Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 115: 2021-2022 Season-in-Review - Cade Cunningham (with Bryce Simon of Motor City Hoops and The Pistons Pulse)

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

This episode, featuring guest Bryce Simon of Motor City Hoops and The Pistons Pulse, recaps Cade Cunningham's 2021-2022 season.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Draven to the Basket, part of the Basketball Podcast Network. I am Mike, your host, joined today by Bryce Simon of Motor City Hoops and the Pistons Pulse. Bryce, always a pleasure to have you in the show, man. Thanks for coming on. No, I'm excited, Mike. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about Cade Cunningham, talk about the Pistons as always.

And again, thank you for having me. And let's get to it. Absolutely. So, Bryce, in terms of his content, you can find him on YouTube at Motor City Hoops, on Twitter at Motor City Hoops. And, of course, most of you are listening to this podcast know about the Pistons Pulse.

It's a podcast he does with Omari Sankofa of the Detroit Free Press. So anyway, yeah, so as my esteemed guest here has said, we're going to be talking about Kate Cunningham today. So, yeah, this could be the final one of the 2021-2020 player retrospective series. Only got about five weeks until preseason, you know, which is saying that,

sounds a little bit daunting in terms of what I'm going to talk about the next five weeks, but nonetheless. Yeah, so we're just going to talk the same way the previous episodes have been, what went well, what didn't go so well. And like, you know, at the outlook, I suppose the outlook cutting in the next season. So just starting with some stats. So, Bryce, I figured a way we can do this. Like, Cade started super slow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, like really slow, which makes sense for a player who's coming out of the NCAA, misses training camp, misses preseason,

and then jump straight into the league. So he was really bad for his first 20 games. The first 20 games to best in his play, he was not good at all. Yeah, I mean, the ankle injury, you know, lingered. As you mentioned, it slowed him down in terms of him just, you know, not having the preseason that he needed,

the offseason he needed to prepare. And so it came out really slow. I remember writing an article for DBB, Mike, this is crazy to think, but like, essentially like Kate Cunningham is not a bust. It's going to be okay. He's going to be fine. But yeah, you look at a shooting number. Like his first game, Mike, he went one of eight from the field.

You know, he was 0 of eight. He missed his first 18 three pointers. His next two games from the field, two of 14 and four of 17. And, you know, one of those games, he had 10 rebounds, seven rebounds. So he was still doing some of the other things. And then the efficiency slowly got better throughout the season. But the damage was done. you start to look in totality for his rookie season,

he was just never going to get his numbers back up to par whenever he started out so slow. Absolutely. Yeah, and his first 15 games, which took the pistons up to game, 20, 33.5% from the field, 24.5% from 3, 13 points per game. Yeah, it was pretty ugly. It's not easy to be an NCAA player who just basically rolls straight from March Madness

into, you know, straight from March Madness into playing in the NBA against the best players in the world. So, yeah, because he really hadn't even had the opportunity to get much five-on-five time in, I would imagine. Yeah, I mean, we saw him what, two games, and he only got, what, two games at Summer League, three games at Summer League or something like that, and then they shut him down. Oh, right. I forgot about Summer League. Yeah, so, I mean, he got a little bit, but we all know this is, and this is why we all want to temper our expectations from Summer League is we know that's not, that's not the competition level of the NBA.

We all understand that. Your listeners understand that. So it's some really good players early on. I shouldn't say really good players. It's some solid players early on, but they're all young. They're not vets. They're not established NBA guys for the most part. And so that let him dip his toe in it. But still, he was working at a disadvantage because of what you're talking about and then the injury.

Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, it was bad. It was pretty ugly. I felt the exact same way as you did. I think that there was a certain amount of disappointment because it's like, man, we got Kate Cunningham. this guy so heavily hyped. And, you know, let's see him get into the NBA and do a great job.

And, of course, yeah, he was terrible early on, like, like legitimately, on an unequivocally bad. But fortunately, he got over that. He pretty much just came online at around game 21 was when he really started playing consistently. Well, he still had some stinkers after that. But every player does, every rookie does, certainly. So, yeah, so the way I've gone about the stats, I've just taken them from that point onward. Like, we know that Gabe was bad in his first. 15 games. And I feel like his NBA career almost like sort of started right around the end of

November in terms of what he looked like the rest of the season. Now, you did bring it up that the damage was done as far as his performance throughout the season. And yeah, we can talk about the rookie to your question later on. I know that was controversial with distance fans. Well, I was just to say the entire offense was bad too, Mike. You know, if we think back to that, like they were shooting historically bad from three point. Sadiq wasn't. wasn't playing well. So it wasn't just Cade. It's not like he walked into an offense that was just, you know, really good and playing really well. Like the offense in general was not good at all. And so it wasn't just Cade. It was all, you know, collectively. And it started to get a little bit

better throughout the season. So I did want to make just a quick note of that. Oh, absolutely true. Yeah, I must have repressed that memory. The Pistons were comically bad on the field in those first 15 games around thereabouts, you know, the first quarter of the season. and it was incredibly ugly. And I think that was a real disappointment for a lot of people as well who, you know, for me to a degree also because I was kind of hoping the pissings wouldn't be terrible again. And it turned out well. But that was tough to watch, definitely.

Yeah. And I mean, we all remember the post All Star Break stuff. And once Marvin Bagley got, you know, came to town. And now there's a lot of threat and things were a little more fun. And they weren't healthy for a lot of the, a lot of the season in general with Jeremy Grant getting hurt at a certain point. And then all the COVID stuff. I know we're moving throughout the season now, but, you know, I think a lot of our memories are post-all-star break, but that's when guys were actually healthy, had time to develop into the league, get comfortable, all of those things.

But it was a rough start to the season last year. Definitely. I think it wasn't until, man, early February was that when Grant came back. I can't remember exactly when, but, yeah, it was basically like the Pistons had between Grant and Olinick, who was less important, of course. they might have had like 15 games of actually playing together before the tank began. Like the last three weeks of the season. Yeah. Yeah. It was ugly. It was an ugly season. It was an ugly season in part because so many things went wrong between that really terrible start. A lot of the injuries. I mean, Olinick missed half the season, I believe. Grant missed a little bit over half the season. A lot of guys struggled.

Yeah, you know, you saw some aggression from Stewart's. Bay was on that horribly ham-fitted experiment in the first quarter of the season. Yeah, but see, it was ugly. And, yeah, Kay had his struggles too. But, yeah, let's look at where he was statistically from late November onward, about 33 minutes per game, 19 points per game on about 44, 34 and a half, 84 splits, five rebound, six assists, four turnovers, three fouls. And over that span, about 52% true shooting and 49% from the field. So, yeah, I wrote a bunch more stats here,

but I feel like just meet, just, motor mouthing through the stats. Is that the right word for it? Yeah, I guess that'll work. Wasn't motor boating. That has different connotations. So, yeah, motor mouthing through the stats is not going to be particularly interesting. So why don't we go through and just say, what do you think?

Let's go over the pros at first. You know, the pros will be thinking he did really well. So for you, what would stick out is the first thing? I feel like I always bring this up when I talk about Cade Cunningham, Mike. But I was so impressed with his intangibles, his maturity, his leadership. and he was a what 18, he was 19 years old and he was literally leading grown men who had been in the league for a while. I personally think there was a power struggle between him and Jeremy Grant just a little bit.

I think Jeremy Grant came to Detroit to be the leader and the quote unquote face of the franchise. Obviously, you never thought Jeremy Grant was going to take the team to the championship or something like that. But I think he came there to be the number one dude for a few years at least. and then all of a sudden they hit the lottery and it's Cade Cunningham's team. And so I just, I was always impressed by that. His ability to lead people, I felt like people gravitate towards him in general. Even at Summer League, I remember seeing him how he carried himself.

