Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 104: 2022 NBA Draft Prospect Shorts - Dyson Daniels (and more!)

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

This episode provides a short profile on top-ten 2022 Draft prospect Dyson Daniels, and goes into lesser detail on Johnny Davis, Ochai Agbaji, and AJ Griffin.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Drive into the Basket, part of the basketball podcast network. I am Mike back with one more final NBA draft prospect short episode. We are only about 48 hours away from the draft, and I've got to say, thank goodness. A lot of research goes into even versing oneself fully on guys who are likely to go into the top 20. And also, it's the culmination of a long wait. After the end of the season, we waited five weeks just to sit through 10. 10 minute, actually not 10 minute, more like a minute and a half show in which Mark Tatum pulled out placards and we got to see where the pistons would pick. Then we waited another five weeks to

see exactly what the pistons we'll do in the draft. So should be an exciting night, hopefully. Last draft is enjoyable as it was to see the pistons be the first team called up. Kind of knew that that was very little that was going to happen after that. So who knows, if you'll see more in the way of grant trade and then who knows what else. You can always be surprised second round picks and so on and so forth. But yeah, as I said, this would be the last of the pre-draft short episodes. Tomorrow will be posted tomorrow, a full-length episode, actually having Bryce Simons on the show from the Pistons-Polson Motor City Hoops.

So today, the only prospect I'm going to go over in full is Dyson-Daniels. And then some much, much shorter prospect, so to speak, on other guys. I'll go over Johnny Davis and some others. guys I don't think are likely at all to be of interest in business. So Dyson Daniels, about 6 foot 6 without shoes, 6, 10, 1⁄2 inch wingspan, 195 pounds, be a few months past 19 of the draft. He had a bunch of offers from NCAA schools,

and instead opted to go to the G-Leak Ignite program, D-E-Lake-E-Lite, once you play against, well, number one, lets you get paid directly, lets you, I suppose, not have to worry about school, and lets you play against better competition. Like the vast, vast majority of NCAA D1 players will not even sniff a G-League court. And, of course, the average G-week player will never sniff an NBA court. But nonetheless, the quality of the competition there is harder than the average player would face in the NCAA.

So what makes Dyson Daniels such, what has made him such a fast riser? He was originally on this G-week Ignite team, the three guys expected to go in this draft, all three guys, almost certainly. I'll just list them. There's Beaum, Bochamp. I can never pronounce his name right. Jalen Hardy and Dyson Daniels himself, for the three guys expected to go in the first round of this draft.

And Daniels ended up surprisingly being the one who will go the highest, and he's really gathered a lot of hype over the last couple of months. So, yeah, what makes him special? So sort of the really high basketball IQ glue guy, I would say, who can provide value on both ends. Definitely not the most athletic dude. He's a guy who's going to get by more with offering up a lot in the way of small things, hopefully on offense and then playing very strong defense on the other ends.

But starting with what he provides on offense, high basketball IQ. I mean, the guy is able to read the floor, is able to see several steps ahead and to make the right decisions. Not much to say here. That's just a very valuable quality to have. it's one that can't be taught. In terms of his passing, which is really his bread and butter right now in terms of offense, good vision on the half court, it's really good vision and transition, makes those lead passes really well. He's a fairly strong, pretty accurate patient passer who just sees the floor well.

He's got his foibles here, probably once he can iron out. He can make some bad passes and so on, but I think he's got pretty good upside in that capacity. His handle is pretty good, I mean, well enough for him to drive in at least. not great, but I'd say above average. Solid body control, he's got great agility. This guy did great, you know, an agility drill, the shuttle run in particular at the Combine. Just did an excellent job.

So, yeah, in terms of agility, he's really high up there. As far as his scoring goes, he's got a promising floater game. He's somewhat creative around the rim. Really, this isn't very strong right now, though, in terms of his scoring. But, I mean, it's really NBA ready skill at this point, I mean, where he's going to very likely shine is on defense. The guy would rank between behind Jeremy Sohan and Terry Easton. In terms of defensive prizes in this draft,

I think he's likely to be the third best. You know, barring guys who really come out of nowhere in the second rounds, you would find one of those. But at the very least, guys who are projected to go in the first rounds, though I'd say Sohan is likely to be the best defender in this draft period. I mean, he's just really high up there. Dyson is smart. He's long.

