Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 111: 2021-2022 Season in Review - Saddiq Bey

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

This episode recaps Saddiq Bey's 2021-2022 season.

What's up everybody? Welcome back to Drive into the Basket, part of the Basketball Podcast Network. I am Mike. If you heard a monologue at you today about Sadiq Bay, hope you guys are all doing well. And sorry for getting this up a little bit late. I typically like to have these episodes up late on Tuesday night, very early in the morning on Wednesday.

It ended up getting a bit delayed. So this one, I suspect, will be going up around, I don't know, about 1 o'clock Eastern on Wednesday. So in any case, let's launch right into it. So, Sadiq Bay, the favorite of, or one of the favorites, rather, of just about everybody, myself included, believe it or not, despite the fact that I've been critical at points of him. So that criticism for the most part was, I suppose actually have you been listening to this show for a long time. There was quite a bit of criticism in the early stages of this last season. Most of that actually was reflected on to the coaching staff.

So get to that in a moment. So, Sadiq, 82-game Iron Man, one of only two starters in the NBA to play all 82 games, though that was, to be fair in part because of COVID, nonetheless, still very impressive to play all 82 games. At the other one, it must be called Bridges. Season before that, also in Iron Man, not in terms of being a starter, but the only two games he missed were from DMPs earlier in the season, so definitely a very durable player to this stage in his career. We hope that continues. Very durable despite being a very hard worker on the court and off the court, by all accounts. So this past season was less a tale of two seasons per bay than it was because, you know, two very different segments of the season.

We separated into those. So it was more a tale of like the first quarter or so of the season and then the rest of it. So you look at the first segment of the season for him. This was games one through 26. So from the beginning of the season up until the middle of December. So starting from Summer League, this coaching staff had had Bay. running this horribly ham-fisted experiment of, hey, Sadiq, why aren't you, we're just going to have you give you the ball, give you the ball at the perimeter, and we want you to take it, and we want you to

score with it, as if that's not the absolute most difficult thing to do in the NBA on offense. And also, you know, as if Bay's athletic limitations, which are real, we're not just not a factor, and they are a factor in terms of his ability to attack off the dribble. because Siddique has many strengths, and unfortunately, explosiveness and high top speed are not amongst those. He's below average in both capacities. Below average is a leaper as well, and he doesn't have the good handle that you really need to compensate for being below average in the first two of those qualities. But in any case, so he was set along that path, and the result was an unmitigated disaster. I mean, he was absolutely terrible.

Statistically speaking, 12 points, six rebounds to assist. About 34.5% from the field, 29.6% from 2. And his true shooting percentage, 44.2% of that point amongst starters who were taking a decent volume of shots. He was the second worst in the league. And in that rating of about negative 13.5, destroyed the lineups of which he was part on offense. about a negative 11 on slash off, the on off differential, basically means that the team is tremendously better

without him on the floor. And almost all of his big minute teammates were way worse with him. Just the true shooting at a team with him, the efficiency, rather, just the team with him on the floor was awful. I suppose you could look at effective field goal percentage better there, but whatever the case,

he was just a ball stopper, a horrible black hole, and an awful shooter. Basically, he'd have four types of shots. He'd try it from the perimeter. he would drive in for a flat-footed layup through like double or triple coverage. He would drive in for a floater through contact from like six or seven feet away. He would drive in and take a low percentage mid-range pull-up, or he would post up and take a bad turn around.

He was bad at all of these things. And he became completely unglued on both ends. Like his, even his three-point shooting, of course, struggled a lot. And he was awful on defense. and things were just bad. He was bad, the team was bad with him on the floor. And in the middle of December, on December 14th, I believe, 13th, 14th,

whatever was the game against the Pacers, you saw his role drastically change. The coaching staff seems to have just pulled the plug on that awful thing. And the season immediately, like immediately, took a big upturn for day. So what changed is, it pretty much just went back to a role of focusing primarily in its perimeter shooting

and doing some creation from the interior, just chiefly from the interior, taking the ball inside the three-point line and doing stuff with it. So from that point on, from games 2782, he averaged about 18 points on a significantly higher true shooting. I think about 56.7%. Sorry, I wrote out this enormous outline, but I excuse me 56.4% were shooting and as net rating improved quite a bit the team was pretty much

just as good with or without him on the floor which is you know here's what it is basically he wasn't dragging the team down anymore about 42% from the field 36 and a half percent from three and from then on he was the player everybody really expected him to be going into his sophomore season and a good player I'd say an unequivocally positive player He had the strongest stretch of the season between mid-december and early January that included the COVID stretch, during which he hit that game-winning three-pointer against the Spurs in my favorite game of the season. That was an awesome game. It was just really Hamadu and Sadiq, and if you want to count Garza, you can.

