The Detroit Pistons have made clear that their shopping list this season involves shooting, self-creation, and ball-handling. They are viewed as critical ingredients as the team looks at a hopeful long-term future around a core of Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson, and Jalen Duren.
Knowing what you need is one thing. Obtaining what you need is several orders of magnitude more difficult. However, one of the biggest potential deals on the horizon could net the Pistons exactly what they are looking for,
if you choose to believe recent reports.
The Pistons are rumored to be a potential third team in any deal that sends Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Miami Heat, with Detroit getting Tyler Herro in return, according to the plugged-in Marc Stein.
Stein also writes of potential alternatives and additions that are piquing Detroit’s interest:
The Pistons, I’m told, should be monitored as a potential third-team facilitator in a Giannis Antetokounmpo-to-Miami trade … with Tyler Herro ultimately landing in Detroit.
The Eastern Conference’s lone 60-win team this season is known to be eager to add shooting around Cade Cunningham and is believed to be aggressively exploring its options in the marketplace beyond two oft-cited trade targets who would be much harder to acquire than Herro: Dallas’ Kyrie Irving and New Orleans’ Trey Murphy III.
Other players regarded as potentially available and said to interest Detroit include Charlotte’s Coby White, Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Joe and possibly even Sacramento’s Zach LaVine now that LaVine is heading into the final year of a massive contract with a $49 million player option that carries a June 29 deadline to be activated.
Herro has some limitations, but he checks every box Detroit is looking for offensively.
Tyler Herro the Playmaker
He’s just 26 years old and stands at 6-foot-5, fitting neatly into Detroit’s preference for a bigger lineup on a timeline that matches Cunningham.
He’s graduated to a 60% true shooting percentage the past two seasons, and it’s not because he’s limited to catch-and-shoot opportunities.
In his All-Star season of 2024-25, he got to the line nearly 24% of the time, had a usage rate of 28%, shot 56% on twos, and 37.5% on threes. He was in the top quarter of the league as a scorer off of handoffs, cuts, off screens, spot-ups, and on putbacks. He can function as a high-volume movement shooter. He has also averaged better than 4 assists per season for his career, including a career-high 5.5 in his All-Star season.
Tyler Herro’s Defensive Limitations
Those limitations, though, should be seriously considered. He’s missed 89 games the past three seasons, including playing in just 11 of Miami’s first 56 games in his most recent campaign. He’s physically limited as a defender, and in the playoffs an opposing team would certainly look to attack that weakness.
The Pistons need to weigh any defensive limitations against the offense the team is so clearly lacking. The fact that the team is also reportedly interested in Coby White, Isaiah Joe and especially Zach LaVine as options tells you everything about how much they are willing to add a minus defender in a hope to turbo charge its offense.
The Cost of Tyler Herro
The hardest question to answer is what it would cost for Detroit to insert themselves into any three-team trade for Antetokounmpo. It’s widely assumed players like Herro, Ka’lel Ware and Nikola Jovic would be sent out in the deal.
Being the third team lowers the cost for Detroit a bit because the two primary teams are obviously motivated to get a deal done. The Milwaukee Bucks are looking to rebuild, so what would they want with a Tyler Herro anyway?
Well, the new lottery odds might complicate those matters a little bit. With extremely flat lottery odds plus an incentive not to be one of the three worst teams in the league means Milwaukee doesn’t need to strip down the entire roster for parts. They don’t need Herro, but they could keep him around, make him the No. 1 option and try to flip him at the deadline.
If Detroit wants him, they will have to surrender some real value for him. Recall the cost the Cleveland Cavaliers paid to poach Jarrett Allen from the Brooklyn Nets in the three-team deal with the Rockets as part of the James Harden trade. Cleveland sent first-round and second-round picks in the deal along with Dante Exum to get Jarrett Allen, Taurean Prince and the rights to a never NBA player. At the time, Allen was just 22 years old and had never made an All-Star team.
It feels like a deal that nets Detroit Herro would start at some combination of Caris LeVert AND Duncan Robinson OR Isaiah Stewart, plus a first-round pick.
How that stacks to comparative costs for a better player such as Trey Murphy or a worse, more affordable player like Zach LaVine, is the prism we need to eye these trades in.
It seems clear, though, that the Pistons have their sights set on a very particular set of skills, and they are the ones the fan base agrees Detroit is lacking. Should be an interesting offseason.
Which player would you most want to add considering roster impact and cost?
