If you were GM of Pistons of last 5 yrs how would you have built the team?

[Hotmayo]

For me personally, no hindsight 20/20 these are all players ive desperately wanted over the last 5 years

I would have traded for demarcus cousins

Traded for reggie jackson (obviously)

Traded for Mitch McGary

Traded Nic Batum

Drafted devin brooker

Reggie Jackson
Devin Booker
Nic Batum
Mitch McGary
Demarcus Cousins


What would you guys have done?

[Pharaoh]

You gotta go way back to when Big Ben was a free agent IMO...

Or go back to 2003...

Or back to the start of Grant Hill Era

You can keep going back to whatever point you wish and hit the reset button but everything that happens happens for a reason...and without struggle there is no progress.

[Todd3]

Just since the summer I would've re-signed Reggie, drafted Booker, signed a mid level shooter/role player SF in FA like Afflalo maybe, and then done this trade for Motiejunas at PF

Reggie
Booker
Afflalo
Motiejunas
Drummond

I'm in agreement with Stan on the Reggie/DMO deals, but all these 2/3s who can't shoot that he keeps acquiring to put around them makes absolutely no sense to me.

[ComboGuardCity]

Hindsight nobody wanted booker

[Todd3]

Hindsight nobody wanted booker

I wanted Booker. Actually I was 50-50 on him and Johnson, but I preferred Booker if I had to choose because I had concerns about Stanley fitting not being a shooter, which is proving true.

I think if we had 2 elite shooters around RJ/DRE/SJ it might work, but it's not going to work like this with KCP, Morris, and Harris, with all 4 basically the same type player and none great shooters. You can get by with 1 player like that in a lineup with DRE/RJ type players, but can't have all 3 like that around them and then 1 more off the bench. That's like your whole rotation with no shooters. I have no idea why Stan thought this would work.

[kurtis48239]

I cant really complain on how stan has created this team.Iam happy with our pick in johnson,only thing I really wanted was an athletic pf who is a good defender and can shoot (but those guys obviously dont grow on trees).

This team is still growing with guys like kcp/dre/johnson/morris and even jackson.Having stan is whats going to bring us back.

[pistontr]

a playmaker point guard
wings who can defend, shoot and with good ball handling
serge ibaka (he is everything we need)
drummond

[princeofpalace]

Hindsight nobody wanted booker

Not true at all. I wanted Booker over SJ and sitll do.

Out of all the players we had the past 5 years, this would've been the most ideal starting lineup: Brandon Knight/KCP/Khris Middleton/Greg Monroe/Andre Drummond

[BadMofoPimp]

Traded Drummond, Stuckey and future 1st for the Pick that would have become Anthony Davis. Then, build around that guy.

[flow]

I wouldn't have maxed out a pure scoring guard to be my starting point guard for the next 5 years.

[The Penguin]

You gotta go way back to when Big Ben was a free agent IMO...

Or go back to 2003...

Or back to the start of Grant Hill Era

You can keep going back to whatever point you wish and hit the reset button but everything that happens happens for a reason...and without struggle there is no progress.

I think the Chauncey-AI trade / Rip contract extension is a pretty clean cutoff point. That lead to the CV-Ben Gordon summer, which lead to the Vonleh pick for Maggette trade, which lead to the Josh Smith signing.

Knowing what we know now the easy answer would be deal Chauncey / Rip / Tay for draft picks, avoid any middling FA signings, tank and try to draft these guys:

2009 draft - Blake Griffin / James Harden / Steph Curry / DeMar Derozen / Jrue Holiday / Jeff Teague
2010 - John Wall / Boogie Cousins / Paul George
2011 - Kyrie / Klay Thompson / Kawhi Leonard / Jimmy Butler
2012 - Anthony Davis / Damon Lillard / Andre Drummond / Draymond


On a related note, we easily could have drafted this team over those 4 years:

Jeff Teague
Klay - Kawhi - Butler
Paul George
Draymond
Drummond

And people use his drafts to defend the last few years of Joe's tenure...

