The Pistons certainly made a big splash this offseason in signing Josh Smith and then moving on to acquire Brandon Jennings. Detroit seems poised to make a run for the Eastern Conference playoffs next season with the talent it has collected and the promise of young stars like Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond still developing and growing on their rookie contracts.
Now would not be the time to let your eyes get bigger than your stomach.
The Pistons, at one point attached to Rajon Rondo when many believed the Celtics would trade the budding young point guard, are not giving up on that pursuit even after trading point guard Brandon Knight to sign young guard Brandon Jennings.
Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe reports the Pistons are not abandoning their plans to go after Rondo if the opportunity should arise and that Jennings could be a piece they use to get him.
Jennings signed a three-year, $24 million deal in the sign-and-trade that brought him from Milwaukee to Detroit. The Pistons probably will not have enough cap room to sign Rondo outright if that is their plan. Rondo becomes a free agent in 2015, the Pistons are projected to have only $8.8 million in cap room (if the salary cap stays at the level it is at). That is before trying to re-sign Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe.
If the Pistons want to get Rondo, it will take a trade and it will probably take Jennings to get it done. In that sense, maybe Detroit has not hurt its chances. It would all depend on whether Boston wants Jennings and the last year of his contract to get something for Rondo.
That seems a far ways out. A lot can happen between now and then.
Planning out who might be in the running for Rajon Rondo in a few years probably is not anywhere near certain at this point.
