IMO, the Duren move was a fantastic recovery off a bad management of Grant’s value. You could have gotten more value for Grant earlier and still swung that trade for Duren.
He reminds me of a short Zion. He’s stocky and doesn’t entirely look like he’s in great shape, but then he just explodes.
Do we know this? The word was always that Weaver’s asking price was high and nobody was biting on it. So that means nobody valued Grant enough to provide the Pistons with their preferred return. So then do we know how much better of a value Weaver could have gotten by trading Grant sooner? I think the end result is suggestive that maybe there wasn’t a strong market for Grant.
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Weaver’s early wish was “multiple first round picks” with several preferred lotterly likely
There is some daylight between that and the final product.
Of course, I cannot prove a negative.
What I can tell you, is that strong defensive wings who can shoot generally go for more than a projected late-twenties pick 3 years down the road. JOSH HART just got more than that.
There’s not a strong market and then there’s this:
Pistons netted 2 2nd rounders and then a 2025 Bucks first (basically the worst first rounder one could possibly have.
The talk was that Weaver was demanding two first rounders for Grant, and then after Weaver refused to trade him at his peak, Grant proceeded to have a bad injury-plagued season and got nothing of significant value.
I guess it’s impossible to know exactly, but it seems like unlikely that what we got was the best offer a year prior.
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I agree that they might have been able to get a little more than what they got had they moved him sooner. But Weaver gambled hoping the market of teams looking for Grant would be better and he’d be able to use that to his advantage as teams got desperate to add a player like Grant. Obviously that never materialized and in hindsight he should have gotten whatever he could the year prior even if it wasn’t the value he was hoping for. The injury to Grant didn’t help his value either.
But that’s what happens. GMs gamble all the time on contracts and acquisitions and drafts and holding vs trading players. They don’t all work out. And I don’t think we can say with any degree of certainty that the Pistons would have gotten some great haul had they done it sooner. More? Yeah, probably. But if there were any teams that valued him that highly, they would have outbid the Blazers. I think Weaver valued Grant more than the league did.
I don’t think it’s a hindsight thing tho. Did anyone believe that Grant would gain trade value after the best season of his career combined with losing another year on his contract?
Was just a very obvious sell-high situation. And from stories it seemed like an emotional connection to Grant was what prevented Weaver to sell him as an asset like that unless it was an incredible offer.
But what if no one was offering to buy high? Do you just take whatever is offered at that point? Or hold on to him and hope for better? Or re-sign him if a year later he fits into your plans?
We know nobody was biting on two first round picks, but do we know if anyone that was a lottery level team was offering even one first round pick? And if it’s a non-lottery team offering one first round pick, was it really that much different than the return they got in the end?
I think it has now been proven that Grant is not a top 2 option on a good team. It’s debatable whether he is even a #3 option on a good team. Pistons stunk and Blazers stunk with him as a top option. So I just don’t really know what the value is there. How much are teams paying for a starter, non-all star caliber piece?
We’ll see how attractive Grant is when he enters Free Agency and no one besides tje Pistons offers him the contract he wants. Amazing that people who most likely trashed his game suddenly think Grant is worth Mikal Bridges or something.
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UMHOOPS PISTONS DRAFT BOARD
- Victor Wembanyama
- Scoot Henderson
- Brandon Miller
Who should the Pistons have as 4th on their board?
- Amen Thompson
- Anthony Black
- Ausar Thompson
- Cam Whitmore
- Cason Wallace
- Gradey Dick
- Jarace Walker
- Keyonte George
- Nick Smith
- Taylor Hendricks
0 voters
Glad to see Whitmore running away in this poll. There’s a clear gap after top 3 but Whitmore isn’t a bad option considering his age, athleticism and skillset.
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I think I like Whitmore more than Miller. But I have 3-6 bunched up.
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Can you make a case for Grady D at 4?
To me the tiers are
Tier 1
Wemby
Scoot
Miller
Tier 2
Whitmore
Hendricks
Walker
Tier 3
Thompson Twins
Black
Dick
Rupert
Jackson
and so forth
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Black and Thompson twins are all nba athletes that can’t shoot. Right? W maybe Black w the most clearly established plus passing?
The Thompson twins’ shooting is scary bad. I watched a long scouting video on them that showed the good and bad. The number of completely wide open shots that were complete bricks was alarming. I know there are cases where players improve shooting, but it’s high risk. If they could shoot they’d be 2-3 on the board because all the other skills and traits are there.
It seems like ppl love the potential of Thompson Twins but all agree they are broken as shooters. when I read Black’s scouting, I get the feeling he might be ahead of them today. Better passer and feel for the game, which makes sense as he’s played games w stakes and doesn’t actually speak to potential. Bc sometimes feel for the game is innate. What’s his name the OSU and Memphis and Utah PG is like this. Just always solid. And then, some guys learn to feel the game. I feel like the best learner example is maybe the aptly named Smart from Boston. I’m not sure his skills got better as much as his mind for better.
I just want to say that I’m truly furious after a loss, for the first time in my sports watching life. I don’t know where to put this so I’ll just vent here.
Man City throughly dismantled Bayern today by a score of 3-0 in what was one of the most embarrassing dominations I’ve been witness to as a Bayern fan. Up there with some of the shelackings the AC Milan squads of the 00’s would hand to Oliver Kahn led Bayern teams. Oh yeah, on that note, someone please for the love of god send Kahn far the f&ck away from Bayern. A real case of your childhood idols becoming people you want to see shot out of a cannon.
As Guardiola, a former Bayern manager himself, walked up to shake Tuchel’s hand you could see even he was in shock by how big of a disasterclass this was for Bayern. The board lit the club on fire 2 weeks ago when they fired Nagelsmann in one of the most abrupt, inexplicable, brash decisions made by any Front Office I’ve seen in quite some time.
The board insists that had they not fired Nagelsmann at that moment, Tuchel wouldn’t have been available at a later point. Uh, what? A. OK…who gives a f#ck? Yeah, Tuchel is good but he’s not some legendary manager miles better than the incumbent who conceded 0 goals in the CL campaign this season after facing Barca, Inter, PSG. B. This is how simpleminded this utter baffoon Kahn is. He saw Tuchel win the CL by taking in charge at Chelsea mid season so …why not this brilliant idea, why not do THE EXACT SAME THING AT BAYERN HUH 
Staggeringly dumb f@cking gorilla. In 2 weeks, what was looking like a dominant season in a clib that was starting to find a little bit of stability with a young, upcoming manager, ends with Bayern crashing out of 2 of 3 competitions and looks like a side needing to sell half its starters. Upamecano had himself a tirefire of a night and I wouldn’t be surprised if this completely wrecks him mentally. And I’ll chalk this down to the coach who brought him here being fired.
Where does Bayern go from here? This is hardly Tuchel’s fault but at the same time, with the impossible standard the board have now stupidly set, the hard truth is he didn’t deliver the goods. They set him up to fail.
They’re NBA caliber athletes but their shooting is scary bad. If people thinks Ivey is bad (it’s not nearly as bad as the report made it out to be tbh), Thompson is even worse. They played in a bad competition at OTE as an overaged players at 20 playing a bunch of 16-18 years old kids.
At one point, Amen’s shooting % at the rim is at 35% (or something like it) which is terrible. I’m all the way out on the Thompson twins.
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