[Laimbeer]

On a related note, we easily could have drafted this team over those 4 years:

Jeff Teague
Klay - Kawhi - Butler
Paul George
Draymond
Drummond

And people use his drafts to defend the last few years of Joe's tenure...

We could criticize a whole lot of teams for not taking these guys. Pretty silly.

[Manocad]

I would trade away any player who had a bad stretch games. That's how you build a championship team. If a guy has a bad stretch of games you get rid of him. Then you'll always have all good players!

[MrBigShot]

I wanted Winslow and was pretty split on SJ/Booker if Winslow was gone, favoring SJ slightly but thought (and still do) that Booker could potentially develop into Klay 2.0.

Assuming I had no knowledge of the future, I can say I wouldn't have accepted the Knight/Middleton for Jennings deal, and I wouldn't have signed Josh Smith either. Tough to say beyond that because you never know whether or not a trade/FA pursuit would've been successful or not even if you would have attempted it.

[Todd3]

You gotta go way back to when Big Ben was a free agent IMO...

Or go back to 2003...

Or back to the start of Grant Hill Era

You can keep going back to whatever point you wish and hit the reset button but everything that happens happens for a reason...and without struggle there is no progress.

I think the Chauncey-AI trade / Rip contract extension is a pretty clean cutoff point. That lead to the CV-Ben Gordon summer, which lead to the Vonleh pick for Maggette trade, which lead to the Josh Smith signing.

Knowing what we know now the easy answer would be deal Chauncey / Rip / Tay for draft picks, avoid any middling FA signings, tank and try to draft these guys:

2009 draft - Blake Griffin / James Harden / Steph Curry / DeMar Derozen / Jrue Holiday / Jeff Teague
2010 - John Wall / Boogie Cousins / Paul George
2011 - Kyrie / Klay Thompson / Kawhi Leonard / Jimmy Butler
2012 - Anthony Davis / Damon Lillard / Andre Drummond / Draymond


On a related note, we easily could have drafted this team over those 4 years:

Jeff Teague
Klay - Kawhi - Butler
Paul George
Draymond
Drummond

And people use his drafts to defend the last few years of Joe's tenure...

The Klay/Kawhi/George picks would've been nice. No one predicted Butler would be this good, and had Joe drafted him 8th he would've been vilified at the time for using a top 10 pick on a guy projected late 1st. Draymond was the pick before ours and idk why anyone would want Teague over Reggie.

Also it's doubtful the Kawhi of today would be the same player if we drafted him. Imo most of his success is attributed to Popovich developing him and being in a winning system. Doubt Kuester and Frank would've gotten the same results.

I think this thread was supposed to be moves you wanted at the time and the team chose other players instead. Did you really want Klay/Kawhi over Knight and George over Monroe? If not, can't criticize Joe for not getting it right if you didn't know they'd be better either.

[Todd3]

I wanted Winslow and was pretty split on SJ/Booker if Winslow was gone, favoring SJ slightly but thought (and still do) that Booker could potentially develop into Klay 2.0.

Assuming I had no knowledge of the future, I can say I wouldn't have accepted the Knight/Middleton for Jennings deal, and I wouldn't have signed Josh Smith either. Tough to say beyond that because you never know whether or not a trade/FA pursuit would've been successful or not even if you would have attempted it.

imo the KCP pick was what caused the Middleton trade. Joe thought he didn't need Middleton now that he had KCP. When he should've been thinking, why am I using a lotto pick on a guy who at best is the same caliber player as the guy I got with a 2nd rd pick last year.

We should've committed to Middleton as our SGOTF, used that pick at another position, and used Knight in a different deal for a vet PG (if that is what Joe wanted).

[The Penguin]

You gotta go way back to when Big Ben was a free agent IMO...

Or go back to 2003...

Or back to the start of Grant Hill Era

You can keep going back to whatever point you wish and hit the reset button but everything that happens happens for a reason...and without struggle there is no progress.

I think the Chauncey-AI trade / Rip contract extension is a pretty clean cutoff point. That lead to the CV-Ben Gordon summer, which lead to the Vonleh pick for Maggette trade, which lead to the Josh Smith signing.

