Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 119: Bojan Bojan Bojan (with Jack Kelly of Detroit Bad Boys)

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

This episode, featuring guest Jack Kelly of Detroit Bad Boys, analyzes the Bojan Bogdanovic trade: what he'll bring to the Pistons, what he won't bring, what role he may play on the roster, and how his addition could impact next season's lineups.

Welcome back, everybody to drive into the basket, part of the basketball podcast network. I am Mike, your host, here today with my guest, Jack Kelly of Detroit Bad Boys. Jack, always a pleasure to have me on the show. Thanks having me on, Mike. Always love jumping on, talk Pistons hoops with yourself. So keen to get into it. We've got some news to discuss. Absolutely, we do.

But first of all, why don't you tell us about a new little project you're doing the Pistons this season? Sure thing, man. So basically myself and Thurbanes... three other folks on Pistons Twitter. We've joined up with a startup company called Watch Playback, and we've essentially will be live streaming Pistons games this season, one to two games a week, where essentially anyone, as long as you have a cable subscription or a league pass subscription,

you can jump on, watch the games live with us, chat in the chat, and we can also bring you up to chat via face-to-face. And it's just a really cool new sort of, it's sort of like Twitch gaming, that sort of interface. So yeah, man, thanks for letting me plug it on here. And yeah, you can find more details on my Twitter bio. It'll take you to our page with all the information to sign up and that sort of thing. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

All right. So subject to the episode today is the news to which Jack was referring. Of course, you know, this happened last week. But Piston's made a trade. Sent out Kelly Owinnick and Sabin-Wee to the Utah Jazz in exchange for, Boyan Bogdanovich, not to be confused with Bogdan Bogdanovich, who comes off the bench for the Atlanta Hawks. So for the Pistons, get rid of Olinick. Barely are dumping his salary for next season, which is only guaranteed for $3 million, but it's still $3 million off the books of the Pistons had chosen not to take him.

Sabin lead is just kind of a throw-in. As far as I know, that was just to make salaries work on the Pistons side. And Boyan is on the final year of his deal, and we're going to talk about what he brings to the Pistons, what he doesn't bring to the Pistons. when he doesn't bring to the pistons. Also, farewell, Kelly. Did not see too much of you, but you seem like a good dude. And we'll always have that shot

that you made against the Hornets. All right, so Jack, how do you feel about this trade? I was, first of all, I liked the trade. I think it, initially my first thought were, now the roster starts to make a little bit more sense, which is something in Troy Weaver's tenure. The roster's constantly, it's still not perfect, obviously, but it's constantly just felt like we've had too many bigs or not enough wings or

it's just felt constantly a bit unbalanced. My first thing was just the composition of the roster finally feels a bit more even. And obviously, Boyan, I've sort of always kept a close eye on him and he's gay. I've always really sort of enjoyed watching him play, just his shooting and he's got a sort of an element of smoothness on offense that I've always just sort of caught my eye. So, I mean, for the first time, and most of Troy Weaver's trades have been quite aggressive in what he's willing to give up and whether that's trading first round picks, future picks that are heavily protected.

It's always felt like with most of his deals, he's been quite aggressive, whereas this one just felt like a real, it was quite bemusing from the Jazz's end and I still think people are still trying to figure out what the Jazz sort of gained out of this move. But on a Pistons front, yeah, I was really pleased. with the return and I think Boyan helps this team in a lot of ways. Yeah, I was pleased with the trade too, definitely. It absolutely, I mean, to both of us, I'm sure,

came as a surprise, like a big surprise. I had thought that the Jazz could probably catch like a late first round pick for Boyan, who has become more limited in his old age, so to speak. Like, he's 33 and was not the most athletic player in the first place, so he slowed down a bit. But I still, this was surprising. I mean, I'd say really the only plus

from the jazz side that I could perceive is that he gets the below the tax, like significantly below the tax. They dump salary for a team that is on course to probably rival the Thunder as the worst team in the league next season. And who knows, I mean, the jazz are going to be terrible. They have gotten rid of everybody. Like their center rotation is now like a winick and a Walker Kessler. And, yeah, I don't remember the third ones.

I think they brought in a Cody Zella. Oh, did they? Man, like a dropout. Cody Zella and then, yeah, it's a pretty bad. it's a pretty barren roster. Yeah. Colin Sexton. They're doing it the right way.

Yeah, well, that's it. I think Colin Sexton's going to probably put up 30 shots a night. It'll be human marking and leading the charge. But yeah, they're going to be a certainly won't be a league past 10. Oh, absolutely not. And I mean, it's the right move. Absolutely. You wanted to get rid of Gober.

You wanted to rebuild. You sent out Mitchell for what was a pretty darn good return, I think. And then you're awful ahead of what appears to be a very strong draft. So I like what the jazz are doing. Go all in one way or. the other don't hang out in the middle like the pistons or you know or the wizards or the kings or whoever else at the NBA with the pistons in the past this is the worst place to be we all know it so yeah either you know like this said in shashank you know get busy living or get busy dying in this

case you know get busy winning or get busy tanking yeah for sure so yeah so i liked it definitely a boy on still a good role player the pistons got him for nothing like saving lee let's talk about first but the pistons gave up so kelly was brought in last season to provide some spacing for Cade, a little bit of, spacing for Cade at the 5 and also a little bit of offensive creation. Of course, he spent about half the season injured and never really got up to speed, whether it was before the injury or after the injury. And then there was Saban, and I went over saving a few episodes ago.