That stuff just was always very, very impressive to me with Cade right from the start. Yeah, absolutely. He's intangeless. Definitely, like I've brought it up many times. Nobody should underestimate the value of having your best player also be your leader. and Kate is definitely a natural leader. You can see that. I hadn't actually given any thought to what may have been going on

behind the scenes in terms of who is going to lead the locker and who's going to lead the team between he and Grant. And I imagine we'll probably never know. But he definitely grew into that role as the season went on. And you can just see it that, yeah, he's a leader. He's somebody that people gravitate toward, somebody to whom people listen. And despite that he's only 19,

it's clear that his teammates thought very highly of him in that capacity. Yeah, and I want to make it clear. I don't know if people think this sometimes, just because Omari and I do the podcast, Amari, you know, nothing like that was coming from Omar. That's literally just like my personal opinions as I sat on a couch and watching it. I just,

I always kind of got that vibe a little bit. And maybe it was just, it was me conjuring things up. But it was just like, man, it seems like there's a little bit, power struggle probably sounds a little more dramatic than what I'm actually trying to say. But I just felt like there was a shift.

And Jeremy came to Detroit for it to be, quote unquote, his team again. And then Cade obviously was taking that mantle. And so I always kind of wondered how that worked out. And, you know, I do think if there's one thing that Pistons have been good at so far, and probably credit to Dwayne Casey is we never find out those things. You never hear about locker room struggles. Even the Hamadu Diallo thing that happened on the sideline, you heard very little about it after the incident, you know,

whenever he wasn't playing, asked to go in in garbage time. and essentially said no or whatever it was. So I've always been impressed by that. And you bring up a good point with Kate. Your best player being the kind of person that Kate Cunningham is, I do think that's important for the growth of this young team. And then hopefully years from now whenever they start competing. Yeah, definitely.

And yeah, PowerStrog was a poor way. Poor choice of words in my part. Yeah, in terms of, I understand what you meant, just in terms of finding their places in the offense. So, yeah, let's say I've said it about Twain Casey. I'll say it again. Like, I really don't like him as an ex's nose coach, but he runs a great lot of. 100%, Mike.

I couldn't agree more. That's, yes. Yeah, and Troy Weaver has definitely played a large role in terms of only bringing high character guys onto the team. So, yeah, it was definitely, like, not every player is going to be, not an every team's best player is going to be a leader on that team. Like, take, like, what I consider to be the most, well, I guess there are a bunch of them. But like Donovan Mitchell, for example, like who's a diva,

Donovan Mitchell, who of course has his place in Piston's history. I don't think anybody's too upset about it now because you got Kate Cunningham, the Pistons are on a good track. But Mitchell, who is definitely, you know, a very, very good regular season player and even better postseason player for the most part in terms of his scoring. But he's a diva. He's a whiner in the last two seasons, the last two post seasons, rather he's decided he doesn't care about defense. And it's like, okay, but what kind of example does that set?

Yeah, no, going into the draft, Mike, this was my argument whenever people wanted to talk about Cade Cunningham or Jalen Green. And this isn't a knock on Jalen Green. I'm not trying to start that, you know, but I just, I didn't see those off the court intangibles with Jalen Green, those leadership type things. And it doesn't mean he may not become that guy. He very well may be. And I think Jalen Green's a bucket in the league. He's going to have multiple seasons where he averages 25 plus would be my guess. I'm just not as sold on him being the face of your franchise leader, you know, all the things we're talking about, those intangible things. Even Evan Mobley, like I'm curious to see. And they're young kids. And so maybe they still grow into it.

I'm just very, very confident that Kade Cunningham is that guy. Yeah, 100% agree. Definitely. So, yeah, in terms of those intangibles, like when it comes to leadership, also just when it, like you can't really define it as that sort of it factor, just a player. I don't think I really need to define it, but yeah, Kade really has that, like, just in the big moments. I mean, granted, he wasn't actually a very good clutch shooter on the whole this season, but just in the big moments, you want to give him the ball and you know that good thing's going to happen.

Yeah, it's weird, right? Like, you just, it's so frustrating to have something that you believe in, but you can't describe, right? The it factor. And then nobody describes it. I was listening to the Game Theory podcast, and Adam Spinello was on from the Box and one with San Bacini and he even said it. You know, I believe he coaches college basketball, you know, and, you know, very, you know, intelligent basketball mind. It's frustrating not to be able to explain it to people what you're talking about,

but you just kind of have that feel whenever you watch it. And I just trust Kate Cunningham. I just do, Mike. And that's what I'm talking about. That's what we're talking about with the intangibles, the gravity. I just think he's going to make the play, whether it's the shot, whether it's the defensive stop. Because we'll talk about the defense. I'm not as high on his defense what he's shown so far.

others, but in certain moments, he absolutely was really good whenever the team needed him to be. Yeah. So let's move on. I mean, move on from his intangibles and the it factor to his basketball IQ, I think, always deserves to be mentioned. Yeah. I mean, I think he is a guy offensively. He understands matchups. He understands the offense. And he's going to be able to exploit things and put his teammates in the right position. And I think that's probably his best thing he does. defensively right now is, you know, again, we'll probably talk about his on-ball defense and those type of things. But just as a team defender that's executing a game plan to stop whatever the offense does best, his basketball IQ and Acumen is going to allow him to do that.

And again, I think those things can go underrated at sometimes. You know, you get lost in the other quote-unquote skills, but a basketball IQ goes a long ways. Yeah, definitely. And on offense, he's a guy who well, you've seen the turnovers. Yeah. The turnovers, we can talk. We'll talk about during the not-so-good section, of course, because that was a downside. But, well, by you, I meant the listeners. I'm sure you have seen them.

You watched probably every minute of Pistons basketball from his last season. And I've actually went back and watched every single turnover of his from last season for an article I did. Yeah. Yeah. And, but in any case, yeah, when it comes to his overall basketball IQ, I mean, it's a player who in general just sees the game extraordinarily well. We'll make a lot of plays that whose impact is not immediately obvious just from looking at exclusively what he did, but just, you know, drive in and make the right pass, even if it doesn't lead to,

even doesn't lead to a shot, it's wrong footing the defense somehow or just making the extra pass, which may not lead to anything that is immediately obvious, but we'll wrong foot the, wrong foot the defense. And just his ability to read the game and make split second decisions is excellent. I mean, that's another one of those sort of it factor things where you just have players who are able to make those reads and to see the game at a higher level than the vast majority of other players in an unbelievably competitive league. Yeah. So, yeah. I've had the opportunity to go back and watch some Chauncey Billups film the last week as I'm working on an article with good friend Matt Issa of basketball news. And I'm watching Chauncey play.

And sometimes it's like, man, he's not really like being super aggressive right now. He's not getting a lot of buckets. But when you really hone in and watch him play, Mike, he comes down the floor and he's always pointing guys where to go. And then you really focus in. And he moved Rip over to this spot because Sheed had the right matchup. Or he moved Sheed into the, you know, the dunker spot because he knew whoever was going to be able to take their man off the bounce. Or he had the matchup he wanted. And then he did exploit it.

And just it's all those little subtle things. And I can't even imagine what you would know if we could hear what they're saying. Like if we could hear their voices and what they're telling their teammates in the huddle, going to the sideline, coming out of the huddle, those type of things. You know, we can only see body language and pointing in those things. So that's where he really has control of the offense and his basketball IQ is just telling guys where to go and seeing plays two, three steps ahead based on matchups and the defense shifting. Yeah, you can't teach that.

Definitely. Yeah. And I remember Billups. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that in a long time, actually, watching Billups when I was younger. And yeah, he'd, you know, those pistons didn't really push the pace all that much after rebounds. Yeah, to say to least, yeah, Billups would make his way up the floor and just be just constantly just sticulating. Yes. Yeah, you don't see that kind of thing anymore.

