Arron Afflalo traded along with Walter Sharpe to Denver for a future 2nd rounder, clearing $1.8 million in cap space. Via Adrian Wojnowski of YahooSports

Good luck Arron, give Chauncey our best.

As the cleaning of house keeps rolling something tells me a big deal is on the horizon.

Most of you, including myself, aren’t very happy with the prospect of Glen “Big Baby” Davis donning a Pistons uni, but the chances of it just went up.  We wait again…. in what has turned out to be one of the craziest offseasons I can remember.

“Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg posted on his Twitter account that former Hokies standout Deron Washington has signed a guaranteed contract with the Detroit Pistons, who selected him 59th overall (second round) in the 2008 NBA draft.” Via Daily Press.com

Now there is more….. Our guru Dave Dial gives us the juice.

“Moves like that(signing players like Washington to guaranteed contracts) are often made when one team has to send back a certain amount of money back in a trade. For example, if Detroit is $4 million under the cap after signing Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva and were to get involved with the Hornets in a trade for Tyson Chandler, the Pistons would have to send back a certain amount of salaries in order to make it work.

Chandler makes $12.2 million dollars, and the Pistons might be $4 million under the cap so a straight salary dump couldn’t work. Stay tuned…

{Update: I’ve been informed that there is a 30 day waiting period when you sign a second-round pick before that player can be traded.}”

Detroit Bad Boys adds even more….suggesting Rip could be on his way out.

Now with the quickness in which this is all happening a girls’ head is spinning. I can’t even sleep without waking up to some rumors or possible trades.  I have been locked to Twitter for the past few days to send out the info as quickly as I get it no matter where I am, so do some following.

We have audio with Joe Dumars from Matt Dery of 97.1 The Ticket. Diesel asks the burning question…

Head over to 97.1 The Ticket and listen to the embedded audio under top headlines.

Thanks to Matt for always keep us up to speed.

Danny Ainge weighs in about the Celtics-Pistons trade rumor.

Via Boston.com

“When asked about the rumor this morning during a press conference at the team’s facility in Waltham, Ainge did not offer a denial of the specific report, but strongly indicated he does not expect to deal Rondo, the remarkably talented but erratic 23-year-old point guard.

“We love Rajon and I’m not going to comment on which rumors are true or not true,” said Ainge, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations. “We love this kid and I don’t anticipate trading anyone from our core.”

“If you look at a trade rumor and if you think it makes us a better team and helps us to win a championship this year, that’s the first criteria that any trade rumor has to pass — that it has to help us win the championship this year,” he said.

As Wojnarowski noted in the Yahoo report, it is not unusual for a GM to have someone else in the front office float a trade on his behalf, just to provide some level of deniability if a rumor becomes public. To a degree, that’s the approach Ainge took today.

“We’re certainly not doing anything this year to get a draft pick that’s a developmental project that is going to prevent us winning a championship this year,” Ainge said. “I’ve had many conversations. But a rumor that said lower-level executives are talking about a trade rumor pretty much means it doesn’t really have any merit or any value, if it’s not being discussed at the top.“

An almost laughable deal was said to be offered to Detroit from Boston that would have sent Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen for Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rodney Stuckey.

From Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports:

“The Boston Celtics appear willing to make major roster changes to balance a chance for a championship run and future financial flexibility.

The Celtics offered Ray Allen(notes) and Rajon Rondo(notes) to the Detroit Pistons for a package that included Richard Hamilton(notes), Tayshaun Prince(notes) and Rodney Stuckey(notes), league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Boston general manager Danny Ainge and Detroit’s Joe Dumars never spoke, but rather the Celtics had a lower-level executive make the pitch to a Pistons official over the past weekend, league sources said. Detroit immediately rejected the idea, and it never advanced to the two top executives speaking about particulars.”

This one makes absolutely no sense for Detroit, why would the Pistons trade away their best three players (and bargaining chips) for an again Allen (with an expiring contract) and Rajon Rondo. I can almost hear Dumars laughing now.

Update: PistonsNation points us toward Kelly Dwyer’s post over at Yahoo that maybe Dumars should reconsider.

Could another deal be brewing? Probably not, looks like Joe is trying to avoid the luxury tax.

“The Detroit Pistons will trade seldom-used guard Alex Acker to the Los Angeles Clippers for an exchange of future draft picks, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the trade hasn’t been announced.

The Pistons might stand pat before Thursday’s trading deadline, instead of trading Allen Iverson and Rasheed Wallace, despite its struggles this season.

If Detroit doesn’t make another trade, it will clear about $23 million in salary-cap space to make major moves this summer and in 2010 when a slew of marquee free agents will be available.” Via SI.com

On another note, I know one NBA Coach that’s gone, could there be a change we can believe in?

After the shocking blockbuster went down this morning The Pistons will look very different when they take the floor against the Bobcats and former head coach Larry Brown tonight.

