Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 1: Getting Started

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

This episode introduces the podcast and answers some listener-submitted questions.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome to the first episode of what for now we'll simply be calling the Reddit Detroit Pistons podcast. My name is Mike, otherwise known as Narwin, and this podcast going forward is we intended to be a very community-oriented affair. I plan to be discussing topics and answering questions posed by members of the subreddit. And ideally, schedule and interest permitting having a lot of members from the subreddit on the show as well. Plan as well is to have guests on for most or all of every episode. Today is just going to be more of an introductory affair, just to get the ball rolling while I try to figure out the overall structure of the podcast. So it'll just be me answering questions,

giving my opinions in response to questions posed by some of you on a topic I recently posted on the sub. First off, before I start, I'd like to thank everybody who expressed interest and encouragement. as well on this podcast, as well as everybody who posted questions for today's episode. Now, this is the first podcast I've ever personally recorded. I'm still very much learning the recording software. So I hope you forgive me any issues to the sound quality that may arise. So with all that said, let's move on to the subjects that were contributed for today's show.

We're going to move through these chronologically, starting first with those that deal with the immediate future, moving on then to those that look at the playoffs. And then finally, those that look into management issues in the more, distant future. So to begin, Karim FF7 asks, can you talk about the Bruce Braun dilemma we're having and if he deserves to have a starting role over Luke Kennard? So let's just first talk about how we got to Bruce Brown being in the starting lineup. Going into the season, we had two small forwards on the roster, Stanley Johnson and Glenn Robinson. Stanley, everybody was hoping would make the jump offensively, of course. He's always been a pretty good defender. Glenn Robinson was

signed as essentially insurance. You know, best case in Stanley would pan out. Glenn would be a small forward off the bench. And worst-skinned scenario, Stanley would not work out, and Glenn would step in. He'd always been a pretty good spot-up three-point shooter, good at basket cuts, couldn't transition. So, you know, you think you've got a decent starter there, even if a limited one, even if one who's not great on defense, but he's good enough. So, as we know, Stanley didn't work out. He still couldn't shoot. They brought in Glenn Robinson. He did pretty well for a little while, and then he pretty much crashed as well. So at that point, they moved Bullock to small forward.

It's a position he could play, but Reggie Bullock's maybe a couple hundred pounds, sobbing wet. He gives up a lot of weight to a lot of the small forwards he was asked to defend, so it's not really ideal. In any event, Casey took the sort of unexpected step of putting Bruce Brown at shooting guard. Then when Reggie Bullock was moved, bringing way down. Ellington, he starts a shooting guard, Bruce Brown moves a small forward. Now, on to Bruce himself, and excuse me if I ramble a bit about this, but

I don't think he's really even definitely ready to be playing in the NBA at all, certainly not ready to be starting. I mean, certainly give the guy credit for some things. He's a super hard worker. He's a good character guy. He's very much a team guy, but he's extremely raw, particularly in the area of scoring. And today's league is a score as Leigh, as Ed Stefanski put it, and I agree with the way he put it.

Best way to win these days is simply to outscore your opponents. The rules strongly favor scores, particularly with the changes that have been made this year, to freedom of movement. You've seen a lot of players and coaches come on and complain about them, Draymond Green and Greg Popovich in particular, say, you know, it's not really very possible to play good defense anymore. Whatever the case may be, and this has been the case in the league for some years now, it's pretty permissible to be a good shooter who's a bad defender.

it is no longer okay to be a bad shooter who is a good defender. I mean, we'll get to Bruce's bona fide as a defender later, but whatever you want to say, he's an absolutely terrible score. Right now, if you look at any player in the NBA who has started in at least 20 games, Brown is second to last in true shooting percentage, which means he's terribly inefficient score. If you just look at effective field goal percentage, which is just shots from the field, free throw is not taking into account.

He is still second to last. He is one of the worst players in the league at driving the basket. He has been blocked. He takes a vast majority of his shots within 8 feet of the basket, most of them within 5 feet, has been blocked on, I think, over 15% of those. Just his efficiency on drives is horrible. He is a terrible three-point shooter. I think he's in the mid-20s on catch-and-shoot threes, which is completely awful.

