The Detroit Pistons already have enough on their plate this offseason without inviting another major contract headache into the picture.
Jalen Duren’s future has sat near the top of the team’s to-do list since the offseason began, and here they are at the end of August still working through it. That alone has been a drawn-out process. Adding Anthony Davis to the mix would have only piled on more uncertainty, especially if Detroit had jumped into the trade race before the February deadline.
Davis became extension-eligible earlier this month, but Josh Robbins of The Athletic reported that the Wizards are waiting to discuss a potential extension with him during the season. That makes sense, since he has not played for Washington yet, and the injury concerns are obvious.
Detroit avoided that whole mess, even after Shams Charania said he "expected" them to be a suitor. If the Pistons had traded for Davis, they would have been staring down the kind of extension his camp would push for - something in the four-year, $275 million range - and then possibly a trade request if the team didn’t meet it.
ESPN even projected that possibility. In a poll about who the next player would be to request a trade, Davis got the most points, with 10.
Tim MacMahon of ESPN wrote that if the Wizards don’t want to give Davis the kind of contract he’s seeking, there would not be much reason for him to stick around on a non-contender.
Detroit could at least sell Davis on a path to another championship, but that still wouldn’t have made the price tag any easier to swallow. The Pistons already have a major financial decision looming with Duren, who came into the offseason hoping for a max-level deal worth $287 million over five years. That is not happening.
There’s a real argument that Detroit should be more willing to pay Duren at that number than Davis, even with Davis’ résumé as a proven star and one of the league’s best two-way players when healthy. But those last two words are exactly why the Pistons should stay away if Davis asks out or the Wizards decide to move him.
Detroit was smart not to let the pull of a star trade knock it off course, and that logic still holds now. The priority is getting aligned with Duren and fixing that relationship before training camp begins. If the right star deal comes along later, then that’s a different conversation.
In Other News...
Pistons Are About To Gain Two Trade Chips Worth Watching
The Pistons added a couple of familiar veteran pieces when they took on Taurean Prince and Gary Harris in the multi-team sign-and-trade that sent John Collins on his way, and even before training camp fully gets rolling, their long-term value looks tied more to the trade market than the rotation. Both players give Detroit some experienced depth, but the bigger appeal may be that they are movable contracts on a roster still shaping its next phase.
Detroit has more immediate business to handle, especially with contract extensions for Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson on the table, but Prince and Harris could become useful chips when the front office starts looking for flexibility. For a team that may need salary-matching help later, those deals give the Pistons another layer of optionality, and the timing of when they can be bundled in a trade will be worth watching closely. [Read more 🡒]
Pistons Face A Risky Kyrie Irving Debate That Could Change Everything
A speculative three-team trade idea has put Detroit in the middle of a familiar kind of NBA debate, one where upside and instability sit right next to each other. The proposal would reshape the Pistons roster in a hurry, with the conversation centered on whether adding Kyrie Irving would be worth the cost in depth, rotation balance and future flexibility.
The attraction is obvious for a team looking to accelerate its timeline, especially with another veteran piece in the mix, but the price tag in players and draft capital makes the whole exercise hard to ignore. Even as the idea percolates, the real question for Detroit is not just what it would gain, but how much of its present and future it would be willing to sacrifice to get there. [Read more 🡒]
Pistons Still Have One Cade Cunningham Problem They Havent Solved
The Pistons rise from a 28-game losing streak to a 62-win season and the top seed in 2023-24 changed the conversation around the franchise fast, and Cade Cunningham was right at the center of it. Alongside Jalen Duren, Tobias Harris, Duncan Robinson, Ausar Thompson and J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit built a team that looked ready to matter again, and the offseason moves only reinforced that belief on the surface. Isaiah Joe, Ebuka Okorie and John Collins all arrived with the idea of making the roster deeper and more flexible as the East gets tougher.
But the lingering question around Cunningham is less about whether the Pistons have enough talent to win games and more about whether they have surrounded their lead guard with enough reliable offense to keep defenses from loading up on him. The additions helped, but they also left open a familiar issue for Detroit: enough bodies are in place, yet the exact kind of support Cunningham needs to fully unlock the attack still feels unresolved. [Read more 🡒]