I mean, these were the three NBA, but the three players on an NBA roster, or on the, excuse me, on the Pistons NBA roster, were in that game. And, yeah, it was just the Pistons, a roster of those three guys. basically just two real NBA players and then Garza and a bunch of 10-day guys just scrapping their way to win against the Spurs team, which had most of its players. So that was pretty great. And of course, this stretch also ignited my favorite bromance on the team between Bay and Hamado Diallo. So whatever the case, between mid-December and early January, he averaged about 25 points per game, about eight and a half rebounds on that's 61.5% true shooting.

Fantastic, of course. You know, the fact that the COVID games were in the middle. You know, might change how you look at it a little bit because he was taking a tremendous, just a tremendously higher volume of shots, and they were playing against some not-so-great raw. So it was nonetheless, it's a very, very, very impressive stretch. You know, should not take that away from Bay. That was a very, very good stretch. He was taking more shots. He was doing it on great efficiency and was getting to the line a lot more.

So, yeah, he had really taken on a leading role, or really during the COVID stretch, of course, the leading role. but it had taken out a much bigger role in the offense. So that wasn't sustained. I mean, really tough to sustain that level of performance, and his usage did drop, of course, when Kate Cunningham and everybody else came back. But there's a trend there. Well, we'll get to the trends a little bit.

Anyway, he moved on, had his 51-point game against Orlando in the final month of the season. That was fun to see. And compare it to last season, just about 10% more on assisted offense. Did a tremendous amount more from three versus two. I think he took two-thirds of his shots. I got two-thirds of his points from three last season versus just under 50% this past season.

And still a player who went left when his own devices will make the right decision the vast majority of the time. Excellent work ethic on and off the court. It was told after this season to get a life in the off-season, which she apparently did not. because by his account, by kind of the others, he's working just as hard as ever. He loves basketball, his primary passion,

and he wants to be working on it all the time. Just a great team guy, super hard worker, a leader, culture guy, et cetera. There's nothing not to love about Bay in terms of his character.

And fortunately, we've got a lot of those guys in the Pistons now, and it's just wonderful to see. So as far as Bay's trends, so still a guy who does his best work from three. He was tried a lot more on two point offense and I'll note in this segment. I'm just talking about segment two of a season. Segment one of a season was a complete

and utter catastrophe. So and because he was being asked to do things for which that were just super difficult and which is probably not altogether very well suited. But yeah, so it did most of his damage from three in terms of, you know, got to about 50% of his special. points from there, and his efficiency was at its best from three. So he was more just a player who shoots a lot of threes and then does some creation in the interior, and then, of course, some unassisted offense in the interior as well. He was unassisted on more than 50% of his twos, however, that's notable, and unassisted on about one-third of his offense altogether, though he still took very, very few on assisted threes.

And in terms of his defense, still a good defender, or in my opinion was a good defender in the second segment of the season, still has some work to do in some situations, but it's hard to, it's really hard to nail down because you'll only see Bay making the right decisions. I think he's, we'll put it this way, I think he's a plus defender, how much he'll actually improve beyond that. Who knows, he moves his feet very well and very well. quickly to stay with quicker guys. He has the strength to hang with a lot of bigger guys.

And yeah, that's where he was. So overall, in terms of creating offense, which is really the question with Bay going forward, where can he create offense? Like, we know that I think we can be confident going forward. He's going to continue to be a strong three-point shooter that his consistency will hopefully improve. And also I'll continue saying,

I said this before last season, that I think creation, or excuse me, motion three point shooting is something he should really be working on. It's just a very, very valuable skill. We've seen some of it. He's very good at those side, step threes. There are some situations which he comes off screens and shoots, but if we could see Bay get to the point at which he can navigate a screen, grab a hand off, and take one of those, and take those sort of slightly off-balanced threes right away. I mean, that's a super useful skill. It is extremely difficult to defend against.

