2014 NBA Free Agency Rumors & Predictions: Greg Monroe To Stay In Detroit! Stan Van Gundy Calls Monroe-Drummond An 'Ideal Pairing!'

The 2014 NBA Free Agency Rumors & Predictions are building up. One team that should be at the forefront is the Detroit Pistons especially with the new Stan Van Gundy regime.

SVG is not just their new head coach, he is also President of Basketball Operations, a position he specifically asked for. Now, he can control the personnel he has to coach. In short, Stan's the man in Detroit.

He does have his work cut-out for him. The Pistons are a team that doesn't lack for talent-they were just structurally dysfunctional. If the media reaction to your free agent acquisitions is "how will it work?" you know you have made some errors. These errors ended the Joe Dumars era. These errors are what they paid SVG $ 35 million to fix.

The big question was conundrum at the frontline. Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Josh Smith are their three best players and they could not possibly play together. Since Drummond was the consensus franchise cornerstone, either Monroe or Smith has to go.

When he took the job, SVG had positive feedback for both players and hinted that they would stay. Not everyone believed it, and we are keeping close watch on his subsequent statements. It seems like he has made his choice.

From nba.com, he described the tandem of Drummond-Monroe: "I think it is an ideal pairing. If I look at just the film I've watched now and looking at the numbers, you would say that Greg and Andre together were great offensively. That was a great combination on the offensive end of the floor, especially when the three guys around them were shooters - more conventional perimeter types. That worked very, very well. Now, it didn't work very well defensively. I think it puts a lot of responsibility on Greg Monroe to have to guard out on the perimeter.

"But I think there are things we can do in terms of schemes and things that would make it a little easier on Greg to make that unit better defensively and then take advantage of the offensive end of the floor.

"I love Greg Monroe.  I liked him before. Now, as I get into more film work and look at things, I like him even more. Highly skilled, high-character young big guy. Those are very, very hard to find. But free agency, even restricted free agency, you can't predict exactly what's going to go on."

While the Pistons have the cap space to match a max-offer for Monroe, they will have to worry about next year when Drummond will be up for extension. Thus, it's imperative that they move some high salary-Josh Smith or Brandon Jennings. It is highly believed that SVG is working overtime on that right now.