In the midst of another disappointing Pistons season, it may be time to move on from some familiar faces.
On Wednesday, in the afterglow of an uninspired road win over the Anthony Davis-less New Orleans Pelicans, Pistons forward Blake Griffin was pulled aside for one of those typically inane interviews where the spent athlete spouts cliches about “locking in” and “focus” and how those unmeasurable attributes contributed to the victory.
And Blake didn’t disappoint. Those exact words came from his lips…except instead of them being in the service of faint praise for a relatively inconsequential mid-January victory, they were offered as an indictment of the sorry state of the team from its despondent star.
“This is nothing to be proud of, man,” he said, when asked if he could exhale after an unnecessary nail-bite of an ending to a game they’d mostly controlled from the jump.
“This is just masking our issue, you know what I mean? We gotta lock in and finish games, like our lack of focus at the end of games has been awful. That’s why we lose games like this,” he said to a concerned looking Mickey York of Fox Sports Detroit.
“I’m happy with the win,” he continued, “but I’m not necessarily happy with the way we closed this game out.”
And if he wasn’t happy then, what happened next certainly didn’t help matters. Reggie Jackson, the player who some might say is the poster-child for the Pistons recent descent into sub-mediocrity, crashed the proceedings, mugging it up for the cameras, oblivious that the celebrating of a 17/5/3 line while your charge on the other side of the court (New Orleans’ Jrue Holiday) went off for 29/7/5 was EXACTLY what Griffin was on about. You can watch the whole awkward exchange go down here.
Nice, huh? Thus is the state of DEEEEETROIT BASKETBALL in 2019.
Griffin, by all accounts, is having one helluva year. He is posting career highs in Points, 3PTers made and 3PT % all the while harboring the highest usage rate of any big man outside of Philly (he’s at 30.1% while Embiid sits at 33%). All of this is to say that he has been every bit the superstar the team thought they were getting when they traded for him and it would probably behoove the front office to heed his concerns if he truly is the centerpiece they plan to build around for the next few seasons.
Or they need to trade him.
I’m not there…yet. Having him around has rekindled memories from those halcyon days of a young Grant Hill, when I knew that on any given night, the best player on the court could be wearing Pistons blue. Even the Going To Work squads of the mid aughts couldn’t claim that (they relied more on a collective than any one individual talent). So, yeah, that recent Ringer article pushing for a Blake trade to the Mavs for Harrison Barnes and Dennis Smith, Jr…I’m gonna have to pass.
Having said that, a trade should, nay, MUST happen. To waste the twilight of Blake’s prime putzing around for the eighth seed in a weak East is akin to buying a fifth of Pappy Van Winkle 20 Year Reserve Bourbon…only to mix it with some diet cola.
But trade him where? For whom? Let’s explore some possibilities.
Andre Drummond, Stanley Johnson to Charlotte for Nicolas Batum, Malik Monk and Willy Hernangomez
Kemba Walker is good. In fact, for the better part of a month he was one of the top fifteen or twenty players in the League. Check out his November splits: 27 PPG, 6.3 APG, 4.4 RPG with over a steal. Plus the dude is just cold-blooded. You know what else he is? A pending free agent. Even with Kemba stating back in September that he’d rather stay and win in Charlotte than join a superteam (is that the owner’s old school mentality rubbing off on him a bit?) it would still be easier for the Hornets brass to sell him on spending the rest of his prime in Charlotte if they could bring in another, in-his-prime All-Star caliber player. Say what you will about Andre, but he is a former All-Star who is capable of doing things on the court that few others can.
Other than the appeal of getting out from under that abysmal Batum deal, the trade benefits the Hornets because the Drummond/Walker pairing could actually work. Drummond is at his best when he and a shifty, dynamic PG are just pick and rolling teams to death (think Will Bynum or even Reggie Jackson back when he used to be a threat to get into the paint…sigh). Run that play a couple dozen times a game with shooters flanking them on the wings and you’ll end up with wide berths for Walker to attack, Drummond putbacks and lobs and wide open corner 3s…there are worse plans.
Why would the Pistons do it? A few reasons. First, the Stanley Johnson experiment has been a failure, no ifs ands or buts about it. He has not progressed AT ALL offensively since the first day he stepped on an NBA floor and a guy who plays defense and little else is not going to be worth whatever his agent will be asking for come his Restricted Free Agency this summer. Time to move on. By adding Monk, a disappointment himself but one where there is still hope for improvement, they get another wing back and perhaps either he or Kennard can become a valuable rotation piece. Batum, he of the aforementioned abysmal deal, is the real prize if you can believe it. While he’s been around for a while, he still is only 30 (he turns 31 in December) and only two years removed from a 15/6/6 campaign. Yes, he’s been bad this year but I believe you could expect at least a 13/5/4 from him at the SF position AND getting him would allow you to move Bullock back to the SG where I feel he is better served. Getting Hernangomez as well allows you to run a platoon of he and Zaza at the 5, both of whom are less likely to demand the touches that Drummond did (that often led to turnovers or low % shots) while still providing toughness and an interior presence.