Like I haven't, I don't really remember any other player who's done that, but he was all about that. Yeah. So it was fun and not to get off on, you know, the going to work team, but I, I, I always talk about, we'll always talk about the going to work team on there. You may know this, Mike, but I don't know if we've talked about. I didn't grow up a Pistons fan. So, like, I didn't, like, watch those teams religiously. So this has been a lot of fun for me to go back and watch some of these games that I've

been able to find on YouTube. And it is. He walks it up the floor. And you can just see him calculating everything as he looks at the matchups and the defense. And he just knows where to put guys and what's going to get the best opportunity. And that's playoff basketball, right, Mike? So, you know, I've said it before. I want to see this team play faster.

in the regular season. But eventually when this team is good and is competing in the way the fan base wants them to, the game's going to slow down. And I have a lot of confidence in year three, four, five, with better talent around him. Cade Cunningham is going to be able to look at a defense and his teammates and put the right guys in the right spots

for that possession to be successful. Yeah, like you talk about, I mean, it's said about Cade. You know, some people say, well, budget Luca. And, of course, nobody, like, Luca is incredibly special, like, in a way that cannot really, fully defined, much like Yokic and LeBron as well, though LeBron is not the playmaker that those other two are.

And so I don't think Kate is on Luka level in terms of basketball IQ, but he's definitely up there. And I think that that's just going to continue to develop. I feel like over the course of the season, we saw him better and better able to adjust and make the better decisions in certain situations. He learns very quickly, which is big asset. Some players don't learn.

I mean, some players are playing in the best, basketball league in the world. But you know, you have a ceiling in terms of how far you can, how far you can grow and how smart you can get on a basketball IQN. So yeah, it's, definitely a special quality for him. Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought that up because I think sometimes we see a young player and we think, oh, this guy's definitely going to get better, right? Because he's only 20 years old. He's only 21 years old. And I'm truly not talking about anybody specifically. I know the fan base is going to think I'm talking about Killian Hayes. And to an extent I am, but like Marvin Bagley is going to be a great test case in this.

You know, everybody says his defensive awareness is bad because he played in Sacramento and didn't get coach right and it was a bad situation and all that. And I'm like, that very well be true. I don't know enough. I mean, it's still professional coaching, but we're going to find out now if that awareness and that defensive IQ for someone like Marvin Bagley, the third can improve. And but not every young player continues to get better. Some of them truly like, they've maxed out their potential and that's, you know, being whatever they are at 21 years old. And I think sometimes we forget that that, yeah, they're young, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a huge growth to become or yet to come.

Yeah, that's true. Well, I mean, I'd say Killian. I mean, obviously, this isn't what you were arguing. Killian has excellent basketball. No, I agree. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But that's not what you were arguing.

It's like, yeah, the fact that Killian is young doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to become a decent NBA player. He might, he might not. I got the same thing with, like back in the days of Luke Kinnard. And it's like, oh, well, look, this guy is only like 22 and he's already like an excellent shooter. It's like, well, yeah, but the ceiling is probably not that great on him. He's probably just going to be a very good role player. Anyway, yeah.

So, yeah, you're right. Young players don't necessarily continue to improve. And that's definitely, I think, a significant area in which they don't continue to improve. It's just in their understanding of the NBA game and their ability to, to, to, manipulate the NBA game. And think about this, Mike. We talk about him as young kids, right? Cade's only 19, 20, whatever he is now.

But how many games has he played, though? I mean, he's played thousands of basketball games. He's been playing this game for so many years. And so I'm not saying he can't learn more. I'm not saying he's not going to learn more. But some of these things, if he hasn't figured out,

or if a young player, it doesn't have to be specifically to Cade, but if they haven't started to get a little bit of that basketball awareness, now, then I'm not sure what it's going to take to get there because they've played, they're playing year round throughout high school, AAU tournaments, all of those things, different coaches, trainers, you know, film, all of this stuff. I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm just saying they are relatively old in their, you know, entire basketball careers.

They've been playing the game for a long time. Now, I realize there's some examples of guys who start playing the game later, but that's one of those things that I feel like there is a little bit of naturalness. and just innate ability with it. And if it hasn't shown up after playing for eight to ten years, whenever they're 20, 21, 22, I'm just curious, you know, where's the history of it developing? I would love to know that.

I could very well be proven wrong. Yeah, with Bagley. I mean, I imagine Bagley's a shining example of this. I agree with your set of things. I don't think Bagley has, I just don't think he has the defensive IQ, the defensive awareness to play interior defense at the NBA level. I think that that fielding that center on defense.

is always going to mean bad things because I just don't think that's something you develop at the age of 23 whatever is 23 24 yeah I just I think if a player had it they would have at least shown signs of it already and again I I would love like it would be hard to do a study on this I would love for somebody to prove me wrong like I if if somebody listening has an example I'm being 100% serious like tweet me DM me whatever um because I've kind of been searching like where's the example of a of a young big who's been in the league for four seasons, been a really bad rim protector and all around defensive player, and then gotten better at it, you know, at least became league average or above league average. And I would be curious if there's an example out there. Yeah, I can't

think of anybody. But yeah, on the subject of, you know, again, it was basketball like him, whatever else. We can move on to his passing, which I think he really improved out of the course of the season. Now, he did have a lot of turnovers. We'll talk about that in the not-so-good section. or the things he did not so well. I think the section will actually be good. But so, yeah, he's got excellent court vision, knows, you know, aside from the past that they get picked off, obviously. I mean, he sees everything.

You can see, you know, you can, which is what you say, can see behind him when he's on the drive. He can make passes to guys he can't see. He's just always seeing the entire floor, and he's got the passing talent as well to fully capitalize on that. Yeah, I was super high on his passing coming in and quickly found out that I was probably higher on him as a passer and a creator than most people and lower on him as a score than most people.

I did see him a little bit more of like maybe he's a 20 point of game guy, but he's going to be a eight, nine assists per game guy. And so I wasn't surprised by the passing and the creation. Probably what I was most surprised by, to be honest, Mike, was how he was able to get into the lane to create those passing angles and opportunities these for his teammates. And his assist numbers are just going to get better as he plays with, you know, we talked about it earlier in the episode, how poorly the team shot in general from three

points to start the season and really all season long. So is this? Oh, and the spacing. The spacing was horrible. And then also the lob threat. He played how many ever games before he had a true lob threat. And, you know, that's no slander, Isaiah Stewart or Kelly Olenick or whatever. Like, it's just, Marfan Bagley is a threat at the rim that those guys simply are not.

And now he has Bagley and, you know, whatever we think about, Jalen, Dern. in terms of his NBA minutes as a rookie. He has guys he can throw the ball up to the room to end the pick and roll. So I think his assist numbers are going to increase from last season to this season. Yeah, he was not working with a good situation in terms of that. We saw all those drives in which he would have three or four defenders clustered around him because nobody needed necessarily to respect his teammates. Yeah, on the pick and roll, absolutely.

Isaiah Stewart, like Jack Kelly and I did an episode about Isaiah Stewart. I was just the episode immediately prior to this one. We talked about his role presence. Yeah, the guy just doesn't believe the assets to be a solid role man. It's like, oh, you can set good highway screens, but that isn't enough. And having a guy like Marvin Bagley was very helpful for Cade, a guy who can sky for lobs. Yeah, he's a vertical spacer. He rolls explosively to the basket.

He can score above the rim in general. It's easy to get him the ball. He finishes at a very high percentage in the restricted area. I did with the pistons. He's very nice to have, especially for a guy like Cade who basically lives in the pick and roll. And he didn't have that for like three quarters of the season. That was a big gap in the roster. Made his life a lot more difficult. Yeah. And I want to say this as well. And I don't know if we'll get into the rookie of the year debate in general or not. Like I didn't really.