Just a long story short, the guy doesn't have great functional athleticism at the NBA level, so not great at getting into the basket. He can't shoot when he gets punished hard for that. And he doesn't really do well at point guard things either, like setting up his teammates running an offense, and he's undersized. so it was always a long shot. Yeah, Sabin's, yeah, the jump shot is just, it just doesn't look right. And I think everything else you mentioned is pretty accurate and I would tend to agree with,

but the jump shot is what will determine whether he can even hang around on a roster, I would say. Athleticism is intriguing and I do get your point about the functionality of it. So I think that raw athleticism alone could keep him around for a little bit, but yeah, if he can't find minutes on this jazz roster this season, yeah, the outlook's not looking great for saving. Yeah, I don't think the outlook is going to look great even if his jump shot comes along.

I was a lot more confident for some reason after his first season. But even if the jump shot comes along, I mean, what I mean by his functional athleticism not being so great is that he's not really all that explosive at the NBA level and also. He doesn't elevate at the basket. He tends to score just from the floor for the most part, kind of in the mold of Tyrese Maxie, but without that, like, incredible quickness that lets Tyrese Max,

who score through those tiniest of gaps from bowl of the basket. And, you know, you pair that together with the fact that Saban is, you know, he's not tall enough to play the, to play a shooting guard. He has about 6-2. Yeah. And also he just doesn't have the passing assets, the basketball IQ on offense to really make it work as a guy who's running an offense. Yeah, I just don't see it.

But I think, you know, maybe if he gets a shot together, you know, maybe he sticks in the NBA's a third string point guard. I mean, I guess that's the case with the vast majority of second round picks at the end of the day. Oh, yeah. There's most of them, obviously, they're all amazing prospects on a global scale. But in terms of the NBA, most of the second round prospects, if they last more than their first contract, they've probably exceeded expectations, I would say. Oh, 100%. Yeah. It's something about 25% of second round picks actually make a career in the NBA. and the rest either do not make it do not play a game in the NBA or they're out within four years. Yeah, if you ever go back and look back at previous drafts, there's so many names in there,

you just go, I remember them on draft night, but I don't think I ever saw them suit up. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, definitely. And I just love thinking about this, that these are guys who flunk out of the NBA, but it's like you said on a global scale, just in a vacuum. These guys are crazy basketball players. Like you see these guys kind of like out in a rec league court. they will stomp all over everyone and they will look completely and utterly unstoppable.

And that is how high, how obscenely high the level of talent is in the NBA, that you have these amazing basketball players just flunking out. Even guys like Saban who can crush the G League. Yeah, he just won't even make it in the NBA. 40 on the regular. And then, yeah, it's just a different, entirely different level. 100%. Yeah.

And I think back, like, I was talking to a fellow I know recently who played in high school against some guys who went on to play at the University of Iowa. you know d1 school good school you got to be real good to play in d1 basketball i get a big 10 school those guys would never even sniff the g league and the vast majority of guys in the g league will never sniff the NBA that's how good it is it's amazing how good the levels to it are crazy like yeah it's sort of mind blowing a little bit when you break it down like that oh yeah it's just the the skill level is amazing i got to watch magic johnson like old magic johnson play pickup once because I used to live in the Lansing area

that's where I grew up and his mother still lived in the area so the athletic club I would go to he would drop by occasionally and I mean this was a guy who was like 15 years probably passed his NBA career and I mean you could just see that this guy

was just a deity amongst mortals yeah yeah a friend of mine probably scored like 25 points in the game because he had the greatest point guard of all time feeding his baskets pick up yeah it's crazy

yeah anyway we're far off topic All right, so Boyon, so yeah, Saban's gone, Kelly's gone, and we got Boyon. So let's go on to Boyon. You know, what is he as a player? So why don't you take it away? So Boyan is the first thing that jumps out is obviously the perimeter shooting. He's catch and shoot, the elite catch and shoot threat. He can shoot off movement.

He came off screens for the jazz. He can pull up in the mid-range. He's not bad at backing a smaller guy down in the post and shooting over the top. He's got sort of a high release point, which helps him. I think he's about six foot eight as well. So he's someone who can get his shot off over most defenders and do it at a high percentage, which is important clearly. And I think there is a little bit of playmaking in there, but I don't think that's

going to be something that you want him doing a lot. But I think he can definitely create off the bounce for himself. So I think, and he's around the rim stuff's okay. And I think the one thing that jumped out to me with Boyan was sort of, he sort of gets to the free throw line. I mean, four free throws attempts a game is sort of what he averaged across the past three seasons. It doesn't, isn't amazingly high, but I also think that shows he can get to the line,

can draw some contact. And I think ultimately what I might, the thing I loved with the Boyan edition outside of just the obvious catch and shoot, three point shooting was just, He can be that release valve for Cade or Ivy when they're sort of, if they're struggling or they just need a break on offense. Like you can throw the ball to him. He can get you a shot. He can sort of get to the free toe line. He can create some efficient offense, which is something this team struggle with for a while.

