Last month, the Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves were reportedly close to a making a simple point guard for point guard deal happen. Neither side pulled the trigger and Pistons head coach and team president Stan Van Gundy even assured Jackson he wouldn’t be getting traded to Minnesota.
But just about one month later, as the 2017 NBA Trade Deadline approaches and moves are being made all over the league, it appears these talks involving Jackson and Rubio have been rekindled but with one new wrinkle. The Wolves and Pistons want to move Reggie Jackson to a third team.
Apparently, Detroit is not too high on Reggie Jackson anymore and instead want to possibly pair Rubio with All-Star big man Andre Drummond, who also has been involved in some trade rumors himself.
Brian Windhorst said the following on a recent episode of the ESPN TrueHoop podcast while talking about some trade deadline things with Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post, True Hoop regular Big Wos, Sam Amick of USA Today plus Tim MacMahon, Baxter Holmes and Tom Haberstroh also from ESPN.
(segment begins at about the 1:14:00 mark of the podcast)
MacMahon was talking about the prospects of the Dallas Mavericks trading Andrew Bogut ahead of the trade deadline. Brian Windhorst interjected.
Brian Windhorst – “I’ll cut to the chase. Would they take (Ricky) Rubio or Reggie Jackson?
Tim MacMahon – “Well, what’s coming with it?”
BW – “Detroit may sweeten the pot”
TM – “Yea. I mean they need sweeteners to take that contract”
Tim Bontemps – “…Detroit would have to get back some kind of answer, at least, for a couple of years at point guard though and I don’t see what…”
BW – “Don’t be so sure about that.”
Tom Haberstroh – “oohhh..thems fightin’ words!”
BW – “Detroit is very motivated to trade Reggie Jackson”
TB – “I know they’re motivated but I would think they want to get somebody back who could play the position”
Big Wos – (jokingly) “The got Ish Smith, come on man!”
BW – “They want Rubio. The Challenge here…Detroit and Minnesota are working together to find a third team for somebody to take Reggie Jackson.”
…..
BW – “There’s numerous people making calls trying to find a home for Reggie Jackson as we speak.”