He makes the Pistons 4V-5 on offense, and you just can't do that these days. And you see how some of the better defenses in the league adjust, like Denver in the game earlier this week. In the first quarter, when the Pistons scored eight points, part of that was just bad shooting. But part of that was that the nuggets were exploiting Bruce Brown's presence. Whatever Griffin would go toward the basket, whenever Jackson would go toward the basket, pretty much whenever anybody tried to drive into the paint, Bruce Brown's defender would leave and go and double them. And that would be the end of that. defenders habitually will sag off of him by six, you know, by a solid six or seven feet,

because they know that even if he gets the ball and he's wide open, he's, you know, he's going to miss a great deal at the time. You know, on his wide open threes, he's shooting less than 30%. So, you know, let the pistons give him the ball, let him shoot those threes. That's great for the other team because that's just an incredibly inefficient shot and it boils down to a terrible offensive possession for the pistons. So Bruce essentially makes the pistons. 4 v5 and on offense, and that's just something you can't have in this day and age if you want to

run a good offense, and the pistons have struggled to run a good offense all season long, of course. You'd benefit much more from having a guy in there who might be a bad defender, but can actually shoot the ball and can give the pistons the ability to run a real 5V5 offense. Now, the thing is also when we're talking about replacing Brown with a guy who isn't a very good defender but can shoot. Brown unfortunately, despite it seems impressions to the contrary, is not really a very good defender at all, at least at this early stage of his career. He's what you would call a deceptively not good defender. A lot of you probably remember Avery Bradley. He was really well thought of as a

defender, particularly by his opponents. What he really was in reality was an excellent isolation defender. That is, a very good one-on-one defender, good at staying with this man on the weight of the basket. Not so good in other walks of defense, particularly, for example, the pick-and-roll. And pick-and-roll defense is huge in today's league, just huge in general. Bruce Brown is a good isolation defender. He's got long arms. He's athletic. He moves his feet well. He can stay with guys in the weight of the basket and generally just do a good job in isolation defense,

which is why he received some plaudits and praise earlier in the season for his work on James Harden, who operates a tremendous amount in isolation, though generally very few guys can stop him anyway, Bruce Brown included. Brown, however, is a horrible pick and roll defender. Generally, you know, shaking him, and this was the case with, with Bradley Lester as well, though it's even more the case with Brown. Shaking him is generally as easy as running him into a hard screen. He'll either fail to navigate the screen, and that's the one end up way behind his opponent,

or he'll fail the switch. You know, if another defender from the Pistons goes to cover his man, Bruce will just get lost. The result is a defensive breakdown. Most often, somebody will get an open three-point shot. The consequence is that Brown is a terrible three-point defender. During his time in the starting lineup, he's allowed his defensive assignments upwards of 42% from three. That's really bad, and it's exceptionally bad on a team whose defense really focuses first and foremost on defending the three-point line.

Though he's done significantly better from within the arc, he's still definitely not a standout in that area. And overall, just his struggles of defending the three-point line mean that his opponents are shooting really well, pretty well from the field. put it that way, well over league average efficiency. And the picture gets even worse when you take his fouls into account. He is tremendously foul prone. Again, if you look at guys who have started at least 20 games this season, and if you take out of the list, you know, centers are naturally going to be more foul prone because they're defending the paint.

If you take them out of there, Bruce Brown is second worst in fouls per 100 possessions. The only guy behind him is James Ennis, former piston from last season. And he started in just about half as many games, 26 versus Brown's 49. So that just makes the efficiency picture even worse, where Brown defensive efficiency, rather, where Brown is concerned. So basically the whole picture is you have a guy on the floor who is dreadful on offense. Like terrible provides no value. Provides negative value, in fact, because guys can just essentially leave him

and go and focus on the other guys to Pistons have on the floor. and as a defender, he's not providing much at all either. He's a minus defender. So the fact that he's in the starting lineup at all makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, completely irrespective of the fact that the pistons are still relatively weak on the wings, certainly still quite weak at small foreword. Brown is essentially providing a very negative value in the offensive end and somewhat negative value on a defensive end.

And it would be a questionable roster decision even if he were a very good defender. The days of the defensive specialists in the NBA is pretty much gone. You have very, very few guys, like exceptionally few guys in the league who are making, who are not centers, who are finding a place in the rotation, a major place in the rotation, let alone a starting role in the NBA, who can't score and are just doing it purely in the basis of defense. The last couple guys you had in the league who did that last season were Andre Roberson from the Thunder and Marcus Smart from the Celtics. Now, Marcus Smart has gotten it together. If I recall correctly, is shooting above league average from three point range, which is, you know, great for him. Roberson has been

out, but Roberson, honestly, if he provides, he's much like Brown, he provides nothing on defense. Marcus Smart at least was a, you know, he was a pretty good playmaker, decent maybe, driving to the basket, and just good, you know, half decent at running an offense. Now, played the vast majority of his career as a starter alongside All-World offensive talent. First, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, then for one season, Russell Westbrook alone during Westbrook's MVP season. And then, again, last year alongside Paul George and Westbrook.