I'd like to. Perfect. So I'll save that a little bit then or we can go into it now, whatever you, you want to do. But I, I'll go later on. I will just say this about Cade. He got put in situations as a rookie that I don't know that all like he's getting double team. The entire scouting reports are on Cade Cunningham. So I felt like he saw almost every situation you could imagine as a rookie late game during the middle of games to start games because of the talent around him. So it's almost like he had the hardest test. Like he truly got thrown to the fire right off the bat.

And I'm saying this in a positive way and why I think we'll see his efficiency increase is he had to see all that as a rookie. And then as you said, he learns from those situations every time back to the basketball. ball IQ stuff. So I think that's awesome that he was able to experience all those different possessions and situations, you know, in his first season. Yeah, definitely. So also, I think deserves to be drawn attention to is his versatility, which he showed, I guess, scoring versatility, which is showed gradually across the course of the season increasing. Like, the three-point shooting needs some work. And I'm confident we'll get there. And we'll talk about

that. But he really improved as a mid-range shooter across the course of the season. You saw some real pull-up two-point potential there. And, like, he got himself up from February armoured. He was about 45% on pull-up twos, which is an encouraging mark for a rookie. It's very, I've said this many, many, many times. It's very, very difficult to be a shock rater in the NBA, you know, in pull-up shooting. And, of course, made a lot of progress. It just was quite good by the end of the season at just getting to the rim.

And here's one thing that he does super well. And this is basketball IQ, body control and whatever else. When he comes out of the high pick and roll, and then he just slows down. and he keeps guys on his back. And there's nothing you can really do to speed him up and take the ball away from him. And it gives him extra seconds to figure out, to read the floor and figure out what he's going to do.

I think, I know a lot of his opponents were very impressed by that, as was I. But I think we saw the makings of, you know, the early makings of a real three-level score, which, and there are not many real three-level scores in the NBA.

Yeah, no, I was super impressed, Mike. If I'm being honest with you, I thought his three-point shooting is what he would do best as a rookie. And obviously, I was wrong. The mid-range game was really good. I'm very confident when he gets to the elbow going right or left. I just feel like he's going to make that shot every single time. And then even getting into the lane, I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, the fouls drawn and free throw attempts and all that stuff.

You know, I mean, it's some of that's definitely not on him. And, you know, it's the silly thing. Earn your respect. Whatever you want to say, he wasn't getting the calls that I think ultimately he's going to end up getting in the NBA as he gets his quote unquote respect. earns his respect however you want to say it but i was very impressed and i would i came away from his rookie season happier to see him be so good in the mid range so good getting to the rim where i thought he might struggle than i would have been if he would have shot 38% from three i i believe in the shot i i know it's a tad concerning that he shot as bad as he did but again when you

miss your first 18 that's going to skew your percentage for the rest of the season so it's going to come back. He's going to be fine, but I was very encouraged and excited to see what he did in the mid-range and at the rim. Yeah, he shot about 47% from mid-range from February onward. It was a little ugly on the season as a whole, but another thing in which he really improved throughout the course of the season. And mid-range has sort of died out in the NBA because for the vast majority of players, it's not a shot worth taking, but if you can make it a shot worth taking, it gets that much more difficult to cover you. It's not only an extra thing in your toolbox with which you can create offense, but guys have to cover you really very closely from the three-point line on in.

And when you have a guy like Cade who can really take advantage of that to get past you or set somebody else up, you know, if somebody needs to come help in the mid-range, for example, around the pick and roll and so on and so forth, yeah, that's definitely great skill to have. Yeah, I mean, we talked about his passing, Mike, that opens up his passing even more because you can't just, if you want to just drop coverage Cade and give up the mid-range, then he's going to, you know, torch you. so now that big has to play a little higher knowing he can't just give him a wide open mid-range pull-up. And now that makes Marvin Bagley, Jalindor and those lob threats all the more dangerous because that big has a tougher spot defensively.

Yeah, or somebody has to come help, definitely. Yeah, I remember this in the case of Lou Conard, who this was pretty much in his final season with the Pistons. I remember, I believe he was doing this, but they'd run him in the pick and roll far too little because Dwayne Casey is not the most flexible coach. But they run him in the pick and roll. He'd come around the pick. and he was around a 50% mid-range shooter. I think that season, or at least in the early stages, which is, you know, that's a shot you want to take.

Yeah. And so either he'd take the shot and you make it, or they would have to bring somebody to help because the big would still be a little bit behind, a little bit trailing him, which I imagine me the case with Cade, and then Luke would just dish it to somebody. I mean, that's super helpful to have.

There are not many good mid-range shooters in the NBA. That's a very useful skill if you can make it work, and I think Cade will. Yes, yeah. No, like I said, it's probably the shot, unless I'm forgetting something, that I'm most confident in him right now. And again, I thought he might struggle in his rookie season, getting to the rim.

Because he's not, you know, he's not an elite athlete in the NBA. The non-athlet stuff got way overblown in the pre-draft process. But I thought he might struggle just a little bit until he got stronger. And he does still need to get stronger. But just his ability to get into the lane, because to me, that's what it's all about. If you're not even getting to the lane, like that's an issue. Like, that's worrisome. If you can get to the lane, then we're working with something.

And then obviously, Cade showed plenty of other stuff once he got there. Yeah. And I mean, that's another thing. I mean, the guy's body control and shiftiness. And like you said, he's not a way to athlete in terms of his explosiveness. He proved, I think, that he's explosive enough. And, you know, in terms of his handle, like the turnover is his handle. It can be a little bit shady.

But in terms of his ability to handle the ball, I think he's quite good. But just in terms of how he utilizes that body control off the drive, even when he's going full speed, I was very impressed. But too, like you said, he didn't have any issue at all getting into the lane, get into the rim, getting the restricted area. And that was always, of course, going to be very important. And it was great that we saw it in his rookie season. Coming to the free throws, I mean, that's one thing.

So, yeah, Cade was amongst starters who played at least 30 games, at least 30 games over that span from the end of November onward. He was 16th in usage and 78th in free throws per game. Yeah, why do you think he got so few free throw attempts? I don't know, Mike. Like, I don't, you know, somebody threw it out to me the other day. And I do believe in this just a little bit because I had a player that played for me in high school. The kid was almost too good at controlling and contorting his body and using his length to where he almost avoided fouls to a fault.

And so I do, I would love to go back and watch all of Cade's attempts and see if he, like, I know it sounds crazy. I realize how, like, it doesn't sound right. But I just wonder if he's almost too good. And, you know, and these guys end up getting bailed out because they fall and they flail and all of that. Like, I wonder if his body control is a little bit too good. Like, if he just has to play and lean into actually drawing the foul a little bit more, which I do think we saw him do later in the season when he was just never getting calls. But I think another part was just, refs were just like, hey, you're going to earn your respect,

rook. And that just is what it is. It's silly, but it's part of professional sports. Interesting. I hadn't thought about that one. I'll have to look up some stats on rookie free throw numbers. Yeah, that would be interesting to see if it was just a one-time thing or if there is a little more of a history there.

Like maybe that's completely false. Maybe some other rookies have came in and have gotten a real favorable whistle. Yeah. I'm definitely going to do some research into that of this episode that I'm interested in that. I agree. He's always in control and body and mind heading in. and definitely he's good at getting himself in the right place to score without taking contact. I also think that he took a certain amount of contact that just wasn't called.

