Agent: Antonio McDyess Will Return to Detroit

Sure, the Pistons were utterly and completely embarrassed on their home floor by the lowly Timberwolves last night, but there's still reason for fans in Detroit to smile: Antonio McDyess is coming home. His agent made the rounds informing the media last night, text messaging the AP and explaining his client's motivations to ESPN:

"It was a very difficult decision for him. He was weighing good offers financially, along with other variables he thought were important," agent Andy Miller told ESPN.com. "But going into the year he had a team goal set, and to not finish up with it, he didn't want to do that. He wants to finish the year, finish what he started in Detroit, then reevaluate after the season is over."

League rules dictate he can't re-sign with his former team until 30 days after the trade that sent him away, so his return won't be official until Dec. 3. Assuming he maintains his conditioning, there's a chance he could be in uniform two days later when the Pistons host the Sixers on Dec. 5, though a more realistic target is probably Dec. 7 in New York.

Did McDyess have a handshake agreement with Joe Dumars to return all along? We'll never know for sure, but one thing is clear: he's leaving a lot of money on the table. He gave up nearly $9 million to receive his freedom from the Nuggets, and the most the Pistons can offer him is the $1.9 million bi-annual exception. He had 18 teams interested in him, including several that could have offered him roughly $5 million with the mid-level exception.

By losing last night, the Pistons fell to 6-5 since the big trade. It's easy to pin the blame on adjusting from the steady Chauncey Billups to the flashy Allen Iverson, but it's painfully obvious while watching Detroit's bench that the team still hasn't found a reliable scoring big man to shoulder the load when Rasheed Wallace sits. And considering Wallace is hardly the model of reliability himself (he shot just 3-10 from the field last night), McDyess' return can't happen soon enough.