Even then, Westbrook was a problem because opponents could play Oklahoma City 4V5, and that's never something you want to see, even for a team that had that much offensive talents, which is significantly more than the Pistons have. If Roberson were to come back now, he probably, you know, he won't. It's been a long road for him recovering from an injury actually sustained against the Pistons last year.

But if he were to come back now, just miraculously recover overnight, you wouldn't have a place in the starting lineup. For the thunder, it just makes a tremendous, you know, tremendously greater sense, pardon me, to have Terrence Ferguson, the lineup instead because he's a decent shooter uh excuse me it's a decent defender but he can shoot and that's just that's just much more valuable now so even if brown were you know a very good defender still this wouldn't really make much sense but it's kind of irrelevant because he's not a very good

defender or a good defender uh he's he's a minus defender so there just isn't a single good reason to be starting bruce brown and there's ample reason not to be starting him now so who do you replace him I would not replace him with Luke Kennard. I'll go over that in a bit. I think the obvious choice is Glenn Robinson III. Now, we won't mince words here. Glenn Robinson the 3rd has not been a good player for the Pistons this season. So ultimately, we're choosing between poor and worse.

And if you have to choose between poor and worse, you choose poor. Now, here's what Glenn Robinson can offer. Number one, and this is big, maybe bigger than it sounds. He is a half-decent, half-acceptable, three-futable, point shooter and he will not be left open at the three point line. Now that's pretty vital. It is a huge problem. If, as is the case with Bruce Brown, you've got a guy whom defenses are perfectly comfortable just leaving to double somebody else or to clog the paints. I mean, that's a gigantic problem. So the fact that that will not happen with Glenn Robinson III is, it would be very helpful.

Also, like I said, he's a half decent three point shooter. You leave him wide open to the three point line, especially from the corners. He might do a decent job of it. He's also fairly good in transition. decent in basket cuts, that he's not, for my liking, has not been used nearly as often as he should have been by Dwayne Casey because he's quite good at those being extremely athletic. And on the defensive end, which is supposed to be Brown's forte, Robinson isn't particularly good, but he can hold his own. He's probably, you know, I would say roughly comparable to Brown as far as how many points he actually gives up. He's also larger, do a better job of defending opposing small forwards. the ones Brown is going up against, I weigh him by anywhere between a lot of them 20 to, you know,

20 to 50 pounds. He's only 200 pounds. So he's just in every way a preferable option. Now, why wouldn't I put Kennard into the line? I feel that Luke Kennard is and will be best suited to a bench roll, you know, probably across his career. And this is why. I see Luke Kennard as kind of a Lou Williams type.

player. I mean, goodness knows if he's ever as good as Lou Williams, fantastic. I don't ever expect that to be the case. But I see him as the kind of player. You take him off the bench. You let him handle the ball. You let him be the center of the offense. And you let him shoot as much as he wants to and give him as much help as you can. And he scores a lot of points, provide some playmaking. If you put Carnard in the starting lineup where he's not going to be able to handle the ball because Blake Griffin and Reggie Jackson are possession hoovers, I mean, they eat up all the possession there is, then you're really wasting something of what Canada offers. He's shown this year that he can actually be pretty effective in the pick and roll.

Opponents have really begun respecting him because he's one of amounts, at least over the last few months, but amounts to an elite mid-range shooter, which means if he comes around the pick, you can't give him any space at all. He's just going to shoot the ball, and obviously that's a problem for a defense. If a guy is consistently making that shot, that helps to open up space. for other, you know, for other teammates, whether it's the other guy, whether it's the role man, whether it's other teammates, because, yeah, you really got to pay attention to him. So if you don't want him handle the ball, then, you know, you're really wasting what he can offer

in that respect. And also just coming off the bench, he's going to get a lot more priority. He's going to get a lot more chance to shoot. And, you know, in all of we're talking about all around, Luke Canard is the best shooter on the team. And he also functions best when fed, when given the ball a lot, when given a lot of help, and he can get going really quickly. So it can be really very helpful if he's one of the main guys out there, which again is never going to happen with Jackson and Griffin both on the floor. There is also the matter of defense. I mean, in this situation, you know, whether you're playing Kennard at shooting guard

or small forward in the starting lineup, say what you will about Luke. I mean, one of his main downsides as a player and what really provides a ceiling as a player, he's not very athletic, particularly for his position. He's not particularly quick. He's got a slow first step. His lateral mobility is poor. He's got a pretty bad wingspan, short than his height, which is pretty unusual for the NBA.