Yeah, definitely. We need to the shooting. I mean, the shooting has been, my goodness, is the shooting ever not been a question mark for the Detroit Pistons? I don't know back in like 2008. I'm trying. I just think every season I follow this team since 2012, it's just like there's three-point shooting. I'm sure there has been seasons. It was above league average, but it just feels like it's always been the issue. And then any shooters we've had, it's like an undersized Wayne Ellington playing the three. You know what I mean? It's just, so to have a six-foot-eight guy,

he can actually shoot, yes, he has these defensive limitations, which we'll get into. But yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So space before, great efficient offense. It's got the last two seasons shot about 40% on wide open threes. That's very good. I think the season before that, he shot around, oh, goodness, like 50%. Of course, hardly anybody does that. But good shooter, solid form, knows where to be. It can relocate a little bit.

You know, he can pump fake you another, you know, if he can, if he shoots it anyway, he's just going to sidestep and get a good shot. You know, it's valuable. He does this on high volume. It's really what he primarily does these days is shoot threes. That's really what he's good for. They're only about 50% of his shots last season, but value before a spacer, you know, borderline elite three-point shooter, definitely.

And that's helpful. And like you said, he can create a little bit of offense as well. He's definitely good at attack and closeouts. He's shifty, kind of smart off the drive. And can also create a little bit in a pick and roll against mismatches. So it'd be a decent release felt there. Also, you know, just another good veteran to have on the team, definitely. But the shooting key, absolutely.

For sure. And just the addition of him as well, just now we finally have. Like you've got Osaya Livers, Sadiq Bay, and Boyan Bogdanovich now, who are all, yes, they're wings with limitations, but they can all shoot it. And then I just like having that extra deep threat just really helps balance out the roster. Yeah, a lot of people are going to hate hearing me say this, but it's like, it's kind of funny. They're all three guys who can shoot the three and have kind of below average athleticism. But we'll get to the, yes, we'll get to the, we'll get to the athleticism later. I'm just thinking of this Sopranos quote.

As you watch Sopranos where Uncle Jr. sees this courtroom sketch for himself and gets all pissed off. And Bobby's like, if it was a great painter, it would be in a museum. The same thing. It's like with Boyon, it's like, yeah, if you were like, you know, a great player, then you wouldn't have been gotten in exchange for Savenly and Corey Joseph. Excuse me, Saving Lee and Kelly Olinick. So, and whivers in the second round, yeah. So, yeah, so aside in a three-point shooting, what do you see?

I know I mentioned a little bit his ability to create off of closeouts and so on and so forth. So what else are we going to see from on offence, in your opinion? Well, I honestly think it's mainly cent around the shooting and his creation on offense. Like I think he averaged his playmaking. Like I said earlier, I don't think it's something you want him doing in a high usage role. He's sort of creating for others. I think he's, while the numbers will bear out, he's much better just creating for himself. So I'm pretty sure those pick and roll numbers.

The ones I saw are mainly just him scoring out the pick and roll numbers. The ones I saw are mainly just him scoring out the pick and roll numbers. not necessarily facilitating. So I think primarily he's just going to be there to be that secondary or tertiary creator alongside Cade or someone you can mix match in lineups to play alongside Killian and Jalen Ivy. And yeah, I think I'll be interested to see if Utah didn't run a lot of stuff with handoffs. I'm interested to see if Casey tries to use him in handoff schemes, DHOs and that sort of thing.

But yeah, I think a lot of it's going to just be sent around. shooting and just the spacing he provides. I know he's an elite corner shooter, corner three point shooter. So I think we'll see him base there a lot, maybe start the offense in the corner a lot. So yeah, shooting, shooting, shooting. Yeah, he shot 46% from the right corner last year. Yeah, so there you go. That was two seasons ago, pardon me.

I'm just looking at it. So last season he shot 41% from the right corner and 40% from the west corner. And strong above the break, three point shooter as well, pretty much strong from everywhere. And yeah, I agree. I'm likely to do a lot of attacking off the dribble and hasn't in a while and definitely not a minarin shooter. But a guy who can, in the right situation, he's smart. I mean, Bojan's smart. And he knows when he can try to attack the basket.

You know, whether if it's off a closeout, I mean, he can be surprisingly shifty and how he moves and get himself in the basket. Or occasionally, he just can see a lane and knows he's up against somebody who's going to be too slow to get there on time. And then he can take it to the rim as well and score while jumping like nine inches off the ground. Yeah. So you've got that as well. There's a little bit of versatility there, less than they used to be. But I guess like I said, I mean, these 33, some guys, like really, really good players. Some of them do not decline when you get in your 30s. But for the average player, once you hit 30, you start to go into decline physically compared to the rest of the league, whether it's the NBA miles on your body or just that everybody's younger than you. It's funny with Boyan when you look at his just his career numbers, he's a rare player that seems to, just when you look at the scoring numbers, this is of course. And his numbers have gotten better each season, really. He had his probably his best season. A couple of seasons ago with the jazz, but yeah, as a whole, his scoring is consistently sort of increased.

