30 teams in 30 days: Detroit Pistons offseason preview
By Jeff Siegel
Outside of a trade to dump salary, the Detroit Pistons will have no cap space this summer no matter what they do, so Stan Van Gundy and his staff will have to figure out how to make the best of the players he has rather than hitting the free agency market to add talent to the team.
One key piece is a free agent this summer: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is at the end of his rookie contract and will be a restricted free agent this summer. As much as the Pistons would love to bring him back for anything less than his full maximum contract, another team will certainly put the pressure on Detroit by way of a max offer sheet, forcing the Pistons to either match or let Caldwell-Pope walk for nothing.
Going into the draft, in which Detroit holds the No. 12 overall selection, the Pistons are dangerously close to the luxury tax, with $91.9 million in salary committed for next season:
Other Pistons free agents include Aron Baynes, who will opt out of his $6.5 million contract for next season to become an unrestricted free agent, Reggie Bullock, and Beno Udrih. With Boban Marjanovic waiting in the wings to take over the backup center role, it seems unlikely that the Pistons will bring back Baynes, but keeping his cap hold on the books doesn’t affect them negatively, just in case. Bullock can be a restricted free agent if the Pistons extend him a qualifying offer of just over $3.3 million, but there has to be a real worry in Detroit that he would sign it and add even more salary to their books for next season. It wouldn’t be surprising at all if Bullock, who will serve a five-game drugs suspension at the beginning of next season, is an unrestricted free agent this summer.
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That leaves Caldwell-Pope, who can be penciled in at the max, whether the Pistons pony up the money immediately or make him go out and get the offer sheet from another team. Putting up the money themselves might entice him to take less than his full max, but Caldwell-Pope is signed to Rich Paul and Klutch Sports, so it’s unlikely that he won’t hold out for the max. Forcing Paul and Caldwell-Pope to go out on the market to get that inevitable offer sheet comes with two downsides: it might engender negative feelings between player and team and it opens up the Pistons to Caldwell-Pope signing a shorter offer sheet, putting him back on the free agency market in three years, rather than four or five.
Assuming Caldwell-Pope does get a four-year max offer sheet from another team and the Pistons match it, they would immediately find themselves over the $121 million luxury tax threshold for 2017-18:
The Pistons haven’t paid the luxury tax since 2004, when they paid less than $1 million in tax penalties and won a championship for their trouble. Even in subsequent years in the mid-2000s, they were responsible spenders. This Detroit team is nowhere near that level—it would be an accomplishment if they made the playoffs next season, so it seems unlikely that ownership would greenlight a season in the tax.
The $5.3 million in dead money from Josh Smith’s contract weighs heavily in this scenario, as a max contract for Caldwell-Pope would put the Pistons just $1.5 million over the tax this season and less than $850,000 over the tax in 2018-19, before taking into consideration their draft picks in either year. Assuming their No. 12 overall pick gets the customary 120 percent of the rookie scale, that player would add another $2.8 million to the tax this year and push them over by a total of $4.1 million next year. Detroit can get closer to the tax line by cutting the non-guaranteed contracts of Darrun Hilliard and Michael Gbinije, who become fully guaranteed on July 1 and July 15, respectively.
It’s important to keep in mind that the luxury tax is computed at the end of the league year, which means the Pistons could go into next season over the tax line and make a trade or two to get back under before the end of the year to avoid the punitive penalties. However, pushing themselves into the tax during the summer would remove the full mid-level exception from their arsenal, replaced by the taxpayer mid-level exception, which starts at $5.2 million for next season. At that point, it would be surprising to see them use the mini mid-level, as it would just deepen their tax concerns.
It’s possible the Pistons go into the tax for a year or two to keep Caldwell-Pope around and continue to build with this core, but that’s an expensive pill to swallow for a team that doesn’t look to be anywhere near contention. Going over the tax for two years could also hamstring them down the line if they do evolve into contenders and wanted to go into the tax to put themselves over the top — the repeater tax, which adds a dollar to the tax penalty for each $5 million bracket, would become a problem.
If the Pistons do bring back Caldwell-Pope, a trade might be in order to keep them out of the tax. Jon Leuer, in particular, might be a worthy trade target for a team looking to help themselves to a solid backup power forward. Leuer played very well over the first half of the season but completely fell apart in the second half. After the All-Star Break, Leuer’s field goal percentage dropped more than 10 percentage points, he made just nine of the 44 3-pointers he attempted, and went from being a plus-1.9 to a ghastly -10.7. That last bit doesn’t fall completely on him, but he didn’t help matters. Detroit may decide to go a different direction and moving his three years and $30 million off their books would help them to dodge the tax the next couple of years. Perhaps the Pistons will see how the first part of the season goes for Leuer and then open up trade talks if they are disappointed, but trading him during or before free agency, perhaps as a sweetener to move up in the draft, would return to them their full mid-level exception to use this summer.
For example, the Pistons could trade Leuer and the No. 12 pick to Dallas for the No. 9 pick, then get under the tax by enough to use their mid-level exception and not be out of compliance with the league’s rules—they’re allowed to use the full mid-level exception if they will be below the apron, which is $6 million above the tax, once the exception is used. Detroit would still be left with a small tax bill, but they could find another small deal to clear the remaining $2.6 million from their books to get back under the tax:
The Pistons are in the unenviable position of having a very expensive team that just isn’t very good. Without big steps forward from their youngsters, including Caldwell-Pope, Detroit doesn’t look to have a clear path to becoming a contender once again, but unless they take some dynamite to the team and trade Andre Drummond, Reggie Jackson, and others, they’ll likely continue down the road with Caldwell-Pope back in the fold and rely on internal development to improve the team. It’s not a great situation, but stringing together a few playoff appearances over the next three or four years might help alleviate any pressure on Van Gundy’s dual head coach-president chair.