I’m with you on this. Personally, i think he’s a big time stats on a team that’s not very good kind of player. Not a good defender either. He’ll put numbers up in Houston for sure.
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He’s playing center for Houston, so he could’ve done that here as well.
I don’t know that Wood is a much better player than Kennard. We have more evidence that Kennard can sustain production than Wood. Kennard’s biggest knock is health, not anything to do with his play.
But I agree with you about the younger players. Pistons are kind of a mess but that’s ok. We have some solid to good veterans in Blake, Rose, Grant, Plumlee and Wright. I think all of them are trade bait for the Pistons, whether this season or in the future. Casey was brought in as a coach when we were trying to make the playoffs. I don’t think he wants to lose a lot here because he wouldn’t have taken the job had he known we were going to rebuild after one season. I feel bad for him. He doesn’t want his stock as a coach to drop but I’m sure he’s also getting instructions to let Hayes play quite a bit. But he also has to showcase Blake and Rose so teams will be interested in trading for them. It’s a weird balancing act. I’m not getting too concerned about the young guys’ lack of playing yet. But if the second half of the season comes around and Hayes, Sekou and Bey aren’t all averaging 20+ minutes a game from that point on, I’ll be very disappointed.
Wood doesn’t want to go and wants to get paid. Pistons wouldn’t offer him any more than 8-9 mil per and Houston was willing to pony up 13 mil per. At least they got something out of it. They should’ve traded him last season for a 1st round pick but I’m glad Stefanski isn’t the GM. Weaver is much more willing to wheel and deal for assets.
So far, the Pistons are tanking for a top 3 pick. Cade Cunningham should be the prize and Killian Hayes should not preclude Weaver from drafting Cade. Hayes can move off the ball if necessary and let Cade run the team. Cade is an elite talent while Hayes is more of a complimentary player which isn’t a bad thing.
I also want them to tank the following season for Emoni Bates. Pistons badly need elite talents to compete and tanking is the way to go because no one wants to go to Detroit which is why Detroit has to overpay to lure talents.
I’m sorry, arguing that your rebuild has no room for a promising 24 year old who signs a contract for backup money makes absolutely no sense. Wood is a walking 20/10 with a modern game.
If Wood is “too good” what on earth is the rationale for signing Jerami Grant to that deal? Or stretching players to sign Plumlee? They needed to go to heroic lengths to sign players for lots of money to make themselves bad?
I don’t recall Philadelphia handing out $20 mil per year deals in year 1 of their tank, nor did OKC this year.
The only rationale that makes sense is “he wouldn’t re-sign”.
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Have to agree with you. I’ve read a few articles trying to explain the rationale for not resigning him. Most center around finances, but to me, even at 13 mil, given Wood’s talent, that’s still a bargain in today’s NBA. I was ok with them letting Kennard go. He’s got some skill but is not really a difference maker. In my opinion, these types of decisions is how you end up in a perpetual rebuild.
Kennard is a third guard. Wood is a starting center. Big difference!
I’ve heard that Wood wasn’t coming back and wanted to leave. Otherwise, yeah, the Pistons should have down everything they could to bring him back.
I’m in favor of tanking, though, a number of their FA deals had me scratching my head. The Pistons need a Cunningham or Suggs or someone like that. Hopefully, the lottery bounces their way. They will lose tons of games but I don’t get the Grant or Plumlee signings, at all. Very odd.
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Yeah, as I said, the one thing that people who are REALLY upset about Wood going is assume (that may not be the case) is that he would have returned.
That said, I would have offered him more than $13 mil per year, they had early bird rights, so they could offer him 1 more year than anyone else, and the reporting from Rod Beard with the Detroit News (and echoed by Nate Duncan and John Hollinger that Detroit “was not aggressive” on re-signing him) was that the Rockets offer was higher in terms of per-year salary AND total comp, which strongly suggests they did NOT offer him that extra year. If that’s true, I find it pretty damning (nevermind trading up twice in what’s widely considered a bad draft and then signing Jahlil Okafor to play over one of the rookies you traded up for).
