Grade the Free Agent Signings

[Laimbeer]

Meeks 3 years, $19 million
Martin 1 year, undisclosed (assumed close to minimum)
Butler 2 year, $9 million
Augustin 2 year, $6 million
Gray multi-year(?) (assumed close to minimum)

As a group, I have to go with a "D"

The value on Meeks and Butler is really questionable, and that's where the great majority of our cap went. If this were strictly about value, I'd have been tempted to grade it "F". But these guys fit our needs - shooters - and the kind of character guys SVG wants to have around. Still, you need to get value for your money while filling needs, and we didn't do that.

[Ghost]

B. I like them all, can't complain one bit. We're not some title contender, Detroit is a **** -hole. If we're .500 I'll be happy. As long as I'm not having to drink to watch the games, that'll probably be a good season for me . All these players help our goal of developing Drummond/(maybe) Monroe/KCP/(maybe) Jennings, develop identity, none of them rape our flexibility, all address our primary weakness, therefore I gave it a B. An A would have been signing a superstar.

Meeks-he's surprisingly young, a good shooter, will get quite a bit of play time for us. Not that overpaid. Only a 3 year deal. I will probably love him compared to what Stuckey did to me.

Martin-good shooter for his career, never heard of him before signing.

Butler-toughness, shooter, leadership. Finally, someone who can be a real leader in the locker room was added to this team. Contract doesn't matter, team op next year. Started the phone celebration thing, makes me laugh everytime.

Augustine-potential highway robbery, you know why.


You didn't include Gray damn it! He got the biggest thread too! /rage

[Laimbeer]

B. I like them all, can't complain one bit. We're not some title contender, Detroit is a **** -hole. If we're .500 I'll be happy. As long as I'm not having to drink to watch the games, that'll probably be a good season for me . All these players help our goal of developing Drummond/(maybe) Monroe/KCP/(maybe) Jennings, develop identity, none of them rape our flexibility, all address our primary weakness, therefore I gave it a B. An A would have been signing a superstar.

Meeks-he's surprisingly young, a good shooter, will get quite a bit of play time for us. Not that overpaid. Only a 3 year deal. I will probably love him compared to what Stuckey did to me.

Martin-good shooter for his career, never heard of him before signing.

Butler-toughness, shooter, leadership. Finally, someone who can be a real leader in the locker room was added to this team. Contract doesn't matter, team op next year. Started the phone celebration thing, makes me laugh everytime.

Augustine-potential highway robbery, you know why.


You didn't include Gray damn it! He got the biggest thread too! /rage

lolz on Gray - added him. Did we ever get more official word on him?

[JD43320]

The names are underwhelming but we had zero chance at any 1st, 2nd or 3rd tier free agents anyways because we're a **** team that plays in a cold state. Nobody is signed long term though so we aren't locked into anything bad or unmovable. We got the best of what we could've gotten and addressed our shooting needs.

[Phenomenonsense]

Really like the DJ signing. Martin is cool with me. Don't like Meeks and don't have an opinion on Butler, since he's only a 1 year deal if he sucks. I think we got people that are supposed to cover up our weaknesses, I just don't really like half the people we picked up.

Also you forgot Gray. I think Gray did well with the Raptors while playing with them. Obviously they don't like him because they were starting a back up for some time, but he's okay. I was really happy with Jort's effort though, and his shooting, so I am not happy with giving up Jorts for Gray.

Overall I'd give it a C right now.

[MotownMadness]

Ill give it a B as well. We needed a whole new bench and better depth. Stan addressed that and now we just need too worry about upgrading at SF but that can happen sometime between now and the deadline.

I know some of you wanted to spend all the money on one big name player but thats not logical when your team has so many holes and no depth. Plus we got Smith eating up around 14 per, Monroe about to get paid and a max contract coming up for Drummond.

Stan kinda went the Spurs route and added depth and shooters. We are now a pretty deep team with a future star in Drummond.

I also really like the additions of Meeks and Augustine. They are both 26 entering theyre primes and coming off really good seasons.

[Laimbeer]

Edited to add Gray.

[ImHeisenberg]

I'd give them an overall grade of "B".

DJ's contract was a good dollar to production value, and a good chance he'll out-produce his salary.

Butler's deal is solid. He can provide leadership and shooting, and is easily traded in any scenario.

Gray & Martin- they're both minimum salary players. It's a win if you get any quality minutes from them.

Meeks- biggest question mark. The most expensive FA acquisition, and certainly will have to prove to everyone that he was worth more than the mid-level exception. I have faith that he will, but certainly wouldn't guarantee it.

All five players could end up being misfires 9 months from now. This team is going through a huge cultural and philosophical change. It's really too early to assume how everything will work out. Obviously, we're hoping for best case scenario.

