With the most critical window of the off-season about to open next week, this week’s edition of Pistons Mailbag focuses on the draft, free agency and potential trade targets.
@McFaddenIsDead: Thoughts on targeting Monte Morris as our point guard?
Langlois: Your question was prompted, I’m sure, by a report that Denver is looking to pare its luxury tax bill and engaging in talks to ship out Morris, who has two years and $19 million left on his contract. Morris, a Michigan native who won Mr. Basketball in 2013 while at Flint Beecher, established himself as one of the NBA’s best backup point guards and started 74 games last season as Denver played without Jamaal Murray for the entire season. He’s a nearly 40 percent career 3-point shooter and, about to turn 27 this month, still has several prime years ahead. The Nuggets reportedly are sending JaMychal Green to Oklahoma City for the 30th pick in next week’s draft, also motivated by cost saving. The Pistons still have high expectations for Killian Hayes, but Dwane Casey said as the season wound down that while this year was about developing young players, the equilibrium will shift next season toward playing time being earned more than given. The Pistons are going to have a pretty nice chunk of cap space – somewhere between $25 million and $35 million, probably, depending on what they do with some options – and upgrading the backcourt would be high on the priority list, one would assume. If Denver is calling around with cost saving in mind, it’s a pretty good bet that teams with cap space are on the receiving end of those calls. It doesn’t mean a trade is close, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if scenarios involving Morris – if, indeed, the Nuggets are still in cost-saving mode after finding a home for Green – were being bandied about between Denver and the handful of teams with cap space. But Denver isn’t the only team looking to either cut costs or open cap space and there aren’t a lot of teams with significant cap space. If the Pistons choose to use their cap space in trade, they’ll probably have a number of different opportunities to do so.
Langlois: Getting Deandre Ayton will almost surely require a sign and trade with Phoenix, so what goes back to the Suns? If it’s Grant, then it’s an open question what the impact will be on team success. It might take a minute for the Pistons to figure things out with a change of that magnitude. The Pistons were essentially a .500 team after the All-Star break last season and next year’s team, logically, should be improved. Cade Cunningham isn’t going to start next season after giving the rest of the NBA a 20-yard head start like he did as a rookie. Saddiq Bey and Isaiah Stewart are going to be better players. They’re adding the No. 5 pick, potentially someone who’ll have immediate impact. They’ll have a lot of cap space. How that translates into wins is anybody’s guess. They don’t play in a vacuum, remember. The East was deeper than it’s ever been in 2021-22 with 43 wins earning Charlotte the 10th seed and final play-in berth. That said, Cleveland – in the fourth season of its rebuilding, a year ahead of where the Pistons will be for 2022-23 – doubled its win total from 22 to 44 last season because three or four key things came together: Evan Mobley was ready to contribute immediately as the No. 3 pick, Darius Garland made a huge leap in his third season to All-Star status and Jarrett Allen, 23 and in his fifth season, also leaped to All-Star status. If the Pistons have three similar success stories next season, it’s not going to be out of the question they take a similar jump.
@ck2_originals/IG: Dyson Daniels and Cade Cunningham played great together in Rising Stars. Will that be considered?
Langlois: It’s one piece of information among thousands worth inputting into the formula. I wouldn’t make too much of it, but you can bet Cunningham’s brain was picked about Daniels as well as anybody else with whom he’s crossed paths over the course of his AAU, high school and college days, just as Troy Weaver and Pistons scouts will grill all young Pistons players who might have any shared history with potential lottery prospects. Actually getting on the court with Daniels, even in a relatively low-key setting like the Rising Stars games, gave Cunningham some feel for him as a player and as a teammate. I don’t know that anything he could possibly share would tip the scales, but it’s information that helps provide context to every other bit of information gathered.
@adamoswald: Any idea how many different players are in play for the fifth pick and what are the chances we pick up more picks later in the draft?
Langlois: We picked eight players to profile for our draft preview series and that’s probably stretching the realistic targets by a few. If you give me Jaden Ivey, Keegan Murray, Shaedon Sharpe and Bennedict Mathurin, I’ll give you the field. But Dyson Daniels and Johnny Davis are two who have been reported to have worked out for the Pistons and there are a few others who could be worthy of consideration, as well. As for picking up picks later in the draft, everyone will be watching to see if Jerami Grant gets moved on draft night. I would bet against it, but my jaw wouldn’t exactly hit the floor if it happened. Other than that, I think it’s more likely the Pistons deal their pick at 46 in the second round than do any more adding. They don’t have a ton of future second-round picks, valuable for pushing trades across the finish line in many cases, and they won’t have a ton of roster spots to play with this summer. With so many teams facing a cap squeeze this summer, if there’s a player sitting undrafted in the middle of the second round – at a spot where it’s still possible to grab a contributor – it would be pretty easy for the Pistons to turn that pick into maybe two future seconds or a second and some other consideration.
