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Off season trade proposal:

DET trades / receives: Jalen Duren, Jaden Ivy, +?
MIA trades / DET receives: Bam Adebayo

Questions for you: This is not a complete trade proposal. The Pistons obviously need to add value. What do you think is fair? How many picks? Holland? More? Your input is appreciated. Also, the chances of Riley running with youth are slim to none. Is this type of proposal one he would consider?

Why this trade works for Detroit: The Pistons made great strides this season. Their young players showed growth and the won more games. This trade enables them to make a similar leap next season. Bam is an outstanding 2-way player. With him anchoring the defense and Cade driving the offense, the sky is the limit for this team. Their new lineup:

PG...Cunningham...FA (Shroder?)...Sasser
SG...FA (Hardaway?)...FA (Beasley?)
SF...Thompson...Holland (unless included in trade)
PF...Harris...FA?
C...Adebayo...Stewart

Why this trade works for the Heat: Both Duren and Ivy improved this season (Ivy's progress was a small sample size). If they still have growth in them, Miami would have an extremely talented, young team. There is also significant cap savings with this trade as Detroit will be able to take back more salary than they send out before they sign any free agents. Miami is a great FA destination. Additional cap room would enable them to add a star via FA within the next 2 years. Their new lineup:

PG...Ivey...FA (Mitchell?)...Rozier
SG...Herro...Duncan
SF...Wiggins...JJJ
PF...Duren...Jovic...Anderson
C...Ware...FA?

What do you think?

At least 2 FRPs which I do not think Detroit would want to lose.

I have Detroit adding no value and passing as-is.

Bam is paid like a superstar and doesn’t impact the win column proportionally to what he’ll be paid.

Duren should be able to be resigned to a much more favorable contract and he fills his role perfectly.

Watch the game tonight to find out.

I can promise you that you do not want Duren at PF my friend.

strongly disagree that Duren means you shouldn't want Bam. Strongly, strongly disagree. Of course its hard for some to understand the value of defense and much of Bam's value comes on that end.

Texas Chuck wrote:strongly disagree that Duren means you shouldn't want Bam. Strongly, strongly disagree. Of course its hard for some to understand the value of defense and much of Bam's value comes on that end.

Duren is, by the numbers, better than Bam on defense and unlike Bam doesn't need to suck up shots at low efficiency on the other end to keep his ego happy.

Don't see Detroit making a move for an expensive declining player when they're already doing fine.

by the numbers doing a lot of work

meekrab wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:strongly disagree that Duren means you shouldn't want Bam. Strongly, strongly disagree. Of course its hard for some to understand the value of defense and much of Bam's value comes on that end.

Duren is, by the numbers, better than Bam on defense and unlike Bam doesn't need to suck up shots at low efficiency on the other end to keep his ego happy.

Let us know when Duren becomes a top 5 defensive player in the NBA for the post-season like Bam has proven over numerous post-season runs.

Bam doesn't suck up shots to make himself happy. The Miami Heat throughout Bams career has lacked enough high-level creators and forced Bam into a playmaking and shot making role. Outside of Butler and the inconsistent Herro, Miami really lacked playmaking and creation over the past 5 seasons.

ReggiesKnicks wrote:

meekrab wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:strongly disagree that Duren means you shouldn't want Bam. Strongly, strongly disagree. Of course its hard for some to understand the value of defense and much of Bam's value comes on that end.

Duren is, by the numbers, better than Bam on defense and unlike Bam doesn't need to suck up shots at low efficiency on the other end to keep his ego happy.

Let us know when Duren becomes a top 5 defensive player in the NBA for the post-season like Bam has proven over numerous post-season runs.

Bam doesn't suck up shots to make himself happy. The Miami Heat throughout Bams career has lacked enough high-level creators and forced Bam into a playmaking and shot making role. Outside of Butler and the inconsistent Herro, Miami really lacked playmaking and creation over the past 5 seasons.

Duren has Stewert there as well. He's more of the lynchpin of that defense it seems like to me. Does Duren really have a better rating?

ReggiesKnicks wrote:

meekrab wrote:

Texas Chuck wrote:strongly disagree that Duren means you shouldn't want Bam. Strongly, strongly disagree. Of course its hard for some to understand the value of defense and much of Bam's value comes on that end.

Duren is, by the numbers, better than Bam on defense and unlike Bam doesn't need to suck up shots at low efficiency on the other end to keep his ego happy.

Let us know when Duren becomes a top 5 defensive player in the NBA for the post-season like Bam has proven over numerous post-season runs.

I mean Duren has never been to the postseason because he plays for the Pistons. I'm not going to come back and remind you, watch the playoffs (that Bam is in very real danger of missing btw) yourself.

I think Ware would be a better target...
he fits the timeline better, and overall,
I think a center who can space the floor would do wonders for the Pistons...
Duren to the LAKERS (to get value)...
Knecht (Who, by the way, I also think is a great fit for the Pistons) + Lakers 31 to the PISTONS...

Ivey + Lakers 31 for Ware...
Is this an attractive enough offer for Miami or do they need to send another FRP?

Pistons need a big that can stretch the floor. Lauri would be such a nice fit but it's another issue dealing with Ainge.

I would love to add Bam, but he would be put next to Duren, not replace him. My issue of course arises in the 3 point shooting area. Tobias Harris has nowhere near the value of Bam, but might actually fit the team better.

