Reasons to Get Drunk and Surly Tonight

Unless if someone with insider knowledge can confirm this, I don’t think talk has gone much beyond our own speculations

The Shaq signing & Terry Porter hiring was a mistake everybody else saw a mile away.

I’ve been bummed out for that dude ever since he was Shanghaied out there in the Donald Sterling nightmare that is Clipper Basketball. Portland is a fantastic place for him.

I love Dumars, but I’m getting pretty goddamn tired of watching other teams close excellent deals while Detroit’s roster like it is- Unbalanced.

Yeah, I agree it’s possible nothing happens this week. But all is not lost if nothing happens this week, either. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of upset people of Joe doesn’t make a trade … but there is a good deal to be said in favor of being patient right now.

(Assuming full recovery) Tay is much more valuable next season as a quality, veteran role player on an expiring deal, both in terms of his value and in terms of his contract.

Rip is no less valuable next year (up to the trade deadline, anyway) than he is right now, and moving him for an expiring gives us long-term cap relief, but not much more money than the MLE to spend.

I think it’s likely that Tay gets shipped out this summer / early next season for a young asset, and I think Rip is probably traded for an expiring (ideally with a pick as well). But whether that happens right now or next year — what’s the difference? A big trade now nets a modest improvement in the short-term, keeps us out of the top-5 picks, and leaves us with not a lot of money to spend on a FA market that’s probably going to hand out oversized contracts.

IDK, not really a clear-cut answer, if you ask me.

Everyone, take a drink!

/khandordrinkinggame

I remember being pleasantly surprised by what Kwame brought to the team, for the money.

I just don’t understand how the man gets down. He puts Deron Washington in the garbage, gives away Afflalo, lets guys straight up atrophy but always has a roster spot open even as he watches good deals pass him by.

This is in no way an admonishment of Joe Dumars, but yeah, I’ll definitely be surprised if he makes any moves whatsoever. Now it’s to the point where I think the franchise’s credibility after the trade for Iverson has us a little damaged. He needs to act. Shit is not right.

As for "Rip is no less valuable next year", take Tay as an example. Remember all the offer rumors for Tay from this summer, then Tay’s value took a nosedive?

Before this season, Tay’s never been injured. Healthy as a horse, capable of playing 82+ games year after year after year. Assuming health, I see no reason why his trade value doesn’t get right back to where it was last summer. Again, assuming health — but is health really that much of a reach when we’re talking about Tay?

Same for Rip, IMO. You make a good point about injuries and age, and I agree. But a relatively healthy Rip is worse less next year at this time than a relatively healthy Rip this year how?

What I’m saying is this: the immediate benefits of dumping Rip for salary right now aren’t that great. Over the long-term, we have to move him or BG — I agree 100% that we can’t have all that money invested at SG. But if the best we can do for Rip right now is expirings (and AFAIK, there’s nothing but unsubstantiated rumors that anyone’s seriously interested in Rip for even that), I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to think that a year from now will be any worse.

If Rip for expirings happens, I won’t be upset. It’s probably the best we can do, all things considered. But if it doesn’t happen this week, I’m going to at least understand what Joe is thinking (and understanding him is rare lately). There’s no short-term urgency to move Rip, because we’re nowhere close to the playoffs, expiring deals don’t help us get there, and they don’t give us a bunch of extra money this summer.

The long and the short of it is, I think moving Rip for exprinigs is what will eventually happen. But I think the difference between doing it now and 6-12 months from now is probably negligible.

If there were offers for Rip now that involved expiring deals, taking them could have improved our flexibility in the years ahead by resolving that little $23M shooting guard clusterfuck.

If those rumors are true, then Joe probably should have pulled the trigger. But relatively speaking, this is, IMO, a minor error compared to other major errors. In other words, it’s not a problem at all if Joe doesn’t create the cluster in the first place. That was the first and more severe blunder, IME.

I said before the season that I would give Joe until the trade deadline. I said I would not blame Joe for signing both Rip and BG within the same year if he can move one of them by the trade deadline. He hasn’t done that.

I was thinking about this a little more, and this assertion is based on an assumption that I think a lot of people had: the Pistons were a big man away from being right in the middle of the EC playoff picture. Sure, the injuries happened, but if the past couple weeks are any indication, we’re more like 3-4 pieces away from being where we want to be than one big man. So it seems to me that the assumption is bad, and that casts at least some doubt on the assertion.

If we’re multiple moves away from being where we want to be, and if Rip’s worth essentially the same thing next year as this year (expiring contracts, not assets), and if Tay is potentially worth more this summer than right now, then doing nothing won’t be the worst thing that could have happened.

I’m not saying doing nothing is the right thing. I don’t think there is a “right” thing at this point … too many bad decisions over the past two years have eliminated the possibility of a right thing. But I don’t think sitting tight for another few months is necessarily the worst thing that could happen, all things considered.

Not being a dick, just saying for practicality’s sake— walls o text take way too much work to reply to, let alone read. I’m going to stick to the last sentence from my comment above, and respect your disagreement.

I think…

Haha! Clearly I want more high-top fades. :D