[Piston Pete]

Gave a C.

Combined, the group should be decent.

Definitely not bad (D), but I thought less than B-worthy.

Now onto trade season....

[epheisey]

I went into the off season with the mindset that it would have been better to spend all the cap space we had on one big name instead of many role players. But the way free agency went, and players were getting overpaid, that quickly changed for me.

Meeks - Perhaps slightly overpaid, but SVG got who he wanted, and to me that stands out more than him getting 1m too much a year.

Martin - No real opinion on him. He's on a minimum deal, but in a position that has a lot of players with relatively similar talent levels. He could easily get stashed at the back of the bench and never see the court, or he could just as easily be our backup SF. Since it's a minimum deal, doesn't make a difference for me.

Gray - I actually liked this pick up. Rather have him than Jorts to be honest. Jorts can hit a 3 and hustles. But with our assumed 3 big rotation, neither was going to see the court much if at all, and this essentially becomes a practice body. I'd also take a 7 ft big who can go in for a couple fouls a game over a stretch PF.

Augustin - Probably my favorite signing. He's good enough to push Jennings, and with Jennings' ego, he won't give up the starting spot easily. Perhaps this signing could actually push Jennings to play under control and with more discipline if he knows the leash is short.

Butler - Definitely overpaid, but since the deal is basically expiring, it doesn't matter. He's a great locker room leader. Kevin Durant spoke great things about him (was one of the few teammates he mentioned in his MVP speech, and he hadn't even been with the team a whole season) and how much he helped their team chemistry, so I have to imagine he'll be an awesome addition to the team.

Overall: B-

[Billl]

I give it a "B" as long as we resign monroe.

Our biggest problem has been giving huge, long term deals to the biggest name players who would agree to come here.

This year, we loaded up on guys most casual fans know nothing about. All of them can shoot and should be complimentary to Dre. They are all mostly system players and will assuredly buy into what SVG is doing. It's not flashy, but bringing in all these guys will hopefully be a very quick way to turn around the culture.

[engelbert321]

B-. They're all good signings to me. It's just that only 3 (maybe 2) out of the 5 will actually have significant minutes


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[Snakebites]

Yeah, its definitely worth noting that any grade is pending the resigning of Monroe.

Its hard for me to give a grade here. To me, a D grade or lower suggests the team actually got worse/placed itself in a worse situation with the signings.

A C grade basically means we treaded water, whereas B or A grades are given if we made improvements.

Based on that right now, assuming we re-up Greg, I'll tentatively give us a B, probably on the minus side. We didn't hit it out of the park, but I do view the signings as improving our overall depth and spacing to a degree. I'd have given a more solid B if the Meeks signing had been a tad cheaper.

[Notanoob]

I can't say that I'm a huge fan of any of them.

Meeks is just a bench guy who can't guard SFs, so he's limited. Solid player, certainly an overpay. Consider this. For $2 million less, we could have added Lou Williams and gotten Bebe. Instead the Raptors traded Salmons' partially guaranteed contract for the pair. I know we all love to be positive, but come on, we could have done better. I bet you Meeks won't look quite as good when he isn't playing in D'Antoni's system.

Martin and Gray's deals are so unimportant that they doesn't warrant consideration for grading. Honestly if Gray's signing means that we're cutting a useful stretch 5 in Jorts, then I really question it. However, it isn't enough to affect my grading one way or another.

Butler is finished when it comes to playing ball outside of jumpshooting, and he isn't even a real stud at that. He's a career 34.6% 3 point shooter, and over the last four seasons he shot 38%-above league average, good, but it's not like he's some sort of Kyle Korver type. Being a good locker-room presence doesn't mean you should see your salary doubled from vets min. He isn't a bad addition as a person, and there's nothing wrong with adding another shooter, but there is no way that this isn't an unnecessary overpay.

Augustin's deal is fair but we already have a ton of undersized PGs who can't play defense, and for all of the value he provided last year on offense, he stuff like RAPM shows that he gave almost all of it back on defense. The Bulls were my poster-boy for not bother to pay backup PGs- they had Nate Robinson, let the Nuggest overpay him, then replaced him for vets min. If he keeps up his production, and we've dumped Bynum or Jennings, then this is a solid pickup, but we'll have to wait and see.

Even assuming that we can't land any of the better free agents (IT, Ariza, Tucker, and so on), none of these deals really move the needle. I'm particularly disappointed that we didn't go for Tucker. He provides shooting on the wing and has the size to guard both wing positions, and he is a very tough, gritty defender.

We'd be better off with cap space to facilitate deals like the Atlanta salary dump, honestly.