He came in. I mean, he was still relatively lean, especially in the upper body, even the lower body. And by all accounts, he's really working on strength training in the summer. And I think once he's more able to just go up the middle and take contact, he'll get those calls more. Also, maybe once he's a bigger name, I'd like to think the NBA doesn't operate on that basis. But I think he's smart enough. It'll happen. but yeah there are definitely players who are just good at avoiding that contact and as a result don't

take many free throws. Derek Rose has never taken many free throws because generally he scores around defenders rather than through them. Kyrie Irving scores around defenders rather than through them both guys who at Kyrie is still an elite player. He's a huge douchebag but an amazing basketball player and Derek Rose of course was an incredible basketball player when he was in his youth and was still pretty darn good you know good good bench player. Yeah rarely took free throws both of them. Not rarely, but much fewer than you would think. Yeah, for how often those guys get to the rim, you know, especially a guy like Derek Rose, who was so explosive. And so, you know, maybe it's something that the cage is going to have to learn where, again, you know, not to say the same thing,

but he's so good with the finesse part of it and avoiding contact and getting around defenders. He's just going to have to learn, okay, this is how I draw contact. This is how I get the call. This is what I need to do. And, you know, it's something that we're going to see. I think we will see a jump in free throw attempts this season for Kate Cunningham. I will be very surprised if we don't and if we're not seeing that early on through the first, let's say, 10, 15, 20 games, it's definitely something I'll go to the film and be excited to look at and try to figure out why. Definitely. All right. Any other positives you like to bring out before we go to the much shorter list of not so good stuff? No, I say that we got in the lane stuff, the intangibles. I think I feel

pretty good about that we gave him his due diligence with the positive. Yeah, I agree. So real quick, before we go on to the not so great, quick word from our sponsor. The weight is almost over. A new football season is about to begin. Get ready for the NFL week one action with draft king's sports book and a special sports betting partner of the NFL. To celebrate the return of football, draft kings is giving new customers who can't miss offer. Bet just $5 in any football game and get $200 and free bets instantly. Want more action on opening night. Everyone can experience thrill with draft king's early win promotion. Get up to seven, you win. Bet on any NFL team of your choice. your team leads by seven points at any point during the game, you get paid instantly,

even if your team loses. Graph Kings is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit, withdraw your cash whenever you want. Down on the Drafking Sportsbook app now, use promo code TBPN to get $200 in free bets instantly when you place a $5 bet in any football game. That's code TbPN, only at Drafking Sportsbook and official sports betting partner at the NBA. Minimum major eligibility restrictions applies, so show notes for details. Okay, so moving on to the stuff that Cade struggled with a bit, we mentioned turnovers,

and you have watched through every single one. So what are your thoughts? Yeah. So I don't think it was his decision. Like I, okay, it was his decision making. But it was like, I feel like he underestimated NBA players and their length and their athleticism. And he's a guy that uses eye manipulation.

So, you know, like he'll try to look the defender off. And then like he just felt like he could always get him with that. So I almost felt like he was a little bit lackadaisical with his decision. Like he just wasn't, like it was just a little bit careless to be honest with you, Mike. And I know that goes against a lot of the stuff we have said. And that's why I would get very frustrated watching him. I'm like, I would like literally yell at my screen. Like I know Kate Cunningham.

I'm like, Cade, what are you doing, man? Like you know better than that, you know, type of thing. And so it was very interesting to watch all of those. But it was just, I don't know if there's a better word other than careless at times. And it was frustrating because of that. Yeah. I think, huh, I'm not sure if I agree with the carelessness part. Well, I mean, I think that there was a.

certain degree of adjustments to the NBA where, of course, that's how it is with any player, just where the lanes close very, very quickly. And you're playing against just the best defenders in the planet. And, yeah, I think that there were plenty of things that he would try that would work just fine at his earlier levels of basketball that just aren't really going to fly at the NBA level. And I think that was a lot of his turnovers. So it certainly didn't help when he dribbled into double or triple coverage. And whether that was his fault or not, I mean, that's a situation in which you're going to

turn the ball over quite a bit. Yeah, no, and that's what the other things. was the handle and just the strength, right? So he has to tighten his handle in general. You've alluded to that a couple times. But then the strength as well. So he's driving in. He takes contact.

And I know we can find clips where he takes contact and scores. I get it. I understand. But there's also plenty of clips where he's driving. Help defender comes over just rips it out of his hands. Or on ball defender bumps him a little bit. Maybe it's a foul. But, you know, he loses control of the ball.

So that strength is going to take away some turnovers. And then I do. I agree. I don't want to back down too much on the careless because what I felt like was at a certain point, he should have started to understand the length of an NBA defender, the windows closing at the speed they did, the anticipation of NBA defenders.

And I'm not sure I ever saw that improve throughout the season. So maybe careless isn't fair, but I guess I just expected some improvement. And I saw a lot of the same mistakes over and over. from the start even towards the end. Right. So how do you think he improves upon that? I'll be honest, Mike.

I don't know that we're going to see. What did he average for the season turnovers-wise? Three... Yeah, close to four. 3.7-4. I think. I think he's going to be a three-turnover-a-game guy his whole career. Is that harsh?

Do you think that's unfair? I think it is usage that makes sense, though. Yeah, if you're putting up like 7-8 assists a game, I mean, three turnovers isn't awful. It's not, that's perfectly acceptable. I mean, if you're putting up like five assists for game, then three turnovers becomes not quite as palatable. Yeah, I think.

But I think that he'll be a high assist. I agree. I think we're going to, I think he's a seven, eight assists guy in his prime, but I think he's going to turn the ball over three and a half times. I think he's going to have a, you know, a lackadaisical turnover here. I think he's going to try to force one there. I think he's going to be loose with the handle there. And you're going to see three to four turnovers a game from from Kade.

and I don't know that I cared that much, to be honest with you. Like his uses is just going to be so much. Like, yeah, I would love for him to be perfect, but I just wonder if this is going to be one of the areas where, yeah, at times, you know, Kade's going to turn the ball over. Yeah. If you had to guess how many, I'm just looking at some stats right now. If you had to guess, how many times per game would you say Wukadontch turns over the ball? So if I had to guess, I would say in the numbers we're talking about, 3.5? Four and a half last season.

So I guess that's kind of my point. I know listeners are going to hear this and go, man, like, Bryce is down on Katie. He thinks he's never going to get better with his turnovers. Like, I don't know that the numbers that bad. I think the kinds of turnovers is probably what needs to get better, right? Like, he's got to improve. He can't throw an inbound pass in. It's just he throws it short and it gets stolen.

You know, hopefully all of his turnovers are when he's trying to create and be aggressive. And, you know, just every once in a while, those things are going to, you know, go south or turn into a negative. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I mean, like your average really high volume assist guy is going to put up a fair number of turnovers. I mean, you can look at Chris Paul.

I didn't say that's. Yeah, who had 11 assists per game and two and a half turnovers. But Chris Paul is, you can't say enough about Chris Paul. Yeah. No, so that's who I was, I was literally getting ready to type him into basketball reference and see what his turnovers. But yeah, Chris Paul is just a completely different monster when it comes to this stuff. And here's the thing.

Mike, if Cade's only turned it over two and a half times a game, then that's just insane production and value. Like, he's even better than what I think he's going to be. And I think he's going to be really, really good. So yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, I think those will, I think those will attenuate to a degree. I think that having more spacing will mean less turnover is just having an easier time, being on an easier route to the basket.

It would mean less turnovers. I think his handle hopefully will improve. I don't think it's his handle as poor. I think it's sometimes, like you said, he can get a little bit careless. But I also think there would be some improvement in him just learning or maybe just adjusting a little bit to account for the speed of NBA defenses and the length of NBA defenders. But like you said, I mean, if he's putting up like eight assists per game

and like three, three and a half turnovers for a guy who's creating a ton of offense, then that's something you live with. Yeah, and maybe, I mean, obviously I've never played at a level anywhere close to the NBA. So maybe it's not that easy to adjust to that level of athlete and speed of play and the windows being tighter. Maybe that doesn't happen throughout the course of the season. So maybe my expectations were too much. We're just so used to K learning from his mistakes so quickly. But maybe it's going to take this off season of going back and watching film and thinking about those scenarios and then into a sophomore and then his third season, fourth season.

And then we're going to start to see some of improvement in terms of really understanding. how athletic these guys are, how long, how much they anticipate things. Yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, next season, this only Cate sophomore season. I mean, guys, I feel like you don't really start to see what a player might be until, like, the end of season three. But, yeah, so moving on to another one, his fouls, and he didn't foul a ton per se, more than you'd like to, like him to.

