Disappointment doesn't lead to desperation for Joe D

Kwame Brown officially became a Piston today. The signing of Walter Herrmann, which he first acknowledged last week, will push the Pistons’ roster to 14. If Lindsey Hunter decides to play one more season, that will take the Pistons to the maximum of 15.

That would mean the off-season so far would have consisted of adding Brown to fight for minutes along with Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson; picking up Will Bynum as the No. 3 point guard; and drafting Walter Sharpe to contend with Herrmann for whatever is left after Tayshaun Prince, Rip Hamilton and Arron Afflalo carve up the minutes at small forward.

It’s a long way from the Carmelo Anthony or Tracy McGrady headline-grabbing move much rumored, so how should Pistons fans feel about their team’s relatively quiet summer?

A move of that magnitude would have made the Pistons one of the NBA’s most-watched teams heading into the new season, in the same way Boston became the most fascinating story of last summer after adding Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen – and the same way Denver became the talk of the previous season when the Nuggets seemingly stole Allen Iverson from Philadelphia.

The point is that adding a big name – at a commensurate cost – is the ultimate high-risk, high-reward move. Joe Dumars was stunningly frank in so publicly declaring his desire to shake up his team’s chemistry that June day when he also fired Flip Saunders, but it’s now clear that his secondary point – about not executing a trade just to justify his desire for change – was delivered with equal conviction. The Pistons are still enviably positioned. Dumars has done great work in amassing assets without mortgaging a fraction of his franchise’s future. Though it’s disappointing to come up just short June after June, disappointment can’t be allowed to foster desperation.

The Brown signing carries some subtle irony to it in that the home-run move Pistons fans crave is one like Brown made possible last February when he was the key piece sent to Memphis as the Lakers wound up with Pau Gasol. Why was Brown the key piece? Because his considerable contract – much larger than the one he just signed with the Pistons – was necessary to make the trade work under salary-cap rules.

In that respect, Dumars’ amazing run of shrewd business actually hurts the Pistons a little. To pull off the type of trade Dumars wanted to execute this summer, he really needed a contract like the one Kwame Brown just finished. Let’s take McGrady as an example. He’s due to make $21 million next year. The Pistons have to come pretty close to sending that much money to Houston in order for the trade to be in compliance. But because they don’t have anyone on the roster who’s overpaid, they’d have to trade $21 million worth of real value.

And I don’t care which combination of guys making that kind of money you want to group – Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince; Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess and Jason Maxiell; Rip Hamilton and Wallace – it would be a trade that would represent significant risk for the Pistons.

In other words, not at all like the two trades that went a long way toward determining the most recent NBA Finals matchup – Boston’s no-brainer deal for Garnett and the Los Angeles’ Lakers’ pilfering of Gasol.

The Pistons didn’t have a prayer of getting either player because they didn’t have two of the three things rebuilding teams in Minnesota and Memphis coveted – young talent, high draft picks and large contracts about to expire. Minnesota got a lottery pick and Al Jefferson from Boston. Memphis got, essentially, three first-round picks and Brown’s contract coming off the books. All the Pistons could have offered without cutting into the bone would be draft picks, and late first-rounders, at that – not enough to even start a discussion.

So that’s where they’re at. A trade is still possible, of course. Once again, I’ll remind all that the Rip Hamilton-Jerry Stackhouse deal came after Labor Day. There are still GMs out there who are dissatisfied with their roster after the draft and free agency have come and gone. The right fit might still be out there for the Pistons.

But if the worst-case scenario is coming back with the roster as it stands now, I think the ace in the hole for Dumars is Michael Curry. It might be putting a lot on a rookie coach to expect that his presence will light the fire – what he called a “burning desire” to win – that Dumars didn’t see last season, but Curry has the rare fill-up-the-room presence that makes you believe he’ll do just that.

Now, if somebody wants to call Joe D and offer him a superstar for a bag of potato chips …

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