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I don’t follow the NBA that closely so I am pretty ignorant on the details here. But it seems to me the Pistons were in a tough spot. Kudos to them for finding a guy that was on the scrap heap and helping to grow him into a solid player. But at the same time they had limited leverage in his contract due to timing, they are trying to rebuild, he wanted to cash in on his new found success, and there’s still a question of whether he can sustain this performance in the future. (Granted, he was really awesome in his first game.).
My uneducated guess is that he wanted to play for a contender and get paid…so would have wanted more from the Pistons. I still wish they could have kept him to help with the rebuild, but hopefully they can find other stars hiding in the scrap heap when they get good again.
Financial constraints weren’t an issue until they spent $50 million on Grant and Plumlee. Multiple sources say they got flat outbid.
I may be the only person on earth who feels this way but I’m totally content with how it played out. Yes Wood on a cheaper contract is a way better signing than Grant or Plumlee on theirs. But if we’re starting Wood at center for the next three seasons, he’s really good and the team is mediocre and we end up never making the playoffs but never getting a top 5 pick.
It was time to press re-set, they were about 8 years overdue for actually doing it and I’m glad they finally did. I hope the goal is to trade Grant at the deadline (I saw some way too early speculation that a Grant for Caris Levert deal would make sense for both sides) but even if he isn’t flipped, Jerami Grant playing the “go-to-guy” offensive role is a hilariously good thing for a tanking team. Get Cunningham or Green or Suggs or Mobley this offseason and then hopefully stay in a similar spot for the Chet/Emoni draft, and that’s a way better outcome than keeping Christian Wood and drafting new Luke Kennard/Stanley Johnsons at the 7-12th pick.
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Your plan sounds great. I do wonder though…there are always a lot of NBA teams tanking and rarely do they end up with one of those coveted top 2-3 picks. Fingers crossed.
Do you think Christian Wood is really the difference between a top 3 pick and picking 7-12? With the lottery odds being flattened, I’m not sure Christian Wood makes you much more than say 13% less likely to get a top 4 pick. If that’s enough for you, I won’t argue. But I’d also say if WOod is legit, he’d be a very valuable piece in a trade to help a rebuild.
Again - relatively cheap 24 year olds is who a re-build SHOULD be targeting. You WANT young, good, cheap players.
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Hey, the Pistons already have 4 guys taken in the top-4 anyway. They should be set, right? 
I honestly do, I think Wood is going to be great this year. In a way it’s really weird to be arguing that it’s a good thing a guy I’m so high on isn’t on the Pistons, but I just don’t think his timeline fits with where the franchise needs to go.
They could still have tanked with Wood, or tried to trade him like what I hope they do with Grant, and those are fair counter-arguments for sure. But right now I think they are in prime position to be the worst team in the league, and I don’t think that would have happened if they bring Wood back.
my last post on the topic, but I’m trying to figure out the rationale in walking away from a good player in order to have a chance to draft someone who might be good.
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There’s three ways to acquire a franchise-changing superstar: through the draft, in free agency, or via trade. No free agent star will sign with Detroit. The trade route will result in overpriced “stars” with age/injury concerns (hello Blake Griffin) and we’ve seen that it doesn’t work.
This team needs a shot at a transcendent player, ideally as many shots as possible, as close to the top of the draft as possible. It just so happens this season and next season are considered two of the best drafts in a long time. It’s not like they’re tanking for one shot at one player only. If two years from now, they have 1-2 of Cunningham, Bates, Holmgren, then they have succeeded.
The reason in my opinion that the Pistons haven’t successfully rebuilt their roster in 10+ years is because they have never picked higher than 7th. It’s easy to poke fun at “Kennard over Donovan Mitchell” or “Stanley Johnson over Booker”, but it’s a lot easier when you’re making a choice between Zion Williamson and Ja Morant vs. Sekou Doumbouya or Romeo Langford.
1-2 good players doesn’t move the needle for the franchise. If we were ready to contend now, Christian Wood would be hugely valuable. If you think we could have kept Wood without harming the ability to get a top 3 pick, then I’d support that argument but I personally think keeping Wood would have left the team in purgatory for the 11th consecutive year.
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