9:21pm: It’s a done deal, with the Cavaliers and Pistons both issuing press releases to confirm the trade. Detroit announced in a separate release that, as expected, Frazier has been waived to make room on the roster for the incoming players.
1:19pm: The Cavaliers are finalizing a trade with the Pistons that will see them acquire center Andre Drummond, a league source tells ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
According to Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer (via Twitter), Detroit will receive Brandon Knight and John Henson, both of whom are on expiring contracts. Cleveland will also send the Pistons a second-round pick, per O’Connor.
The pick will be the lesser of Cleveland’s 2023 own pick or the 2023 second-rounder Golden State owes the Cavaliers, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com tweets.
Drummond, the league’s premier rebounder, holds a $28.75MM option on his contract for next season and he’s expected to opt out and test a weak free agent market. The Pistons reportedly were prepared to retain Drummond after talks with the Hawks and Knicks fell through but ultimately decided to move on and go into rebuild mode. Detroit was looking for a first-round pick for Drummond but settled on the second-rounder, along with those expiring contracts.
The modest haul for Drummond was surprising but Detroit’s front office wanted to avoid the possibility of Drummond opting in, O’Connor adds in another tweet. It also gives Cleveland the opportunity to see how Drummond meshes with the young backcourt of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland.
The Pistons will now have approximately $35MM in cap space this summer, Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. Cleveland will be close to the cap if Drummond opts in or re-signs with the starting salary in the $29-$30MM range, Marks adds.
Knight is making approximately $15.64MM and Henson has a $9.73MM contract, so the Pistons will shave some money off this year’s cap. They were perilously close to the luxury tax line prior to the proposed deal. Detroit was less than $4,000 under the tax line but moves to $1.7MM under the threshold via this trade, according to Marks (Twitter link).
Drummond has a $857K trade bonus that will be applied to his $27.1MM cap hit for this season, Marks relays in another tweet. Drummond, who has spent his whole career with Pistons since being chosen in the 2012 lottery, is averaging 17.8 PPG and an NBA-best 15.8 RPG this season.
The Pistons will have to open up a roster spot before making the trade official since it is at the 15-man limit. It’s likely that Tim Frazier, who has served as the No. 3 point guard behind Derrick Rose and Reggie Jackson, will be waived unless Detroit makes another trade, Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press tweets.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
are the pistions trying to rip them self off. lol this trade look so bad if what being said true if their not more
What? That’s the best they could get? Should’ve just kept him
it a rip off they sell him low
Drummond is a free agent this offseason. Move him now for what you can get or risk losing him for nothing.
what you can get two players that are rentals and a 2nd round that nothing just trash
If he stays and gets cold feet about the FA market he picks up his option & they are on the hook for next year. Now they have guaranteed cap space & a 2nd. Atlanta’s offer was simply an expiring contract.
He has a PO for $29 mil. Not chump change. I think the Cavs should try and extend him as long as it’s not for max.
Wow.
Nice trade idiots. Lol
Had one of us proposed this trade on this message board, we would have been laughed out of here.
This is putrid.
If this is all it takes to run a franchise and get paid millions, count me in!
This move is a little confusing.
But as a Cavs fan, Drummond is clearly the best player in this deal and they gave up garbage to get him, so I’m cool with it. They didn’t have a lot of frontcourt depth, albeit as a team that isn’t competing for a playoff spot. If they think they can re-sign him, then I think it works.
They also open up a roster spot that they could use to audition someone else on a 10-day contract
Drummond won’t pick up his player option so the Cavs could very easily only have him 4 months unless they max him out AND he wants to stay in Cleveland.
I actually think he’ll exercise his player option. I’m considering him a free agent until he officially decides one way or the other, but there’s no way any team would pay him max money, especially since most teams with cap space are set there.
It only takes one, and there are plenty of stupid franchises out there. Couple a bad destination for FA plus money, and someone could make a bad decision very easily.