So I think offensively, I don't think there's any concern, any reason to think that he'll drop off offensive. next season. Yeah, I would say. However, like you look at it and you look, it's like how on earth that the Pistons managed to snag this guy who averaged 18 points per game last season and a playoff team. And then he looked like, is Bogon, excuse me, really like an 18 point per game score.

And it's where I start to think, it's not where I start to think I know this, how is he going to operate differently in a Piston system versus the Jazz? Because Quinn Snyder, say what you will about him, he operated an extraordinarily efficient offense with the Jazz. Without like elite offensive. offensive personnel aside from Donovan Mitchell. They were perennially like a top three team.

I think over at least the last three seasons in efficiency. Great ball movement. He got a bojan got a lot of open shots. And is he going to be able to do that with the piss? And how is it going to be different for him? Yeah, for sure. That jazz team can, I think last season they were still the best offense based of advanced metrics.

I think they're still finished with the best offense. So I definitely agree with you there. It'll be interesting to see how much of that play. plays into Boyan's production offensively. And, yeah, because Coach Casey, one of the things people have criticized him for is his lack of creativity on offense. So it'll be interesting to see how he fits in.

If they're just going to pin him in the corner and just shoot threes, I don't know if you're maximizing Boyan doing that. I can't imagine that's what will happen. But, yeah, it'll be interesting to see if they do run him off screens or just try him. One thing I'd like to see and is maybe use him as, a screener. I know they did that with Sadiq Bay last season. They'd sort of do a flare screen

where Sadiq would set K to screen and then sort of scurry off to like above the break. And he got a few open looks from that. So I mean, I think Boyan's got similar speed and quickness to Sadiq. They're not the quickest, but I think they can both sort of shoot over the top of people. So it'll be interesting. I definitely agree with you be interesting to see how Dwayne KC implements Boyan. Yeah, I think we're going to see a lot. I think we'll see him play pretty similarly to Sadiq, basically, rather to how Sadiq was played in his rookie season. Geez, that's even that's hard because Sadiq rarely did anything inside the arc in his rookie season. So what I think Bollyam will do, he's going to float around the three-point line.

Let's look for shots, and if somebody closes out on him, he's going to attack the close out. I think that's basically going to be his role. I would not expect that he's going to score 18 points per game for the Pistons, just be both because they're going to want to get that usage for other players, other younger players, and also just because he's not playing in Utah, you know, with a, you know, with a world-class regular. or season offense anymore. So I'd be satisfied with Boyan, if we see like 14, like 13, 14 points per game. I think I'd be happy with that.

Of course. And as long as the efficiency is still there, I feel like, apart from that release, failed bit of creation to help K'd out and the young ball handlers, like the main thing is the score, they're shooting gravity. Like, he's going to warrant the defender to stick with him wherever he is on the court, on the perimeter that is. And I think that has a lot of value for this team because that we haven't really had a player like that. Yeah. I mean, aside, he and Alec Berks now are absolutely the best shooters in the team.

Like, no, you know, no butts there, period. Yeah, the Pistons, two guys, two veterans, the Pistons had by training. I think Livers can get there, but we need to see more from Livers. He only played 19 games in a bit of Summer League. So I think Livers stroke is legit, but we need to see more. Yeah, you believe in it. Gotcha. Yeah. But, well, at this point, though, yeah, so at least you got Bers and you've got Bairke on on the team, and those are really two high percentage three-point shooters, which Bissons. didn't really have last season. So that's good to have. Weider for the Pistons last year in three-point percentage, the much-reveiled Corey Joseph. It would have about 40% if I remember correctly, but on very

low volume. Well, not very low, but I think he made about one three per game. Yeah. I'm going to defend Corey Joseph from anybody who wants to criticize, criticize him for being in a starting lineup last season. He did his job. Absolutely. I've no, I think that Cory Joseph hates just a easy thing for people to jump on, on social media. I think he played his role. And I've, I did a bit of research and as soon as he was alongside Kate, those two. Like, Kaye played really well with Corey alongside him, and I don't think that's just a fluke. No, Corey was able to provide some secondary ball handling.

He's a veteran who knows what to do, and basically he freed Kate from needing to handle the ball on every single possession. Like, is Corey a solid MBA starter? No, Corey's, like, at best, an average NBA backup, but he did his job, super hard worker, like consummate professional and leader and his teammates love him. It's funny.

I'll just do a quick play. Like, yeah, I'm doing an article at the moment on trade value, just ranking all the Pistons players. And, yeah, let me just say, Corey probably sits higher than a lot of people. A lot of Detroit fans would like. He's over it. He sits atop a couple of names that I know I have a valid argument for, but I know it's going to raise some heated conversation. All right. I'll look forward to it.

Yeah. All right. So let's move on to Boyon's negatives. You know, what would you say really sticks out to you? I mean, I know we're going to say the same thing as it's a defense. No what I imagine. Yeah, it's the defense. It's the defense.

