Detroit Pistons: C

What a sad ending to the Drummond era, as the Pistons decided that getting anything of value for him -- a second-round pick in 2023, and probably not even a good one -- was preferable to bringing him back in 2020-21, either on his $28.8 million player option or by re-signing him as an unrestricted free agent this summer.

I wrote earlier this week about why Drummond's market might not be as robust as expected for a player with his prodigious box score stats. Still, this low return is shocking and suggests Detroit should have been more aggressive about looking to move Drummond before we got so close to his potential free agency.

On the plus side, the Pistons have clarified their position heading into free agency this summer. They can create somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 million in cap space, depending where their pick falls in the lottery. Since Detroit isn't close to competing for anything more than the low-rung seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, long a goal for the Pistons, the wiser course of action would be to use this money to take on other bad contracts in trade.

Making this move now also opens a path for Christian Wood to start at center the rest of the season. He has averaged 21.0 points and 10.7 rebounds per 36 minutes season, making 64% of his 2-point attempts and 38% of his 3s. I don't think Wood will be a dramatic downgrade from Drummond in the middle, though he too will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Detroit does have to be careful of avoiding a bidding war for Wood if he continues to play so well down the stretch.

Cleveland Cavaliers: B

Drummond isn't an obvious fit in Cleveland, but at some point, the price was low enough that the Cavaliers might as well give him an extended tryout the remainder of this season.

I'm intrigued by how he might fit with Kevin Love offensively. Drummond is probably a bit more of a threat as a roll man than incumbent center Tristan Thompson (apparently not headed toward a post-deadline buyout despite this deal) and definitely more capable of making good decisions with the ball in his hand. Drummond and Love could probably be involved in two-man actions at the elbow with the hope of creating more favorable matchups.

Defensively, it's unlikely Drummond will do much to help the NBA's 29th-ranked unit. He's a marginally better rim protector than Thompson but less capable of stepping away from the basket or switching. Love and Drummond, the NBA's leading rebounder this season, will probably find themselves competing for uncontested misses.

In the event Drummond picks up his player option, he'd take up all of Cleveland's remaining cap space. Otherwise, the Cavaliers will probably still look to re-sign him assuming things go reasonably well. It's unlikely Cleveland was going to do much better with its money in free agency, and the Cavaliers could still try to add salary for draft-pick compensation in the form of a sign-and-trade deal involving Thompson.