So all that means, basically all that means, and you've probably all seen it, that he's struggles as a defender. And therefore, it's best, honestly, he's a lot like Lou Williams in that respect as well. It's best to keep him out of the starting lineup so that he doesn't have to go again. guys he's just not, he's going to tremendously struggle against. You don't want Luke Kinnard out there

against a good opposing wing rotation. You know, even if they're not beating him off the dribble, he's a switch risk. You can switch much bigger guys onto him. But also in isolation, he's just, he struggles because he can't move very fast and his arms aren't very wide. So it's best to keep him away from those guys if you can. And for guys like Kinnard, who are defensive liabilities, I mean, as a coach, you're always looking at maximizing the strengths of your team and minimizing their weaknesses of getting the most net value, which would be value in versus, you know, value positive versus value negative. Karnard's value positive, this is scoring, his ball handling, and so on, his negative value

provides is on defense. So really you want to put him in a situation where you can provide the most value possible, and that's going to be from the bench. Now, that's not to say that I don't think he has a pretty big future with the pistons, because I believe that he does. Just, you know, some guys aren't going to be best as starters. And, you know, they can provide more value from the bench. Maybe this is going a little off topic, but I think there are Pistons fans out there who don't

really like the notion of Kinnard playing a long-term bench roll. They tend to view him in the shadow of Donovan Mitchell. And I would like to think that Kinnard going forward could, you know, be as good as Donovan Mitchell. I think it's more reasonable to view Kinnard just in the context of what he can bring. And if you've got a guy who can come off the bench and give you. you 12 to 15 points per game on good efficiency, then strictly speaking, that's a really good value off of a number 12 pick, which is where Luke was selected. So I appreciate the question.

Moving on to a related question from Stuffdude, who asks, does Luke move to the starting two position next year, given his breakout this year? That will probably lose Ellington duty cap. As I said, I don't think we're likely to see Kahnard in the starting lineup. I personally don't think it gives them the best chance to shine. Which, of course, raises the question of who is going to play there next year. Now, what I see in the future for Knard, and this may seem a little radical, and honestly, there were those who suggested it in the off season, and I thought he just wasn't up to it. I would play Luke as the backup point card next year.

He's proven that he has it in and to handle the ball. He can be a threat off the pick and roll. He's got to be guarded very closely. because they can shoot from anywhere. And, you know, he's good at attracting attention, and he's proven to have surprisingly good corporation. He's a good passer. I was particularly impressed on the recent game against the Suns

when he got to handle the ball on a few consecutive plays. And on one of those plays, he went around to pick, drew a double team in the way to the net, and shoveled the ball behind him to, I don't remember who was waiting at the three-point line, but Luke was able to be able to be able to be, aware of where that guy was and to make the pass without looking. So, I mean, it's just an example of the guy's a surprisingly good ball handler, and though he

struggles on the way to the basket still, and who knows, maybe he'll, you know, maybe he's got the smarts to get there without, you know, without the sort of high-level athleticism, that, you know, which is real asset in trying to reach the basket. But I just think he's a guy who has it in him to be a very talented score and good ball handler. pretty good creator for others. And based on what we've seen, I mean, I think you just got to put him into a position where he can handle the ball as much as you can give him and, you know, get him as many shots as you can, because he's also just a guy who really thrives off of momentum and stumbles when he's not able to shoot consistently. And playing a point guard will give him the chance

to do all of the above. That, of course, brings up the question of what do you do with Ish Smith. Now, Those of you who have been on the sub for a few years know how highly I think of Ish Smith. You know, I think he's just a very high character guy. He's a real hard worker. I don't think he's a good fit for this team anymore moving forward. Now, just to bring it up, there's been a lot that's been made of this team's record with and without Ish Smith. Sure, the team's better with Isch Smith than without. It's a little skewed.

You recall that Isch played with the team throughout its very easy, early schedule. it's like first 20 games or so. He got hurt just as they embarked on that difficult schedule, and then he came back when the schedule got easy again. So that's part of it. But you also got to consider that it was a drop-off from Isch Smith to Jose Calderona backup point guard, and Jose Calderon is, it seems not really qualified to play in the NBA anymore

because he was absolutely terrible. So that's just something to keep in mind when you see that statistic. But honestly, Ish, it's an issue that he's a bad shooter. I mean, that's a problem in general. It makes him kind of tough to put on the floor with certain players the pistons have, makes him a bad fit with, you know, not an ideal fit to have on the floor with Drummond or really with anybody else who can't shoot. He's really bad off the ball.