Pistons really have turned into the worst operated franchise outside of the Knicks since the Griffin deal
Kings are by far the worst ran franchise, Pistons and Knicks are bad, but Kings are at another pathetic level.
Kings were gifted Luka Donic and decided to pass.
“Why?”
-Pistons Fans
-Also, Cavs Fans
Not sure what a Drummond rental gets the Cavs when they should just yank for the best pick possible
Cleveland gets the best player while giving up basically nothing. I imagine they like him enough to try and resign him if Drummond ends up opting out of his contract. Also imagine they have a potential deal for Thompson lined up.
If he opts out, they still retain his Bird rights, correct? If so, I completely get what Cleveland is doing here. Detroit, yeah not so much. Other than freeing up cap space for 2021.
Probably sign and trade him to a contender.
was thinking that myself
Poor Blake. He has to be packing his bags right now and heading to China so he can catch a disease instead of playing for this team.
If that really is what’s going back to Detroit, this is a good deal for Cleveland even if they continue to be terrible. At that price…why not?
That’s how I’m feeling. They basically gave up nothing of value to get him, so you might as well take a shot.
Cavs flip him or Love to another team? Lakers get Drummond while Boogie sleeps on the bench?
why the hell would the lakers do that when they like howard and mcgee.
Yes, the market for Drummond is sooo strong the Cav’s can flip him. If there was a better trade out there Detroit would have taken it.
If had Buyout Trade Deadline.
That’s it?!?! What a terrible organization. Just keep him if that’s all you can get.
Detroit got fleeced if they don’t get picks. Also weird position for the Cavs. They get another franchise frontcourt piece in Drummond.. but don’t have the backcourt figured out at all. They would be playoff bound if this were the 80s or 90s but I guess take what you can get when rebuilding.
The article said the Pistons reasoning….they wanted to avoid Drummond opting in. Cavs get Drummond’s bird rights in offseason
Less than an hour left. Hurry up and flip him.
Wouldn’t that be something If they did and got a haul for him?
Pistons did this cuz Drummond would opt in on 28MM next year and they don’t want to pay him.
Crap return but it was to get rid of him. He will opt in and become a FA year after next.
Between Love and Drummond, the Cavs will have more rebounds per game than points the rest of this year.
I guess a second round pick is better than nothing
If this is the “best they could get” then I’d love to see the trades they turned down.
Everything else was just an expiring contract.
A. No trade market so get the best you can because you don’t want him to opt in because you are going into rebuild mode.
B. No trade market because interested teams think he won’t opt in and they will just sign him in the off-season. So get what you can.
The trade definitely favors the Cavs but why? He will opt out after the season and he may help you get an additional 10-12 wins this season which lessens the chance of getting a higher pick. Also, where is Tristan Thompson going?
This is what I was wondering. Something with TT lined up.
Tristan to Toronto for Marc Gasol and Stanley Johnson to match salaries makes too much sense.
I bet he’s headed there.
With Delly going out with TT.
The possible problem is Dummond opting IN, since he is not seen as being worth it. This would be a good chance for him to repair the league-wide disinterest in him.
This doesn’t make sense with cavs not going anywhere and now you got to move Thompson for more talent for next year
They’d get a pick as well. My prediction: TT and Delly for Gasol, Johnson and an unprotected 1st from Toronto.
How tf does Henson make 9 million for one year dude is trash
Detroit trades Drummond to Cleveland for lebron’s game used sock from 2015’s 3rd home game
How long have I been saying bigs like this, on certain contracts, dont have much value? Gives cleveland insurance with Thompson a FA. They can keep one on a more reasonable deal, or open all the space. They could also theoretically grab an extra asset in a potential sign and trade, if that ends up a necessity
It’s a horrible return for Drummond, but it was a necessary one. Basically getting a second round pick to guarantee cap space. Keeping Drummond risks a) he opts out for nothing or b) he opts in, cripples cap space and delays the rebuild another year.
Not a great return on the surface of it, but a good step forward for the future.
the rockets should have offered Gordon and used the cap space created and took on Drummond… a line up of drummond/tucker/rco/harden/westbrook sounds pretty damn good.
