New Detroit Pistons GM Troy Weaver knows how to make an entrance.

Weaver was hired back in June to little fanfare (the world was preoccupied with other stuff, me thinks) after spending more than a decade as Assistant GM for the Thunder. It was unclear how the division of power would shake out among owner Tom Gores, who spoke of the front office as a “team” that could shift roles as needed, and Senior Advisor Ed Stefanski, who has served as pseudo-GM in the post-Stan Van Gundy era.

This past week, Weaver made it abundantly clear that this roster construction stuff is his world, and we are all just living in it.

A flurry of moves – before, during, and after Wednesday’s NBA Draft – has this team looking very different than it did at the time Weaver assumed his position this summer. In lieu of a normal “Draft Recap and Review” post that I would normally drop here, I am taking a timeline-style approach and I will fill in my thoughts along the way.

There is a lot to unpack here and, quite frankly, my head is spinning. Consider this part 1, which covers the NBA Draft and the events leading up to it. Part 2 will tackle free agency.

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Who’s in? Who’s out?

First, a rundown of all the arrivals and departures to help us visualize what the hell just happened.

*This list will be updated as movement continues in the coming days.

**Some players have already arrived and departed, hence the need for the “here today, gone tomorrow” section.

IN: PG Killian Hayes (Pick No. 7 – France/Germany) | C Isaiah Stewart (Pick No. 16 – Washington) | SF Saddiq Bey (Pick No. 19 – Villanova) | PG Saben Lee (Pick No. 38 – Vanderbilt) | F Jerami Grant | PG Delon Wright | C Jahlil Okafor | C Mason Plumlee | SF Daznan Musa | SG Wayne Ellington | SF Josh Jackson | G/F Zhaire Smith | G Jaylen Hands | G Nikola Radeicevic

Out: SG Luke Kennard | SG Bruce Brown | PF Christian Wood (come back)| SF Tony Snell | SG Langston Galloway | PG Khyri Thomas | PG Brandon Knight | G Jordan McRae | C John Henson | PG Jordan Bone | C Thon Maker | G Louis King | C Justin Patton

Here today, gone tomorrow: SF Trevor Ariza | C Dewayne Dedmon | C Tony Bradley

The story so far…

11/16: Pistons trade Bruce Brown to Nets for Dzanan Musa and 2021 second-round pick (via TOR)

The first cut is the deepest?

Weaver kicking off his flurry of pre-draft maneuvering by trading the most Piston-ey Piston on the roster woke me from my football induced malaise. I really liked Bruce Brown and am disappointed that this was the best they could get in return for their best perimeter defender with an improving 3-ball.

And he did it all with a mean mug and a shoulder shrug.

That being said, the full teardown hadn’t yet materialized (and still hasn’t!) when this trade went down, and in hindsight, it makes a little more sense now that some dust has settled. Brown flirted with 30 minutes per game last year and those minutes are now available for the kids. Detroit gets worse in the short-term with this deal, but maybe that’s part of the plan.

Why does Detroit get worse with this deal? Because this is the player they are getting in return:

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He’s only 21, so anything can happen, but it will be a good old fashioned rags to riches story if Weaver and company can turn this mess into a functional NBA player. We also can’t poo poo a late second-round pick. Small assets like those get dismissed, but a good chess player knows how to use his pawns.

*More on that last part coming up, as it seems this second-rounder (and a few others) are already on the move.

11/18: Pistons trade a future first-round pick to Rockets in exchange for No. 16 and Trevor Ariza

This is the type of deal I was expecting the team to make. The Pistons absorb the unwanted contract of Ariza with their abundance of cap space and are rewarded with a mid-first rounder for their efforts. This deal showed the Pistons’ cards quite a bit. Turns out they wouldn’t be offering max-level cash to a less-than-max quality free agent this offseason simply because they have the dough lying around (AKA Fred VanVleet ain’t coming here no more). And that’s a good thing.

The future first they gave up is top-16 protected for the next four years, meaning the only way they will lose the pick anytime soon is if this team turns the corner sooner than later. Which would also be a good thing.

*Don’t bother getting to know Mr. Ariza, as he has already finished his cup of coffee in Detroit and has been flipped. More on this move when it fits in the timeline.

**Additional details surrounding this move have been released. We’ll get to them shortly.

Draft: Pistons select PG Killian Hayes 7th overall

No. Issues. What. So. Ever.