He's just not a good shooter. He's a terrible catching through a three-point shooter, which just makes him also a tough fit with anybody who really needs, you know, with anybody else who's ball dominant. Basically, if you want to get a good value out of fish on the floor, you have to give him the ball. And that just sort of limits your options on offense when he's out there. But I think more than anything, if we're thinking in terms of the bench,

Ish is just, you know, and in terms of Isch having him of the ball, that just makes him a terrible fit with Lou Canard, who, as I said, I think is going to be a very important part, very important piece for the Pistons moving forward. And Ish, honestly, I think we'll hold him back. This possession is a zero-sum game. And if you give the ball to Ish, which you have to, if you want him to do good work, it means Luke can't have the ball.

And their fit since Ish returned has not been encouraging. Ish has been much more apt to look for his own shot. And this hasn't played all that nice with Luke. I'm not suggesting it's deliberate. But, you know, it's just, you know, blue can obviously play off the ball, tremendously better than Ish. but you're really just sharply limiting of what Luke's what Luke can offer if you put him out there on the floor with Ish-Smith. So I think you let Ishko. There would be a couple other benefits

of following this course of action as well. First off, you kind of loosen up the glutt at shooting guard. The pistons have quite a few shooting guards right now. And if you're still playing Luke at shooting guard, then, for example, you're going to have a tough time finding minutes for Kyrie Thomas, who is a promising member of the organization. Actually, some pre-draft profiles projected him as just a three-neast starter at shooting guard. But you've got a lot of guys playing at shooting guard. I doubt the Pistons will be able to move on from Galloway this summer. Maybe they'll try, but I doubt anybody's really going to trade for him.

I believe his cap hits close to $8.5 million for the final season of his contract. So I think it's pretty likely he'll be on the roster next season, but you never know. But you also just really want to be able to free up minutes to play Kyrie Thomas. The organization is still, by all accounts, real high on him. In certain mock drafts, definitely in the 2018 draft, he was projected as a potential 3-and-D starter. But whatever the case, you want to free up some minutes for him. And he's more or less position-locked at shooting guard for the moment.

He doesn't handle the ball well enough to play point guard. And he's only about 6'4-inch shoes. So you really don't want to play him at small. forward if you can avoid it. He could probably defend there. I mean, the guy's pretty beefy. The combine, he was about 200 pounds at I think about 6.5% body fat. So not really easy to push around, but it becomes kind of a different story on offense when you get to shoot over guys who are way taller than you are. And ideally, you don't want somebody, only 6'4, trying to play defense on small forwards on a regular basis. So it'd be great to free up some minutes for him.

So, yeah, just freeing up the glutted shooting guard would be. would be a definite benefit, particularly if the pistons end up keeping Ellington, which I'll go over in just a couple of minutes. Another small, this is a pretty minor benefit, is that starting look at point guard would make it more palatable to have him on the floor with McElleyuk at the same, have the two of them on the floor at the same time. The org apparently really likes McCalliuch. They, well, to the extent at least that they could have gotten another second round pick out of the Lakers, wanted him instead, even though he'll have burned a year on his entry-level contract at the time next season starts. But probably never going to be a good defender. Sort of fun, not-so-fun

fact, Sveit was actually at the 2017 combine, though he wasn't drafted in 2017. And he was the only non-point guard there with a smaller wingspan than Luke. So small wingspan is a major disadvantage as a defender. Also, Sveed just isn't really all that quick in his feet. So if you put he and Luke together on the wing, things probably could get a little bit ugly defensively. But if instead you can put a guy at shooting guard like Thomas or like Brown, Bruce, though he's struggled, the defender in the starting line, it was actually a pretty good bench defender. As far as Ellington himself goes, yeah, that's a tough one to call it.

It's not out of the question that the pistons keep him, because floor spaces was like him who can, you know, just curl around screens and hit threes right away at a pretty high percentage. That's a tough play to defense. When you get guys who can hit those, that's very valuable. So who knows they could look to keep him. I don't see them doing it, though, if they can't find a way to loosen up that glutted shooting guard because they really need to address needs elsewhere. And there's also just no reason to have that many shooting guards in a roster to begin with.