His issue was more that he would get himself into foul trouble at very bad times. Like often in the first quarter, for example, he would just take a dumb, but just a dumb foul, to be honest. And then suddenly it's like, well, now he's out for the whole first quarter. Yeah. No, and you said it perfectly. Like, I hate to say it, but they were dumb fouls. I can't, it was so frustrating the amount of times where I'm like,

Cade, you're smarter than that. Like, we've talked about his basketball IQ so many times, Mike. And then it's like, you already have one foul. Why are you reaching in on a transit? Like, just let him make the layup. Your value for the next eight minutes of the first quarter is so much more important. And then he would get to go out to sit down. And some of those games, the game ends up being over after the first quarter because of the talent that was left on the floor.

So I think it's something he definitely has to get better at. And I hope we definitely see that with him. Because you say it wasn't like he averaged a crazy amount. It was just like they would be back to back in the first quarter. And then it's true foul trouble where it's, I feel like it's hard to do that in the NBA where you have six fouls. Yeah. It would just, it's like you said, like you're like, Yeah, Cade, you're way too important to be taking this kind of foul.

You know, the team needs you on the floor. Just let the guy score or let somebody else take the foul. It should not be you. Yes. So I think it was just, I think maybe you just saw some perfectionism there, just his desire to try to not let an opponent get by him or something. But, yeah, I think that's something that we saw improve as the season went on. And I'm sure that Dwayne Casey was on him about that.

But that brings us to another one, which is his defense. And I feel like Kate has. a good defensive ceiling. And I think he'll get there. And who knows, I mean, it's tough to be really high usage on offense and really, really keep it up on defense. Like LeBron did it for a while until he hit his 30s and then he just kind of didn't have the energy.

But yeah, I know you and I have discussed this in some previous episodes. Like, Cade definitely for me, his biggest issue last season was ball watching and giving up open three. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's, you can go back and see it in college. Mike. And so it's a real thing with him in terms of losing shooters off the ball. And it's something that definitely needs to improve. So I think that's one thing.

Ball watching. And, you know, he got back door to a couple times, gave up threes a couple time. And then on ball defense as well, we talked about it. You know, I think there's reps. You can find reps where he did a really good job guarding on the ball. So the potential is definitely there. But maybe, and maybe I don't give him enough credit. You mentioned, when you have such a high usage offense and then also expecting him to guard. A lot of those foul trouble games were like against the Celtics where he's, you know, trying to guard Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum. So he's doing all this offensively and then trying to guard those guys defensively as well.

But I do think there's some work on the ball, which is expected for a rookie. I'm really interested to see where his best matchup ends up being Mike. Long term, you know, where, what type of player is he going to be best matched up with defensively? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about that. But I feel like his on-ball defense was decent, aside from the following. His off-ball defense not quite as good. But, yeah, I'm just interested, excuse me, to see how his defense looks next season.

I feel like he's got a good defensive ceiling. I don't think he's going to be an elite defender, and that's fine. Most players are not elite defenders. I think he will be a plus defender ultimately. But he definitely had his warts. Yeah, and what he's going to bring offensively, you shouldn't be expecting him to be the primary on-ball defender defensively or the anchor of your defense in some way. But you're right.

He can absolutely be a plus defender in terms of just being a part of a really good, you know, defensive scheme, game plan, executing those things. So my thing with who he guards is, I don't know that he's guarding the Trey Youngs and those guys of the NBA. I actually wonder if he ends up scaling up a little bit and guarding bigger two. and maybe even some threes as he fills out his body. And maybe those are the better matchups for him because he does lack a little bit of that elite,

like just explosiveness and quickness. I feel like he did okay. Like okay, not necessarily good, but I think he did okay against the more explosive players. Okay. In the more explosive guards. Like, for example, there was one game against John Morant and Killian at first,

this is when he was still in the starting lineup, got assigned to Jha and got just absolutely smoked in the pick and roll. So after like six minutes, Dwayne Casey put Kate on him. And, you know, there's only so much that you're going to do to stop John Morant's. But I felt like he did a respectable job at it. And that's. And so that's another thing. You know, sometimes it's not just like isolation.

How can you stay in front of the guy? But can you navigate a ball screen? So if Kate is able to navigate ball screens, especially as this team becomes more diversified and how they defend ball screens, you know, most of last season, especially at the end was all switch. Well, eventually they're going to have to play some drop and some different coverages as well. if Cade's really good in navigating those ball screens in that way, that's a huge advantage and a huge value defensively also. Yeah, I feel like he was pretty good at it versus Cillian, who unfortunately was

very, very bad at it. Cade is not quite the sort of bulldog-esque defender that Cillian is, but he was much, like his first step is considerably better, like on both ends, but certainly on defense. And the way, I feel like he is able to navigate ball screens pretty well, just the way that he moves with his is, you know, like I get into the biomechanics of this, like players who will run around ball screens sort of leaning forward versus Killian, who's another bad example, who is pretty much just Ramrod straight. Whatever, we don't have to talk to the biomechanics of it,

but I feel like he did a fair job of that. I like the discussion though, Mike. Like, honestly, I'm probably going to tweet it out a pull as soon as we get done recording. But, you know, would you rather have an on-ball defender that was really good in isolation or really good getting through ball screens? Probably ball screens.

I mean, so much more. aside from a very small number of players who just love to operate in isolation, I mean, so much more of what you're doing on defense is just defending in other ways and included amongst which is navigating screens on the ball, off the ball. Yeah. Like being an elite isolation defender is great, but that's a small sector of offense.

No, I agree with you. I think, you know, and I need to watch some more Killian now to really watch that because I call Killian a really good defender all the time. And that's because I really do like him in isolations. But, you know, if he's struggling to get through, ball screens, that kind of, you know, that lowers his value because I agree with you. I think I would take the guy that can get through those ball screens more so than I would

in isolation defender. So it's an interesting conversation. And again, if Kate is able to do that at a high level and especially if he can then also do it off ball, like that, that's a lot of value to a good defensive scheme. Yeah. So yeah, the last thing I think, for me, the last thing would be his three-point shooting, which was not great. I mean, he was not great on catch and shoots, even wide open catch and shoots. I think he was about 35% in that last three quarters of the season. And his numbers were worse than they looked because he scored a little, he just, he had like four or five games in which he shot, or in which he made a lot of threes.

Like a lot of his made threes were loaded into a relatively small number of games. And I feel like his poor three-point shooting was really what kept him. I mean, that was definitely, we can talk about working the year later, a little, no, not so far in the future here, I suppose. but his poor three-point shooting is what kept him out of the realm of, like, efficient scores because it's real hard to be an efficient score if you're just chiefly doing it from two-point range and self-created twos, and then you can't hit your open threes. But he's just going to have to be able to hit his open threes, period.

And he struggled at that. I think it'll come along. Like, I really believe in the shot, but he struggled at it in his rookie season. Yeah, I mean, he's not efficient from three. And then we talked about it earlier. He's not getting to the free throw line. And you're not going to be a 20-point. a game guy if you're shooting 31% from three and what what do you get to the free toe line you know two

three times a game some two point something yeah that's why close to two yeah so uh i think i believe in the shot as well i will start to be a little bit concerned if we don't see a not a significant improvement but a little bit of a jump right 33 34 35 the catch and shoot ones were probably the most frustrating to me because he is going to have to play off ball at times i don't want the ball in his hands all the time i believe in jaden ivy so i believe in jay deny so I do believe there's going to be times. I believe in Jaden Ivy off the ball for what it's worth. I know you've already done that so we don't have to get into that.