Knowing what we know now the easy answer would be deal Chauncey / Rip / Tay for draft picks, avoid any middling FA signings, tank and try to draft these guys:

2009 draft - Blake Griffin / James Harden / Steph Curry / DeMar Derozen / Jrue Holiday / Jeff Teague
2010 - John Wall / Boogie Cousins / Paul George
2011 - Kyrie / Klay Thompson / Kawhi Leonard / Jimmy Butler
2012 - Anthony Davis / Damon Lillard / Andre Drummond / Draymond


On a related note, we easily could have drafted this team over those 4 years:

Jeff Teague
Klay - Kawhi - Butler
Paul George
Draymond
Drummond

And people use his drafts to defend the last few years of Joe's tenure...

The Klay/Kawhi/George picks would've been nice. No one predicted Butler would be this good, and had Joe drafted him 8th he would've been vilified at the time for using a top 10 pick on a guy projected late 1st. Draymond was the pick before ours and idk why anyone would want Teague over Reggie.

Also it's doubtful the Kawhi of today would be the same player if we drafted him. Imo most of his success is attributed to Popovich developing him and being in a winning system. Doubt Kuester and Frank would've gotten the same results.

I think this thread was supposed to be moves you wanted at the time and the team chose other players instead. Did you really want Klay/Kawhi over Knight and George over Monroe? If not, can't criticize Joe for not getting it right if you didn't know they'd be better either.

Not one person on this board wanted Devin Booker over Stanimal or Justise Winslow. I remember some posts about trading down and getting Booker, but no one wanted him at #8.

The only pick in that era I really went against before it happened was Austin Daye. I really wanted Jrue Holiday with that pick but Stuckey was our "PG of the future" at that time.

[StunnaStan]

Tbh, i would do what philly is doing. Noel embiid and okafor are all better than drummond.

[The Penguin]

I wanted Winslow and was pretty split on SJ/Booker if Winslow was gone, favoring SJ slightly but thought (and still do) that Booker could potentially develop into Klay 2.0.

Assuming I had no knowledge of the future, I can say I wouldn't have accepted the Knight/Middleton for Jennings deal, and I wouldn't have signed Josh Smith either. Tough to say beyond that because you never know whether or not a trade/FA pursuit would've been successful or not even if you would have attempted it.

imo the KCP pick was what caused the Middleton trade. Joe thought he didn't need Middleton now that he had KCP. When he should've been thinking, why am I using a lotto pick on a guy who at best is the same caliber player as the guy I got with a 2nd rd pick last year.

We should've committed to Middleton as our SGOTF, used that pick at another position, and used Knight in a different deal for a vet PG (if that is what Joe wanted).

That's a pretty fair assessment. The Rip - Ben Gordon fiasco was still relatively fresh and Joe probably figured he didn't want to recreate it with Jennings-Knight and KCP-Middleton fighting for PT. That trade was one that was universally hated here when it happened.

[MrBigShot]

Tbh, i would do what philly is doing. Noel embiid and okafor are all better than drummond.

Okafor is just a ball stopper who can put the ball in the basket at the expense of the team. And despite doing so his efficiency is bad, and his +/- is often terrible even when his raw stats look good. And he's got some serious maturity issues as well clearly. Basically, Okafor is Cousins without the superstar talent to go along with it.

I bag on Dre a lot for his effort/passion, but at least when he's motivated to play actually has a positive impact on his team. We've seen Dre completely dominate games offensively, on the boards, and defensively at the rim. Nerlens Noel is solid but he just straight up lacks Dre's raw talent and potential.

I think Embiid is in another stratosphere potential wise compared to Dre/Noel/Okafor, but it remains to be seen if he can even play an entire preseason much less a full season. Doesn't matter how much potential you have if you can't stay healthy. Philly has killed their team culture at the cost of collecting some assets, and they are only now just starting to address the parts of basketball that exist beyond statistics with the addition of Colangelo. I mean, Porzingis wouldn't even give them a meeting.