i've watched a few pistons games this year and can attest to the fact that monroe is a poor defender. were he on the c's we would have THREE young power forwards who are currently below-average defenders.
and while a great finisher around the rim, his rebounding rate is below-average, too, he just plays a lot of minutes.
i think of him as being a poor man's al jefferson, he's talented but just not a winner.
pistons are in a sad situation, but trading monroe for a good small forward could really bail them out. we've seen the much-maligned josh smith carry the hawks into the playoffs year after year (i thought he was the best player on the court for a good chunk of the c's/hawks series a couple years ago). but smith played as power forward for the hawk, while he's mostly been a SF for detroit. advanced metrics show that smith is one of the best defensive players in the NBA when playing his normal position, power forward. put him at small forward and you get poor offensive production (he gets worse the further he gets from the rim), and his defense goes from stellar to just above average.
i would bet anything that if the pistons trade monroe for, say, jeff green, they'd see a huge boost in their winning %.
it's too bad smith is getting older, and is somewhat overpaid, because he could probably be acquired for a reasonable price. add him to a contender that needs a defensive big man and it might push them over the top.