Joe Dumars Dooms the Pistons

This has certainly been a more exciting-than-expected offseason, what with the league-altering moves of the Spurs, Magic and Cavs, as well as some big name free agents finding new teams. The wisdom of some of the moves (looking at you, Toronto) can be doubted, but I'd say it's been a pretty solid couple of weeks.

And then there's the Pistons. I've generally been on board with Dumar's moves up until this point -- he decided (rightly, in my opinion) that Detroit's extraordinary run was about over, and that this was the last chance to sell high on its assets. The move was pretty low-risk: Either Iverson was going to fit in, lead the team to another exciting playoff run, and then become $20 million of capspace, or he was going to become $20 million in capspace. In the end, Dumars just ended up with the latter, but in this market that kind of capspace can get you pretty far. Better yet, Detroit had a half-decent young core to build around and two very tradeable (if a little overvalued) contracts in Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince.

But when confronted with a dream offer, Dumars turned it down. The Celtics offered another giant expiring contract ($20 million for Ray Allen), and a point-guard to build around, for two overpaid players (Prince and Hamilton) and, fatally, Rodney Stuckey. Now, I like Stuckey as much as the next guy... he works hard, plays physical and is fearless on the court. But his absolute ceiling is about where Rondo is now; is there really any possibility Stuckey is going to develop, suddenly, into a championship-level point guard? And Rondo already has a championship, last year, and that was before turning into a playoff triple-double machine. I don't see him ever leading a team himself, but he's already proved he can be a key-cog in a contender. This trade accomplishes everything the Pistons could've wanted, giving them a mound of capspace, young talent, and a release from any long-term contracts. And yet, Dumars didn't even bother to negotiate with Ainge himself, all because of his attachment to some B-level prospect in Stuckey.

So now, after the signings of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, the Pistons are stuck in some bizarre middle ground between rebuilding and contending. In fact, since they dumped Amir Johnson, who at least had some upside, but kept Hamilton and Prince, I have to say they're leaning towards contending. But does anyone, including Joe Dumars, really think a lineup of Stuckey-Hamilton-Prince-Villanueva-Kwame Brown (if only in my dreams) is destined for anything more than a first round exit, for now and until Hamilton and Prince come off the books? Is it even better than if they had taken the Rondo deal and maybe swung a sign-and-trade with McDyess to the Blazers, taking back someone with some upside like Martell Webster?

The fact is the Pistons could've been set. They would chill in the basement this year, giving their rookies plenty of playtime, picked up a high lottery pick in the stacked 2010 draft, had limitless cap space to throw at whoever they wanted for the next couple years, and could've easily been back in contention by 2011. Instead, they are destined for mediocrity, not bad enough to pick up a star worth building around in the draft but not good enough to seriously worry the Cavs, Celts or Magic. Joe Dumars has leveraged their future, for no good reason, and will have to live with his decisions this offseason until 2015, when Ben Gordon will receive his last check from the Pistons for a bit over $10 million.