Pistons Summer League Roster Absorbs Temporary Hits

Posted Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Summer League roster absorbs temporary hits

LAS VEGAS - Jonas Jerebko was there, but can’t play due to red tape. Will Bynum (personal reasons), Walter Sharpe (minor injury) and Ibrahim Jaaber (withdrew) were missing. That’s the word from Las Vegas, where the 100 degrees here feels refreshing compared to two years ago, when I touched down to 116.

That’s a lot of upheaval for one Summer League roster, which comes in the middle of an already crazy time for Joe Dumars and his staff as they continue shaping the roster in free agency, interpret what the new salary-cap figure released Tuesday night by the NBA means to that pursuit and – oh, by the way – try to nail down a head coach.

It’s expected there will be official news on that front by Thursday, but the sobering word from NBA offices regarding the cap – particularly as it affects next year’s prospects – makes Joe D look especially shrewd now. With the cap potentially coming down to $50 million next year – almost $9 million less than last season and nearly $8 million less than the new figure for 2009-10 – all the planning and sacrifice made by teams to put themselves in position for the free agency Summer of LeBron just went up in smoke.

The bad news is the slashing of this year’s cap leaves the Pistons probably with less than $2 million to spend yet in free agency. That’s less than the biannual exception teams can offer, logic says they could have a hard time attracting another quality big man. But logic could get turned on its ear this summer. Most teams are already well over the cap. Most teams are already flirting with what could be the luxury-tax line next summer. So even a biannual exception deal offered to somebody this year, which would come in at 8 percent higher next summer, could be a troublesome deal.

That’s the good news – the Pistons are so much better positioned to avoid long-term economic consequences than most other teams because they have no bad contracts on the roster and won’t be in the salary-dumping mode that will become imperative for several franchises.

What I said last week holds true times 10 today: The big-name 2010 free agents are going to more likely than ever to be returning to their teams. A drastically reduced cap might freeze movement completely. A team would have to go into next summer with barely $30 million in salary commitment to even get in position to bid on LeBron, Wade, Stoudemire, Bosh, et al. If the Knicks were hoping to get two of them, they’ll have to get especially creative now.

And that means that almost every team that’s dumped players or resisted offering extensions on the hope of putting themselves in play next summer would die to have an option as attractive as adding Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva in free agency.

If Joe D ever for a second thought of squirreling his resources for next summer after making the Billups-Iverson trade – and, for the record, he’s always maintained that he was going for it this summer – the events of the past 24 hours should reassure him he played this hand properly.

Now, back to Summer League.

The Pistons held their first practice Tuesday night and just finished their second. Jerebko was in his workout gear but prohibited from taking part in any drills. The Pistons got a memo last Tuesday, along with all NBA teams, informing them that all players who were under FIBA contracts needed to have clearance from their FIBA team, their league and FIBA itself before taking part in Summer League.

Jerebko’s Italian league team, Angelico Biella, refused to release him because to do so would eliminate any possibility of him playing for them next season. Jerebko was under contract to Angelico for next season, but had an opt-out, which he then exercised – the Pistons have said they expect him to be on their roster next season. But the Pistons then had to resubmit their request, on Tuesday, to have him released and the process could take up to seven days to resolve, though the Pistons expect it to happen sooner.

The Pistons expected to have Jaaber, who played with them two years ago in Las Vegas after going undrafted out of Penn. He’s since gone on to become one of the top European point guards, starting for Rome this year ahead of Bucks lottery pick Brandon Jennings. Jaaber pulled out without explanation, but it seems likely he was told by Rome that the club would not entertain a buyout offer for next season.

With Bynum also temporarily unavailable, the Pistons hurriedly signed two point guards with NBA experience, Sean Singletary and Andre Owens. Singletary was drafted by Sacramento in the 2008 second round out of Virginia and got traded three times before Christmas – first to Houston in the Ron Artest deal, then to Phoenix for D.J. Strawberry and finally to Charlotte in the Jason Richardson deal.

Owens was undrafted out of Houston in 2005 and has played with Utah and Indiana. He played overseas last season.

Sharpe’s injury isn’t believed to be serious, but the Pistons will have it checked out in Detroit before he rejoins the team.

I talked to both of the 2008 second-rounders who played in Europe last season, Deron Washington and Trent Plaisted, and we’ll have something on their prospects on Pistons.com on Thursday.

I’ll be posting on Twitter as well from Las Vegas, so check that out.