Cade
Ivey
Ausar
Bam
Duren

Is an intense defensive lineup, but I'm afraid the offense might be to heavily impacted, in terms of spacing. Thus the reason I'm looking at Aldama, Reid, Jabari.

Pistons have the #1 rated defense since Jan 1st.(37 game sample) not sure they need Bam.

I do think a GM would be remiss if he overlooked the challenges that paying Bam $50-60M presented in terms of roster construction/maintenance.

jbk1234 wrote:I do think a GM would be remiss if he overlooked the challenges that paying Bam $50-60M presented in terms of roster construction/maintenance.

Yeah, this is the real issue. How does DET want to allocate the cap. Realistically, until we see contention, you have to target staying under the 1st Apron at 126% of the salary cap.

At this point, I'll be shocked if Cade doesn't make all-NBA, so he'll be 30% of the cap next year. Ausar is a difference maker; a reasonable expectation is he'll be 25% of the cap in 2 years. Those 2 will clearly be paid first, and it doesn't really leave room for a third max salary.

Your last 7 spots are probably going to be filled with players making close to the minimum, amybe some late FRP rookie salaries, so allow 16%

126% - 30% - 25% - 16% = 55%

That leaves about 55% of the cap for 6 players (your last 3 starters, plus your first 3 off the bench). If you devote 30% to a third star like Bam, your starting line-up will have a couple of MLE-level salaries, and your bench will be either rookie contracts or vet minimums.

DET also has tricky decisions coming up over the next 15 months on Ivey and Duren, and Holland projects as a decent starter too. Beef Stew is on a flat MLE-ish deal, and Beasley will likely get a decent bench contract/extension this off-season. There's a good chance that some of those contracts will be better value than reaching for a third star at 30% of the cap.


TL;DR: if you add Adebayo to DET's cap sheet, it becomes really problematic to build out the roster without going well into 1st apron territory as soon as 2026-2027.

We can’t afford Bam. End of discussion.

Ok. Fine.

One of the big advantages Detroit has right now is that, when this new CBA came into effect, we had no huge contracts. We also had no good players, but hey, whatever.

As the team tries to navigate the stream from horrible (many years before this) to solid (now) to contender or champion (the goal), avoiding getting stuck with huge contracts attached to undeserving players is key. There’s a handful of guys with true max deals you still want to pay under the new CBA, but that number has diminished greatly. Bam is about to be overpaid, period. Ware is a very nice young player, so moving on from Bam makes some sense for Miami, but at that salary he doesn’t have the value he once had.

I’m not going to say I’d rather have Duren than Bam, that’s crazy, Bam’s only 27 and very skilled. But Bam has 4/202 left after this year and gets really expensive after next season. Duren has a year at 6.5 mil left, and I’m guessing we try and extend him this summer for something in the range of 4/100 to 4/120. Use the higher figure and that’s 5/126 compared to 4/202. Duren’s also 21 years old and it’d be really disappointing if he didn’t improve quite a bit yet.

So no, that trade (plus losing Ivey and whatever else) doesn’t make sense for Detroit. Our big hole long-term is at the 4, so if you want to sell us something, that’s your best bet.

Slim Charless wrote:

ReggiesKnicks wrote:

meekrab wrote:Duren is, by the numbers, better than Bam on defense and unlike Bam doesn't need to suck up shots at low efficiency on the other end to keep his ego happy.

Let us know when Duren becomes a top 5 defensive player in the NBA for the post-season like Bam has proven over numerous post-season runs.

Bam doesn't suck up shots to make himself happy. The Miami Heat throughout Bams career has lacked enough high-level creators and forced Bam into a playmaking and shot making role. Outside of Butler and the inconsistent Herro, Miami really lacked playmaking and creation over the past 5 seasons.

Duren has Stewert there as well. He's more of the lynchpin of that defense it seems like to me. Does Duren really have a better rating?

No, Duren is a terrible defender, he's really really bad on defense, and great on offense and on the boards, fans who think Duren is a good defender are clueless and delusional.

According to EPM, Duren is in the 17 percentile as a defender and yes, this is confirmed by the eye test. He misses a ton of rotations, is super slow to react which leaves to a ton of uncontested mid range shoots and freebie layups. He will eventually get a few blocks and clueless fans will think he is a good defender but he is BAD.

But Bam makes too much money so this idea is DOA.

Cade/Ausar (and they'll be expensive) with Beasley and Stew off the bench (MLE guys) are the future, we need to see about Duren/Ivey/Holland.

I don’t think Duren is straight up TERRIBLE as a defender, and there have been signs of improvement over this year. But yeah, Stewart is an extremely good defender, so having those two available lets Detroit play to the matchups well. If the opposing center isn’t athletic or a huge scoring threat, Duren can run wild in the paint and the defense doesn’t suffer much. If the opposing center is key to the offense, Stewart gets more run. It’s usually somewhere in between, with Duren getting around 55-60% of the minutes. They both have foul trouble sometimes — Duren because he makes too many mistakes, and Stewart because he’s hyper-aggressive. Mostly works out.

You gotta remember, Duren’s just a kid. He’s less than six months older than Ware, for sake of comparison. Doesn’t look like one, but he is. One hopes he improves the mental part of the game over time.

tmorgan wrote:We can’t afford Bam. End of discussion.

This!!!!

Also Bam is now Heat culture.. hes not getting traded. Him and Herro not going anywhere