He's got excellent lateral mobility and overall agility. He got really good IQ, knows when to help, when to rotate, when to double team, plays the passing lanes well, uses this. He's got very good hands in terms of grabbing steals from players on the drive. So not much to say that I hadn't already said in yesterday's episode about Easton and Sohan. He's not quite as athletic as Easton. I would say not as athletic as Sohan either. And Sohan's pretty average.

But Daniels can stick with guys. definitely, I mean, regardless of that pretty meh, I'd say below average athleticism, can stick with guys really well thanks to his lateral mobility and his positioning. So he's a guy, I think you'd project to be able to guard two through four in the NBA. Just like with Sohan, when it comes to like super explosive players, I think he'll maybe not be quite as good. Yeah, so I'd project him as a two through four guy. So on, like I said yesterday, kind of like a 1.5 through 4.5. So rebounding was good in the G-League, but I would say I'm likely to translate.

He's not really explosive. And whereas his length was very helpful in the G-League, and it would be helpful in the NBA. There are a lot of long explosive players in the NBA. And finally, super-focused player with a good motor. So it might sound a little strange that Dyson has been so heavily hyped, and I've got kind of a small list of positives there. To a degree he's about upside. You know, can he bring it together as this sort of all-around glue guy player

who really provides a great deal on the basis of his smarts on both ends and also his defense. But definitely not a flashy player, definitely not an exciting player. I mean, and I'm not saying those in terms of, as well, I suppose I said, exciting. In terms of flashy, what I'm saying is that he's a player who's about fundamentals, and the hope for any team that drafts him is that those fundamentals will continue to develop. But getting on to his cons, and there are some fundamental issues here. but number one, athleticism is pretty, aside from his agility, below average. The guy does not have a good first step.

I mean, his burst is pretty poor. His top speed with the ball is pretty poor. I mean, not bad, but we're talking below average here in a very, very athletic league. And he's a handler too, which makes this more of an operative factor. So, yeah, not bursty, not fast, and not a good weeper. like he yeah just definitely not a good weaver so that hurts i mean it hurts that below average athletic is in the NBA it's not a killer just something that's you know it's a negative factor you can still be a very good player without it but that's worth pointing out and how will that

impact him for example off the drive like if you have relatively poor burst and you don't like if you're not an explosive player you're on the negative end of the spectrum in that respect And you don't have a very good handle. Like when I'm talking, like, if you don't have, like, a notably good handle, it's difficult to really attack the rim because you're not going to get, you can have trouble getting best guys because your athleticism really isn't, isn't very good, it's not going to serve you in that way. And you're not going to be able to compensate with the handle.

Like, I don't know, we bring up, like, with the person as an example, Cade, who, I'd say is actually fairly average in terms of, in terms of his first step. He proved a lot of people wrong in that respect. But, you know, so he doesn't have a poor first step. He doesn't have a poor top speed. But he's got a fantastic handle, like fantastic. You look at guys like Luca, definitely not explosive. That's fantastic handle.

And so, yeah, that can really just help compensate for it. And Daniel is more like just kind of a decent handle. So you just put those two together. And also the fact that he's unlikely to be the physically strongest player. And he's got pretty good body control than nothing special. I mean, this is the guy who's probably going to struggle creating offense off the dribble in the NBA, not a player who's likely to be achieving a lot of penetration.

So, yeah, of course that hurts. The ability to break down the opposing defenses off the dribble is very, very helpful in the NBA, not just in getting to the basket and scoring, but in generating opportunities for assists just by passing off the drive or just simply by wrong footing the defense. And I don't think that's something that Dyson really projects to be able to do all that well. And that he's that floater game, you know, which, which, which, looks very promising he's going to need it because I think he's going to have trouble reaching the rim. But even then, good luck being anywhere near as efficient on floaters as you could be.