Now, of course, the question becomes if he's gone, who replaces him, Galloway is not going to do it, obviously. So it would come down to Kinnard, Thomas, Brown, or somebody that they draft, I would be extremely surprised if they drafted a shooting guard, you know, just for the obvious reasons that it's just not a need right now, you know, compared to small forward in particular. And you just don't want to further deepen that hole of shooting guards you already have. So, but shooting guard is something that's tough to call. But I don't see Luke starting next season.

Also, a quick small correction. Langston Gallo is salary next season is actually $7.5 million, not $8.5 million. I still don't think it's very likely the Pistons will be able to move his contract unless it's part of a larger deal. Moving on, we've got a couple questions about playoff matchups. Now, I'm just going to go over all three opponents against whom the Pistons might play. I like to think it's probable the Pistons will end up in the sixth or the seventh seed. But given how close things are, it's not out of the question that they fall to 8 and they're playing against the Bucks. I'll begin with a team

whom it seems no Pistons fan wants to play against, and that is the Philadelphia's 76ers. So the Sixers, I agree, are the nightmare matchup for the Pistons. They just match up very well against the Pistons from top to bottom, just based on the composition of their roster. They also are the only team in the league, aside from Golden State, who has the luxury of having at least two very good players in the floor at once

throughout the entirety of a game, assuming good health, of course. You've got Joelle M. Bid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, and Jimmy Butler. And if you are the coach of the 76ers, then you can have two of them on the floor always. And that's just a tremendous luxury. But also you look at such things as that the Pistons really, they don't rely on interior scoring, but Blake Griffin, that's really his bread and butter. He can score from the outside, but he'd prefer, you know, to score from down low. Drummond, of course, is limited to scoring from down low. Joel Embedd is, in my opinion, the second best defensive center in the league behind only Rudy Gaubert.

So just from the start that you've got just a major big lead defensive anchor guarding the basket makes things more difficult right off the bat for the pistons. You've also got the duo of Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons who might be able to do a fair job of defending Blake Griffin. Most teams don't have another guy in the starting lineup who's really big enough beyond their center who almost invariably goes on to Drummond. They don't have another guy who's big enough to defend Griffin. Ben Simmons is 611, about 240. He's not that much smaller than Griffin. He could do a fair job of it. Jimmy Bell where's pretty beefy to his position, too.

The fact that at least in the starting lineup, the Sixers can completely ignore Bruce Brown. And they've got a couple guys who can really help on Griffin will be a major benefit to them. So they can manage that. You can easily hide Tobias Harris on Bruce Brown, too, if you choose to. Harris is the pretty weak defender. Honestly, JJ Reddick is probably the weakest defender out there.

You can hide him on Bruce Brown, and that becomes a non-issue. And also, the pistons are just going to have, would probably just have a miserable time trying to defend against this team. Drummond's, Joel Embeditt is just a rough defensive assignment for anybody, but certainly for Drummond. The guys who Drummond really focuses, or really has trouble against are guys who can physically compete with them around the basket and stretch the floor. You know, Mbid's not the greatest three-point shooter, but he can still score pretty well from within the arc. he can drive the baskets, you can score around the baskets, and he's a big guy, very athletic. He can physically compete with drum, and he's one of the few who can. You look at, you know, Tobias Harris shouldn't, you know, Griffin did a decent job against him in their last couple of matchups,

but Tobias Harris is no longer anything like a number one option on this team. You know, he can be the number three, number four, even number five guy you have to look at when you've got J.J. Reddick on the floor as well. So getting away from Griffin, who is not the greatest defender and has become increasingly unreliable on defense. won't be the biggest issue for him. Jimmy Butler, this is going to be a tough one. Jimmy Butler facing off against Detroit's wings. Butler is really going to be a physical handful for other Bruce Brown or Wayne Ellington

or anybody the pistons have on the wing to handle. I don't see the pistons really having anybody who can reasonably compete with him. They just don't have anybody big enough. And you even move down to JJ Reddick. Now, if you want to play him against Bruce Brown, great, because JJ Reddick gets great. deal of his offense running around screens and Brown can't defend against those.

