When Troy Weaver traded Christian Wood, a protected first-round pick and a 2020 second-round pick for Isaiah Stewart, it didn’t seem like something that would weigh on the Detroit Pistons for long.
But here we are in 2024 and this protected first round pick He didn’t live up to it, and in retrospect it looks like an overpay for a player most teams had ranked in the back of the first round.
The pick has changed hands several times and now belongs to the New York Knicks.
When you consider how that pick prevented the Pistons from making a trade (which might have been a good thing considering Weaver would have been the one to make the trade) and that two of the three players the Pistons drafted in the first round are no longer with the team, the 2020 NBA Draft is the biggest reason Weaver’s rebuild never worked.
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The Knicks are hoping this will finally be the year their gamble on the Pistons pays off, but when you look at the numbers, it’s unlikely that will happen this season and they’ll be lucky if that pick ever comes to fruition.
THE The pistons have been chosen to win between 23 and 27 games next season depending on the publication, and it’s a safe bet that they’ll finish somewhere within +/- five games of those predictions.
The first-round pick the Pistons owe the Knicks in 2025 is 1-13 protected and would go to the Knicks if it landed anywhere in the 14-30 range.
If you look at last year’s standings, the teams that finished in that bracket, the Kings, Warriors and Heat, all won at least 46 games.
The Pistons would likely have to win somewhere around that number to fall to the final pick in the lottery or beyond, and the chances of that happening are slim to none.
The protections drop to 1-11 in 2026 and 1-9 in 2027, and if they don’t convey by then, they become a second-round pick for the Knicks.
Given the timeline Langdon appears to have set for this team to take a big step forward, which is two years from now, there’s a good chance the Pistons will keep their pick in 2025 and 2026 depending on how Langdon views their progress.
There’s a chance the Pistons can exceed expectations, especially if Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren make big strides in Year 3, but even if they do, the Pistons will likely have a pick in a loaded 2025 draft and the Knicks will have to continue to wait.
