NBA Rumors: Pistons Expected to 'Rebuff' All Bojan Bogdanović Deadline Trade Offers

The Detroit Pistons are reportedly leaning toward keeping forward Bojan Bogdanović past the Feb. 9 trade deadline.

NBA insider Marc Stein reported interested teams have gotten the feeling the Pistons are "poised to rebuff" offers in hopes of keeping Bogdanović for the long term. The 33-year-old is a free agent this summer and is in the midst of a career-best season.

Averaging 21.4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists, Bogdanović has been one of the few bright spots in a dreary Pistons season. His scoring average is the highest of his career, and his 41.6 percent three-point rate is his second-best mark.

That breakout performance made it logical that the rebuilding Pistons would try to strike while the iron is hot and work out a trade for the veteran. Bogdanović's career trajectory isn't following that of the youth-laden roster, and a contender might part with a lightly protected first-round pick and potentially a young role player who better fits the timeline.

Instead, it appears the Pistons have signaled to Bogdanović that he's part of their plans, as he told HoopsHype's Michael Scotto this week:

"Having conversations with the club, [general manager] Troy (Weaver), and the owners, they assured me that we're going to be great next year. We have a lot of cap space to sign great players. We're going to have a high pick again, so that's going to help us a lot. We have a great young group of guys. When Cade (Cunningham) went down, that kind of hurt us big time. We were thinking that maybe we'd be fighting for the play-in tournament, but when he went down, he was our main guy. All of our offensive strategies were connected to him. When he went down, our season, we've had a lot of ups and downs without him."

Keeping Bogdanović likely means paying him upward of $25 million per year past his 35th birthday. It's unclear if that's a wise use of resources, but Pistons management looks poised to be aggressive this summer with the team's cap space before extensions for the roster's young players begin kicking in.