Avery Bradley officially a Detroit Piston

On Thursday, the Pistons unveiled their shiny new toy in the form of 6’2” combo guard Avery Bradley. The defensive wizard was shipped to the Motor City from Beantown in exchange for Marcus Morris in order for Boston to cut down salary in order to fit in Gordon Hayward and his max deal.

By the sounds of it, Stan Van Gundy and company were very happy that this opportunity presented itself.

“We’re obviously very very excited about the trade we were able to make to bring Avery here. We started out the offseason saying we wanted to do 3 things primarily, add 3 things to our team. We wanted to add as much character as we possibly could, we wanted to add three point shooting and we wanted to get more people on the floor who could handle the ball and make plays.”

The main focus of Stan’s introduction, however, about what Bradley brings on the other side of the ball, namely his defensive accolades.

“Avery’s been one of the best two-way guards in this league, First Team All-Defense in 2016, a guy who has shot the ball and scored the ball very well on top of that.”

Expectations are high from both Stan and Avery, with SVG saying how much he expects from the newest Piston in terms of defense and leadership, and on Avery himself in terms of his role on the team.

“I’m happy to be here...getting a call that I had a chance to play for the Detroit Pistons, I smiled...it was an amazing feeling for me, I knew it was a new chapter for me, it was gonna be a great opportunity...have a chance to play for someone like Coach Stan...I understand he’s an amazing coach...someone that always holds you accountable, someone that pushes you.”

Most of the press conference was generic filler; what do you know about your teammates...complimenting the coach and his new teammates...playing hard for the new fans, but Avery played his part well.

Avery on leadership:

“I feel like guys lead in different ways...and for me to be here, I’m gonna lead in my own way and that’s trying to lead by example, speak up when I need to, but come in and work hard every single day, hoping that I’m able to share some of my habits with the younger guys, and they can share with me, and we can all help each other get better.”

On a long-term contract in Detroit:

“We’ll talk about that when the time comes but I do feel like this is gonna be a great opportunity for me...anything’s possible, obviously whenever you’re in a place thats helping you grow and become a better player and a person, you might wanna stay there because anything can happen and I wanna reach my full potential as a basketball player and I’m hoping that can be here.”

Maybe most telling about Avery’s attitude, though, was this nugget about his desire:

“I hope you guys are excited about what I’m gonna bring to the city, because I’m gonna leave everything out there on the floor.”

Avery even had a little time to give his favorite Pistons blog a quick shout out.

“I can bring a different style of play, nasty...I see a few people back there with Detroit Bad Boys on, I like that, because that’s what we wanna bring, we wanna bring a championship back to Detroit, that’s our goal, and I’m happy to be here.”

You can watch the full press conference on the Pistons Facebook page, and Avery also answered some questions on Twitter via @DetroitPistons.

Welcome Avery, you’re officially a Bad Boy.