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The Detroit Pistons made the NBA playoffs last year with a record of 41-41, but got swept in the first round by the Milwaukee Bucks.
It was a step in the right direction as it was only the second time, they had made the playoffs since the 2008/2009 season where they were once again swept in the first round, this time by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The last three times that Detroit have made the playoffs they have been the eight seed and have been swept in the first round twice by Cleveland and once by Milwaukee.
This seems to be an ongoing trend and needs to be fixed if Detroit are going to compete for a championship.
The Pistons have a few choices as to how they go about claiming their fourth championship.
The first option they have is to stay with their current roster. After signing Derrick Rose in free agency this gives the Pistons more versatility at the guard position.
But this probably isn’t enough to take them to the next level as Derrick Rose isn’t seen as the player he was back in his Chicago Bulls days.
With the current roster they have Detroit will most likely make the playoffs again this year, but they won’t go too far as they don’t have the star power needed to contend for a title yet.
One of the options the Pistons have is to start again and rebuild their team through the draft. This means that they would have to trade away their best players.
This would include players like Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond and Rose. The big problem with this is they would have to find teams that could afford to take on Griffin’s and Drummond’s contracts.
With Griffin set to make over $34 million and Drummond over $27 million this year there might not be many teams willing to take on those rising salaries over multiple years.
However, if teams aren’t willing to take on these contracts the Pistons could wait until both Griffin’s and Drummond’s contracts run out and let them go to free agency.
The Pistons could then start rebuilding through the draft, which would only be a couple more years.
By trading valuable players like Griffin and Drummond away the Pistons could obtain valuable assets like draft picks. Which could then be used to draft the future franchise stars to lead Detroit to their fourth championship.
The third option open to the Pistons is that they could add to their team through free agency once the season is over.
With players like Reggie Jackson and Langston Galloway in the final year of their deals the Pistons could save over $25 million in cap room if they let them test out free agency.
This could potentially leave Detroit enough money to sign a big-name free agent to put them in title contention.
With players like DeMar DeRozan and Eric Gordon being free agents at the end of the season (unless their teams re-sign them) this gives Detroit the chance to go and get a big-name shooter added to their roster.
This could in turn give Detroit the fire power they need to go to the next level.
However, if the Detroit Pistons surprise everyone and become the breakout team of this year’s NBA campaign then they might just be closer to contending than we all think.