And, yeah, I don't think he's aloof defensively. I think it's just a product of his age. And he's never been the quickest guy. So as you were saying, I think he'll be 33 for this season, maybe turning 34 potentially. Yeah, the lack of speed and not just like sort of up and down the court speed. It's the lateral speed. It's when someone takes him to the basket.

pump fakes. He doesn't have the ability to recover and contest a shot. You don't want Boyan defending on ball. And also one other thing I noticed is he's rebounding wasn't great. So I'm not sure if you're going to play him at the four. Yeah. I know we're getting to lineups later, but if you're going to play him at the four,

he doesn't really provide any rebounding. Definitely no room protection. And he's not really someone who's going to disrupt the passing lanes, even though he has a surprisingly long wing span. So, but for me, the main thing, the main thing that will be an issue is just the lack of speed overall. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. Yeah, on defense, he is not quick.

He does not have the greatest awareness. And did I mention that he's not quick? I mean, if you set up in isolation against a quick guard, he's going to get beaten. If he needs to rotate quickly, he's not going to get there in time. I mean, he's not Luca Garza slow by any means. I mean, this guy is just a minus defender. I think he's not a major liability, but he's a minus defender. and when people are talking about the jazz and how they had awful perimeter defense in his last three playoffs.

They're absolutely right. Boyam was one of the, it was one of the offenders. Royce O'Neill was one of them. Boyama's one of them. And Donovan Mitchell, who allowed himself to get turned into a turnstile was the third one. So, yeah, he can be a defensive liability, and that doesn't bother these pistons who are trying to win, but it's definitely there. And the rebounding, yeah, he's a bad rebounder. And he primarily plays power forward these days.

And he's a bad rebounder for it. Also, definitely not coming in to give weak side defense at the room. No, we're not getting any of those. Jeremy Grant, week, so it blocks had a boy on, that's for sure. Yeah,

yeah, I'd be shocked if we even saw one of them, to be honest. I'd be interested to see, maybe I haven't looked at any numbers or enough film, but if he takes charges at all,

that could be, he could sort of take the Blake Griffin approach to defense of trying to take charges to sort of offset the lack of room protection. I don't know if that's any, something he does.

It's something I might look out for, though. Yeah, I really don't know. I was in the process. of looking this up, but I'll continue to do that while you're talking. So, yeah, so we got the slowness. Yeah, we got the bad rebounding.

We got the slowness. We got the bad defense and the slowness. And let's see, what else? So the swanus actually comes in to become a greater issue. We get them talking about lineups. And I don't know, I don't really have any other downsides to go over. I mean, I think that Bojan is a pretty good offensive role player. We should not, not much to be expected of them on defense.

Yeah, anything else to walk into negative. Oh, look, it sounds like, It sounds like, yeah, look, we're obviously talking about negatives. I don't think, I think it's just the speed of the defense. I think offensively there is some limitations. Like, he can get to the basket, but I don't think it matters as much in the context of the piss and offense whether Boyan's going to get to the, whether he's getting into the defense and creating contact.

I think you want him just shooting three. So the main negatives are definitely on the defensive end. Yeah, all right, I can answer your question about charges. If you had to guess, how many charges would you say Boyan Drew last year? I'll say, I'm going to say less than 10. Let's go with seven. One. There you go.

Yeah. I think I heard somewhere as well he had one block shot last season. So there you go. There's all your interior protection defensive. You got one block shot and one charge taken for the year. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, don't expect too much about this guy. Nobody should expect too much from this guy on D.V.

defense, yeah, even in the way of just contesting shots, especially for power forward, not very good. Not terrible. Like you said, he's got good wingspan. But you've got to be in proper position to contest shots, too, and that's not always going to be easy for him. All right, so the poor athleticism, definitely. Let's move on with that and discussion of the lineups, because I know we discussed this when we talked about lineups. Man, this must have been back in, I don't know, July. Yeah, around summer late time. Yeah, July, I think. Right, yeah. But first, a quick word from our sponsors. The NFL action is in full swing here at Drafking Sportsbrook, an official sports betting partner in the NFL. We're talking touchdowns, big plays, and even bigger wins.

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that's code T-BPN-15 at buyracom.com to score 15% off byracon.com, code TbPN15. So the Pistons had some issues last season in terms of fielding lineups that were not athletic enough, like starting out the season with Cade, Hayes, Bay, Stewart, and Grant, or Grant was really the only above-average NBA athlete. you had three below average NBA athlete. So I feel like when it comes to lineups, you have to think about that with Boyon so that you're not fielding a lineup

that is going to give us PTSD like basketball PTSD, of course, sports fan PTSD like that game against the cavaliers early in the season when it looked like the Pistons were the Washington generals against the Harlem Globetrotters

in terms of how slow they were. Yeah, that was ugly. It was real ugly. You made the first time they played the Cavs. Yeah. Yeah, it got blown out. Oh, it was bad. Yeah.

So I feel like that has to figure into the lineups you put out there. But the first question would be, do you think Boyon starts? So to answer that, yes, I think he will start, but he's not in my ideal starting five. But I think with just the nature of the contract situation, age, I see him starting. It makes sense. Yeah. Well, it makes sense in that capacity. in terms of how Dwayne Casey operates.

