Detroit inking Robinson to three-year, $48 million deal
The Detroit Pistons landed a 3-point shooter. Duncan Robinson, who has scorched nets for years as a member of the Miami Heat is coming to Detroit on a three-year, $48 million deal, according to Shams Charania of ESPN.
The deal will be a sign-and-trade that sends the Heat Simone Fontecchio. Fontecchio has one year and $8 million left on his deal.
UPDATE: An important detail that emerged via Omari Sankofa of the Detroit Free Press is that the Robinson contact is extremely team friendly. The deal is only partially guaranteed in year 2 and fully non-guaranteed in year three. That makes the financial commitment minimal and the contract much more appealing to other teams in any potential future trades.
That gives the Pistons a bevy of beefy short-term deals and young players to use as trade fodder if the right kind of superstar trade presents itself. Tobias Harris is entering the final year of his deal at $26 million. Caris LeVert is a short two-year stint at $14 million per. And now a movable Robinson deal.
ESPN reports it is essentially the same deal Detroit planned to offer Malik Beasley, but those plans changed once it was unveiled that Beasley is the subject of a federal investigation tied to NBA betting.
His role in Detroit is clear. Do everything that Malik Beasley did, shimmy aside.
There have been only nine qualified players since Robinson entered the league in 2018 to average more than seven three-point attempts per game while hitting at least 39% from deep. Beasley and Robinson both make that list, as does fellow complementary player Buddy Hield, and superstars Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Zach LaVine, CJ McCollum, and Klay Thompson.
While nobody could expect Robinson, or even Beasley for that matter, to match Malik’s prolific production from one year ago, Robinson can find space, and be efficient as both a catch-and-shoot and movement shooter.
At 6-foot-7, he also has more size than Beasley, and could mostly fit into the same hybrid big/wing role that Detroit placed the now-departed Fontecchio in.
Whether he serves as a primary backup for Tobias Harris at power forward or Ausar Thompson at small forward, remains to be seen. It’d be nice to see Detroit add a bit more muscle and reliable scoring at the power forward spot.
The Pistons will likely hope to use Thompson and second-year player Ron Holland at both forward spots quite a bit, but if they can’t become more reliable offensive threats, Detroit will need to have a reserve that can produce some offense they can turn to.
How are we feeling Pistons fans? A bit better about the offensive potential of the team? Still feeling like the team is trying to crawl itself out of quicksand?