The report comes to us from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
ESPN Sources: Brooklyn is trading C DeAndre Jordan, four future-second round picks and $5.78M to Detroit for Jahlil Okafor and Sekou Doumbouya. Pistons plan to work through a buyout on two-years, $20M owed Jordan; Nets will save $47M in salary and tax on deal.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 3, 2021
The team has now been fully remade under the watchful eye of General Manager Troy Weaver; Sekou Doumbouya, of course, was the last remaining Detroit Piston Weaver was not responsible for acquiring. The longest tenured Piston is now * checks notes * 2020 draft selection Killian Hayes.
In his two years with the Pistons, Sekou confounded us here at DBB. The potential of a 6’9 wing who could defend, run the floor, and possessed the basketball knowledge to operate as a savvy off-ball cutter continued to intrigue, but the grim reality that Sekou was mostly a non-factor offensively and very much a second-year player defensively explains why he’s not on the team anymore. I mean, just look at Brady’s Exit Interview for Sekou:
The best version of Sekou is one who can step out and hit a three but is better off bullying his way past smaller forwards to get near the basket. Right now, he gets close enough to where he can back down and get a shot up, but he’s not getting to the rim. Once he captures that balance of body control and basketball skill, his athleticism will shine in the half-court, and he won’t be relegated to spacing the floor. The Pistons were bad with him on the floor both offensively and defensively. They were slightly less bad with him off the court. Sekou wasn’t a problem, but he was definitely not a solution, either.
It was, almost definitively, too early in his NBA career to trade Sekou, but under a new general manager than the one that drafted him, with no dramatic improvement, it’s not a mystery why the Pistons chose to trade him.
(I, personally, would still rather have Sekou around than Trey Lyles, though. Trey Lyles is a big ol’ nothing in the NBA; at least Sekou was still a lottery ticket, even if two of the numbers were already scratched off.)
Oh, and Jahlil Okafor is gone, too. We’ll always have that one three he hit against Sacramento, and his bruising spin move. Vaya Con Dios, Jahlil.
In return for those two, the Pistons pick up four second round picks. One of those, Brooklyn’s 2022, is probably not going to be valuable. The others – Brooklyn’s 2027 second-round pick, the better second-round pick between Memphis and Washington in 2024, and the better second-round pick between Golden State and Washington in 2025 – are too far in the future to accurately project their value. The Pistons will also work on a buyout with DeAndre Jordan, who still has approximately two years and $20 million left on his contract. Hopefully, the Pistons can just throw that dead money on the pile for this upcoming season.
Prior to the trade, the Pistons had one too many guaranteed contracts on the roster. Now, after trading two-for-essentially-none, the Pistons open up a roster spot. It will be interesting to see who Troy Weaver chooses to fill that final remaining spot – could this be a chance to pick up my long-awaited jumpy-jump center? Or perhaps it is simply reserved for Summer League darling JaMorko Pickett?
Let us know what you think of the move, and the moves to come, in the comments below, DBB faithful.