that. And though Bay is not super hard to chase around screens, I mean, it just means that you've got an extra option and defenses also have to account for it. Though Bay is, in his own right, just has a great mind for getting himself open at the three-point line in general. Like I've told this story before, like last season, at the end of last season, excuse me, his rookie season, when the Pistons were just trying their level best to lose games, he would just wind up open at the three point line constantly when the pistons did not have many weapons and I'd be kind of like face palming like what is wrong with these defenses like cover the guy I don't want the pistons to win so yeah he's just got a good mind for that also but if he can shoot those motion threes so much the

better but yeah and if he can be that's a guy who shoots motion threes and he can and he's consistent from three point range on high volume and I don't think that's unlikely at all then you know Even that, it's a very, very valuable player who can also, you know, pitch in with some playmaking for others off the drive, which he improved that, I think, quite a bit in this last season. He wasn't prolific at it, but he definitely can do it. And somebody who can just, you know, who knows where to be and can pitch in some spot creation in the interior and just some general offense in the interior. But back to what he did as a creator. So what he improved at doing creation from the interior. So I mentioned that earlier on when I noted that the Pistons moved him in the second segment of the season in terms of his creation more from just doing it from the interior.

So Bay's a strong player, like very well built. And so he would take the ball away on the low block and then just bully his way to the basket. And he'd do it quickly enough that help didn't have time to arrive. So that's something he can do. He did some offense from the post, still struggles from there. most players do however but when he tried to post up unfortunately just do it along the baseline and try to back guys down and help would come help didn't come in his rookie season in this last season help came and then he found himself in trouble but just getting himself to

the basket from the interior when he didn't have to go far he did well at that standstill midrange this is something that you saw more of as the season went on they would just receive the ball in the interior at a stationary position and take a shot. And he can get his shot off through close coverage. And he did a decent job at that. That's a useful tool. And down the stretch of the season, a little bit of pull-up two-point shooting.

On low volume, he did fairly well at it. That's tough to maintain. That's tough to do on high volume. It's just being a good pull-up two-point shooter on decent volume. There are very few guys who can do that, I think. Guys who were efficient, we're talking, like, in the realm of 47, 48%, on decent volume. In 48, 7.48%, I mean, that's where you want. want to be if you're consistently shooting, you know, any shot that's like your minimum threshold

for efficiency below which, well, 48% effective field goal percentage thereabouts. And from sort of self-created offense or for a really difficult offense, like pull-up two-point shooting, which is generally self-created, yeah, if you're worse than that, then you probably shouldn't be attempting it on significant volume. So guys in that category, I think there were 10 of them in the NBA. It's a very, and a lot of those guys are superstars, it's very difficult to make it work. So where he continued to struggle of reaching the basket. So as I mentioned, Bay's explosiveness quite below average, his just his top speed off the drive below average. And that makes it difficult for him to get past people. And if he's attacking from the perimeter, it also means that

helps can have quite a bit of time to arrive. So he also just, he also just, doesn't have the high-level handle that's generally required to compensate for those. His handle isn't bad, but it's not good either. And also, when he does get into the interior, has a really hard time elevating at the basket, which makes scoring there quite a bit more difficult. And, yeah, that's an issue. It's also something for which, in a way, the Pistons, in a way, Pistons fans should be grateful because it was those qualities that caused him to drop to number 19 where the Pistons were able to draft him.

there are these questions, well, look at these athletic concerns. He had trouble getting by guys, even in the NCAA, what's his ceiling? And a lot of teams thought, you know, clearly, to their regret at this point, thought a little a bit too low of the ceiling, the pistons got him outside the lottery, and fantastic. However, those athletic concerns still do merit consideration. They are a factor. So attacking off the bounce from the perimeter, even on the pick and roll, still not great. and will that improve, hard to say.

And just creating offense from the perimeter in general. This is something he struggled at doing. And no matter what part of the season you look, he struggled when he held on the ball for too long. He was great when he shot within 2%, excuse me, within 2% within 2 seconds of getting the ball, an effective field goal percentage of nearly 60%.

That's great. Once you get down to 2 to 6, the NBA.com categorizes it into those three, less than two, two to six, and six plus. It gets significantly worse. He was actually trending toward decent from two, though. It was around 44 and a half percent when he had possession between two and six seconds, which is definitely headed in the right direction, significant improvement over the previous season,

in which he just didn't take many twos at all. But can he improve that further to the point where he can be consistent? And again, 44.5 percent, this isn't said in the second segment of the season. Can he improve that further the point at which it is worth him trying to create two-point offense off the dribble? Like, can he improve that by like a solid 4 or 5 percent? So there's your question. And what's the ceiling is the question. And, you know, and who knows?