I’m leaving you little to talk about other than the reality of what just went down. The trade works and doesn’t on so many levels as many of you have already mentioned in the comments. Sure, some of our hearts may not be in it, but wishing Chauncey all the best as he goes back and plays for his home town team and a thank you for what he has done is all we can do as fans.

Is Iverson truly The Answer? We will get that question answered come June. Just think, the future is so bright we have to wear shades.

I’m sure you have been checking out Pistons.com all day long but just in case you missed it, check out the HUGE welcome AI is getting.

Tonight’s tip is at 7 PM and will be locally broadcast on FSN Detroit an NBATV. If you can’t catch it on TV you can always tune in to 1130 AM WDFN The Fan or stream it live through your computer at NBA.com.

Sources tell WDFN’s Matt Dery that Antonio McDyess Should be back.

What it means is The Pistons hope that IF The Nuggets buy out Dyess- which they may – then they would have an opportunity to bring him back. What it means for me is…Ice For Dyess is still in play.

“The Detroit Pistons have reached a tentative agreement to trade Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson. Neither player was at this morning’s shoot-around. Team officials said that more information would be forthcoming later today.”

A. Sherrod from MLive

UPDATE:

Justin in the comments just mentioned that “Ric Bucher just said Cheikh Samb also included.”

UPDATE:

Just heard on WDFN that Dyess will be waived so we can resign him in 30 Days.

“NBA sources said the Nuggets have inquired about obtaining Denver native Chauncey Billups from the Pistons for Allen Iverson. Because of Iverson’s lucrative contract ($20.8 million) it would take more than Billups ($11 million), though .” Via Boston.com

I am curious to see what you think about the “rumor”. Like mentioned, you would need to ship someone else with Billups in order to make the deal work. I personally don’t think Iverson has it anymore and is really the guy to get this team over it’s hump. DBB makes some good points that are worth thinking about. I’m leaving the comments open to you as well as a poll for percentage sake.

With all that was surrounding Josh Smith and Detroit trying to land him this summer there were a lot of unanswered questions from a fans standpoint. Some Pistons fans wanted to know if the possibility of a sign and trade for Smith was possible with Atlanta for the budding superstar’s services.

Sure we may say we want the deal done, but The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement has the last word. So here is the question, can the Pistons legally pull off a deal with Atlanta for Smith?

Enter Dave Dial of MLive, who was nice enough to give us a detailed answer to the question.

“When Josh Smith signed that contract with Memphis, it prohibited any sign and trade for Smith. Either by Memphis or Atlanta. When Atlanta matched the offer, that made Smith ineligible to be traded for 90 days from the day he signed the contract, and also gave him one year of veto power on any trade. Meaning that Smith has to consent to any trade the Hawks could work out after the 90 days have passed. The rule is 90 days or December 15th, whichever is later.

Also, Smith automatically became a BYC player when he signed that contract. Which means that since the contract was reported as a 5-year 58 million dollar contract, Smith’s first year salary is 10 million dollars, so his BYC value(50% of the first years salary) is 5 million to the Hawks, but 10 million to any team he is traded to. With the rules regarding trades in the NBA, the receiving team would have to send out at least 7.4 million dollars in contracts(25% + 100k of 10 million), while the Hawks could only take back 6.35 million(25% +100k of 5 million). So there would have to be a third team, or extra players involved.

When the NBA raised the trade rules from 20% + 100k to 25% + 100k, it did make trades involving BYC players easier, but still difficult. Atlanta could add players to increase their outgoing total, but that total would also increase the other teams value, meaning they would have to send out more contracts too. But a trade going something like this could be worked out. Detroit sends Tayshaun Prince(9.5 million) and Amir Johnson(3.66 million) to Atlanta for Josh Smith(10 million-5 million BYC) and Speedy Claxton(5.7 million). That trade would work under the CBA rules.

Basicaly any sign and trade can’t happen, but if the Hawks(and Josh Smith) want to trade with Detroit, it would have to be after December 15th and would require a trade somewhat like the scenario I gave above.”

So there you have it Pistons fans.

Big thanks to Dave Dial who didn’t just give me a quick yes or no answer to the question I posed. When he’s not keeping us updated on The Pistons over at Full Court Press, he’s probably brushing up on his CBA knowledge. Plus I think he’s got a cool name.

The Detroit Free Press:

“A team source confirmed the Pistons did approach the Atlanta Hawks weeks ago about a possible sign-and-trade deal involving restricted free agent small forward Josh Smith, but said Sunday that the two teams haven’t talked in weeks.

The source indicated the Hawks were asking for too much, and both sides walked away from any possible deal.”

A. Sherrod Blakely of MLive still remains hopeful :

“Still, multiple league sources confirmed Sunday night that despite no sign-and-trade offer on the table between the two teams, Detroit remains very interested in the 22-year-old restricted free agent.”