Trade Surplus: In the End, Joe D Pulls off a Sweet Deal

Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Trade surplus: In the end, Joe D pulls off a sweet deal

Would you trade Chauncey Billups for Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva?

It’s not quite that neat and clean, of course, but that’s the essence of the landscape-altering trade Joe Dumars engineered last November when he shipped Billups to Denver for Allen Iverson.

So would you trade Chauncey Billups, a terrific point guard, signed to a significant but reasonable contract, and about to turn 33 – entering the danger zone for point guards, at least mortal ones – for Ben Gordon, a 26-year-old pure scorer, and Charlie Villanueva, a 24-year-old power forward with a multifaceted offensive game?

There are other considerations to the deal, of course. The Pistons still have enough cap space left to add one more free agent, so the deal remains open-ended yet. On the other side, they had to renounce rights to Rasheed Wallace, which doesn’t preclude them from re-signing him but makes it improbable. The one-year look the Pistons got at Allen Iverson could have gone either way. It went south, so you can add the snapping of their six-year run to the conference finals among the casualties of the trade.

But back to the premise: Chauncey Billups for Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva? Deal or no deal?

If we’re talking about three years from now, that seems a pretty easy call. Billups will be 36 and, if he’s still active, probably will be somebody’s backup point guard, valued for his leadership, savvy and clutch shooting ability, but in the final analysis, a role player. Gordon and Villanueva will be still on the sunny side of 30, still with prime years ahead of them, and – barring other transactions impossible to foretell – in lockstep with Rodney Stuckey, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, perhaps in lesser roles, and maybe Austin Daye or the two other rookies drafted last week as franchise cornerstones.

If we’re talking about next season … a little closer, but still: Gordon and Villanueva combined to score 37 points a game last season.

That’s the real takeaway from Joe Dumars’ earth-shaking opening salvo on free agency: These aren’t your father’s Pistons anymore. The days of half-court, grind-it-out offense have dissolved into a vapor cloud. The game has changed. The Pistons struggled too many nights for points over the past few seasons in an NBA that today makes it nearly impossible to win using the physical defense blueprint the 2004 team employed. Now they can put five players on the floor not only capable of putting up 20 points a night – they had that before, at times – but do it with great variety.

Gordon, Stuckey and Will Bynum will give the Pistons three players adept at breaking down defenses off the dribble, something the Pistons have long lacked and a quality that’s become increasingly vital given the game’s changes. Gordon and Villanueva will greatly bolster a 3-point attack that was anemic last season, ranking in the bottom 10 percent in the league. Their threats, both off the dribble and from long range, should help Hamilton and Prince with their games, Hamilton in his familiar mid-range territory or spotting up in the corners for triples with the three slashers driving, Prince now having more space for what’s become his bread-and-butter, the back-down post-up move on overmatched small forwards.

Neither Gordon nor Villanueva come advertised as good defensive players, but take that with a grain of salt. The truth is, there are a few dozen really good defensive players in the league and a few dozen really bad ones, and most of the rest are bunched pretty tightly together. The self-appointed experts divide players into “good” and “bad” defensive camps, when in truth 90 percent of them are some nights one and some nights the other, depending on the matchup.

And the Pistons weren’t a very strong defensive team last year, either. The likelihood is that the offense gets punched up significantly by Wednesday’s contract agreements and the defense doesn’t change all that much.

Whether Gordon starts or comes off the bench – a role in which he’s been extremely comfortable in the past – he’s going to give the Pistons close to 20 points a game. Villanueva began last season coming off Milwaukee’s bench because the Bucks had plenty of scoring in the starting lineup with Michael Redd and Richard Jefferson, so Scott Skiles went with the defense of rookie Luc Richard Mbah a Moute – until Redd’s injury created a scoring void and Villanueva started delivering in a big way.

Gordon is probably closer to his ceiling than Villanueva, but it shouldn’t be dismissed that in the cauldron of the playoffs, Gordon scored 24 a game in a seven-game series (despite a leg injury) and for the first time displayed that rarest of traits – the ability to carry a team’s offense for long stretches against postseason defenses. Gordon’s Boston performance probably wound up costing the Pistons an extra $1 million a year over the life of his contract, but it’s money well spent if they can count on Gordon for tough baskets in the lonely moments of future playoff fourth quarters.

Villanueva should have several steps of progression left on his growth chart. What’s most striking about him is his innate scoring ability, another rare quality. Villanueva picks up garbage points around the rim a la Zach Randolph, knocks down mid-range jump shots with remarkable consistency like LaMarcus Aldridge and steps out to the 3-point line like … well, not quite like Rasheed Wallace just yet, but better than Wallace did at a similar point of their careers.

The book isn’t closed yet on free agency. The Pistons’ big splash aside, once the few other big names are off the table, things are expected to slow down. Bargains can be found later in the summer. One more useful piece added to a frontcourt that now includes Kwame Brown, Jason Maxiell, Charlie Villanueva and three rookies auditioning for niche roles would solidify that segment of the roster and complement a backcourt that’s now dripping with options for a new coach to put to use.

And the team that went to training camp a year ago whole, with Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, Rip Hamilton and Antonio McDyess at its core, facing major question marks about its ability to ever mount another title run, is now assured of looking radically different – and considerably more potent offensively – when it gathers for training camp in about three months.