And then Ben Simmons, who is just, who plays point guard, is 6-11. And, you know, Reggie Jackson, goodness knows, has his large wing span, which is helpful, but defending against Simmons is tough. So the Pistons just outmatched from top to bottom, you know, trying to stop the 76ers on offense. When it comes to the bench, Sixers aren't that deep. You know, you've got Mike Scott, you've got Boban, you've got who, who, who, who else you've got James Ennis and T.J. McConnell. That's a decent

bench, but it's a bench that's made a lot stronger by the fact that, again, you've almost invariably got two of Embed, Simmons, Harris, or Butler out there, not to mention Reddick. So the Pistons be pretty outmatched on the bench as well. So that is just a tough, tough matchup for the Pistons. And I don't think

a sweep would be out of the question, unfortunately, because the Pistons are just really outmatched in basically every respect. And this has not helped for example, by the, you know, legendary, by this point, M-Beed versus Drummond matchup. Say what you will, you know, Drummond managed to hold his own the last time, and he's, of course, improved a great deal, and hopefully, you know, over the last few months, he's played much more consistently, and hopefully he won't go completely flying off the reservation

like he has a few times against M-Bed. But Drummond is foul prone. M-Bid is excellent at baiting people in the fouls, and should Drummins end up with two or three fouls, you put Zaza on the floor and then it's just over and Embed can just eat you. And, you know, that's just not a situation you want to be in in a playoff series. You don't want to be in any of these circumstances in a playoff series. So it's just essentially the Pistons don't really have any significant strengths over the 76ers.

There's just really no obvious route to winning games and they're pretty much outmatched across the board. Moving on now to the Toronto Raptors. Detroit matches up better against the Raptors. I do think that Detroit's regular season has led some folks to undersell the Raptors a bit. They are a very good team. And during the regular season series, the Pistons had some pretty big injury look. As the Raptors were missing key players in each game, and the games were very, very close until the very end.

Nonetheless, in the first game, the Raptors were missing their starting center, Sergei Baca. To that point, he had been one of the better centers in the league, he'd been extremely efficient on offense, being a very good defender. and also the Raptors had to that stage been bringing Jonas Valenciunus off the bench, allowing him to feast on opposing backup centers. Valanchunus is not ideal as a starting center because he's just not a very good defender at all. So that was a great arrangement for them.

Missing Yubak had downgraded them from that to Valentunus starting and the corpse of Gregman Roe coming off the bench. That's a pretty big downgrade. And the pistons, especially against the pistons, you know, with our old, you know, with the team's reliance on Griffin and Drummond down low. And the Pistons won in a buzzer beater. Second game, you're missing Kauai Leonard, who's, of course, one of the very best players in the league.

The Pistons have no answer to him on defense, not anymore, with Stanley Johnson gone. And, again, the Pistons win a very close game. And then in the third game, you're missing Kyle Lowry, your All-Star point guard and Sergei Baca, your backup center. And so you go from Lowry Van Fleet, which is a very good point guard rotation to win in Van Fleet.

A win has seriously struggled with the Raptors, and he was very bad in that game too. And your center rotation goes from Gassal and Ibaka, which is pretty darn good, to Gassal and Eric Morland, which, as we know, is not so good. And again, the Pistons win a very close game. So they probably don't match up against the Raptors quite as good as some people think. Nonetheless, they do match up quite a bit better than they do against the 76ers,

and that is largely just boils down to the front court. You know, the Raptors, Siakum's done very well this year. He doesn't handle really big, beefy players very well. Gassal and Ibaka are both good defenders, but they're both kind of past their primes. They're not the elite paint defenders that they once were. So the Pistons are just really Griffin and Drummond in particular are much more able to go down to work against the Raptors

and they are against the 76ers. So that alone, It just gives the pistons a significantly better shot than they would have against the 76ers. That said, the pistons are still significantly outmatched in some ways. Kauai wanted for one, there is nobody on the roster anymore who can even, as the slightest chance of slowing them down on defense. And also, Toronto's bench is still significantly stronger, particularly if Jeremy Lynn can get it moving. You've got Fred Van Fleet, excuse me. You've got Sergei Baca, Oju and Inobie is still a pretty good player.

Not still pretty as young, but he's pretty good player, especially on those nights when he's actually hitting his shots. So I would give the Pistons a chance at taking a game maybe two off the Raptors, but the Raptors are still a very good team, provided that they stay healthy. I mean, you look at the starting lineup, Lowry's still a very good player. Danny Green is having one of his best seasons ever, I think perhaps his best from the three point line, which is saying something for a guy who used to be one of the elite three-indy guys in the league. Kawhi Leonard's a great player. See Akum is almost certainly your most improved

player. And Gasol is honestly probably the weakest member of the starting lineup, but that's just because he's on the older side. And he's still a very viable starting center. As I said, they've got a pretty strong bench. And they're well-coached. So it would be less of an uphill battle for the Pistons than would be a series against the 76ers, but don't make any mistake. This would still be very much an uphill battle. The Raptors are a very good team when they're healthy. Now, as with any series, who knows, you lose some gut injury. The things can change, but that's not something you can count on.

