The Deal Pistons get: Center Donatas Motiejunas, guard Marcus Thornton Rockets get: Center Joel Anthony, 2016 Detroit first-round pick (top-8 protected in 2016, top-10 protected in 2017 and 2018) Detroit Pistons: C-minus In an unexpected turn of events, the Pistons look like the most aggressive buyers at the trade deadline. Days after adding Tobias Harris from the Orlando Magic, Detroit has now added Motiejunas to its young core. While the Harris trade was a slam dunk, there's a lot more risk here for the Pistons. Unlike Harris, Motiejunas isn't under contract for next season. He'll be a restricted free agent, and it's difficult to forecast the market for a player coming off serious back surgery, which he had last spring and kept him out of Houston's playoff run. Motiejunas missed this season's first 20 games, returned in early December, was ineffective, and has sat out since New Year's Eve due to lingering back pain. 3:30 PM ET Kevin Pelton ESPN Staff Writer The Deal Pistons get: Center Donatas Motiejunas, guard Marcus Thornton Rockets get: Center Joel Anthony, 2016 Detroit first-round pick (top-8 protected in 2016, top-10 protected in 2017 and 2018) Detroit Pistons: C-minus In an unexpected turn of events, the Pistons look like the most aggressive buyers at the trade deadline. Days after adding Tobias Harris from the Orlando Magic, Detroit has now added Motiejunas to its young core. While the Harris trade was a slam dunk, there's a lot more risk here for the Pistons. Unlike Harris, Motiejunas isn't under contract for next season. He'll be a restricted free agent, and it's difficult to forecast the market for a player coming off serious back surgery, which he had last spring and kept him out of Houston's playoff run. Motiejunas missed this season's first 20 games, returned in early December, was ineffective, and has sat out since New Year's Eve due to lingering back pain. EDITOR'S PICKS Trade Tracker 2016: Deal-by-deal breakdown Here's a look at the trade deadline deals going down in the NBA. Presumably, Detroit wouldn't make this trade without confidence that Motiejunas will be healthy for the stretch run. The long-term implications are more difficult to predict. If this is a temporary setback, the Pistons might be able to re-sign Motiejunas at a good price because of his lost season. If the back continues to bother him, they might have paid a high price for damaged goods. Even when healthy, it's not clear how effective Motiejunas really is. Most of his value is based on 2014-15, when he started 62 games and showed ability inside (his 53.4 percent shooting on post-ups led all players with at least 100 attempts, per Synergy Sports tracking) and out (he made 36.8 percent of his 3-point attempts after shooting worse than 30 percent beyond the arc his first two seasons). However, Motiejunas still struggled to protect the rim as a center and wasn't especially efficient overall. The good news is the Pistons don't need Motiejunas to be a star, merely a solid reserve. Presumably he'll replace Aron Baynes as Detroit's backup to (and hacking insurance for) center Andre Drummond, with the ability to occasionally play alongside Drummond depending on matchups. Motiejunas' ability to stretch the floor enables him to play with Drummond offensively so long as there's a bigger power forward he can defend at the other end. Thornton also has some short-term value to Detroit, which was in the market for a veteran wing stopgap with starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and backup Jodie Meeks both sidelined by injuries. Still, a first-round pick that could be in the lottery is a lot to give up for the right to match any offer to Motiejunas. If he's healthy and plays well down the stretch, the Pistons could find themselves having to choose between letting Motiejunas walk and overpaying a player who doesn't appear to have a starting role at any point down the road. Houston Rockets: A A few hours before the deadline, the Rockets' big-picture strategy remains unclear. Whatever direction they go, however, dealing Motiejunas for this kind of value makes sense. As important a piece as he was to Houston's 2014-15 regular season, Motiejunas got usurped in the frontcourt pecking order this season by the younger Clint Capela, who has also shown the ability to play alongside starting center Dwight Howard in addition to backing him up. Given how much Rockets general manager Daryl Morey prizes flexibility, re-signing Motiejunas to a big contract this summer seemed unlikely. So Houston has to be elated at getting a pick likely to land in the middle of the first round in return. The protections on the pick Detroit is sending the Rockets are worth noting. According to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, the selection is top-8 protected this season and protected in the top 10 each of the next two years. Realistically, barring unprecedented injuries, the 2016 protection basically amounts to the Pistons keeping the pick if they land one of the top three spots in the lottery. Otherwise, even if Detroit misses the playoffs -- a reasonable possibility given that the Pistons are currently a half-game out of eighth and weakened themselves in the short term by trading backup point guard Brandon Jennings to get Harris -- Houston is almost certainly getting this pick. Swapping 30 games of an injury-limited Motiejunas plus his matching rights for a four-year rookie contract of a player drafted around 15th is terrific from a value standpoint. There's another small, ancillary benefit to this trade for the Rockets, who shed about $700,000 in salary taking back Anthony's $2.5 million deal. That either translates into luxury-tax savings for Houston, which is currently over the tax line, or makes it easier for the Rockets to add salary in subsequent trades. By virtue of using the full mid-level exception this summer, Houston is hard-capped at $88.7 million in payroll. The Rockets now stand about $1.2 million below that total.
BTW - both teams are 1 game out of the 8th seed. Which one of these do you think we actually trying to IMPROVE their team? DD
LOL - our history is we draft a guy, he does ok, just before his rookie deal is up, we flip him for a future pick and start over, meanwhile he goes out and starts playing well and being worth that raise. DD
i am assuming dmo's back is worse than what we know about. otherwise this is a bad trade. i hope morey didnt make the trade just for the sake of being unwilling to pay the players we drafted after their rookie contracts are about to expire. he does have the tendency of doing that, tho...
lucky? doubt it. unless ofc simmons is somehow still available when we go to draft this upcoming draft.
I think he is spot on here. What did he say that was bullcrap? DMo looks for all the world like he is done for this year, and may never get back to that brief moment in time that was his 2014/15 streak of handy games. Pistons are crazy to give a 1st for a rental of a guy who has been crap this year due to injury...
this unfortunately isn't the first time I have had the displeasure to read Pelton. All his opinions are bullcrap. I have even made threads in the past about the bullcrap he posted. And then I realised he is too idiot to pay attention and stopped reading him. oh..AND btw Pelton is in love wiht Capela. Pathologically so. He doesn't even watch games and he just loves Capela.
Look at the draft when we got D-Mo. Jimmy Butler went in the 20s. There's always someone who hits the lottery late. Why not give yourself a chance instead of keep a guy 3rd on your depth chart behind Capela and Jones. Don't forget Capela was a bottom half of the draft guy and T Jones late teens. We could really help ourselves out in the draft and have something to show for D-Mo who's leaving anyway.
Everybody has been saying nobody is going to beat GSW or Spurs and any trades should be made with an eye towards the future... that's what this is... throwing in the towel on this year and adding an asset for the offseason... Unless DMo gets a max offer (which I dont see given his injury history) his rights really hold little value beyond this year... Add to that that we are better served to finish the year out of the playoff picture - so we retain our 1st rd pick that would go to Denver otherwise... and its all understandable...
I'm a huge DMo fan but one of the top attributes of a valuable player is availability which is the reason we should also trade Dwight. Harden needs a star teammate that he can count on to always be there not one who makes more money than him and only works half the time.
Kevin Pelton thinks Isaiah Thomas is an MVP candidate. With that in mind please tell me how much importance you put in the crap he posts. The guy who has written the article DOES NOT WATCH GAMES. Why you think his opinion is important? Just because he is paid by BSPN?