2024 NBA Offseason Financials: Boston Celtics
2024 NBA Offseason Financials: Boston Celtics research report news contract spotrac analysis
Keith Smith
Breaking down the upcoming offseason for each 2024-25 NBA team, including cap space figures, free agents, extension candidates, draft pick scenarios, & thoughts on potential trades, exceptions & plenty more.
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Post-Lottery Analysis:

Oh…Pistons. Sigh. The lottery seems to hate Detroit, as they dropped the maximum number of spots from first overall to fifth overall for a second consecutive year. On the bright side, if there was ever a year to drop, it’s this one. There aren’t “can’t miss” prospects at the top of this draft, and Detroit will still come away with a good player with the fifth pick.

On the brighter side, at least hopefully, is that the Pistons will have an additional $4.3 million cap space. That pushes Detroit up to $64.4 million in cap space, which tops our projections for this summer. Now, it’s all about spending that cap space wisely.

Analysis:

Here we go again.

The Detroit Pistons have a ton of cap space, some intriguing young players and a high draft pick. We’ve been here before, a few times actually, and there’s not a whole lot to show for it.

Troy Weaver took over the Pistons front office ahead of the 2020 offseason. Weaver immediately commenced a full-scale teardown of Detroit’s roster. It was time and the moves were largely applauded.

Four years later, Detroit has the worst record in the league for a second consecutive season. Even worse, the Pistons haven’t been better than the third-worst team in the NBA over the last four seasons. What started out as a promising rebuild has descended to the point where fans ask “Will we ever be good again?”

This summer, it’s imperative that the Pistons get it right. If ownership gives Weaver another crack at it, he has to do better than his approach of the previous four offseasons. Detroit can’t have another summer of simply taking on other team’s bad contracts for middling assets, while hoping their own young players make huge leaps in development.

Let’s start there: What exactly are the Pistons building around?

We’ll argue that Detroit that has three building blocks and some other promising younger talent. The building blocks are Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson. And their importance to the organization’s future is in that order too.

This season has been a major step forward for Cunningham. He’s largely stayed healthy, he’s been far more efficient, and all the hopes of him being a primary scorer/playmaker have been realized.

Duren’s second season has also been a big step forward. He’s held up defensively on a team where defense is often in short supply. Duren is a beast around the rim on both ends. He’s also an improved passer, and a good running mate for Cunningham.

The third player is rookie wing Thompson. This season has had some fits and starts, but Thompson has been what Detroit hoped for. He’s already a good defender. He’s a pretty good passer for a young player and he plays with high energy. The question is the jumper. If it comes along to even an average point, Thompson could become an All-Star. If it doesn’t, he’s still a solid starter who will stuff the box score.

Beyond those three, Jaden Ivey, Quentin Grimes, Marcus Sasser and Isaiah Stewart II also still have promise.

Ivey had a weird season because it took Monty Williams roughly half of the year to figure out that Ivey is one of his better players. We’re betting Ivey will get back to being the guy who is at worst a very good third guard, but more likely a solid starter.

Sasser and Stewart are probably best as backups on a good team, but that’s fine. Sasser can be a high-end backup point guard, while Stewart is an ideal third big.

That leaves Grimes. We barely got to see him in Detroit, after the deadline trade from New York. This one really depends on which version of Grimes you believe. If you think he’s going to be the one who hit for 47/39/80 shooting splits as a sophomore, then Grimes is your guy. If you think he’s the shaky shooter we’ve seen in the two years sandwiching that second season, then Grimes is probably not someone you invest much in.

When it comes to Cunningham and Grimes, the Pistons have some immediate decisions to make for both players, as they are eligible for rookie scale extensions this summer. In many ways, these decisions are as important, if not more so, than what Detroit does with their draft pick and cap space this offseason.

Cunningham seems like a no-brainer to extend. He’s shown he can be the kind of guy that can lead your offense. Cunningham’s size allows you to go all kinds of ways with your roster construction around him, because you can plug in just about any style of player on the perimeter with him.

But is that worth a rookie scale max extension that currently projects to $224.9 million over five years? The thought here is: Yes.

It’s not so much about believing that Cunningham is a surefire max player. It’s more about what he should be, and that is a max player who is pushing for All-Star nods during that next deal. The challenge is that he’s not there today. But that’s why the Pistons should be able to get Cunningham for a straight max vs the Designated Player max that would bump his deal up to 30% of the cap and nearly $270 million over five years.