You know, I'm really, but it's a very high percentage offense around the rim. And another issue. And this is going to be the major swing skill. And that's his shooting. He was a bad shooter in the G league, about 29% on catching shoots, 30% total, not from the perimeter. Of course, we're talking three-point shooting here. He improved briefly at the end of the season, which Could be down to two things. Number one, a fluke. You know, just player gets hot for a few games. Number two, possibly the change of mechanics. It was said that he made a slight change in mechanics down the stretch of the season. Maybe that accounted for it. But it is a very, very limited sample size at the end of the season. All right, we're talking eight out of 15 in his final four games. And he's not a guy who improved over the course of the season either as a three-point shooter. He started out pretty poor. Then he got even worse. And then he improved near the end. Of course, for anybody, the ability to shoot threes is a vital skill in the NBA. I mean, not just in being able to participate in that high-efficiency form of offense,

but also in defenders needing to cover you and your ability to attack closeouts and so on and so forth, but more or less an essential skill for any perimeter player. I'm sure belaboring a point that's already been made a zillion times. So the shooting is just a skill he has to have in the first place. this is a perimeter player in the NBA, there are, of course, exceptions to that. They're exceedingly few Jimmy Bubler, Rihanna Sintetico Impo, and so on and so forth. But also because he doesn't really project to have a tremendous amount of offball utility. So the guy is not likely to be beating his opponent off the dribble because he's just not that explosive at all.

And yeah, a guy who just doesn't profile is a very aggressive offball mover. Just kind of for that reason, even if he were to try, he's a guy. obviously not going to be a vertical spacer either and so on and so forth. I mean, a lot of of his offball utility is going to come from shooting. You'll see him also just take a pass and immediately pass it on to another player. I mean, that's a form of offball utility too. But he's, he's just got to be a shooter, not only, not a decent shooter, but actually a good shooter, I think, in order to have the impact on offense that people are going to be looking for if they draft him high. And you also come to his free throw shooting, which was often pretty bad,

but on a very small sample size, which is illustrated of another issue. He doesn't really drive hard into the paints and accept contact. He more often just settled for a floater or faded to the outside when he was taking his way up. So, I mean, that's just another sort of weakness. I think he's going to have his share of troubles getting to those spots in the NBA in general. And if he's not drawing contact and trying to get to the line,

it's just going to further impede him as a score. And as far as his passing is concerned, he's not so much of a penetration passer, so to speak, like get past his man, you know, draw some help and then pass to the open man. He's much more of a, just a limited penetration and perimeter passer guy, like somebody who might penetrate a little bit into the paints and then make a pass. And like I said, he's got good vision. He's a good passer. It's just, it's very nice to be able to get fully into the paint and really break down that defense

and find the open guy. Yeah, for him, it's either limited penetration or it's just he's on the perimeter and makes the pass to another man from there. So, yeah, I just deem that a weakness. Just the ability to penetrate is really nice when you're trying to generate high percentage opportunities for your teammates. So there's definitely a surprise potential here. Like he could really unexpectedly improve in a certain facet of his game. He strikes me as a player who really has a lot of potential to improve. But, you know, he might not also.

and so, yeah, your swing skill here. I mean, if he can shoot, then he's going to be a valuable player in the NBA for years to come based solely on the fact that, you know, in that case, he'd be a pretty darn good 3-Ind player, who's also got a good degree of utility as a passer, and just a super smart guy, just a good glue guy. So in terms of the fit with the pistons, I find it extraordinarily unlikely that the pistons would actually have any interest in him. You know, maybe it'll turn out that I'll end up looking like an idiot.

but I don't see a fit with him currently in the starting lineup, and I doubt that they, I'm very confident Daniels to be on the top 10, a lower end of the top 10. Even if the big pistons have a pick at that point, so I just don't see them spending it on him because he's, yeah, he's just not a good fit in the starting lineup. Like, number one, you put him next to Cade, who's going to be on the ball a good deal of the time

and who needs next to him strong shooters, and ideally at least one of the guy who can create off the dribble. So Daniels right now is not a strong shooter, and I don't think he's ever really going to be able to effectively create off the dribble. His primary skill right now on offense is a playmaker for others as a passer. That's really going to overlap with Cade, who's going to be doing a lot of the playmaking. And again, you can say, yeah, the Pistons want to have more than one playmaker. I think it's more accurate to say the Pistons want to have more than one creator,

more than one guy who can actually take the ball, create off the dribble for himself and for his teammates. You'd also have your athleticism concerns. Cade's more like an average NBA athlete when he's got the ball that, It's like just slightly below average NBA athlete overall. Sadiek Bay, below average NBA athlete overall. Again, this is not Knox in these guys. Obviously, they're certain pretty darn good players. But that's just where they are in terms of, you know,

everybody's got an athletic ceiling. And you add Dice and Daniels there. You're going to have a lot of what you saw, I think, early last season when Cade and Killian and Sadiq were all in the starting lineup. And there was that one game against. the cavaliers in particular, the cavaliers who were very fast team, and they were running circles around the pistons. And on the other end, the pistons were just having a lot of trouble finding any separation