With all respect to Bay's work ethic, improvement isn't perpetual. It isn't a linear process. And it ends at some point. And whether or not you want to include Bay's age in this equation, I don't know, is anyone's decision? I don't know. That said, let's hear a very quick word from our sponsor, and then we'll complete the rest of the episode. The action never ends at Drafking Sportsbook, especially this summer. With tons of waste, bet on all your favorite sports, you can fuel your fandom and feel the heat of the season like never before.

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Okay, so back to what Sadiq Bay's season, excuse me, ceiling might be. we have those athletic considerations. And when you're, you have to take those into consideration as far as what his ceiling as a creator might be. Do you need to be a good creator in order to be a very valuable offensive player? No. You know, it's not a necessity. But if you can, you'd better be like absolutely excellent at something else. If you want to be like one of those, you know, top three player, for example, in a championship team.

And I think a question is, you know, a question that's often that I see often asked. amongst Pistons fans on the Internet, whatever, we can put it that way. But a persistent question is, is Bay good enough to be that number three guy in the championship team? And the number three guy in a championship team is pretty darn good. Like you look at recent winners, like the Bucks, you could argue it's either Middleton or Holiday. And they'd be kind of on the low end of that scale, too, because Janus is a perennial top three player. If you look at 2020, of course, that's the Wakers model. I have two different models for the talent that you need on offense to win a championship.

I mean, either your two superstars, that's AD and LeBron, or a superstar and two all-stars, like Janice, Drew Holiday, and Chris Middleton, that the latter two are not really perennial all-stars by any means. So third-best, in any case, yeah, third-best player on a championship team is going to be a pretty darn good player. So the way I look at Bay is, can he be that third-best guy? championship team or is he just going to be a very good number four guy also very valuable i think in in either instance pistons fans i would come away happy put it that way fourth best player on a championship team is a very valuable guy right there you're looking at for example what mikhall bridges is well was to to the suns when they reach the finals whatever you think about that finals run if you think

that there are asterisks that should be there and i would say that they are there are but whatever it's kind of a moot point so Where could Bay conceivably improve as a creator, in my opinion? Number one, shooting pull-up threes. Like, if that's a skill that he can hone, fantastic. It's just another option for him, another thing that defenses need to worry about. Like, if he can grab, if he can get it at the top, you know, above the break, you know, the top of the key, and just take a couple of steps and nail that three-pointer,

then cool, you have to defend him a lot more closely. and he also stands a better job. You know, not only is that just open up options. Well, put it this way. At the very least, he gives him a much better shot of getting past this defender. But it's also just a weapon in his toolbox. But that's kind of a funny way of putting it. Whatever the case, you get what I mean.

So that could be very valuable in itself, very good, just very, very good skill to have. And if you can also expand that to being a good pull-up two-point shooter, then, like, fantastic. You've got a guy who can create a, a fair amount of offense who has a definite weapon that's hard to defend against inside the arc, just that pull-up two-point shot. And that too would make it easier for him to actually penetrate to the basket because you've got to guard him slowly then in the interior, excuse me,

guard him closely then in the interior as well. Now, as I said earlier in the episode, that's a tall order, becoming a good pull-up two-point shooter. That's something that very, very few players can do. Can they do it? Who knows? I wouldn't give him a bad shot at it. I, would just be pretty tentative about it because that's a lot to ask. And if he can't do it, then that's no, like, that doesn't reflect poorly on him. That's a very difficult thing to do at the NBA level. But I feel like if he can't do it, that's really going, I think that's, that's, it's going to be hard for him to be an effective interior creator if he can't do that. So where do you look for that third best guy in a championship team value if he can't do that? In that case, I think

he probably just needs to be fully elite as a three-point shooter, like considerably higher percentage than he is right now, able to shoot those pull-up threes, able to shoot motion threes. But if he can't improve as a creator, and I don't think that that creation is going to come from just driving from the perimeter to the basket, I just don't think he has the tools to do that on a regular basis, consistently and reliably. Then, you know, the outlook probably declined.

significantly unless he is just that fantastic three-point shooter, fantastic all-round. Again, number four guy in a championship team, that's a great outcome against his draft position, and that's a very good player. And on top of what Sadiq provides in the courts, in terms of his scoring, in terms of on offense, he's always going to provide that tirelessly hard work, great character presence, that leadership, and he's just wise beyond his ears. So as far as looking forward to next season, one thing that I think is interesting to consider is position. And of course, this will depend upon how the rotation shakes out, how the starting lineup looks.

