If you thought this year's NBA trade deadline might lack a little drama after a summer in which more than 60 current or former All-Star players switched teams, well, think again. Blake Griffin is reportedly headed to the Detroit Pistons. 

According to multiple reports covering additional details of the deal, the Clippers are sending Griffin, Brice Johnson and Willie Reed to Detroit in exchange for Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris and Boban Marjanovic along with two future draft picks, the details of which are below. 

If you're scratching your head right now, you're not alone. You can understand the reasoning behind this move for the suddenly long-view Clippers -- as cutthroat as it is after they pitched Griffin on being a Clipper for life before giving him a max contract to the tune of $173 million last summer. With Griffin's money off the books, the Clips are suddenly in line to make a run at LeBron and/or Paul George this summer, and two summers from now, when Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Kevin Love and Jimmy Butler will all be free agents, they'll have a ton of salary room with Danilo Galirnari's deal coming off the books. Suddenly the Clips are looking pretty good. 

But for Detroit to absorb the full weight of that five-year Griffin deal, which includes a player option for ... get this ... $39 million in 2021-22, when Griffin, who has only averaged 54 games over the last three seasons due to various injuries, will be 33 years old? That's a bit more perplexing. One scout I texted with shortly after the trade went down called it a "desperate" move by the Pistons, who have lost eight straight and 12 of their last 15. 

Entering Monday night, Detroit was ninth in the East at 22-26, a full three games behind the Sixers for the eighth and final playoff spot. Can Griffin turn all that around? That depends on your expectations. To be fair, if he and Drummond become what he and Jordan were in Los Angeles, that would be an upgrade for these Pistons, even if not enough to make them a viable contender. Griffin has stretched his game over the years with an improved jumper that can feel damn-near automatic from that 15-19 foot range when he really has it going (though he's currently having the worst shooting season of his career and still hasn't developed a reliable three-point game), while Drummond is the best rebounder in the league with tantalizing defensive upside that just isn't coming to fruition. 

Griffin is a much better option in the pick-and-roll with his ability to pop for mid-range jumpers, which should keep Drummond where he belongs on the block, concentrating on offensive rebounds. So their games do complement one another to some degree, and again, even without the complementary aspects, when Griffin is healthy, which he seems to be at the moment, he's an All-Star player who can turn into a superstar on any given night. When you can get a guy like that, there is certainly a line of thinking that says you make the move and figure the details out later. 

Through that lens, you can certainly understand, if not applaud, the move by Detroit -- which also looks pretty savvy when you consider how they acquired Tobias Harris in the first place, sending Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova to the Magic less than two years ago. To have, in effect, turned those two guys, Avery Bradley (who they were going to have a hard time retaining this summer anyway with the near-max money he'll likely demand as a free agent), and a couple fringe draft picks into Blake Griffin is solid work on paper. 

But of course, basketball isn't played on paper. It's played, you know, on the court, and on an NBA court you need a lot more than a couple solid big men to win. Heck, you could make the case that for the last year the Pelicans have had the two best bigs in the world, and for most of that time they haven't been much more than a .500 team at best. And know this: Griffin and Drummond, for all their talents, are not Boogie Cousins and Anthony Davis. 

So where does the support production come from for Detroit? Stan Van Gundy is likely looking at a starting lineup of Drummond, Griffin, Luke Kennard, Reggie Jackson (who is expected to return around the All-Star break) and probably either Stanley Johnson, who can't shoot a lick and hasn't come close to living up to his lottery-pick expectations, or Reggie Bullock, who is, to be fair, a 44-percent shooter from deep but is probably better equipped to come off the bench.

Kennard can really stroke it and is better off the dribble than a lot of people realize, and perhaps he hits another gear with more playing time. Collectively, however, that's not a lot of shooting to surround those bigs, and without shooting in today's NBA, you can pretty much forget about competing on any sort of meaningful level. Even with Bradley and Harris -- both of which are legit threats from the perimeter, Harris' recent slide notwithstanding -- the Pistons have had the fourth-worst offense in the league over the last 15 games. 

The flip side is that the Pistons now have a proven go-to scorer, a guy who can get you 30 on any night and will provide you with a steady supply of buckets to limit the droughts an offense by committee can often endure. It's a risk. No doubt about it. Again, that $39 million they could end up owing Griffin four years from now could wind up sending them into a death roll of mediocrity down the road. But the Pistons aren't playing for down the road. 

To that end, earlier this year, I actually asked Van Gundy about the trade that brought Avery Bradley to Detroit from Boston, with the feeling at the time being that it had worked out pretty well for both sides with Marcus Morris playing well for the Celtics. 

"Probably the majority of NBA trades end up working [for both sides]," he said. "Now, what you have a lot of times is teams with different objectives where one may bet getting someone who is more immediate help and one may be planning for the future."

Some nice foreshadowing there, as this is exactly the situation Detroit finds itself in with this move. The Pistons are playing for right now, and they see Griffin as the immediate help they need. The Clippers, meanwhile, are playing for the future, with reports already surfacing that they'll be looking to deal Lou Williams and DeAndre Jordan by the deadline as well. This is a fascinating trade in so many ways, a true home run swing for the Pistons, who are suddenly looking to be saved by a player, and a contract, from which the Clippers just decided to save themselves.