Keith Langlois interviewed Joe Dumars last week, and several of the questions centered on the lack of expected turnover this summer. From Pistons.com:
KL: We’re a little more than a month out from when training camp will open. I know the Rip Hamilton-Jerry Stackhouse trade happened late, but are we getting kind of close to the window closing and you say we’re going to training camp with who we’ve got or are we already at that point?
JD: I think that I would be very surprised if anyone called at this point to offer the type of deal I was open to and had been open to doing. I don’t expect that call. So therefore, I expect us to go to war, if you will, with the guys we have on this roster we have right now, with the 14 guys we have now. And I say that just because I don’t expect to hear from anyone at this point about the size of the deal we were talking about doing.
If the right deal never materialized, I can't blame Dumars for refusing the pull the trigger. That said, I also can't help but wonder if the bar was set too high. Everyone overvalues their own players, it's a fact of life. You and I do it in fantasy sports, and I'm sure Dumars does it in real-life.
I know the dangers involved of doing a trade for the sake of doing a trade, but honestly, what's really so wrong about a lateral move? If this team's biggest problem is a sense of complacency (I'm not convinced, but that's the company line), isn't there something to be said for disrupting the status quo?