And finally, that brings us to the Bucks. The Bucks are somewhat less menacing than they were a couple, excuse me, two or three weeks ago, due to the injuries to Malcolm Brogden and Nicole Mieritich. That said, this is a team that has gone from maybe a nine and a half to a nine, nine and a half to an eight and a half. They're still an excellent team. Janice is one of the best players in the league. Mike Budenholzer is the odds-on favorite to win coach of the year.

The team is extremely deep. So they're a little less scary. They're still very scary. By all accounts, they're not very worried about the first round. They know they'll have those guys back most likely in the second rounds, and they think they've got the first round on the bag. To be honest, they're probably right, no matter who they play against. Because they've just, they've got enough weapons,

and they're well-led enough that neither the Pistons nor the Nets, nor the Hornets, nor the Magic, or Heat, really stands much of a chance. So that said, I would still rather play them than the 76ers simply because having Brogden out of the lineup is kind of a big deal for the Bucks. However, again, like the Raptors, this is a team that the Pistons might take one game off of. They're just, they're an excellent team, and the Pistons have no way to stop Yannis. There's just nobody who can do it. So, all told, if I had to pick a team for the Pistons play against, it would be the Raptors.

I think that would provide the most entertaining series for Pistons fans. I think against the Bucks, there would, I believe, just be a sense of almost inevitable defeat that would probably put a damper on things. And I believe the 76ers would just be a very, very frustrating matchup. So I would hope for the Raptors. That said, I think we're talking less the difference between victory and defeat and more the difference between an enjoyable series and an unenjoyable series. It's very, very rare for a bottom three seed to beat a top three seed,

and the talent disparity in the east this season between the top three and the bottom three is just tremendous. So I think you could see the Pistons maybe take one or two games off the Raptors, but I think that the odds against the series victory are going to remain pretty long if the Raptors feel a healthy roster. Moving on then to matters beyond this season. So I have a question about whom I would like to see the Pistons draft with whatever a draft pick may be. So there are 14 teams that miss the playoffs. The Pistons will most likely, just based on the disparity in record between East and West,

the bottom three teams in the East are going to end up picking 15, 16, 17. So the Pistons will pick in that range. As far as whom I would like to see the Pistons draft, really hard to say. at this point. This draft is very top-heavy. Some guys are pretty certain to go in the top six. Past that point, things get a little bit hazy. Guys are being mocked all over the place right now, so I don't think the rankings will really stabilize until after the combine, probably. And there's really just no way to have any degree of relative certainty as far as who's going to be available at that stage of the draft. I think the greatest need for the Pistons,

is a small forward, of course, they really need an answer at small forward for the future. Even if it's just a guy who can play 3 and D, great, because the Pistons, that's just the team's single greatest need. I would write point guard as the second need simply just because Jackson's nearing the end of his current contract, and the pistons are pretty much set, at least in the starting lineup, in the other positions. Got out of the question as to possible trade deadline moves next year with the assets we have at our disposal, including expiring contracts. unfortunately there is no way to know in what position the Pistons will be at that point, whom they'll sign this year on free agency, any potential trades they might make in the interim, whom they draft, I mean, they could really hit on somebody at the draft.

It's small forward, for example, or at any position, well, largely just small forward, I'll put it that way, but whoever they draft really, if they were to really hit on a draft pick, that would change the team's future outlook significantly. So there are just too many factors between now and late January, early February of next year to really predict what things will look like at that point. I was also asked as to how I see the team looking in 2020, 2021, two seasons from now when a lot of contracts have come off the books. Same answer. There's really just no way to know what will happen with the pistons between now and then. A lot of things can change.

So that's, I think, just a little bit too difficult to predict. And we have a final question from Chef Curry sauce about my personal blueprint to Pist and success. Honestly, I'm probably going to leave this until the next episode. I know this is something I talk about a lot, but to be perfectly honest, it's taken me four hours to record about 42 minutes worth of stuff since I've paused and re-recorded stuff so many times. And I'd really like to have this podcast up for tonight. But I promise we'll cover that in the next episode, as well as,

I believe one or two other questions that I wasn't able to get to. So I would just like to thank everybody for listening and hope you will continue to post suggestions and feedback for the podcast. So everybody, have a great day and go Pistons.