I'm not so sure. I agree that it'll start, but let's go over what that starting lineup would look like. Of course, that would be Cade, and I think we're going to assume that Ivy's going to start at the beginning. Unless he has like an awful, awful training camp in bad preseason.

Even then, I think they would give it to him. He's not a Killian-Ha's-like player. So in that case, you have Cade, Ivy, Bay, Boyan, and Stewart, and I do not want to see that lineup. I knew you wouldn't want to say that. But that's the likely starting five I have at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, so everybody who's listening to show for wrong,

those are my issues with that will be. Let's see. So you have the situation last season like you have with Stewart, which show, excuse me, what you have with Stewart, and if you have Boyana Power Forward, you've got four issues. You have no strong role man. Stewart's a weak role man.

Stuart has many. All establishes. I've established this before. Actually, Jackie, you and I did an episode of Isaiah Stewart, and I know we agreed about this, but I'll say it. I love Isaiah Stewart. I think he's going to be a valuable role player for the Pistons. I love his character.

just like a great team guy, super hard worker. He has physical limitations. He is undersized and he's a bad jumper. He's a bad role man as a result. He's not a vertical spacer and he is not a high percentage finisher. He finishes below the basket. He was one of the worst in the league last season finishing at his position in the restricted area. So that lineup, no vertical spacer, no strong role man.

No strong finisher in the paint. Almost every team field is one of those guys who can do those three things. And this lineup will not have it for even, you know, including for Cade who operates in the high picking rule. You also have below average athleticism on a lineup wide scale on both ends because you've got three below average NBA athletes and only one actually good one. So this would hurt. I don't want to see it. So I've got my glass half full approach here because everything you outline is pretty on point. I think you could probably make an argument to some of the things, but I think everything you've said, the numbers back up most of it.

But I think whilst this isn't the starting five, I'd like to see if this is a certain five, I'd like to see if this is. the starting five, my argument would be for it. Because ultimately with this piston season, it's still about development. So, you know, like, there is playing buzz. I haven't watched any of the media day stuff, but I saw people saying the playing might have been mentioned. Anyway, we're still, we're still focused on development. Troy Weaver sided next off, next summer as the season to make a splash. So, but for this starting five, Kate, Ivy Bay, Boyan, Stu, I think you could go with a five out offense. That relies heavily on Stu being able to hit threes,

which I think we both think he can do that. Yes. From memory, yeah. So I think you'd be running a five out offense, which helps alleviate a little bit that lack of vertical spacer. It doesn't eliminate it. It does not, yeah, there's still going to be issues there. But I think you run a five out offense.

That opens up lanes for Cade and Ivy to attack. You hope Jaden Ivy's going to cut. and my i think the rim protection like if you're if you've got bagley in the starting line up i don't think the rim protection it's not going to be great but i don't think it's that much worse than if you put bagley like bagley's not a great room protector either so so i don't think room protection is much of an issue um that is going to be any really noticeably worse um my i guess my main concern would probably be the rebounding like yeah the redoubting decent yeah stews a decent rebound a bay is a decent rebounder kay can rebound but none of them

are like that six foot 10 yeah they just none of them have that huge frame to really like if the other team's got a six foot 10 plus guy he's just going to wreak havoc unless they all really box out and rebound yeah as a team which is a lot easier said than done so but yeah i just got to say but the defense is going to be ugly. I think the defense is going to be ugly if you have Bagley in there anyway. So I guess I'm looking at from the standpoint of like, yes, this on a whole NBA, with context of it in an NBA frame of all 30 teams. Yeah, the defense is going to be great.

But with the alternative of starting Bagley, I don't know. I think it's going to be bad anyway. I think Bagley at least provides you with some more mobility and the ability to rotate. I mean, you never want to play him as a primary interior defender. but I feel like you're replacing Grant in that case with Boyana. So you've got Stewart who is very strong in most areas of defense, the three areas in which he's weak, blob defense,

going up against guys who are just taller and more athletic than he is, like we saw with White Side last year. And also just helps side defense in general. So basically, if anybody's coming from another direction, I mean, Stewart can't really rotate too well to block them just because he can't jump all that high and he's not an explosive mover. So I agree the defense is going to suffer no matter what. compared to last year with grant out.

But Bagley at least provides you with some more mobility and height and the rebounding there. But yeah, it's just with, yeah, I just go back to it. Like, yeah, I agree that five out offense isn't the worst thing in the world. At the same time, I mean, you look at the number of teams, and I'm not saying this in the context of like, oh, everybody does it. So it must be the right thing. I'm saying this in the context of all these teams do it because just having that presence who can run the role at a high level, who can catch lobs, which is just a really nice thing and a really nice option to have and can also like finish it a really percentage. That's great to have. I mean, you look at the number of teams who don't have that.

