Pistons Notes: Cap Room, Fontecchio, Klintman, Gores

Team executives who spoke to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) at the G League Winter Showcase over the weekend identified the Pistons as an important team to watch as the February 6 trade deadline approaches.

Detroit is the only NBA club currently operating under the cap, with about $14MM in room available. Many teams around the league are either prohibited from taking back extra salary due to their position relative to the tax aprons or will be unwilling to take back extra salary due to their proximity to the tax line. Those financial restrictions should put the Pistons in a great spot to be a third-team facilitator in one or more pre-deadline deals.

While $14MM is a nice chunk of room, it could disappear quickly depending on which player(s) the Pistons take back, so the front office will likely be careful about which deal(s) it makes, using that limited cap space as leverage to try to extract the best possible assets from its potential trade partners.

Here’s more on the Pistons:

• Simone Fontecchio, who re-signed with the Pistons in July on a two-year, $16MM deal, has played a modest role off the bench this season, with his minutes declining to 18.2 MPG after he averaged 30.3 MPG down the stretch last season. However, the veteran wing had one of his best games of the year on Monday in Los Angeles, scoring 13 points on a perfect shooting night (4-of-4 from the field and 3-of-3 from the line) as Detroit completed a series sweep over the Lakers, writes Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press. The Pistons, who won the game by three points, outscored L.A. by 19 in Fontecchio’s 19 minutes on the court.
• The 37th overall pick in this year’s draft, Bobi Klintman spent most of the fall recovering from a calf injury and was active for the first time of the season on Monday. Although Klintman didn’t play at all, head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said it was good to have the rookie forward around the team and available to play. “It’s great for him to have an opportunity to be part of the team he was drafted by,” Bickerstaff said (Twitter link via Sankofa). “… He had an odd injury that held him back and it was a long road.”
• Roughly a year after he told reporters during a record-setting losing streak that changes were necessary, Pistons owner Tom Gores told Hunter Patterson of The Athletic and other media members at halftime on Monday that he’s “really proud” of what he’s seen from the team this season. Detroit has hired a new head coach (Bickerstaff) and head of basketball operations (Trajan Langdon) since last year and Gores praised both men for the jobs they’ve done so far. “He’s got a steady hand,” Gores said of Langdon. “He’s doing incredible work organizing us. Same as the way J.B. is, so I give him a lot of credit.”
• In case you missed it, Cade Cunningham won a Player of the Week award for the first time in his four-year career on Monday.