

Darko, easily. One of the very worst draft picks in NBA history. Arguably the worst.

The whole AI thing was a travesty, too. But they were likely done at that point, regardless.

AI trade was fine because it was a 1 year rental and created a ton of cap space. The problem was what we did with that cap space the next summer.

drafting Melo was the easiest decision any GM could make. draft Melo and we still probly trade for Sheed.

Montanabadboy wrote:I think our days as a contender were over by the time we traded for AI, and honestly, I don't hate that trade, what killed us was that Joe took the cap space created by that move and gave it all to Ben Gordon and Charlie V. Other than that, I agree with you, they AI trade and ensuing butterfly effect were worse for the franchise than drafting Darko.

This. x 1,000,000

The trade was okay. Between Ai and Sheed's expiring deals, we had $40M in capspace. That was a good place to be. But we didn't do **** with it.

The Darko pick and it's not even close.

Phobo_Phile wrote:Yeah, this thread probably won't get much traction because anyone that is a Pistons fan is sick to death of Darko talk. But here is my basic point whenever it comes up,

If we don't draft Darko, we draft Chris Bosh. Period. Tayshaun already had the fulltime keys to the SF position at that point so Joe was never going to take Melo. If we draft Bosh, he is obviously a bigger contributor than Darko was which means we probably don't trade for Sheed.

No Sheed=No Chip. Absolutely zero regrets about taking Darko.

Bing, bang, done.

Darko was projected as a number 1-3 pick by EVERYONE. AI was not a "future' of the franchise" move; he was a rebuild/potential "lightning in a bottle"/if it doesn't work out, get cap space move.

Yeah, Darko easily. If Melo had been raised in that Piston culture he'd have been an even better all-around player.

Phobo_Phile wrote:Yeah, this thread probably won't get much traction because anyone that is a Pistons fan is sick to death of Darko talk. But here is my basic point whenever it comes up,

If we don't draft Darko, we draft Chris Bosh. Period. Tayshaun already had the fulltime keys to the SF position at that point so Joe was never going to take Melo. If we draft Bosh, he is obviously a bigger contributor than Darko was which means we probably don't trade for Sheed.

No Sheed=No Chip. Absolutely zero regrets about taking Darko.

If you consider Melo a better prospect, which just about everyone did, you don't let the presence of Tay prevent you from taking him, IMO.

My theories on both:

Assume we don't take Darko but take Bosh who worked out for us once (requested by us) & then again the day before the Draft (requested by him!)

Bosh obviously wanted to be a Piston! So let's assume we draft him...

Maybe Larry Brown would have played him much more than he played Darko but we still would have traded for Sheed cause the price was low and Tar Heels stick together!

So we win the title...and Bosh ends up being the dude that replaces Ben Wallace when he bolts for greener pastures...so we prolong our reign over the East for a bit but Lebron was coming regardless

The AI trade has so many butterflies it should be made a movie!

A few days before the trade Rip signs his extension - I bet losing Chauncey wasn't discussed so there's the root of discontent planted in RIP right there

AI coming impacting Stuckey's development and our opinion of him as the future - we all ended up hating Stuckey because of the trade.

Losing Chauncey changed the team completely off the floor - he was THE guy and Joe didn't account for the emotional change...

Then the cap space was wasted on CV & BG...as opposed to Millsap or Boozer (who would have opted out if we'd sent word he was gonna get the MAX from us)...

Just think: Bosh, Boozer, Tay, RIP, Stuckey...not a contender but not craptacular either

Both moves show that the longer Joe was removed from his playing days the worse he got as an executive!

The Darko selection over Bosh is the bigger mistake IMO - we coulda had a 15-20 year period of doninating the East as opposed to 6 or 7

Sent from my SM-J110F using RealGM mobile app

flow wrote:Darko, easily. One of the very worst draft picks in NBA history. Arguably the worst.

The whole AI thing was a travesty, too. But they were likely done at that point, regardless.

Anthony Bennet was worse.

AI move was the one of the worst move all time. Darko was a bust but Carmelo is a cancer like AI.

In terms of impact the Darko trade was faaaaaaaar more significant.

That said, I defended the pick at the time and lots of other people including the likes of Jerry West were also fooled. The bigger mistake was in not course correcting sooner; we let it play out about 2 years too long.

The AI move was oddly similar; we needed to blow it up but it was what we did after (and before) that really created the issue. Re-signing Rip and then going out and using our money on likes of BG & CV was catastrophic. Again, we should have blown it up about 2 years earlier and then been more judicious in our rebuild attempts.

Joe D's biggest fault wasn't in the mistakes he made, so much as refusing to accept them. No GM get's it right all the time and there is a certain amount of gamble involved in every pick, every trade and every signing. But you need to be able to objectively analyze and react when things don't work out the way you planned. We failed to do just that.

I hated Darko from the start and he was solely the reason for me joining RealGM and that was to created a thread here entitled,"Why the Hell didn't we draft Bosh." AI's trade served a purpose. Darko served no purpose.

It makes me wonder that no one has mentioned Wade as an available pick? Yes, I know he once said he really didn't want to play for the Pistons, but had they drafted him I'm convinced he'd have been fine. If you don't worry about Prince with Carmelo there, do you really worry about Rip with Wade available? In retrospect, certainly not!

Darko? We talking about Darko??

Sent from my SM-J700M using RealGM mobile app

Easily Darko was more damaging. Melo would have been a franchise changer, obviously the wing would be crowded right away with Tayshaun, but Ben was gone 2 years later and the potential for a "small ball" lineup of Chauncey - Rip - Prince - Melo - Sheed could have been way ahead of it's time.

Wade was never in consideration and Bosh was always viewed as a darkhorse pick. At the time the choice was clearly between Darko & Melo and the consensus view across the league was Darko as the pick.

Dumars was on a podcast with Woj pretty recently, he addressed the Darko pick and said they were very concerned about front court depth as Okur was going to be a free agent at the end of the year. He said he pursued Sheed all year from Portland, Portland wanted Chauncey & Ben for him, then when he got dealt to Atlanta Billy Knight basically freaked out about the ability to resign Sheed so he took 2 1sts from Joe.


By the time the AI move was done the window was slammed shut. Considering the Celtics still had some gas in the tank and the Heatles formation was very soon afterwards, there wasn't a legitimate scenario that lead to more titles at that point.