Report: Pistons Interested in Rajon Rondo, But Lack of Draft Picks Hinder Any Potential Deal

Danny Ainge has made it clear that he is taking all calls from other teams about Rajon Rondo, even if he is not making any calls himself. He might want to rethink his policy after this one.

The Detroit Pistons reportedly are interested in Rondo, but their trade offer is somewhat laughable. The Pistons, who recently signed Rondo’s buddy Josh Smith, would like to send third-year point guard Brandon Knight and an expiring contract to Boston in exchange for Rondo. We can only assume Ainge was too nice of a guy to burst out laughing and hang up the phone when he heard that one.

“The Pistons are quite interested in … Rondo,” Gary Washburn writes in The Boston Globe, “but they don’t have a package to offer that would attract … Ainge to making a deal.”

To say the least.

Normally, the Pistons might be able to sweeten the pot with a draft pick, but that is where things get tricky. Joe Dumars, Ainge’s counterpart in Detroit, has been mocked for signing the deeply flawed Smith to a four-year, $54 million deal this offseason. But the worst move Dumars has made — and that any NBA executive has made in a long time, in fact — was to give the Charlotte Bobcats the choice of a Pistons draft pick anytime between 2014 and 2017 as part of last year’s Ben Gordon trade. In essence, that serves as a four-year, self-imposed ban on the Pistons trading their first-round pick, since they cannot trade a pick the Bobcats might decide they want.

So, yes, the Pistons are interested in Rondo. They just don’t have anything substantive to offer. Maybe Ainge should rethink accepting all his incoming calls.