And the previous episode, I think two episodes ago talked about lineups. I think there are two conceivably likely starting lineups to begin next season. One, if Dwing Casey goes with spacing, like maximum spacing, you'd be looking at Cade, Ivy, Alec Berks, Bay, and Stewart. And the second, if Casey opts to include... a solid role man and finisher in the lineup, then K, Ivy, Bay, Bagley, and Stewart.

So, of course, the first lineup has Bay playing power forward. Second lineup has Bay playing, lining up at Small Forward. And Bay played a lot of Power Forward last season while Jeremy was out, almost all of his minutes, in fact, a Power Forward. While Jeremy was out, you had Hamadu playing at Small Forward during that time. And it's up for debate, which of the forward positions is better for him to play the majority of his

minutes at. I feel like I would be more partial to a small forward because that allows him a matchup against more players that he might be able to overpower in the interior. Also, there's less of an onus upon him to do a lot of rebounding. And rebounding, I don't think, is anything that Bay is likely to ever excel at. He's good at carving out position. Like, he's strong, not going to be easily moved and he boxes out absolutely and we'll do all the work he needs to do to get those rebounds but he's only about six foot seven and he's not a good leaper and a lot of defensive rebounding in particular is just being the guy who can jump the highest as long as you're willing to put in the work and box out and whatnot being able to jump the highest is being able to jump high

as an extremely useful skill and defensive and defensive rebounding offensive also but there's there's a little more that goes into it on the offensive end. Now, this isn't to say that he can't do a fair job at Power Forward as well. We saw him do so. I'm just talking in terms of the position that's going to most accentuate his strengths while minimizing his weaknesses. Because if you want him of a Power Forward, for example, like he's not going to benefit there in terms of being able to attack from the perimeter,

like you did with Tobias Harris, for example. Like, okay, you put Tobias Harris at Power Forward. And originally when he was playing power forward, I mean, he was fairly small for the position, but it's like, okay, he's got this quick first step. He might suffer on defense against stronger guys, but he's got this quick first step. It's going to let him beat the average power forward off the dribble. And now, of course, Tobias is not small for a power forward, but I digress. This isn't a situation which it's like, okay, well, you know, Bay is playing against slower players of power forward,

and he's going to be able to beat them more easily off the dribble than he would small forwards. This is not really a strength. And you play him a power forward in the interior is going up against stronger guys than you would at small forward. In terms of that sort of creation I was speaking about earlier, where you give him the ball, like on the low block, and then when I'm bully his way to the basket. And then you've also got this sort of bloated rotation of power forward, where you've got, at center you've got Noel and Stewart and Duren, and maybe you see some power forward minutes from Stewart. and power forward you've got Bagley and maybe a winnick. Yeah, so I think Bay is the likeliest to see the majority of his minutes at Small Forward. I think the likelyest starting lineup is the one that includes Bagley.

And his second question is what is Bay's usage going to look like next season? So Jeremy Grant is gone, which means a lot of usage just became available. However, you're also adding Ivy to the roster. Ivy, who would be replacing, it was last season Corey Joseph starting a shooting guard, is presumably going to eat up a fair amount of usage. Cade's going to eat up quite a bit of usage, possibly more than last season. Whether it's Birx or Bagley, I mean, either of those guys is going to be taking a fair number of shots. And Stewart also, by all indications, is going to be asked to shoot the ball more?

So is Bay going to be taking more shots this season than it was last season? I doubt it, and it'll be interesting to see exactly how he's used. Now that you've got another guy in Ivy who should be able to create offense off the dribble. you know another guy in terms of not just cade though grant could do it also so but grant was also out for about half the season and if you've got bagway the lineup of power forward i mean i think bagley the real hope is that it'll be able to shoot but also you you'll have him doing a fair amount of work as far as the finishing in the interior which stewart didn't really do it doesn't really do a ton of just because stewart isn't really super ideally suited to be a finisher in the interior

as far as just the difficulty of getting him in the ball in some situations can't play above the rim and so on and so forth. Bagley, in the other hand, is a pretty darn strong finisher. So it would be interesting to see what Bay's role looks like, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did really focus on that motion three-point shooting and just expanding his repertoire as a perimeter shooter. And, of course, trying to build on the things he did well in the interior, this past season. So all told, I think it'll be an interesting season to watch where Sadiq is concerned

because at this stage, he's in his third season. It's going to be his age 23 to 24 season. And for a lot of players, this is where you start to see what they're going to be in the NBA long term. So that'll be all for today's episode. As always, folks, thanks for listening. Catch you next time.