The Detroit Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks agreed to a sign-and-trade deal last night that sends Brandon Jennings to Detroit in exchange for Brandon Knight, Khris Middleton and Viacheslav Kravtsov. Jennings and the Pistons then agreed to a three-year deal worth $25 million.The Pistons have been busy this offseason, adding Jennings, Josh Smith, Chauncey Billups and Luigi Datome (former Italian League MVP) to their roster. Detroit has assembled a roster of talented players, but how good can this team be?
Before the Jennings deal, the Pistons looked like a team that could compete for one of the lower seeds in the Eastern Conference. Now that the Pistons have added Jennings to their backcourt, they still seem like a team destined for the sixth or seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. Not much has changed.
First off, Jennings isn't a huge upgrade over Knight. Besides being part of one of the worst posters of all-time, courtesy of DeAndre Jordan, Knight was having a solid start to his career. Knight was averaging 13.3 points and 3.9 assists per game over his first two seasons.
Jennings, on the other hand, has averaged 17 points and 5.7 assists per game over his four-year career. The biggest difference is that Jennings averages 15.5 shots per game while Knight only takes 11.7 shots per game. Knight actually shoots a better percentage than Jennings from the floor and from behind-the-arc shooting 41-percent and 37-percent compared to Jennings' 39-percent and 35-percent.
What the Pistons are getting is a point guard that likes to take a lot of shots, and adding it a team that now has a lot of players that need shots as well. Josh Smith isn't great playing without the ball. Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond need to be fed the ball in the post, and the question is, who is going to get them the ball?
Chauncey Billups is a facilitator, but how many minutes can play each game this late in his career? Billups is entering his 17th season in the NBA, and only played 19.2 minutes per game last year.
Detroit now has a roster with one of the better centers in the league (Monroe), an All-Star caliber power forward (Smith), a big man with loads of potential (Drummond), a lottery-pick shooting guard (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) and a point guard that can drop 30 points on any given night (Jennings). However, it appears that all of these players could have a tough time playing with each other. There is only one ball and a lot of players that are going to need touches.
This current Pistons team has plenty of talent, and that talent alone should be enough to get them into the playoffs. However, don't expect them to get any further than the second round , if they even make it to that point.
[Mike Lucas Sports]
