Detroit Pistons Just Had Their Best Offseason, Since?

After 2002… there’s not been much offseason help at all to further sustain the ‘Go To Work’ Detroit Pistons era or help along with any rebuilding effort since. Here are the major positives since ’02;

2004 – Signed Antonio McDyess

2006 – Drafted Arron Afflalo, 27th overall

2012 – Drafted Andre Drummond, 9th overall & Drafted Khris Middleton, 39th overall

2014 – Drafted Spencer Dinwiddie, 38th overall

2015 – Traded a second-round pick for Reggie Bullock & Marcus Morris

2017 – Drafted Luke Kennard, 12th overall

I choose only to highlight the positive moves because it would take way to long to note all the horrible offseason moves since 2002. This is why the Detroit Pistons have been mediocre or bad for over a decade; I detailed some of the more critical offseasons within the decade below;

2009, back when they had some money to spend Joe Dumars wrote some terrible checks to Ben Gordon [five-year, 55-million] and Charlie Villanueva [five-year, 40-million]. This set back the franchise years as neither lived up to their contracts.

2012 may be the only accurate argument for having a successful offseason since 2002, drafting Andre Drummond 9th overall and Khris Middleton 39th overall, but they also traded away Middleton a year later for a washed-up Brandon Jennings. That nullifies the pick for me, they had him on the team and still couldn’t see the value. They also traded Ben Gordon and a 2014 first round pick for Corey Maggette in 2012, plus none their free agent signing in Viacheslav Kravtsov, Jonny Flynn or Terrance Williams worked out. So, one big positive in Drummond, an easy pick at 9, followed by a lot of no thank you.

2013, Josh Smith…. the offseason of ’09 was probably the worst for Joe Dumars, but it was the ’13 offseason signing of Josh Smith [four-year, 54-million] that was the end of Dumars as GM. The Detroit Pistons announced Joe Dumars would be ‘stepping down’ April 2014. April in the D…

2014 is when Stan Van Gundy rolled into town, what superseded was a 4-year era of more bad contracts and draft picks. Van Gundy had one of his few bright spots in his first offseason of 2014 drafting Spencer Dinwiddie, too bad he traded him to the Bulls two years later for Cameron Bairstow. Bairstow was waived less than a month later, while last season as the Nets starting PG Dinwiddie averaged 16.8 PPG. The Pistons spent their money on Jodie Meeks in 2014 [three-year 19.5 million], first of many bad signings by Stan. Meeks never started a game in Detroit and average 11.1 and 7.3 PPG in his two years with the Detroit Pistons.

2015 Van Gundy pulled off his best trade in sending a second-round pick to Phoenix for Reggie Bullock and Marcus Morris, a salary dump for the Suns, but hey some team was going to benefit from it right? The big free agent signing in the offseason was a bad one in Aron Baynes [three-year, 20-million], Baynes had his moments, but overall he averaged 5.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game in his two years here. But with a good comes the horrible, 2015 was Van Gundy’s worst draft, using the 8th overall pick on Stanley Johnson. The Pelicans just declined to extend a qualifying offer to Johnson making in a free agent, a.k.a, they just cut him for nothing.

2016 was the charity giveaway to Jon Leuer at four years 42-million dollars. Leuer averaged 3.8 points last year. Poor draft class with Henry Ellenson at 18th overall as well.

2017 had the only other positive draft pick for Van Gundy besides Dinwiddie, Luke Kennard at 12th overall. The jury is still out on Kennards’ ceiling, but he’s been a reliable backup SG so far, averaging 9.7 PPG and 39% from 3 in last season. Van Gundy was fired as GM and head coach on May 7th, 2018.

2018 brought in new leadership as the Pistons hired Ed Stefanski as ‘senior advisor’ on May 24th, 2018. Stefanski’s first offseason was so-so. He didn’t have a first-round pick, but they traded (2) 2nd round picks to the 76’ers for the 38th pick and drafted Khyri Thomas, then used their own to draft Bruce Brown at 42. Brown had a nice rookie season, even starting games because of his effort on the defensive end, but let’s be real, he wouldn’t have been a starter on just about any other team shooting 39% from the field and 25% from three, and being a shooting guard.

Stefanski’s 2018 free agent signings of Glen Robinson III, Jose Calderon and Zaza Pachulia didn’t work out so well. Zaza was serviceable, but neither of the 3 had a good season. All three are now gone, but to Stefanski’s’ credit, the players didn’t work out, but they were smart contracts, all of them were one-year deals with GRIII’s having a second-year club option. He’s gone.