I made a big to-do over the summer when the Pistons once again fell victim to the lottery gods, slipping two spots down the draft board to No. 7. A two-spot jump to No. 3 would have netted LaMelo Ball, my preferred top pick for the Pistons.

But Killian Hayes is a damn good consolation prize.

A pass first PG with a 6’8″ wingspan who has elite court vision? Sign me up. Sure, Hayes has his shortcomings, like left-hand dominant tendencies and some ugly numbers from deep last season playing professionally in Germany (29.4%). But when you simultaneously fill your team’s biggest need while also snagging what many believed to be the best player on the board with massive upside, that’s a slam dunk of a pick (boomshakalaka).

I love the idea of Hayes learning behind Derrick Rose, who has been all business since he came to Detroit and has publicly stated his desire to take young players under his wing and raise their game. He did this with Luke Kennard last season, and while Kennard could always shoot, he more than doubled his assist output while becoming much more active in the flow of the offense. And if the Pistons keep their 25-minute cap on D-Rose’s usage, that leaves 20+ behind for Hayes to get his feet wet next season.

Back-2-Back first-round selections from France, eh (Sekou Doumbouya, 2019)? Sounds like Detroit basketball to me. Wee wee wee, here comes a bounce pass from the top of the key.

Draft: Pistons select C Isaiah Stewart 16th overall

Reach alert!….or was it?

The Pistons surprised many when they selected Stewart, a 6’9″ C from Washington with their newly acquired No. 16 slot. The Athletic’s Consensus Big Board, an aggregate list of rankings from around the interwebs, had Stewart as the No. 28 ranked player in the draft. A sampling of the highly touted players still on the board at the time of this pick included R.J. Hampton (13), Saddiq Bey (15, but we’ll get to know him shortly) and Aleksej Pokusevski (18).

Let’s hope the rankers out there were just sleeping on Stewart based on the fact that he is an undersized center in a modern NBA that is devaluing the position by the minute. That might be exactly what happened based on a few factors:

First off, the scouting report is glowing in regards to this dude. We might want to hold off on the undersized label, considering the guy is a pterodactyl (7’4″ wingspan) and is built like a brick shithouse. Of course, what’s the point of all that strength if you aren’t going to use it (looking at you Andre Drummond)? Thankfully, Stewart is being described as the highest motor player in the draft, and he plays mean to boot. He’s a rim protector on the defensive end and a finisher around the basket offensively. If Stewart uses his frame to make himself available Hayes should be able to find him with ease for years to come.

Additionally, after the Pistons selected Stewart they were immediately offered a trade from a team hoping to acquire his services (which included first-round capital in return). So regardless of where Stewart was ranked pre-draft, it appears the Pistons stuck a wrench in at least one other team’s plans with the selection.

Lastly, a collection of notable scouting quotes released prior to the draft included these two lines regarding Stewart: “He won’t drop out of the top 20”, and “He’s going to go higher than people think.”

Reach? Or just right? Only time will tell. But this kid has “goin’ to work” written all over him.

Mid-Draft: Pistons trade Luke Kennard to Clippers, receive pick No. 19…

…if it were only that simple.

Luke Kennard is a good NBA player that is more of an asset to a contender like the Clips than he would be to a now rebuilding Pistons squad. It is unlikely the Pistons will be ready to compete by the time Kennard is ready for his next payday (2021 offseason), so why not ship him out in return for similar value to where you originally drafted him in 2017 (12th overall)?

Makes perfect sense on the surface. Less so when you look under the hood.

There are a TON of moving parts in these trades, and new details emerge seemingly by the minute. But as it currently stands, it appears as though the Pistons parted with not only Kennard, but also FOUR F*CKING SECOND-ROUND PICKS to facilitate the Kennard and Bruce Brown trades, which despite being announced two days apart, somehow Jedi mind-melded into one deal. So much for my chess/pawns analogy above.

I’m still holding out hope that there is some fine print that makes the above information somehow not true, or that there is some unannounced future capital headed Detroit’s way that lessens the blow. But these are not insignificant details. The impact of those lost second-rounders will be felt, particularly if this rebuild goes poorly and these end up being picks in the 30s. At least the aforementioned picks are well down the road (2024-2026), so Weaver has time to weave this franchise into a contender.