anywhere. So you really want to avoid, I'm sorry, you guys have to hear me say this again. You really want to avoid poor athleticism on a lineup wide scale. It's a weakness. You don't have to have good athleticism to be a good player. It's a very helpful asset on a lineup wide scale. you want guys who you want enough guys in your lineup who are going to be able to at the very ways to achieve good off ball separation and you know to add to that vertical spacing and the

ability to explosively attack closeouts and so on and so forth there's so many useful applications of athleticism so there's also you know yeah you'd be looking at a back court and also full back court without explosiveness I'm quite certain you'd be playing in a shooting guard again the shooting is a concern. Let me say that again, obviously. There have been some concerns brought up about his, you know, if he's basically just a bigger Killian. And I would say does actually have some merit. Like before I really researched Daniels very much, before I'd researched them,

I thought, okay, no, that seems like a bit of an oversimplification. But knowing quite a bit more about him now, I would say that it's not entirely off-based. There are some differences between them. Like I think, Daniels is taller by probably about a number. inch and a half and longer, but, you know, those wingspan is probably about two and a half inches longer thereabouts. He's not an athletic himself. He is more athletic than Killian, whose first step is legitimately bad. In terms of overall speed, they're probably about the same, but in terms of overall, you know, ability to elevate at the rim, probably about the same. But Dyson's a slightly

more functional athlete, obviously more confident than Killian, Killing, who came into the NBA with very little confidence. I remember, like I got to say. sit court side in the Nuggets for his business game for about a couple of quarters. And so I was seeing Killian from about eight feet away. The guy looked terrified when he had the ball.

Not terrified, but he did not look confident. He put it this way at all. Look like he was running scared. Confidence is going to be something he's going to have to build in the NBA like unequivocally. You've got to play confidently there. And Dyson has them quite confident. It has that already.

The average player comes in the NBA does. But they do have some overlap in that they're guys who's passing is going to be their best assets who are not altogether athletic, both pretty strong on defense. I don't think Dyson's going to get burned by athletic guards like Killian does, but just a lot of overlap in terms of what they're good at. You know, high IQ, high court, you know, very good court vision,

very good passing, though I think Killian is the better of the two that did all three of those things, not by a ton, but certainly I would say better and more acuity on the pick and roll. the guys who don't project to be the strongest scores, and again, aren't going to be knocking your socks off in terms of their ability to create off the dribble. So, yeah, I mean, if Killian can come alive and become a more confident player and a decent shooter,

then, you know, I would say you can get a fair amount out of him that you would get out of Dyson Daniels, but that's a big if. Of course, it's a big if because Killian is starting from a low point, even with the improvements that he made near the end of last season, and he was still definitely not the rotation caliber player for a respectable team. But he's still young, and he'll get at least another year and a half, I would say, to show what he's got.

One thing I will say about the two of them is that Killain, I think, is going to be always at his best. And in order to get anywhere near the best out of him, you're going to have to be putting him in a situation in which he is running a lineup. Like, he's really the point guard there, and he's operating a lot with the ball on his hands. and I think Dyson, if he gets a shot together, can be more valuable in other capacities. You know, he can be in a starting lineup in which he is not the primary handler. But, yeah, and also, like I said, Dyson higher, higher defensive upside. He's just, he's more agile, better lateral mobility.

I'd say his upside is quite a bit higher. I think Killian has the capacity to be a good defender in the NBA. I think Dyson is just quite a bit above him in that capacity. But, yeah, if we're talking about offense, definitely, a significant degree of similarity there. And I'd like to put forward that Killian, if he can get everything together, is a high-ceiling player. It's just, does he get everything together based on where he has started?

Because, you know, if he can shoot threes, and if he can confidently attack the basket and accept contact, that's another similarity between the two. Neither of them is particularly inclined to accept contact out of the way the basket. If you can get there, accept contact, get to the free throw line a fair amount. and just be able to draw gravity on the way to the baskets. I mean, Killian is excellent basketball IQ.