It's like the Bulls. They don't have it because of Voochovich, who he's sucked last season. But Vucovich generally brings other things on top of that, you know, that will compensate for him being only able to do that. You have the warriors who just don't need it. They just legitimately don't need it. They run the pick and roll less than anybody else. You have the nuggets and the nuggets have Yokic, who is self-explanatory. You know, any team will take Yokic over a guy who can do He's just a one man. Yeah, he's insane. He's a one-man army.

Yeah, he's, I'll say it again. I'll never get tired to talking about Yokic. The guy does things that should be impossible. Like, that should be genuinely impossible. And there are a few other teams. I can't remember exactly off the top of my head. I was talking about this with somebody just the other day. But basically, oh, yeah, the thunder.

Depending on what they do with Chet, I don't think they'll play him at center. Whatever the case, it's just a super helpful thing to have. And we saw West season. Like Bagley wasn't great, but we saw how much easier his life became, Cade's life became simply by having a guy who could do those things. So I think based on that, like if Stewart can shoot,

they're confident in shooting, I would not be surprised if we still saw Bagley out there at starting a power forward. Well, that's what I want to see. My ideal starting five is that Kate, Ivy Bay, Stu and Bagley. I think that gives you the best of both worlds in terms of you got that,

you got someone who can rim roll. Your rebounding's pretty strong because that's Bagley for all these holes on D. defense, he is a good defensive rebounder, and Stu's a good defensive rebounder, especially when alongside someone like Bagley, those two combined. And then if Stu's can space, stand in the corner and hit corner threes, that's the start in five I like the most. Yeah, absolutely. And I know neither of us are particularly high on Stewart of Power Forward. Like in this, in this offense, he would be basically playing Power Forward and Bagley would be playing center and then it would be

reversed on the other end. Yeah. So this would be kind of like, you know, the best, I agree, the best of both worlds for the pistons right now. Yeah, roughly now. Not an actual good lineup in the context of the NBA, but I agree the best of both the ones. Yeah, it's definitely a developing lineup, that's for sure. Yeah, and you replace a below average athlete in Bojan with above average athlete in Bagley, and that will help you with your mobility concerns and also just people,

you know, moving around. It's really nice to have a lineup that can at least run and jump as high as the opposition, you know, if not higher versus having bad athleticism overall and having run circles around you're here. I also like Boyan and I know like like I also just like boy on with Killian with burks and livers and then whether you're going to play Noel Durant off the bench. I know those five we can do platoon five for five changes but I like that backup five of the players. I just mentioned I think you got shooting athleticism I don't know but I just I like that as a five man unit can come off the bench and really light up the scoreboard and keep the scoreboard. And keep the scoreboard.

low pressure on. Yeah. They, I mean, the piston signed Bagley to a three-year extension for a reason. I mean, they want this guy to get run. They want this guy to develop. And I think he's going to have to be able to shoot no matter what. But yeah, like you said, that's starting a lineup gets you the luxury of spreading the shooting around.

Like, hopefully Bagley can shoot. You know, I'm confident Stewart will be able to shoot. I think Ivy will be okay. I think Bailey will be okay. We'll continue to be good, rather. I think Cades can improve a lot. So you got four shooters out there on Bagley playing center, basically rim row, even if you can't shoot.

and then on the bench you've got kill in and who knows you got burks who is a good shooter you've got boyon who's a good shooter and then you've got out there either livers or hamadu and whivers is a good shooter forgot about hamadu yeah he's he's the he's the eternal wild card for me for the season like not the actual wild card he would fit nicely yeah he would fit nicely amongst those guys yeah shooting yeah yeah but in that case you got to you got to kick somebody out of lineup you know it's either you got you got basically six guys they're like noel's presumably playing backup center so in that case you got six guys coming off the bench of twin hayes at alec's at boy on livers noelle and dea so somebody's going to get bounced they're presumably somebody will be

injured so yeah i i did want one of the things i wanted to do this off season i haven't got around to it was go back and check how often dway and casey utilize 11 or more players new rotation during a game because I think that I think with the addition of Boyan, there's now 12 guys who foreseeably you could see registering minutes. Yeah, Durans are 12th? Yeah, correct. And Hami would be the 11th, if that makes sense. So, yeah, that's something I wanted to quickly look into.

So I feel like we did see me sometimes 11 guys, but yeah, I don't know how often. Yeah, I don't think too often. because his starters tend to play fairly heavy minutes, and in case he isn't the most agile in terms of managing his rotations. But, yeah, I'd be interested to see what you find out. You know, I just think on a larger scale, though, Boyon deserves to be thought about it in a certain way. Well, I guess there are questions.

Like, number one, will the Pistons be willing to sacrifice some time with Boyon on the floor providing spacing for the sake of getting their young players more time? I mean, sure, this guy averaged 18 points per game last season, playing, you know, I played 31 minutes, but do you like cut him down to 25 minutes because you want those minutes to go to a younger player? And I think the answer is yes. Yeah, I'll be with you on that. I don't think, sorry, how many minutes did you say played last season? You played 31. Yeah. So I think there'll be, I think he'll be around that 25 to 28. And especially in games where, you know, it's not a close game or we're not in contention to

win. But I did want to, before we go, I did want to get your opinion on just the season expectations. So where did you have, where do you have the pistons slated at the moment? Does this, does this trade? Because there's a lot of people talking about playing buzz. And I just wanted to know where you sort of had the pistons slotted at the moment in the east, if you've had the chance to do it. Too many moving parts at this point.

