Another exciting trade deadline has come and gone and every team in the league except for two participated in the festivities. The Spurs sent out their starting center, Jakob Poeltl while the Pistons acquired a new center in James Wiseman.
I don’t think any of the players either team received back in their subsequent deals will be playing today, so this will be a matchup between two of the worst teams in the league fighting for draft positioning while also being short-handed. I don’t know about you, but this is an ideal way to spend my Friday night.
Where: Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, MI
When: Friday, February 10 at 7 pm EST
Watch: Bally Sports Detroit
Odds: Pistons (-4)
As mentioned above, both of these teams will be without two of their better players as the Spurs will be without Jakob Poeltl, who they sent to Toronto via trade. The Pistons will be without Saddiq Bey, who they sent out in the James Wiseman trade. The Spurs also sent out Josh Richardson, who was one of their few veteran scorers.
I don’t think either player was really shifting the outcome of this game that much, as both of these teams are not good, especially defensively.
The last time they faced off, the Spurs blew out the Pistons 121-109 in San Antonio. Despite the Spurs going into that game ranked worse defensively than the Pistons, they were they ones that came up with the stops they needed while the Pistons surrendered over 120 points again.
An important player to now keep an eye on for the Pistons will be Isaiah Livers. Part of the reason for trading Saddiq Bey was the faith the Pistons have in Livers, and giving most of Bey’s minutes to him could help the Pistons out a bit defensively, as Livers is a far superior defender to Bey. There will definitely be a dropoff offensively, as Livers has struggled with his shot this season, but this will be his opportunity to show that he is a piece of the future.
The Pistons are a bit gutted depth-wise on the wing now, so they are going to need guys like Livers and Hamidou Diallo to step up the rest of the season. Say what you want about Bey as a player, but he played a lot of minutes for this team and never missed games.
I am not really sure who will be starting at center for the Spurs. They don’t really have a ton of natural centers on their roster, so they very well could opt to play small. They could opt to play Zach Collins at center, as he is at least above 6’8”. If they decide to play small, the Pistons could have an advantage with starting their big frontline.
With Bey now out the door, I would expect the Pistons to continue to bring Alec Burks off the bench like they did in the last game. The Pistons are desperately going to need offense off the bench, and Alec Burks is really the only player that can provide that.
These teams have identical records, and although the Spurs won last time, they are going to be a bit more short-handed than the Pistons are. That is likely going to be the big difference-maker in this game. This might be the only time the rest of the season that the Pistons are actually favored in a game, so they will want to take advantage of it.
San Antonio Spurs (14-41): Tre Jones, Malaki Branham, Keldon Johnson, Jeremy Sochan, Zach Collins
Detroit Pistons (14-42): Killian Hayes, Jaden Ivey, Bojan Bogdanovic, Isaiah Stewart, Jalen Duren
What are your thoughts on the Saddiq Bey-James Wiseman trade?