He has an excellent passer. He's got great court vision. Oh, yeah, the left-hand dominance, too, that's an issue. But, you know, if he can get over his issues to a certain degree, then you've at the very least got a good NBA rotation player. And if he can get everything together, like this is what I've thought since the time he was drafted. If he can get everything together, maybe you have a point guard who can be on the low end at the top 10 in the NBA at his position. Now, is that likely to happen? I would say, no, not at all. But

Killian may conceivably have a good amount to offer if he can make the necessary improvements. Can he make those improvements? Who knows, he's starting from a lower point than Daniels, even though he's been in the league for two seasons, though he was injured for most of his first. So in any case, I think I've gotten a bit off topic here. I would have a little difficulty deciding anybody really to comp Daniels to. A guy that comes to mind, but is not a good comparison in my opinion is Tyrese Halliburton, just in being very smart players who could conceivably, I don't know, just, yeah, I don't like the comp.

I don't even know why I brought it up, honestly. I mean, Halliburton in college was already an elite shooter. He's definitely quite a bit more able, quite a bit more athletic than Daniels, just in terms of his ability to penetrate into the pain and make something of that. And, yeah, I don't think there are many good guys, good comps for Halliburton the entire league.

So in any case, I don't know whom I'd comp him to, really. But like I said, if you can get to the shot together even, then you've got the potentially elite role player in the NBA. And that's a very valuable player. And I think that teams will be confident you can get the shot together. And that's why he's going to go in the top 10. So let's move on to a few other guys that didn't get to. And these are going to be quite a bit shorter in terms of how much I go into them.

So that's going to be Johnny Davis, AJ Griffin, Oshaya Baji, and Jalen Williams. And Jalen Williams has really shot up the boards in part as a result of the combine where he came and really impressed a lot of people. But first, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors at Draft Kings. Hockey fans, pursuited to the Stanley Cup is on, and Draft King's Sportsbook and official sports betting partner, the Nitchell, as an unbelievable offer of the most exciting playoffs in sports. New customers can back $5 in any team to win and get $100 in free bets no matter what,

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So just a reminder, anybody who's, listening. It got a full set of very detailed stats on all these prospects in a Google spreadsheet. The link to that is in the podcast description. So Johnny Davis, that's 6-5 guard out of Wisconsin with I believe around a 6'7 wing span. Weight about 195. He'll be about 20 years old at the draft, played two years at Wisconsin. So Davis is very much the shock creator archetype. A shock creator archetype means we're taking a lot of pull-up offense, ideally from the perimeter, certainly in the interior. Did not do a good job of it at Wisconsin.

I mean, granted, he was carrying a very heavy load, but, you know, he was a standout player, a guy who played a ton of minutes, played 34 minutes a game. Average close to 20 points per game. Yeah, did a ton for this Wisconsin team. But unfortunately, just did not do great overall in terms of his efficiency. And just in terms of his archetype, what he projects to be in the NBA, did very poorly. make a ton of his shots were pull-up twos. He shot 34 and a half percent on those.

He shot 25 percent on pull-up threes. Didn't really even make him a ton of catch and shoot threes, about as many pull-ups as he took, but didn't do well on those either. He projects to have some trouble getting into the rim in the NBA because he's not an explosive athlete, does not have a particularly good foot speed. He's got a decent handle,

but he's not going to be, you know, faking guys out in the way to the basket. He's a willing passer, but he's not all that, But most of all for me, and yeah, it should be mentioned also, super hardworking guy, high motor, team first guy and so on and really works hard on defense, but may struggle because he doesn't have an explosive first step. So against explosive guards may have his issues, but definitely a super hard worker. But for me, it's like, you know, he's got the shock radar archetype, which is really

difficult to make work in the NBA. I mean, it's very, very, very difficult to take a lot of pull up mid-range offense and have that be efficient. I mean, do you want to be doing that? Okay. You better shoot in the high 40s. Otherwise, it's not a very efficient shot. And it's really tough to make those, even unguarded, it's fairly tough to make those. It's just a tough shot. And if you are being guarded, especially like with Davis, guys aren't going to be super worried about his attemptable, but his ability to blow it by them, but just if you're being guarded by NBA defense as it gets that much harder. You have, for example, somebody who might be a little bit comparable at Tyler Harrow,

but during his one season in the NCAA, he was drastically better at it than Johnny Davis was at Wisconsin. And the perimeter shot, of course, even just on catching shoots is a big question mark for Davis. So I think probably a bench player in the NBA. I don't think he really has any appeal to the pistons at all. Now let's move on to Oshaibaji for your guy at Kansas, about 6'5, 6.10 wing span weighs about 215, 220, and it'll be about 22 with the draft. product, I think he'll be a good 3-and-D guy. Really high-calibre perimeter shooter on the catch-and-shoots. And high defensive upside, thanks to his size, his length, his strength,

got good defensive IQ and should be a multi-positional defender on the NBA. Reliable vertical spacer from the shooting guard position, which is great. He's an awesome leaper. And just a good athlete overall, good NBA caliber athlete overall. Likely to be a finished product. And one of his weaknesses is that he is extremely limited as a creator at the age of 22 and not great at creating opportunities for teammates either. But just handle is poor, should not be on the ball very much.

