Report: Pistons have discussed Reggie Jackson deal with Magic

The Detroit Pistons trade rumors don’t get a respite, even during the All-Star break.

Over the past few weeks, the Pistons have been mentioned in several trade rumors, most involving starting point guard Reggie Jackson.

The latest, reported Friday by ESPN’s Marc Stein, involves the Pistons and Magic, who made a deal at the deadline last year.

“The Pistons and Magic have discussed a trade that would send Reggie Jackson to Orlando for D.J. Augustin and Jeff Green, league sources say,” Stein wrote on Twitter.

The important verbiage in the report is “have discussed” the deal. The timing on it isn’t clear — whether it was in the past week or several weeks ago — but Pistons president / coach Stan Van Gundy has acknowledged that general manager Jeff Bower regularly communicates with other teams to gauge interest in deals.

However, the terms of the reported deal don’t match up. Jackson’s salary is about $15 million this season and continues through 2020, averaging about $17 million per year. Green is on an expiring deal at $15 million and Augustin, a former Piston, is signed for $7.25 million per year through 2020.

Because the exchanging salaries don’t match financially, the deal wouldn’t work, as constituted. There could be additional players involved — or even a third team — but that wasn’t mentioned in Stein’s report.

NBA at the break: Double trouble at top, as usual

ESPN.com senior writer Zach Lowe wrote a column this week outlining many of the Pistons’ issues, including their other apparent trade discussions involving Jackson and Andre Drummond.

Stein later added: “Not yet clear if talks go past the ‘discussion’ phase but Detroit, as Zach Lowe noted this week, has been exploring its Reggie options.”

Jackson, 26, missed the first 21 games of the season because of treatments for knee tendinitis and is averaging 15.2 points and 5.6 assists since his return.