Andre Drummond, Ish Smith to Dallas for DeAndre Jordan, Dennis Smith, Jr
This one would depend on just how poor of a fit Dallas thinks Smith, Jr is next to wunderkind, Luka Doncic. Last year’s 1st rounder, Smith, Jr looked like a franchise cornerstone for the first month or so of his career. His numbers were a bit erratic last year (18 PPG in March, 12.8 in December) as they tend to be for rookies, but all in all it was a solid, if a bit inefficient debut. With Doncic taking the world by storm (and needing the ball in his hands in the process) Smith, Jr has been pushed aside, off-ball where he isn’t nearly as effective (12.9 PPG on the season, thus far). Rumblings that he and Carlisle aren’t exactly simpatico have led to the possibility that they’d move on. This is where the Pistons come in.
Any deal would have to include another PG, as undersized hero J.J Barea went down with a season-ending injury a few weeks ago leaving them thin in the backcourt. Ish, if he can quickly recover from a groin strain, would fill that order. And swapping Jordan for Drummond would be like getting a younger, better version of the same player who is also locked in for two more seasons.
On the Pistons side, the deal is simple. Jordan’s deal comes off the books after next year offering them some cap flexibility that as of now won’t come until after the 2019-20 season when Leuer, Galloway and Jackson are all given their walking papers. In the meantime, he can step in for Drummond and be reunited with his old pal Blake who can feed him lobs like it’s 2014.
More importantly they would acquire their young PG in Smith, Jr while allowing Jackson to move to the bench where he belongs. It pains me to say, as I was a Reggie Truther that first month or so after the trade, but this post-injury version can no longer can get past anyone off the dribble. It’s like the Brandon Jennings thing all over again. He’s just got no burst. But in going against the other team’s backups I believe he MAY find some modicum of success (as long as he buys in).
Andre Drummond, Reggie Jackson, Jon Leuer to Memphis for Mike Conley, Jr and Marc Gasol
With news coming out this past week that Memphis was entertaining the idea of moving on from franchise cornerstones in Conley and Gasol, NBA Twitter has been abuzz with possibilities. The Grizzlies may find, though, that those possibilities may be a bit underwhelming. Why? Well, Conley is a nice but admittedly second-tier PG getting paid like a superstar (67M over the next two seasons) and Gasol (25M next season) is just days away from his 34th birthday and on the decline. They aren’t likely to get equal value for a couple of guys who’ve kept the Grizz competitive playing a grind it out style while the rest of the league has shifted gears. To get a still-in-his-prime former All-Star center in Drummond to pair next to Triple J (Jaren Jackson, Jr to the uninitiated) may sound appealing (this is, after all a team that historically has shown no hesitation investing heavily in bigs, running Zach Randolph and Gasol out there for years).
Jackson is most assuredly a downgrade from Conley, but at least he could step in to for now as Memphis assumes tank-position and then next year he either becomes a trade chip or cap space after his contract runs out. And Leuer? He’s shown recently that he still has a little value as a back up big (I will refrain from using the word ‘stretch’ since he hasn’t hit a 3PTer since 16-17) and it would be a reunion of sorts since he played there from 12-13 through 14-15.
On the Pistons side, the sell here is the massive upgrade at PG which has been the team’s Achilles heel (or ankle or possibly groin). Conley has a RPM (real +/-, which is the player’s average impact in terms of net point differential per 100 offensive and defensive possessions) of 3.32 (9th among PGs). Jackson’s is -.62 (34th). And Gasol is a better fit next to Griffin. He could play similarly to how the Bucks have been utilizing Brook Lopez at times, posting him up behind the long line where he’s been hitting at a 35% clip this year. Other times they can have him at the elbow with the ball in his hands as a facilitator as he’s always been one of the better passing bigs in the game (4.8 APG this year). With these two, Griffin, Bullock and Brown (doing his best Tony Allen impression) you’d have a better balanced starting five that would propel you into the the playoffs and perhaps give you a chance to avoid Milwaukee or Toronto in the 1st round.
For how much the Pistons front office says they love Blake Griffin, how he’s a prime building block, the face of the franchise and all that rhetoric, they need to prove it and make one of these trades not only for his sake but also for mine. I don’t know how many more times I can take seeing that downtrodden look on his face after he’s gone 35/7/6 in a loss to another also-ran because his teammates couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain. And if it isn’t one of these trades, then do something…anything to offer a sliver of a chance off this wheel of malaise. Otherwise, it may be time to look to the words of the wise sage Sting who once said, “If you love someone, set them free.”
Ish- Wikimedia, MavsFan28. Drummond- Wikimedia, Allison, Keith. Blake- Flikr, Allison, Keith. Cards- Wikimedia, Lau, Enoch. Reggie- Wikimedia, thepanamerican. Stanley- Wikimedia, Allison, Keith. Background Spheres- Pixabay, Activedia.