The trade deadline came and passed Thursday without the Pistons making any moves. General manager Joe Dumars was working the phones, but couldn’t find a partner for a deal he felt helped the franchise.

“We communicated with teams throughout the league, but at the end of the day, we were not presented with anything we thought was beneficial to us at this point,” Dumars said.

It was one of the more memorable trade deadlines in recent years with 18 NBA teams making deals in the final week before the deadline, but the Pistons were not able to find a deal that suited them.

The Pistons (19-34) will move forward with their current roster for the final 29 games of the season. A roster that has not played together much due to a rash of injuries to key players.

Detroit is currently 7.5 games out of the final play spot in the Eastern Conference and its playoff hopes are looking dimmer and dimmer by the day.

Any major changes to the roster will have to wait for the draft and the offseason.

The Pistons will also be quiet in the highly anticipated 2010 free agent market unless they can’t make a deal to clear cap room or a sign and trade deal. Detroit has more than $51 million committed to players next season (if Chris Wilcox picks up his $3 million player option). The NBA salary cap is expected to go down and one estimate has it dropping to $53 million.

Detoit will have its mid-level exception and the good news is, it could be a buyers market with many teams hoping to avoid the luxury tax at all costs.

Ben Wallace, Kwame Brown and Chucky Atkins will become unrestricted free agents after the season, while Will Bynum will be a restricted free agent. Bynum will likely be in line for a significant raise, he makes just more than $825,000 this season.