His age, you might consider a weakness. He'd be halfway to 23 when he plays his first NBA game. But also just the kind of NCAA player you look at and say, well, he'll probably be good in the NBA, but he's unlikely to get much better. He might be of interest to the Pistons if they had snagged a good creator of power forward. Are they likely to do that in this draft?

Probably not. And again, we're talking, I didn't mention this, but as I mentioned at the beginning of the previous episodes, these guys were talking about Daniels, Sohan, Eason, and Jalen Duren, talked about Mark Williams as well. Our guys, assuming the Pistons could conceivably have a shot at if they trade Jeremy Grant for another pick, which may or may not happen. Impossible to tell if it does happen what they could get. But it's not like earlier in the draft, they're going to have the opportunity to grab a guy at Power Forward whom they'll look at and say, well, this guy's very, very likely to be a strong creator. I really question if they would look at Keegan Murray that way, but who knows?

I mean, I hope that they would not be considering drafting him just on the basis of his, you know, could be a good role player in the NBA for a long time. Nonetheless, I digress. So that's why I think O'Shea would be an unlikely pick for the Pistons, who probably are looking for upside. But who knows, he's a safe pick, absolutely safe pick, and could start for a team at shooting guard. for a long time provided that he's on the floor with the right guys.

But the pistons be interested in him. Depends on where they're picking. I might have a look at him nearly near the end of the lottery, but definitely not an upside player. Moving on, AJ Griffin, 6'6 out of Duke, 7 foot wingspan, weighs about 220, will not be 19 yet at the draft, very young. And AJ Griffin, excellent perimeter shooter in the NCAA, guarded or unguarded, was able to get some offense in the room that was created for him.

decent overall athleticism used to be much better before his injuries in high school. But as a strong frame and excellent wingspan. Yeah, his shooting is legit. Absolutely. It was just a great shooter from the perimeter on the NCAA. And had some, did great on the catch and shoot, had some upside as a pull-up shooter as well.

Now, three questions about him. Number one, sealing. I mean, does he really have it in him to be more than a role player? He did have sort of a secondary, or definitely had like a, you know, below secondary role at Duke, you know, beyond Paolo Boncaro, Wendell Moore, Jr., and I think his name was Roach. He had the other guard. So, yeah, he really didn't have much of a role outside of perimeter shooting. Could he have done more?

Who knows? But I question what upside he really has as a creator. That does not have the greatest handle by any means. Could he be like a decent shot creator? That's a possibility on a low volume. He did fairly well on pull-up twos. And, you know, he's got the athleticism that if he's getting guarded closely and inside the arc, maybe he'll be able to get to the basket. But I have my doubts in the handle.

So I'd say it's fairly likely that he's just a very high-level three-point shooter. A second concern is defense. Did not too well on that at that and the NCAA by any means could improve, might not improve. Number three is injuries, and this is a big one. I mean, he's already had pretty significant issues with one of his knees, which really sapped a fair amount of athletics. And, you know, that's a big question mark. If he's already had those issues, I mean, he's about 18 years old. And so you're really rolling the dice by dragging this guy high.

But there's also the fact that for Pistons fans, his name is Griffin, and he has had knee injuries. Obviously joking. But that's just kind of a funny correlation. Would he be of interest to the Pistons? If not for the injury problems, I would say, yes, conceivably with the pick, you know, from number 10 onward. But I think the injury issues just add too much of a risky dimension alongside the fact that he may have a role player ceiling and has major questions about defense. You know, especially you're looking at the defensive identity of the pistons are attempting

to build. Do you want to introduce a potentially just straight bad defender into that? That's a factor. So that'll be it for today's episode. Folks, if you enjoyed this episode and previous episodes, consider following the podcast on Twitter at To the Basketpod. be a full-length episode tomorrow. And after that, just one day to the draft. So thank you for listening. Catch you down.