Good morning. Looking for a way to subscribe to the newsletter, which is now being published on Substack and no longer on SB Nation? Here’s a button for you.

Buttons! Let’s basketball.

J. Chéreau - Musée de la Révolution française, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Detroit Pistons are exactly as bad as they should be.

After a blowout loss to the Jazz on Tuesday, Detroit is 12-22, 10 games under .500 and in the No. 11 spot in the Eastern Conference. They are 2-8 in their last 10 games with all eight losses by double-digits and three of them by at least 20 points. Blake Griffin has played in just 18 of 34 games this season and has missed four of the last 10. But when he’s played, he hasn’t been anywhere close to the star-level player Detroit traded for two seasons ago. That suggests that even when he’s healthy enough to play, he’s not healthy.

Andre Drummond is having his typically divisive season: huge rebound numbers, nearly 2 blocks and 2 steals per game, some big scoring nights, failing every single eye or advanced metric test (especially on defense) thrown at him. Luke Kennard and Derrick Rose have been decent on offense. Christian Wood is nice! Reggie Jackson hasn’t played since October but could be back soon, for whatever that’s worth. The team defense has been awful. If Griffin isn’t playing like the Blake Griffin we know and love, this team just doesn’t have much.

The Pistons can absolutely still make the playoffs because that No. 8 spot in the East is going to a mediocre team unless the Magic or someone else get good fast. But to what end? The Bucks will eviscerate whoever grabs No. 8. The Pistons know this all too well based on last April’s results.

Detroit surely has internal goals and checkpoints to hit, and I would imagine with a team this mediocre and the worst home attendance in the NBA this season that a full reset is at least on the table. But even if that is the path chosen, how do you get there?

How do you reclaim Griffin’s lost value? He turns 31 soon and is due $75 million over the next two seasons. Any team that trades for him takes themselves out of the 2021 free agent bonanza. No team is trading for him without giving Detroit a similarly deleterious contract (John Wall, Russell Westbrook, hilariously maybe Chris Paul) and the Pistons have no reason to do that. But if the Pistons can make Griffin play like an All-Star again, like he did last season, perhaps there’s a way to move him to a team with no chance at landing big fish in ‘21 regardless.

But how? How do you make Griffin good again? If there were an obvious answer to that, Griffin wouldn’t look so bad when he played! And the Pistons would probably be better than they are.

This isn’t quite the worst-case scenario the Pistons faced when they traded Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, the pick that became Miles Bridges, a second-round pick and BOBAN for Blake and spare parts in 2018. The worst-case scenario was a catastrophic injury for Griffin. Instead, he had an All-Star season in 2018-19 and led the Pistons on a mercilessly/mercifully brief playoff run. (In that forgettable 1-8 series, the Pistons lost to the Bucks by an average of 19.5 points in the two games Blake played and 29.5 points in the two games he missed. If ever there was a perfect stat to reflect Blake Griffin’s Pistons tenure …)

So it could be worse: Griffin’s contract could be without value and prospects. He could be a total write-off, and he’s not. But without some major luck or wild creativity, it’s hard to see how the Pistons fix this malaise and build a good team in the future, with or without Griffin.

In the interim, it really should be a priority for the Pistons to sucker some team into trading for (and implicitly agreeing to pay) Drummond. Maybe the Pistons can even put together a little All-Star campaign for Dre to help the market develop. Detroit should not be in the business of giving Drummond a max contract this summer, so getting assets now or in a summer sign-and-trade should be the top imperative for the team, regardless of its impact on Griffin’s value. With one heavy anchor on the salary cap sheet, you really need to avoid adding a second.

Scores

Subscribers, give me some feedback in the comments. Should I link to YouTube highlight packages of the games in Scores or the box scores? Or both? Neither?

Hawks 101, Magic 93

Box score | Highlights

Heat 105, Wizards 123

Box score | Highlights

A truly magical performance from the end of the Wizards bench as all five usual Washington starters were out. Jordan McRae, hello. Garrison Matthews, how are you? Ian Mahinmi, you’re still with us!

Bucks 123, Bulls 102

Box score | Highlights

Nets 115, Wolves 122

Box score | Highlights

Pistons 81, Jazz 104

Box score | Highlights

Suns 122, Blazers 116

Box score | Highlights

Schedule

All times Eastern. Games on League Pass unless otherwise noted.

Matinees

Celtics at Hornets, 3

Sixers at Pacers, 3

West Coast Matinee

Clippers at Kings, 5

Regular Ol’ Evening Games

Cavaliers at Raptors, 7

Nuggets at Rockets, 7, NBA TV

Warriors at Spurs, 7

Mavericks at Thunder, 8

Links

I declared the Kings the worst NBA team of the 2010s on Monday. To me, the Wolves are clearly No. 2. But No. 3 is up in the air, so I did a Twitter poll. The Knicks won resoundingly over the Suns and Nets. There’s a case for each of them, but I think I would have picked the Suns over the Knicks before seeing the good cases made by tortured Knicks fans.

Lindsay Gibbs’s 10 most important women’s sports moments of the decade.

Al Horford doesn’t say anything alarming in this Keith Pompey piece about what a tiny role he’s had on offense for the Sixers but the mere acknowledgement that he’s getting less opportunity than he expected when he knew the roster situation he was stepping into is itself a little alarming.

Tom Thibodeau comeback alert!

Jon Bois lists the 10 least consequential athletes of the decade, including Darius Johnson-Odom and JamesOn Curry.

Jarron Collins is getting the credit for the Warriors’ respectable defense.

Mo Dakhil on the three best coaches this season when it comes to after-timeout plays.

Jonathan Tjarks on how unconventional paths to the NBA are breaking scouting.

Help Jon Bois and Kofie Yeboah build an impossible golf course.

I was under the impression Luka Doncic was a LeBronist but here he is saying nice things about Steph Curry. Is it truly possible to appreciate both? Through Luka, all things are possible!

I don’t link to podcasts much but Zach Lowe talking to Steven Adams is a must-listen for us all.

Henry Abbott and David Thorpe on the Thunder’s opportunity to take advantage of being better than they thought they’d be.

The newsletter will be about an hour later than usual on Wednesday owing to the holiday. But it will be there. Happy New Year, thank you for your support and be excellent to each other.