Current Detroit Pistons president of basketball operations and head coach Stan van Gundy has been in the NBA for 23 years now. He had stints for the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic prior to arriving in the Motor City.
Van Gundy built a solid team in Detroit, making the playoffs in 2016. In a lot of ways, it was similar to his team in Orlando, where he also had a dominant center and four shooters on the perimeter. An important part of that Pistons team was forward Marcus Morris.
Morris was traded to Detroit in 2015 and enjoyed the best two seasons of his career playing under Van Gundy. Morris, as a good three-point threat for a big man, was an integral part of the starting lineup.
As such, Van Gundy shared a few words with Rod Beard of The Detroit News on how felt about trading away Morris for Avery Bradley.
#Pistons SVG on Marcus Morris: "In this job, it's the hardest (trade) I've had to make, by far. Marcus was everything we'd want in a player"
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) July 10, 2017
While Morris was an important part of the lineup, the move made a lot of sense for Detroit given that guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope wasn't expected to sign a deal with the team. Bradley is an instant upgrade over Caldwell-Pope anyway.
Stan Van Gundy is known to have an infatuation over agile big men who can make the long distance shot. Furthermore, Morris brought an edge to the team whenever he's on the floor. It'll be difficult for the Pistons to make up for the loss up front, but they got good value in return to make things easier in the backcourt.
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