Watch him play and you will see why Detroit had no intentions of resigning him. His best attribute is rebounding and his numbers on the surface would draw comparisons to Ben Wallace and Dennis Rodman until you watch him play. Wallace and Rodman were beasts that would knock over their own mothers to grab a rebound and they were both smart enough to throw the ball back out to someone that could actually score. Andre’s go to move is to clank the ball off the rim from 2 feet, grab his own rebound and then clank it off the rim again. By the end of the year, Cleveland fans will be hoping that he opts out.
Yes. Glad he got traded. Do hate to see him go to the Cavs but he needed to be gone. My feeling is that they’re freeing up cap space to sign a FA over the summer. ie DeRozen. Take it for what that is but I’m sure DD & DC want a reunion.
Have you actually seen him play? Arguably the best defensive big man in the NBA who has the athleticism to step out and guard mobile big men and the vertical to swat the biggest opponents. Also averaging a solid 2.8 ast for a big man. 53% FG is not a guy who chronically misses either. The Pistons already had him and Griffin. Find a way to add a another star willing to take a discount to complete a big 3 lineup and you have title potential. If anything, coaching is holding back the Pistons.
The question is, have you seen him play? He shoots “53%” because he doesn’t shoot from further than 5 feet from the basket, so you’re right, he only clanks 47% of his shots but they’re all taken within 5 feet of the rim. His defense is average, he’s not a big shot blocker, he has no touch on his shot and he turtles against stiff competition. but hey, dont take my word for it, take the word of the 28 teams that passed on him when all they had to give up was a future 2nd round pick and a couple of salary dumps
Amen Magee
Wow, yeah you have to be someone who never watches Piston basketball. Drummond is a lazy basketball player who is only good at rebounding because he is bigger than everyone. If Pistons could have gotten any more value than this they would have, this was not the ideal time to trade Drummond and the entire league knew this, we got and took the best deal we could find.
Our cokehead owner wouldn’t let us trade him at any point in the past when he held actual value but all you thinking this front office is just that incompetent don’t understand this or understand that value is only in the eye of other teams not little fan boys who don’t know what they are talking about.
Just like you, right?
Idiots I tell you. Pistons started the season looking alright with Jackson DRose Kennard Snell Griffin and Drummond like they could make the playoffs now. Drummond is gone for a second rounder, Jackson is about to be brought out and Griffin will probably stay
You had so many plans for them
Teams just will not cooperate! I kind of stopped proposing deals this year. Got burned when I tried.
I get burned occasionally but I enjoy it and I enjoy the challenge of changing people’s minds.
Put yeah had so many ideas for the Pistons hahaha… but looks like they are going to be doing a complete full rebuild now
Pistons never looked good for a playoff push. What grab the 8th seed again and get embarrassed? Glad they didn’t trade Kannard tho. That would’ve been stupid. Hope RJax does get bought out. Can’t do anything with him. Even though I like Griffin that’s a bad contract. He’ll never get out of Detroit. But DRose has been phenomenal. Glad there’s a chance he might stick with us.
Bad organization trades to another bad organization.
Drummond generally seems too happy about getting a dunk. I get it, you’re tall.
But, he’s also jazzed about getting rebounds, which is usually a good thing– (we will see how Love handles the comp!). His and others’ D should improve… Maybe that’s something the Cavs can get going, good team defense, if only to react to the trade.
Certainly having a shotblocker on court should be helpful– Henson had a plus8 on/off this year, large for a Cav, and he was not versatile or acclimated.
Remembering the big aquisition of Shaq– higher stakes, but did not work.
Drummond is a complementary piece and not worth a max contract. He is not someone you go to when you need a basket. He and his agent should realize this now and he should opt in next year. At the rate that Sexton and Garland clank jumpers his O Reb rate and scoring average should jump. Maybe Drummond is the guy you want when you are a low FG% offensive team. Clev is 21st in Off Fg%.