But there are times you're going to want the ball in Jaden Ivy's hands. And so I do think it was frustrating at times to see Cade be the recipient of a drive kick one more pass. And then because it's Cade, you're like, oh, this is knocked down. And then after so long it's like, man, he's just not knocking these good looks down at the rate you expected. Obviously, expectations are super high for Cade compared to anybody else on the roster. So there's that aspect as well. but I would really like to see the catch and shoot numbers, you know, definitely increase in his second season. Yeah.

In the last about two months of the season, he shut, I think, 25% from three. Like, it really completely went off the rails near the end of the season. And I don't think either of us really minded very much, the Pissons were trying to lose games for most of that. Yeah. But, yeah, it would just, it would just be very nice to. I think it would come along. And, yeah, it's just, it's important for everybody.

It's important for him. So, but I think really. come on. He's got the shot. He's got the workout. I think he's got he's got the phone. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, it did seem like he lost, again, it's so hard to judge these guys through the television set as you're watching. It did seem like he lost a little bit of confidence in his three. Or if it wasn't a loss in confidence, he definitely had an emphasis on getting to the lane more. I think his attempts actually went down late in the season as well from three. So, um, it, it, it, it, it, it, If I'm not mistaken, I don't know if you can pull that up or have it, but I, I would be, it'll be interesting.

I think an offseason of working on the shot and just being re-energized and rejuvenated, I expect him to shoot it better to start the season and throughout his second year. Yeah, I'm actually, I'm looking at the stats right now. Yeah, he, so from the end of November until the All-Star break, he was averaging about five and a half per game versus four and a half per game. Okay, so not a huge change, but a little slight difference. Yeah. And during that first segment, he shot about 38%.

And then it just completely went off the rails after the All-Star break. But, yeah, I think he'll get there. It's very important that he does get there. And I think we'll see it. So, all right, anything else on this end of things before we just move on to Outlook in general, just in terms of what you... I think that was pretty much, that was, that was, I had turnovers, I had files, I had free, like, all this stuff you brought up were right here in my notes on my paper. All right, cool. So, yeah, let's move on to Albuick.

I mean, I think we can say, oh, let's just talk about just this season as a whole. I think that then we can send this into the rookie to year discussion. Like, I think that he had a pretty good rookie season. It was very promising, despite a not great situation. And, you know, that's that I was perfectly fine with seeing. You know, he showed a lot of what he can do. And now he's got time to refine it. And I think he's got an extraordinarily bright future.

100%. I couldn't agree more. he showed everything I wanted to see from him. He showed some things that I wasn't sure he was going to be as good at in the NBA right away. And I'm going into his second season as confident as I could be. And I'm really interested to see the improvement. I am not unwavering in saying that he is the face of the franchise, that he will lead

this team back into a competitive, you know, I don't know, contender or whatever. Not this season, obviously, Mike. know, you know, a few years down the road as the talent, as the talent grows and is acquired around him. But he's everything I thought he was going to be when the Pistons drafted, and he's done nothing to stray me from that thought process. Yeah, definitely just, I think will be an all-around great player on offense. I think he'll be, I think he'll be a plus defender and all those intangibles. Like, I don't think he'll be the score that Jalen Green is. I think Jalen Green is, I think he'll be the defender that Evan Mowgli is, but I think he will be the best all-around player of the three with everything that he brings in terms of, you know, leadership, scoring, passing ability and tangible is, you know, really everything. The guy is, I think it could be a total package. And I just want to bring this up, like, we're talking about defense and guys who can be super high usage on offense and be elite defenders. Like, you have Janus. Yonis plays largely interior defense, which is easier. But LeBronman, during his 20s, was this overpowering offensive player who is a perennial all defensive.

selection. I mean, and he could, and this is one of the guys, the elusive guys who could switch across five positions. But, you know, father time, you know, waits for nobody. And even LeBron. And so when he got into his 30s, I mean, he slowed down and now he just doesn't play defense during the regular season. I just think it's funny. But that, how impressive that was and how it is now. Yeah. No, for sure. And I don't know, maybe this can take us into the rookie the year because you brought up exactly how I feel. Jalen Green, you know, maybe a better score. Evan Mowbly may be a better defender. I had the opportunity to make a case for Cade Cunningham for a rookie of the year, again, for a basketball news article. And that was essentially my argument was,

yeah, maybe this guy, I think Josh Giddy may have averaged more assists or something like that. But none of them are the total package that Cade Cunningham is. And then you add in the intangible stuff that we, you know, raved about to start the episode. And that's why I think he was the best rookie in the class and the right choice is the number one pick and all those other things. and I've said it multiple times. I could care less that he didn't win rookie of the year. I literally do not care as a Pistons fan and content creator. I would actually prefer he didn't because it just plays more into the Detroit versus everybody

and just keep sleeping on the Pistons and then don't join the bandwagon when they're good. But there's zero doubt in my mind. And who else was tasked of all those guys, Mike, who else was tasked to be the face of the franchise the way Cade was? Nobody. Who was the focal point of the line? offense in the Skyron report the way Cade was. Maybe Jaylen Green at some point, but I still don't think so.

And so nobody had the pressure or the role or anything that Cade Cunningham had his rookie for the Detroit Pistons. That's true. Yeah, definitely. And again, we add in what we were talking about earlier that his situation was very difficult. I mean, with the team that was not particularly good at shooting, like without, for the best majority of the season, without a good role man.

just the spacing, not just that the shooting was bad, the spacing was terrible for the most part. And yeah, he took on responsibility, a load of responsibility that was much greater than that of any other rookie. Like, yeah, Giddy had had Shay alongside him. And Jalen Green was playing with, you know, Kevin Porter Jr. wasn't great, but he took a lot of that load. Even Eric Gordon was around quite a bit. And, yeah, like Green wasn't the primary ball handler. Mobley got to come in and play next to Jared Allen, which is a great situation. for him. So yeah, Kade definitely had, and that Scotty Barnes, who was, you know, who was a

high-level role player on a playoff team. Yep. Yeah. And so, but walked into a great situation, right? I mean, with their, what they envision a player to be for their team and then also having other good players, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, not just Jared Allen, but Darius Garland, you know, you know, had an incredible season. So, you know, he's carrying that load. And I know Mobley and Kate are completely different players anyway. But I just, I just, I think that is very impressive for Cade Cunningham and all the different pressures and weight that he had on him along with just the counting stats. Yeah. Now, what I will say is that to player the month, I think that was for March. Now,

when he didn't win that, it was garbage. That was complete nonsense. And that was the only time we saw him openly complain because, yeah, that was complete nonsense. But what I will say, like, I don't remember who said it. If it was him or somebody else, it's like, like, oh, it's not like the rookie of the first month or like the first two months. It's rookie to year. Also, it's not rookie of like everything but the first two months for six weeks, whatever it was because he was really bad in his first quarter of the season. Do you think that if he had played for the entirety of the season as he did in the second

through the fourth quarter of it that he would have won the award? Yeah, probably so because I think what happens. And here's the other thing. The people that vote on that, it is tough. because it's hard to be an expert on all 30 teams. And I know that's supposed to be their job, but I couldn't imagine knowing about 29 other teams the way I know about the Detroit Pistons.

And so they do have to rely on metrics and efficiencies and different things like that because they can't watch 82 games of every single player. But yeah, I think what happened in that first couple months was it kind of put him out of the conversation and then it was hard to kind of get that momentum back. And then by the time he was playing really well and the team was winning, I just think it was too late at that point.

And then you had two rookies on teams that, you know, had really good seasons. And they were, even though they weren't in the roles that Cade was, they were important parts of the Raptors and the Cavs. And I think that plays into it. Yeah, I'd say particularly Mobley. I mean, it was very important to the Cavs.

Barnes was important to the Raptors, but I think they were going to be a playoff team anyway. Not the Cavs made the playoffs, but yeah, the efficiency for K-HAD, yeah, when you take in, like a lot of things, but particularly the efficiency. I mean, when you finish it about 50% true shooting, it's going to be very 50 and 1⁄2%. It's been very difficult for you to win rookie the year unless it's like a terribly, terribly weak draft class, which is the exact opposite of what we were dealing with last year. So, yeah, so, yeah, I think I agree if you played that whole way throughout the season.

