Ellington provided the Pistons with some much-needed shooting after being traded from Miami and bought-out by the Suns. Ellington has a tremendous ability to hit shots on the move, and has continued to improve his shooting ability throughout his career.

 

Ellington doesn't have much to offer outside of shooting, which is why he struggled to get the playing time that I thought he deserved in Miami. Plenty of teams could use another shooter at a reasonable price, so I expect Ellington to get interest this summer in the mid-level range.

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The Pistons will only have Non-Bird rights on Ellington, which means the most they can offer is a contract starting at $2.8 million. So in order to retain Ellington, they will have to use their Mid-Level Exception. Depending on whether or not the Pistons bring back Ish Smith, they may only have the Taxpayer MLE of $5.7 million rather than the Non-Taxpayer MLE of $9.2 million. This could be enough to bring back Ellington, but the Pistons will look around to see who else they could bring in for that amount.