Assuming that they know what they're doing and that these guys will help change the culture in the locker room, this these signings earn a C.

[joseph mamah]

I give it a C, this was actually the approach I was hoping for last year (small contract, good character guys who fill needs short term) but it didnt quite work out that way. I guess better late than never, but I was hoping to add a starting caliber PG or SF with the bulk of our cap and fill in from there this offseason. Its hard to be mad though, considering the money that was being thrown at guys like Hayward and Parsons.

[E-Z]

Detroit needed shooters and Detroit got shooters. Some of these fans, I just don't know. Look, Van Gundy told the media that he wasn't looking to make any home run signings, yet the fans always expect otherwise. I can't blame them, I just wish they had a better understanding of where this team is trying to go. Maybe Stan should join RealGM and break it down for us. I'd love to hear how some of these guys would have done better.

[RasheedTupac]

B. Stan told us what he was going to do and he did it lol idk who we actually could have gotten better


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[ARoS]

If we can get rid of Smith, Jennings and Bynum then it will be the greatest off-season in the history of Detroit Pistons basketball. Need to get these thieves off of our roster, and get the Drum surrounded by these proper shooters Stan has bought in. And then we move on from there.

[DocRI]

Based on that right now, assuming we re-up Greg, I'll tentatively give us a B, probably on the minus side. We didn't hit it out of the park, but I do view the signings as improving our overall depth and spacing to a degree. I'd have given a more solid B if the Meeks signing had been a tad cheaper.

Detroit needed shooters and Detroit got shooters. Some of these fans, I just don't know. Look, Van Gundy told the media that he wasn't looking to make any home run signings, yet the fans always expect otherwise. I can't blame them, I just wish they had a better understanding of where this team is trying to go. Maybe Stan should join RealGM and break it down for us. I'd love to hear how some of these guys would have done better.

Pending the Moose re-signing (more on that in a second), I gave us a B. We had NO bench last year and more or less played a seven man rotation (eight when KCP got minutes). I think Meeks, Butler and DJ will all see regular time, joining Jennings, KCP, Singler, Smith, Moose and Dre to form a fairly solid nine man rotation with much improved outside shooting (plus, there's also the hope that Dinwiddie surprises and contributes sooner than anticipated, too).

Here's why I quoted Snake and E-Z — as E-Z pointed out, SVG told us EXACTLY what he was gonna do in free agency and then he did it (all "singles and doubles," emphasis on outside shooters). He also said he wasn't expecting to make any huge trades before he actually worked with this roster, and so far he's lived up to that as well. So, not to poke the bear by saying this, but SVG has also said time and time again that we're gonna re-sign Greg Monroe. So far, his track record hasn't been one of B.S. — he's flatly stated what he planned to do and then followed through on it. As such, I don't see any reason to expect any different when it comes to Moose, which means he'll be staying in Piston blue.

[GreekAlex]

Meeks 3 years, $19 million
Martin 1 year, undisclosed (assumed close to minimum)
Butler 2 year, $9 million
Augustin 2 year, $6 million
Gray multi-year(?) (assumed close to minimum)

As a group, I have to go with a "D"

The value on Meeks and Butler is really questionable, and that's where the great majority of our cap went. If this were strictly about value, I'd have been tempted to grade it "F". But these guys fit our needs - shooters - and the kind of character guys SVG wants to have around. Still, you need to get value for your money while filling needs, and we didn't do that.

I think grading the whole FA class as a group is misleading. I'd like to see anyone provide alternative signings that would have been better fits and or values that had a realistic shot of being signed by the Pistons. Each player should graded in 3 categories 1. Fit (Team Need) 2. Value and 3. Contract flexibility/trade-ability. For me this is how the grades measure out:

Meeks:
Fit: A Value: C Flexibility: B-
Comments: Knock down shooter that gives 100% effort and will help with spacing.

Butler:
Fit: A Value: C+ Flexibility: A
Comments: Brings Veteran leadership, toughness, shooting and is perfect to help the culture change.

Augustin:
Fit: A Value: A Flexibility: A
Comments: Great Value! Only PG on the team that consistently hit 3's.

Martin:
Fit: A Value: N/A Flexibility: N/A
Comments: Solid player for vet min., fills needs

Gray:
Fit: A Value: N/A Flexibility: N/A
Comments: I don't see him as anymore than a good sparing partner for Andre & Moose in practice.

I think a lot of these bench guys will help push the starters and make the Pistons a better team.

The only contract I may have rather had was Paul Pierce over C. Butler but who knows maybe he would not have come here and he's known to have an attitude at times.

I'm content seeing the roster improve in terms of depth and need and moving forward with lots of flexibility.