The Detroit Pistons may be building for the future, but they still have a need for productive veterans, partly in order to show their young players the way to success in the NBA.
One of the few reliable veterans they had this season was Alec Burks, a 6-foot-6 guard who has spent a dozen seasons in the league.
It looks like he will be in Detroit for next season, as the team has picked up the team option on his contract for the 2023-24 campaign.
The Detroit Pistons plan to pick up Alec Burks’ $10.5 million option for 2023-2024, sources tell ESPN. Burks averaged 12.8 points and 3.1 rebounds last season.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 28, 2023
Burks provided the moribund Pistons with some accurate 3-point shooting, as he hit 41.4 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc this year.
Detroit had originally acquired him in a trade with the New York Knicks last summer.
Despite finishing with the NBA’s worst record, the Pistons had the bad fortune of only getting the No. 5 pick in last week’s draft, and they used it to select Ausar Thompson, a 6-foot-7 wing who has the potential to become a very effective and versatile defender.
They’re also hoping that Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, will start to emerge and truly tap into his potential.
In his two seasons thus far, he has averaged 17.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 5.6 assists per game, but he has shot just 41.6 percent overall and 30.9 percent from 3-point range.
The one real trade chip the Pistons seem to have in order to improve is sharpshooting forward Bojan Bogdanovic, who averaged a career-high 21.6 points a game this season and has been mentioned in numerous trade rumors.
He has two seasons left on his contract and could represent a significant upgrade for a would-be title contender.