Yeah, I think that he would have won the award if he hadn't had that slow start, but did have that slow start. So did Jaylen Greene, who was on fire. for like the last 30, 40% of the season. Terrible. And like most of the first half of the season, he was awful. I do want to ask you, Mike, before we get to anything else or finish or whatever we're going to do, but you've mentioned the spacing, not having, like,

are you happy or encouraged by the roster around him into this coming season? Or you think we're going to see some of the same issues? I'm more encouraged by it, definitely. Like, who knows about Ivy? I mean, that's hard to say. where a shot is going to be coming in, though I think he'll be significantly improved from his inconsistency in college because presumably he's going to be on a much healthier shot diet than the like needlessly difficult stuff he was persistently attempting in college.

Like, you know, it's like, dude, stand on the three point line rather than like three feet behind it. Gather your feet and take an easy open catch and shoot three. It's like you don't need to like be spotting up from like two or three feet behind the line. Sure, sure. This is completely unnecessary. Yeah, he took more deep threes than anybody. buddy, I don't know if that to be fact,

but it sure seemed like it from watching the film. None of them were on the three point line. Yeah, he took a lot, definitely. And so when it comes to, like, what we're looking at in the upcoming season, so there's still going to be some players who might struggle. Of course, like, you never know with Killian, never with Hamadu, though I think he'll drop out of the rotation,

you know, by mid-season if he's, you know, if he hasn't improved the shooting or if there aren't a bunch of injuries. Kevin Knox is a deep rotation player who's not particularly good shooter. Sadiq, of course, can shoot. I think Isaiah Livers will be a solid shooter. Alec Berks is a very good shooter, including on, you know, even on a motion three-point situations, like handoffs in particular, he's a very good shooter. And goodness, Corey Joseph, who knows if he'll see any time, but he shot the ball well last

season. And, yeah, so shooting could still be an issue. I don't think it will be the same sort of issue, put it that way. I think there are enough guys on the roster who will be able to shoot the ball well that it won't be this sort of disastrous spacing it was last season. Hopefully Isaiah Stewart, too. I have faith in him. I don't have quite as much faith in Bagley.

I agree. No, I'm with you. I think it will be better. I think there's definitely lineups you can construct and put together where it wouldn't be an issue at all. The only thing with that is when you put those lineups together, now all of a sudden you're leaving out some guys who I think you would want to see get minutes. And so I think that's going to be the given. take of are you going to get guys minutes or are you going to make sure you have floor spacing because

if you're getting certain guys and combination minutes then your floor spacing may not be very well. So I don't, Wayne Casey does not have an easy job in my opinion figuring out rotations and playing time and minutes and balancing your young guys with some vet. Like what do you do with some of these vets? You're just going to let them rot away on the bench or are they going to play? I think so. And that's, I'm, I'm kind of there with Nerlands Noel. I'm not super excited about seeing any Nerlands Noel minutes.

Kelly Olinick, if he's playing what I thought he was going to be coming into last season, I don't mind his minutes. But if it's essentially what we saw last year, I don't need to see a lot of those either. I'm not sure where he's going to find him. But, I mean, you can probably be confident. I think I'm confident that Olinix three point percentage will be closer to his career baseline. You know, that'll be like a 35, 36% shooter. And that's good.

I think that's his baseline. Maybe it's 37. But yeah, I mean, it's going to be a weird, weird rotation. I think Noel is pretty much just there in case Duran isn't ready or as an injury bulwark or just as just the general third string guy. Yeah, it's like you've said. I mean, he's a very strong rim protector and not quite so strong of a switch defender. But yeah, do you believe in Isaiah Stewart's shot?

I do. And, you know, I've said this. It's, I don't, you can't believe in everything this offseason, right? Mike, you can't think every single player is going to make an improvement and make a jump. So I've been trying to balance. that. So I do. I think I believe in Isaiah Stewart. I'm not buying Killian Hayes making a huge jump this season. If there's one person, I'm buying Isaiah livers coming into the season and probably, you know, not as much on Hamadu Diallo, which you talked about a little bit. So I would love to

think that every one of them gets better shooting and everybody improves and makes a huge jump. And I just know there's not, you know, that's not realistic. And so I'm trying to balance the guys that I think we do see it and the guys that we don't and and yes Isaiah Stewart is one I think I'm buying into it. Yeah. So do you think the spacing will be significantly better this season? Like with all of that and taking Alec Burke's into the occasion. I don't think it'll be significant. I think it will be better. I still, it depends on the lineups again, like how they want to play things. Because here's the thing. If you go, the lineup, the starting lineup, I think we're going to see, Mike is Cade, Ivy, Bay, Stewart, and Bagley.

I think that's the starting lineup. There's a world where that, that's, floor spacing is really bad. I'm not saying it's the world that's going to happen, but what if J.Nivey doesn't shoot better than 30% from three? What if Stewart isn't a shooter and, you know, or improved on his shooting? And then Marvin Bagley, you know, hasn't necessarily shown that either. So essentially you have Sadiq Bay spacing the floor. So I think there's a world where yeah, it is a lot better. But if some of these improvements don't happen, there's a world where it's not as well. Yeah, it'll definitely be interesting to see. So as far as closing thoughts, what is your most optimistic projection for K for next season?

Not necessarily quantitatively, but just in terms of, well, I guess we don't have to do a most optimistic. What do you think he'll look like next season as opposed to this past season? Yeah, so I will give the numbers. We did this on the Pistons poll. So if you guys want to go listen, we did a complete stat projecting for nine players, mostly the young core. And, oh, man, I know, right? We took a lot of hate because of where we had Jade Nivey's points per game. But people did not like how low we were with Jaden Ivy's points per game projection. But essentially, we took Omari and I and we averaged our thoughts.

But so we had Kate at 22 points per game, six rebounds, seven assists is where our averages came out. And we said on the episode that he's the one guy we have huge expectations for to make a significant jump. And that is a significant jump, Mike. But whenever you're talking about face of the franchise, the type of player we all think he's going to be, I think it's, it's reasonable to expect that or to think it may happen. So I think we see a guy completely in control of the offense. I think we see even more

confidence from him, even more leadership in the intangible things. And I think the efficiency. That's the biggest thing I hope to see and think we will see from Cade Cunningham. Yeah. I think the three point shooting is likely to improve a great deal. I think that the free throw attempt generation is going to improve quite a bit. I think we'll see less turnovers. Hopefully we'll see more of that mid-range game in an efficient way. and but I'd love to see on top of that. And this is more just kind of like a, you know, less of, well, it could easily happen. I think he's got enough upside as a pull-up three-point shooter, which is just a super

useful thing to have. So yeah, I agree. I think we'll see significant improvements. And I think we'll continue to see it with the guy who I think both of us strongly believe is going to be a franchise player and could be the best player on a contender going forward. Yeah, that's where I'm at. We're in lockstep on that, you know, whether he's the leading score or not. I've had that conversation.

What does Cade need? What's his number two guy need to be? And he's so malleable. I think it can almost be anything. But I think he can be your number one guy, your face of the franchise guy, on a team that's competing for a championship someday. And that's exciting as a Pistons fan. Absolutely.

So this is Bryce Simon from the Pistons Pistons Pulse, Motor City Hoops. He's Motor City Hoops on Twitter and on YouTube. And Bryce, always a pleasure man, to have you on the show. And thanks for coming on again. Thank you, Mike. I enjoyed it. I know it always runs a little long, but I think the listeners will like it. And I had a blast talking Kate Cunningham and Pistons with you.

Absolutely. Likewise. Definitely. All right, folks. So that'll be up for today's episode. As always, thank you for listening. Catch you next time.