Nets get: Bruce Brown
Pistons get: Dzanan Musa and a 2021 second-round pick
Brooklyn Nets: B+
For the low cost of a second-round pick that probably won't be in the top half of the round, Brooklyn managed to both upgrade a roster spot and save money in this trade.
As a second-round pick in 2018 -- going 13 picks after Musa went with the penultimate pick of the first round -- Brown will make $1.7 million in the final season of his contract, or about $340,000 less than Musa.
(Brown's salary is non-guaranteed through next week, though my ESPN colleague Bobby Marks points out the Nets would have to guarantee a portion of this deal early to make this trade before the end of the NBA's transaction moratorium. Either way, he's surely staying on the roster.)
Every dollar counts for Brooklyn, which will start the offseason over the luxury-tax line before attempting to re-sign starting wing Joe Harris. Even with the reduction in tax payments based on how far short of projections the NBA's basketball-related income (BRI) falls this season, that salary difference will be multiplied in taxes.
Fortunately for the Nets, this deal also makes sense on a basketball level. Musa never found a foothold in Brooklyn. He spent the final month before play stopped in March in the G League and was behind Rodions Kurucs and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot in the Nets' rotation in the bubble. Even if Musa were to develop, his score-first mindset wouldn't really fit what Brooklyn needs from role players alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
Enter Brown, who has those role-player skills -- particularly at the defensive end of the court. With the Nets reportedly set to decline Garrett Temple's team option, Brown immediately becomes their best perimeter defender. Brown can defend bigger opponents, though at 6-foot-4 he's best deployed against guards, either on or off the ball.
Just how valuable Brown is for Brooklyn will depend on his development as a shooter. Brown shot 34% from beyond the arc last season, which looks pretty good until you realize it came on paltry volume -- just 96 attempts in 1,634 minutes. He took 2.1 3-pointers per 36 minutes, a number that would be out of place on the Nets. Every Brooklyn non-center who played at least 1,000 minutes last season attempted 6.0 3s per 36 minutes or more.
I suspect Brown will find playing time far more difficult to come by with the Nets than in Detroit, where he averaged 28.2 MPG and started 43 of his 58 games last season. Luwawu-Cabarrot, who's both more versatile defensively at 6-foot-7 and more accomplished as a shooter (he hit 39% of his 3s last season), probably has the inside track on Brooklyn's 3-and-D minutes.
Still, Brown fits better than Musa did, making giving up a draft pick well worth it.
Detroit Pistons: B
This trade seems like an indication that GM Troy Weaver, hired in June, is making the decisions in Detroit. Weaver hasn't had the opportunity to do much with the roster since arriving, with the team's only transaction during the June window being a non-guaranteed contract for center Justin Patton. I'd expect more action over the next week or so as Weaver reshapes the roster to his liking.
I doubt the incumbent Pistons regime would have been willing to deal Brown, whose development into a starter as a second-round pick was one of the highlights of their tenure. With fresh eyes, Weaver presumably saw that Musa -- a year and a half younger -- brings more upside.
His strong play in the Adriatic League as a teenager put Musa in the top 10 of my 2018 draft projections. And while that hasn't yet translated into efficient scoring in the NBA, or anywhere close, players rated as similar to Musa by my SCHOENE projection system have tended to develop quickly. Brown has the better 2020-21 forecast, but Musa projects to outpace him by the following season, the last on his rookie contract (a team option for $3.6 million the Pistons will have to decide on by Dec. 29).
Although I'm a little more bearish on Musa than his projections, it's a reasonable swing for the fences given Detroit will walk away with a second-round pick either way.