St. Louis Exchanged Bob Ferry for Ed Conlin
St. Louis traded Bob Ferry to Detroit for Ed Conlin on April 16, 1960. The Hawks, Pistons and league Basketball-Reference transaction ledgers all agree on the date and straightforward player-for-player structure. Ferry had just completed his rookie season after St. Louis selected him in the first round of the 1959 draft. Conlin was an established veteran who had arrived in Detroit in the George Yardley trade a year earlier. There is no additional cash or draft component attached to this April transaction in the verified ledgers, so the source-backed review keeps the package simple and judges the result from the players' actual post-trade paths.
Ferry Became a Four-Year Detroit Rotation Center
Ferry became a durable rotation center for four full Pistons seasons. He played 79 games in 1960-61, 80 in 1961-62, 79 in 1962-63 and 74 in 1963-64, totaling 312 regular-season appearances. Across those seasons he scored 3,851 points and collected 1,968 rebounds. His strongest scoring season was 1961-62, when he averaged 13.9 points and 6.3 rebounds, and he remained an important frontcourt piece through 1963-64. Detroit later included Ferry in the June 1964 multi-player trade with Baltimore that brought Terry Dischinger, Don Kojis and Rod Thorn to the Pistons, giving his tenure identifiable downstream value beyond the four seasons he played directly.
Conlin Never Played a Regular-Season Game for the Hawks
Conlin never played a regular-season game for the Hawks. St. Louis acquired him in April after the 1959-60 season and then traded him on October 17, 1960 with cash to the Philadelphia Warriors for Ernie Beck and Woody Sauldsberry before the next regular season began. That downstream conversion means the Hawks did not simply lose the asset for nothing, and both Beck and Sauldsberry subsequently appeared for St. Louis. Still, Conlin himself provided no on-court return to the Hawks, while the later package came only after St. Louis added cash and moved him again. The direct April exchange therefore produced almost no immediate basketball value for the Hawks.
Detroit Won the Direct Value Comparison
Detroit clearly received the more durable asset. Ferry gave the Pistons 312 games, four seasons of frontcourt minutes and later became part of another substantial trade package. St. Louis used Conlin as an offseason bridge asset and converted him before he ever appeared for the club. The Hawks' later Beck-Sauldsberry return deserves recognition, but it should not erase the difference between four years of direct production and a player who never suited up for the acquiring team. Ferry was not an All-Star, yet his reliability, scoring and rebounding make the original one-for-one trade decisively favorable to Detroit.
Final Verdict
Pistons Win — St. Louis C+, Detroit A-. St. Louis traded Bob Ferry to the Detroit Pistons for Ed Conlin on April 16, 1960. Basketball-Reference's Hawks, Pistons and league transaction ledgers all preserve the same date and one-for-one package. Ferry became a four-season Detroit rotation center, playing 312 regular-season games from 1960-61 through 1963-64 and totaling 3,851 points and 1,968 rebounds before he was included in the 1964 Bailey Howell trade with Baltimore. Conlin never appeared in a regular-season game for St. Louis; the Hawks moved him with cash to Philadelphia before the next season began. Although that later move returned Ernie Beck and Woody Sauldsberry, Detroit received the far stronger direct and durable value from the original exchange.