I would be fine with Merkley if it were just on-ice issues. But we're talking about a kid who has burnt basically every bridge he's ever crossed, and by all accounts hasn't learned any lessons yet. He's not good enough as he is right now to be an offensive defenseman in the NHL, so it doesn't really matter to me how good he is right now. (Also, that A/60 graph floating around seems misleading to me, because Merkley gets incredibly sheltered icetime.)
I just could not see using a 1st round pick on that guy (or even one of the early 2nds). Not when there are so many good players that are going to still be on the board. Besides, it's not like Detroit is 2 years back and so starved for offensive defensemen that they'll take anything. They have Hronek, Cholowski, and Saarijarvi. Maybe even Sulak. They don't have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this.