[ 王 ] State of the Cap: Detroit Pistons
http://www.nbadraft.net/state-cap-detroit-pistons-0
2010/11 Detroit Pistons Payroll: $51.4 million
2010/11 NBA Salary Cap: $56.1 million
Roughly: $4.7 million under cap
The Good: When the only high value contract on your team is Jonas Jerebko,
you know your salary cap is in rough shape. Jerebko was a quality player for
the Pistons this year, averaging 9.3 points, 6 rebounds, and 1 steal per game
on decent shooting. His salary was a paltry $457,000 while next season he is
due just $762,000. If you consider that Jerebko’s stats were better than
Jason Maxiell’s for less than one-fifth of the price, then you can see what
a great value he truly was. The Pistons could use a lot more contracts like
his.
The Bad: Last season, Detroit won 39 games and wanted to make a splash during
the summer to become something better than an 8th-seeded playoff team. They
extended Rip Hamilton’s deal and signed Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva to
big free agent contracts. This season, they won 27 games and missed the
playoffs entirely. That alone should tell you how well their money was spent.
The four years and $48 million coming to Ben Gordon is probably the most
wasteful contract on the roster. Everyone knew that Gordon wasn’t worth that
much money, but Detroit threw common sense out the window and gave it to him
anyway. Gordon responded by missing 20 games due to injury, averaged just
13.8 points per game (a career low), and shot an awful 41.6% from the field.
Normally an excellent three point shooter, he was uncharacteristically bad
as a Piston, hitting only 32% of them. Gordon will need a major turnaround in
order to earn his bloated contract and save the Pistons a little
embarrassment.
As if adding one bad contract wasn’t enough, Detroit managed to add another
when they signed Charlie Villanueva. While his deal isn’t quite as expensive
as Gordon’s, at four years and $31.2 million remaining, it still isn’t
worth it. 11.9 points and 4.7 rebounds a game doesn’t add up to that kind of
dough. Those numbers are well short of what he put up in his final season in
Milwaukee and most people were not surprised. Unfortunately, none of those
people work in Detroit’s front office.
It is very difficult to see how extending Rip Hamilton’s contract was a wise
choice. They gave him three more years at a total of $38 million even though
he was 31 years old at the time and the team was kind of in a rebuilding mode
(or so they should have been). Hamilton then went out and turned into a
brick layer, hitting just 40.9% of his shots, well below his career average.
He also missed nearly half the season because of multiple injuries. I know
Rip is a popular player in Detroit and wants to retire a Piston, but the team
shouldn’t have hamstrung their salary cap in order to keep him.
The Future: The Pistons have slipped into the dreaded “mediocre zone” where
teams are only good enough to possibly earn a low playoff seed but only bad
enough to get a low lottery pick. All of their key players will be back next
year so unless some drastic changes are made, the results will likely be the
same. Tayshaun Prince still has a lot of value and could bring in some nice
assets. He is certainly overpaid at $11.1 million next season, but it is the
final year of his contract and a contending team might be willing to deal for
the efficient forward.
Unfortunately, the players they most need to get rid of and start over
(Hamilton, Villanueva, and Gordon) all have at least three years left on
their contracts. Detroit will be stuck with them a while whether they like
it or not. They don’t have a player they can build their future around and
they don’t have the money to sign one. Rodney Stuckey was supposed to be
the heir to Chauncey Billups and he did score a career high 16.6 points per
game. However, he continued to be an awful shooter from the field and three
point line and he doesn’t distribute the ball enough.
The Pistons didn’t get any lottery luck, but perhaps they can find a gem
with the seventh pick. DeMarcus Cousins, Greg Monroe or Cole Aldrich could
certainly help improve their front line. Detroit has to hope their draft
picks pan out in a big way because that might be the only way they can turn
around their team for the foreseeable future.
Grade: D
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