Big Decisions at the Trade Deadline

[pistonsbball]

The Drummond news is great if we don't resign him for the max. I'd pay him 15mil/yr at the most. He's the best garbage man in the league. He's only worth the max if he could consistently anchor our defense, which he has shown he can't. The money would be much better allocated elsewhere. We can sign a decent garbage man centre for anywhere under $10mil.

[edmunder_prc]

Here is my post from the GB on Dre———/———///

The problem is he doesnt make anyone else better, wants the ball anyways and cant consistently make anything other than put backs.

Even giving him the ball by the basket with Andre having a running go, he screws it up enough. He cant handle any contact. None. Then he is one of the worst free throw shooters of all time.

His defense is highly overrated. He gets pummeled by guys like Embiid BOTH down low and loses him on the perimeter letting guys with a 3 shoot like its shooting practice.

Really he only can offensive rebound and tip back shots.

Is that worth the max? Of course Im no GM but his skill set doesn't fit any team hoping to win a lot, at that salary.

At 15 million a year or even 20 (as the cap increases) he might be ok with a great set of other contracts.

But a team of two max contracts, relying on Drummond for anything than empty stats and getting pushed around like a rag doll in big games and against the other really talented big men, good luck.

Hes a fan favorite but for guys watching 60+ games a year, they have been calling to trade him since day one.

[Pandev]

Agree, we should try and trade Andre for a pick.... or just let him walk and take no salary back.

He is paid what he is paid because he's a boardline star in a small market team.

He chews up an awful lot of our cap for a Centre thats isnt named Embiid or Jokic.

Using Andre's $25m+ salary slot on ELITE WINGS would really help balance out our roster with some balance around Blake.

Not to mention the extra $17m coming off the books thans to Reggie's expiring deal = $42m+ in cap space this summer

[DBC10]

Agree, we should try and trade Andre for a pick.... or just let him walk and take no salary back.

He is paid what he is paid because he's a boardline star in a small market team.

He chews up an awful lot of our cap for a Centre thats isnt named Embiid or Jokic.

Using Andre's $25m+ salary slot on ELITE WINGS would really help balance out our roster with some balance around Blake.

Not to mention the extra $17m coming off the books thans to Reggie's expiring deal = $42m+ in cap space this summer

The thing is, there are no elite wings that are available once we do somehow move Drummond or let him walk and end up with all this money in freed up cap space. So we're going to have to overpay for wings to try and balance out the roster since no one wants to come here or we trade everyone and try and get back picks and young talent. So it's a never ending cycle since we don't tank for any reason at all. Having that much cap space would be a good maneuver to take on salary for picks from middling teams but I doubt we go that route.

[Canadafan]

Agree, we should try and trade Andre for a pick.... or just let him walk and take no salary back.

He is paid what he is paid because he's a boardline star in a small market team.

He chews up an awful lot of our cap for a Centre thats isnt named Embiid or Jokic.

Using Andre's $25m+ salary slot on ELITE WINGS would really help balance out our roster with some balance around Blake.

Not to mention the extra $17m coming off the books thans to Reggie's expiring deal = $42m+ in cap space this summer

I wish cap space worked like that

[Snakebites]

I’m still not convinced he will opt out.

It benefits him to keep his options open. If he says he’s happy to opt in it becomes harder to turn around and start asking for a new deal. His bargaining power is weakened if the Pistons know they don’t necessarily have to give him a new deal to keep him. On the other hand the option to opt in is always there regardless of what he says.

I have no idea what his contract expectations are or how much per year he’d need to prefer a longer deal to one more year at his current level. All I know is he’s not worth what he’s making now and I’ll be very displeased if he’s resigned for that much or more.

I’d prefer to move on, personally. Nothing against him, the formula isn’t working.

[Invictus88]

So what is the appropriate value for his skillset?

I was lazy and googled NBA Center Salaries 2019 and found this list:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/rankings/cap-hit/center/

Dre is currently 7th on that list. My thoughts are that he should be somewhere in the 12/13 range?
That would put him at around 18 million a year.

I'm curious to hear what others here think.

Looking at the list it's interesting to note the crazy salaries established right at the point before the value of bigs started to plummet.
Also keep in mind some of the big bargains are rookie deals; which further illustrates the huge value that draft picks are (or in our case should be)

[Snakebites]

So what is the appropriate value for his skillset?

I was lazy and googled NBA Center Salaries 2019 and found this list:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/rankings/cap-hit/center/

Dre is currently 7th on that list. My thoughts are that he should be somewhere in the 12/13 range?
That would put him at around 18 million a year.

I'm curious to hear what others here think.

Looking at the list it's interesting to note the crazy salaries established right at the point before the value of bigs started to plummet.
Also keep in mind some of the big bargains are rookie deals; which further illustrates the huge value that draft picks are (or in our case should be)

That doesn’t take into account that almost everyone in the upper parts of that list is horribly overpaid.

Looking relative to what comparable players are getting is how you get awful contracts.

[edmunder_prc]

So what is the appropriate value for his skillset?