If a straight max is too much, Detroit could propose a Desmond Bane-like max where, Cunningham has some incentives he can reach that would push him to a max deal. That could be a reasonable compromise, if the Pistons get queasy about offering the full max.

As for Grimes, this one is really tricky. If you think he can be the guy he was a year ago, you want to extend him. His size, shooting and defense makes him a nice fit in a perimeter trio with Cunningham and Thompson as starters, and with Cunningham, Ivey and Sasser in the backcourt rotation.

It used to be that a player like Grimes wouldn’t get extended. There simply wasn’t enough surety there to feel good about committing big money, and the player wouldn’t take any kind of discount. The idea was that the player would bet on themselves, while the team could still control the process in restricted free agency.

We’ve seen a change in the extension winds though. A good comp for Grimes is Aaron Nesmith. He was in a similar spot as far as having potential, but being a question mark. Nesmith signed for $33 million over three seasons. If we bump Grimes a touch over that, something in the range of $36 to $48 million over three to four years makes sense.

Before extensions can even be offered, Detroit will have a draft pick to make. The lottery wasn’t kind to Pistons last season, but as it stands now, they project to have the first overall pick in 2024. Unfortunately, this is a rough season to have the first pick.

It seems like Detroit will be choosing between Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr, if they land with the first pick. Risacher is a do-everything wing with an uncertain jumper. Sarr is a combo big, who will probably need a few years to develop. Either guy is a project.

Getting the draft pick correct is important, obviously, but it’s a hard year without a can’t-miss prospect at the top of the draft. That means Detroit probably needs to look elsewhere for immediate help.

That leaves us with the Pistons cap space. And the Pistons have oh so much cap space.

We’re projecting Detroit to have just over $60 million in cap space. That means basically clearing the decks of almost everyone who doesn’t have a guaranteed salary for next season. The toughest decision there is James Wiseman, but his cap hold is simply too large to work around. And issuing Wiseman a qualifying offer seems like just lighting some money on fire.

It seems likely that Simone Fontecchio will be given a $5.2 million qualifying offer (this is already factored into the $60 million cap space projection). Fontecchio had a strong season, Detroit can use his shooting and he plays a position of need.

That leaves us with free agency. Detroit has a young lead playmaker, a young center, a young wing and young guards. That leaves the power forward position as the biggest need in free agency.

There’s been speculation that the Pistons might look for a reunion with Tobias Harris. It’s not the worst idea, provided the contract was reasonable enough. Harris will be 32 years old at the start of next season, but he’s still a reliable shooter and scorer. He’d help open up the floor some for Cunningham, Duren and the others. If Detroit kept it to a shorter offer for around $20 to $25 million AAV, that’s reasonable. It’s hard for a contract that short to turn sour, and the Pistons would still have plenty of remaining cap space to play with.

After Harris, a lot of free agent power forwards are either unrealistic (LeBron James, Pascal Siakam) or they aren’t worth spending big on. One outside-of-the-box idea could be to chase Patrick Williams in restricted free agency. The Chicago Bulls might not be willing to match a big enough offer for Williams, and he has the kind of game that would fit in nicely with Cunningham, Duren and Thompson.

Some have suggested the Detroit go after bringing Miles Bridges home, but that seems like it’s the kind of potential bad PR the team might want to avoid. On court only, the fit is great. But are the questions that would come with signing Bridges worth it? More affordable options for adding some shooting at the forward spot include Taurean Prince, Caleb Martin or Royce O’Neale.

If Detroit wanted to go smaller to add shooters, they could go after Grayson Allen, Malik Monk, Gary Trent Jr. or Buddy Hield. That would create some overlap in the backcourt, but that’s something the Pistons can figure out down the line.

Overall, this is a tough offseason to project for the Pistons. For one, we don’t know if Troy Weaver will be running the show or not. If he is, we can’t really go off what he’s done in the past, because there is clearly some impatience that has developed. That often leads to questionable, shortsighted, quick-fix moves.

It’s hard to tell Pistons fans to be ok with another season of losing, but that’s probably what’s actually best. Cooper Flagg or Ace Bailey would look great alongside Detroit’s other young players. But will ownership and the front office have the stomach to eat another terrible season? Will the players improve enough that the Pistons won’t be bad enough to get one of the 2025 top prospects?

Expect some veteran signings, maybe a trade or two and some upgrades to the rotation. It probably won’t push Detroit to postseason contention, but they should be more competitive, while being in position to land another high pick. Five years of being bad is really hard to sign up for, even if it might be what’s best in the long run.