Report: Pistons have inquired about Rajon Rondo
According to Jay King at Masslive.com, the Pistons have asked about Rondo's availability.
The Pistons are said to have plenty of interest in acquiring Rondo, and Dumars admitted he spoke to Boston about its All-Star point guard's availability. But according to the Detroit Free Press, talks never progressed far enough to include specific players.
"Never happened, never even a conversation about Brandon," Dumars said, referring to a recent Boston Globe report that Detroit wants to swap Knight and an expiring contract for Rondo. "That trade rumor is not true."
Of course Dumars didn't mention anything about packing either of Detroit's two big men Greg Monroe or Andre Drummond, but reports are Drummond is as close as untouchable as a player gets in the NBA.
Bottom line is if a trade between Detroit and Boston for Rondo did happen, it's not going to happen before the season starts. Detroit is going to want to see what kind of player they would be getting. Is Rondo back to a top guard in the league or is he Derrick Rose 2.0 and needs a ton of time to return to elite status, if he ever does?
For the Celtics, a package of Knight and Monroe sounds nice, but since Detroit can't offer any first round picks in the deal because they still owe Charlotte a top pick some time over the next few years, it might not be enough. Monroe's game is nice, but he isn't a superstar and Knight took a serious step back this year to the point that some don't even consider him a great point guard prospect anymore.
Unless Detroit offers to take back one of the Celtics' bad contracts like Brandon Bass, Courtney Lee or Gerald Wallace, Danny Ainge will elect to keep his floor general and see how he works in Brad Stevens' system until at least the trade deadline. The Pistons also want to see how their front court of Monroe, Drummond and newly acquired Josh Smith work together before trying to reunite schoolyard besties Smith and Rondo. It should take about 10 games to realize there is only so much space in the paint, but they want to test it out anyway.
Either way, this has wait and see written all over it.
Follow Eric
@ericblaisdell13