I was lazy and googled NBA Center Salaries 2019 and found this list:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/rankings/cap-hit/center/

Dre is currently 7th on that list. My thoughts are that he should be somewhere in the 12/13 range?
That would put him at around 18 million a year.

I'm curious to hear what others here think.

Looking at the list it's interesting to note the crazy salaries established right at the point before the value of bigs started to plummet.
Also keep in mind some of the big bargains are rookie deals; which further illustrates the huge value that draft picks are (or in our case should be)

Man that list is full of really bad decisions by GMs. Some like Gasol are those last years of the contract that only made sense because the Griz really wanted to keep him and Conley together, etc.

Really the top 20 of that list is what not to do.

Contracts also never happen in a vacuum. Middleton getting 30+ million is crazy. On the bucks i understand the logic, but its still a terrible contract.

Anyways as constructed the Pistons can't pay Andre the max.

Heres the big thing: i often see people argue that if every bad contract on the team was a good one, then the team would be full of talent and Andres salary wouldnt seem so bad. Sorry folks, every team makes bad contracts. They are all gambles, though some of them (especially recent SVG) can be real bad. So that argument doesn’t work.

If Blake gets injured is Andre our other MAX guy going to win us games? Hell no. So why are we paying him the max?

[Laimbeer]

It blows my mind with how many "potential" guys this franchise has completely missed on how ungrateful and unappreciative you guys are on the one kid that has actually exceeded his potential for this franchise. 16ppg 17rpg and played in 79 games....what else do you guys freaking want? He doesn't play as hard as Ben did but what star in this league does nowadays?

Umm, effort, defensive awareness, hustle, rim protection, intangibles, winning? The things Andre defenders never bring up because they can't. Whole argument just revolves around his boxscore numbers, he's so incredibly overrated I can't stand it.

Just about everything you mention here is some fuzzy, eye test, gut feel bunch of nothing. People judge him against some imaginary portrait of what they think he should be.

He's an incredibly durable and productive big man with some pretty insane stats. The Pistons were the seventh rated defensive team in the league - you think that was because of Blake, Luke, Reggie, and Galloway? They made the playoffs with one of the worst perimeters in the league. Dre and Blake were not the problem.

This is a 30 win team without him.

[DetroitPistons]

It blows my mind with how many "potential" guys this franchise has completely missed on how ungrateful and unappreciative you guys are on the one kid that has actually exceeded his potential for this franchise. 16ppg 17rpg and played in 79 games....what else do you guys freaking want? He doesn't play as hard as Ben did but what star in this league does nowadays?

Umm, effort, defensive awareness, hustle, rim protection, intangibles, winning? The things Andre defenders never bring up because they can't. Whole argument just revolves around his boxscore numbers, he's so incredibly overrated I can't stand it.

Just about everything you mention here is some fuzzy, eye test, gut feel bunch of nothing. People judge him against some imaginary portrait of what they think he should be.

He's an incredibly durable and productive big man with some pretty insane stats. The Pistons were the seventh rated defensive team in the league - you think that was because of Blake, Luke, Reggie, and Galloway? They made the playoffs with one of the worst perimeters in the league. Dre and Blake were not the problem.

This is a 30 win team without him.

I feel like people are judging him on his defense from 2 or 3 years ago. He has significantly improved defensively in multiple way. 1.7blk and 1.7stl are nice raw stats too. I could see him getting those blocks up to 2 per game.

[Invictus88]

So what is the appropriate value for his skillset?

I was lazy and googled NBA Center Salaries 2019 and found this list:

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/rankings/cap-hit/center/

Dre is currently 7th on that list. My thoughts are that he should be somewhere in the 12/13 range?
That would put him at around 18 million a year.

I'm curious to hear what others here think.

Looking at the list it's interesting to note the crazy salaries established right at the point before the value of bigs started to plummet.
Also keep in mind some of the big bargains are rookie deals; which further illustrates the huge value that draft picks are (or in our case should be)

That doesn’t take into account that almost everyone in the upper parts of that list is horribly overpaid.

Looking relative to what comparable players are getting is how you get awful contracts.

You're absolutely right that some of the contracts are horribly overpaid. For the most part it's fairly obvious which ones too.
(Love, Whiteside, Steven Adams, Thompson).

But looking relative to what comparable players are getting is how you sign players. It's basically how you buy *anything*. You look at what the market price is (which IS what comparable products/players are being sold at), and evaluate as to whether you are paying/more or less for the same value or are getting more/less than expected in return.

And if you aren't okay with the market price for a particular category/class of item, you can always choose not to buy it as well. But then you don't have it. Maybe that's okay?

But to say that you shouldn't be comparison shopping other contracts AT ALL I think is unwise... but I'm probably just reading too much into your statement though?

P.S. No one is saying you look at the numbers in a vacuum. You definitely take into account the circumstances of their contracts when they were signed and whether they are good indicators now. I thought I alluded to that by mentioning 'crazy contracts' before but maybe I wasn't clear enough?