Just to finish the housekeeping here, the Pistons also received SG Rodney McGruder and G Jaylen Hands in the process of these deals, while losing C Justin Patton, who they signed over the summer. McGruder is 29 and just a guy, and it is still unclear whether or not the Pistons will “waive and stretch” his contract or simply leave him as bench fodder. Hands was a late pick in last year’s draft, so maybe Weaver sees something he can develop here. We won’t get to see what Patton could have brought to this team, but considering he has more fouls than defensive rebounds in his career so far, I’m fine with that.

At the end of the day, this was about acquiring pick No. 19 and adding to the rebuilding war chest, and if Weaver used the pick wisely it will quiet all the other noise. And he may have done just that.

Draft: Pistons select SF Saddiq Bey 19th overall

He’s got the 3. He’s got the D. He comes from a basketball fac-to-ry. So much to like, so little time.

Bey is a 6’8″ wing out of Villanova who was widely considered a top-15 selection, so for Weaver to conjure up an additional pick and snag Bey at 19 is quite the parlay (besides giving up all the second-rounders there ever was). His scouting report tells of a player who is NBA ready yesterday, equipped with a high basketball IQ and a lethal deep ball (45.1% on high volume).

This isn’t a star player, but rather the type of guy you surround stars with. If the Pistons have their future star in Hayes, it will be players like Bey that help him reach that status. He knows where to be and when to be there, and his 7’0″ wingspan gives him mouthwatering versatility on both ends of the court.

I’m a big proponent of disparate and complementary skillsets, particularly in basketball where the five players on the court can have such an impact on the effectiveness of one other and the unit as a whole. With the selections of Hayes, Stewart, and Bey, the Pistons have landed three players with a really nice collection of skills that don’t overlap. It might take a while before we see them all on the court playing extended minutes together, but I’m excited to see what it looks like down the road.

Mid-Draft: Pistons acquire pick No. 38 and C Tony Bradley from Utah for “future considerations“

Tough to evaluate this trade without knowing what the “future considerations” are, so we won’t spend much time here. Bradley is a young big who has some fans in the media that feel there is some untapped potential here. Unfortunately, as we will learn in part 2 of my breakdown of the week’s events, center minutes will be tough to come by in Detroit (the Pistons have ALL THE CENTERS).

*Tony Bradley just finished his cup-a-joe and has been shipped to Philly for Zhaire Smith. More details in the timeline.

Once again, the main event here is pick No. 38, as Weaver must have had his eye on a special someone out there to pull the trigger on yet another draft-day deal. That special someone was…

Draft: Pistons select PG Saben Lee 38th overall

I didn’t know a lot (anything) about the 6’2″ point guard out of Vanderbilt coming into the draft. But watching his highlight videos makes one thing perfectly clear:

Saben Lee will shit on you.

Lee is being touted – in a positive way – as the Pistons’ new Jordan Bone, their two-way PG project from the 2019 draft. Not sure why that is a good thing, considering Bone was recently given the “good luck in your future endeavors” speech and is no longer with the organization.

This is a “smartest guy in the room” type of pick for Weaver, as Lee was not included in the Consensus Big Board (it went 76 players deep) and was on nearly no ones top-50 radar. Among the best players available were Duke PG Tre Jones (29) and Mississippi State wing Robert Woodard (31). That being said, Lee certainly has tools. Lot’s of ’em. Doesn’t know how to use ’em all, but he’s got ’em. And the best part just may be – say it with me – his massive 6’9″ wingspan at the PG position (Weaver has a type, it seems).

There’s no harm in swinging for the fences this late. The players Weaver landed in round 1 have relatively high floors, so rolling the dice with his fourth and final pick of the night is forgivable. And if Lee can develop his jumper and lower his turnover rate he will be a handful for opposing defenders, because the dude is nasty when he gets to the basket.

We’re just getting started

All in all, Weaver put together quite the draft haul despite originally only having one selection to work with. The means he used to acquire his additional picks were…passable, if not ideal. But he knew what he wanted and made it happen.

So, that’s it, right? We’re now in full rebuild mode, have a stockpile of youngsters to be mentored by Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose, and have a bunch of cash left over to resign my boy Christian Wood. Call it an offseason and see you in December, right?

Spoiler alert: Part 2 of the Pistons roster breakdown ain’t gonna be authored by Jonny Sunshine.

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