Carl (Ottumwa, Iowa): If Troy Weaver picks up another first-round pick somewhere between 15 and 20, as he did by trading for picks at 16 and 19 two years ago, is there anyone you like in that range?
Langlois: I’ll start with the fact that the situation is different than it was in 2020 when Weaver was clearly intent on establishing a different culture and getting guys in Pistons uniforms he felt exuded the qualities – toughness, selflessness, work ethic high among them – he wanted to instill in the Pistons. Everybody on the roster now was brought here by Weaver. Roster spots are going to be at a premium this off-season. That’s a long way of saying I don’t know that he’s going to be looking for more draft picks – nor does he have assets he regards as easily fungible any more to acquire extra picks. That said, a guy I like a lot in the 20 range (other than Notre Dame’s Blake Wesley, whom I wrote about last week as a sleeper I liked) is Ohio State’s E.J. Liddell. In some respects, he calls to mind another player I thought was undervalued in the 2019 draft, Tennessee’s Grant Williams. I would bet on Liddell having a bigger impact over the course of his career than several players projected to be picked ahead of him.
@refunned: Given that Murray seems to be the favorite, I am a little concerned with the lack of athleticism in a future frontcourt of Bey/Murray/Stewart. Is this a legit concern?
Langlois: I’d be hesitant to call those players unathletic individually or collectively. They might not be the archetype of a head-on-the-rim athlete, but Bey and Stewart have at least adequate functional athleticism and Murray strikes me similarly. If the Pistons were to retain Marvin Bagley III, he adds another element of athleticism and length to the frontcourt. You always want a mix of skill sets and attributes so the Pistons would probably like to add someone who projects as more of a shot-blocking threat if possible.
Darrell (Detroit): In addition to trading Jerami Grant to Portland for the No. 7 pick, I can envision the Pistons trading a couple of second-rounders to the Knicks for the 11th pick plus Nerlens Noel, Kemba Walker and Taj Gibson, all of whom will be promptly waived. The Knicks will gain $23.6 million in cap space to pursue Jalen Brunson and the Pistons might walk away with Kenyon Murray, Bennedict Mathurin and Jalen Duren on draft night. If the Pistons manage to trade Olynyk for cap space, they might still be able to steal Collin Sexton for four years and $100 million. Sure, the team would be young, but they should grow together and contend within three to four years.
Langlois: I don’t think that’s enough for the Knicks to scare Dallas away. Gibson’s contract is reportedly non-guaranteed for next season. My best projection for the Knicks if they were to offload the Noel and Walker deals is they could possibly get to about $20 million in space. I’m pretty sure Dallas wouldn’t think twice about going that high for Brunson. Speculation is he could get as much as $25 million annually. Dallas seems fully prepared to incur a big tax bill next season because the Mavs have a lot of contracts coming off the books after the 2022-23 season and can reset their balance sheet then.
@WhosCTill2: If we do acquire Deandre Ayton, do you see Isaiah Stewart moving to the bench or is he a candidate to start at the four?
Langlois: That would be determined by the results. Whomever the Pistons add to the frontcourt, Dwane Casey is going to experiment and see what combinations work best. If the late-season 3-point outburst by Isaiah Stewart, when he hit 11 of 18 over the final eight games, proves real when the 2022-23 season rolls around, Casey would undoubtedly see what lineups with two big men – Stewart and Kelly Olynyk, Stewart and Marvin Bagley III if he’s back, Bagley and Olynyk – might look like. I would bet against two-big lineups being something used the majority of minutes, but it could evolve into something that gets used consistently.
@jstraay19: Can we please trade the fifth pick and Jerami Grant to Washington for Bradley Beal?
Langlois: There remains no indication Bradley Beal is going anywhere. Beal said a few months ago that he was leaning toward signing a five-year extension – at a whopping $248 million – with Washington, which can give him an extra year and, thus, more than $50 million more than any other team. Of all the things possible this summer, that one seems impossible.
@landon_maynard1091/IG: Off-season targets other than Brunson/Ayton?
Langlois: If you had given me 10 guesses a year ago at this time, I probably wouldn’t have struck upon Kelly Olynyk. I’m interested to see which player the Pistons take with the fifth pick and whether they pick up or decline options on Hamidou Diallo and Frank Jackson over the next 12 days. Those moves will be the first pieces of the puzzle dropped into place. Right now, it’s just throwing darts.