[Manocad]

This is a 30 win team without him.

And in my opinion, a non-championship team with him. I can't think of a single time where I thought, "If it weren't for Dre, they lose that game." And I've said that 15/17 guys don't just grow on trees so he certainly has value. He just doesn't bring $25+ million a year of value.

[DTP]

Umm, effort, defensive awareness, hustle, rim protection, intangibles, winning? The things Andre defenders never bring up because they can't. Whole argument just revolves around his boxscore numbers, he's so incredibly overrated I can't stand it.

Just about everything you mention here is some fuzzy, eye test, gut feel bunch of nothing. People judge him against some imaginary portrait of what they think he should be.

He's an incredibly durable and productive big man with some pretty insane stats. The Pistons were the seventh rated defensive team in the league - you think that was because of Blake, Luke, Reggie, and Galloway? They made the playoffs with one of the worst perimeters in the league. Dre and Blake were not the problem.

This is a 30 win team without him.

I feel like people are judging him on his defense from 2 or 3 years ago. He has significantly improved defensively in multiple way. 1.7blk and 1.7stl are nice raw stats too. I could see him getting those blocks up to 2 per game.

His game has really matured the last two seasons. He's still not the sharpest tool in the shed but still, his game has come a long way.

[GreekAlex]

Just about everything you mention here is some fuzzy, eye test, gut feel bunch of nothing. People judge him against some imaginary portrait of what they think he should be.

He's an incredibly durable and productive big man with some pretty insane stats. The Pistons were the seventh rated defensive team in the league - you think that was because of Blake, Luke, Reggie, and Galloway? They made the playoffs with one of the worst perimeters in the league. Dre and Blake were not the problem.

This is a 30 win team without him.

I feel like people are judging him on his defense from 2 or 3 years ago. He has significantly improved defensively in multiple way. 1.7blk and 1.7stl are nice raw stats too. I could see him getting those blocks up to 2 per game.

His game has really matured the last two seasons. He's still not the sharpest tool in the shed but still, his game has come a long way.

His game has definitely improved but the numbers don’t mean much. Most of his steals involve him gambling and there’s plenty of times that the gamble doesn’t go his way.

Stats are just stats. He does well against weaker competition and generally gets torched by every elite player. I can’t think of a single player that he dominates.

That being said, I like Andre. However outside of rebounding he is in no way shape or form elite.

He believes he’s elite and wants to be paid as if he’s elite. That’s where the problem lies.

If Andre was paid according to his on court impact, I’d love him on the team. Unfortunately that’s not what he’s looking for.

[King Bugs]

Just about everything you mention here is some fuzzy, eye test, gut feel bunch of nothing. People judge him against some imaginary portrait of what they think he should be.

He's an incredibly durable and productive big man with some pretty insane stats. The Pistons were the seventh rated defensive team in the league - you think that was because of Blake, Luke, Reggie, and Galloway? They made the playoffs with one of the worst perimeters in the league. Dre and Blake were not the problem.

This is a 30 win team without him.

Laimbeer, are you gaslighting me right now? I can't believe you typed that like it made sense. One of the main ways to judge the game and analyze the players is by what you see on the court. You might have had a point if I didn't know what any of that "bunch of nothing" I typed looked like, but fortunately for me I've had the pleasure of watching great defensive Pistons teams for years, so I'm going to trust my eyes while you continue to trust the boxscore.

Unless I'm looking at the wrong thing on NBA.com we were the 12th rated defense. I don't understand how this cherry picked stat means any more than what I'm apparently imaginingon the floor since 2017-2018's team had a better defensive rating than this year's team and that squad missed the playoffs. Hell, that team had a better defensive rating than Golden State and who seriously believes we were a better defensive team than 2017-2018 Warriors?

That's why pace needs to be taken into account if you're gonna use this stat because the 33 win Memphis Grizzlies(the slowest team in the league) is in this year's top 10. We were the 3rd slowest team in the league and constantly walking the ball up the floor, running halfcourt isolation sets through Blake all night, limited possessions which helped our defensive rating tremendously.

We may be a 30 win team without Andre (although we've been worse with him) this season was only the 2nd time he's had a 40 game win season, so yeah, woohoo! It's nice to know that bar continues to be on the floor.

[El Chivo]

Pay a player for 10 extra wins from 30 to 40 is a suicide in NBA. It kills your chances to get a top pick and guarantees mediocrity.

[Manocad]

Pay a player for 10 extra wins from 30 to 40 is a suicide in NBA. It kills your chances to get a top pick and guarantees mediocrity.

Bingo.

And that’s exactly where the Pistons put themselves—paying a lot more than just one player to get to 40 wins.

[Southern Piston]

If he can show a little of the game we saw this summer this year against real competition, to me that means he can a top three center over the next five yrs, his game continuesly improves, he Rarely Misses a game, and I think he is the latest of all the late Bloomers, but this is only if his game expands, otherwise move him, tear it apart and rebuild, I’m tired of overpaid mediocrity, I’d rather a hustle crew of nobodies for a couple years.