I mean, there are too many ifs. Like if everything goes right, like Ivy comes out the gate and he's strong, Stuart can shoot. Like Bagway suddenly can shoot. And it's like, let's, like, let's, go one step further. I'm like, oh my goodness, Hamadu can shoot, you know, and I'm suddenly like, burst in, I'm suddenly like big going incandescent with joy. And it's like in that case, then, like, I don't think it's completely out of, I don't think that Boyan really like boost the

pistons. It's a great deal. I think that he's going to be useful role player for the pistons. I also think that he's probably a temp. Like when you said always, you know, when he's going to turn 34, he's going to turn 34 just after the regular season ends. And there's the question of like, will he still be with the pistons after the deadline? And I think that the end up on. And I think that the answer is probably no. Like if the Pistons are really doing well and he's a key part of that and they're like making a march to the plans, then maybe. But you get to the plans, you're going to have to beat, you're probably not going to be better than 10th, in my opinion. And you're not, I'd be shocked if you're better than 9th, put it that way. You're going to have to win two games

against good teams to get into the plans. Yeah. So I've got the top 9 here, which I quickly just read off. It's Buck, Celtics, 76s, Toronto, heat, nets, calves, hawks, bulls. That's nine teams. So I don't think. Yeah, it's a strong conference. Exactly. Really strong conference right now. Like, it means one good team is going to miss. Yeah, like I'm worried about the Bulls trajectory,

but in terms of them versus Detroit, like the Bulls are a much more sound team. And then the Mabies, you know, these teams could go either way, Nixon, Washington, I really don't know what to expect. I think they'll be mediocre, but they could have a couple injuries in Tank or, I don't know, I could see them jumping up to maybe eighth.

And then the teams I have us on par or better than Charlotte Orlando, Indiana. So that puts Detroit in around that, yeah, 11 to 5th, like, yeah, around 10 to 11. So, yeah. The teams will be competing with, in my opinion, the Knicks and Washington. Yeah. It's possible. Yeah, the Hornets really got, I mean, the whole awful Miles Bridges situation,

it was a big blow to them, like a big blow to them. And I think that had it happened like a few days earlier, then Duren would not be on this team because they would have kept that pick. I mean, I'm not saying like, you know, good thing it happened. I'm just saying that. Oh, no, no, you're not. No, no, I know. I'm just saying that for the benefit of any, you know,

for anybody who might think otherwise, absolutely not. I mean, that is an awful, awful terrible situation. And I think that, yeah, it, you know, for the outbook for the season, when it comes to practical considerations, I mean, that's a big blow to the Hornets in terms of their hoax for the upcoming season. Yeah, I have, I have, don't really know what to expect at all. Because Gordon Haywood, he only plays half a season these days. He does play a good 41 games.

but most of the time he just can't last or he comes back and it's just injury after injury. So, yeah, I don't know what to expect from them, but I think it will be a drop in the standings. Yeah, so it could happen. It could happen. The Pistons could find themselves in 10th, even if there are a lot of injuries in 9th. Like you said, it's going to depend, like the Wizards, can they get anything together? Can Beal stay healthy for the Knicks? Like, can Tibido pull his head out of his rear end and what does Jay and Brunson do for them?

And can R.J. Barrett finally make a leap? and there are just a lot of moving parts. Like even Orlando, Orlando's a mess, actually. One of this couple episodes ago, they've got like way too many ball handlers and just a lot of around us there. Yeah. So I think persons will beat out them.

Yeah. I love Orlando's front line, but their guards. There's just so many ifs. Like, like I don't know what Suggs if he can develop a three. Can Cole Anthony, like,

learn to rain any shot selection? RJ Hampton's going to probably want to roll. He's probably, I think he's entering near three now. I like there's a lot of like Markov Fultz I think I just saw he's injured again it's now he'll be back it's just okay okay well yeah he's someone who needs shots but can't really shoot like I don't know some people are high on the magic and then I'm I just think they're going to be a bottom three team again I do like what they're building but yeah I agree then you have Indiana and if they keep healed

then they keep Turner and Matherin does really well and Halliburton is still himself and who knows maybe they'll challenge but I don't think so so yeah so one final question about But yeah, I agree. The Pistons will have an outside shot at it. I think a lot of things will have to go right. And then they'll have to actually win two games, which, you know, that's also a tall order too against good teams. Who knows?

So, yeah, I would say, yeah, a lot of moving parts. But final question to end it. I mean, like I said, I think that Blion is really a temp. Do you think that what do you think the probability is that he will still be on this team past a trade deadline? I will say it's more likely he's moved at the dead. line, but it will depend solely on where we are in the standings. I think if we're a genuine playing chance, they won't move him.

And I wouldn't want them to me. I'd be happy for them to keep him on the roster, just even from an asset point of view. Like, I would like to see if this team, like you said, everything goes right or enough goes right and they're in genuine playoff, play in contention, I would be happy for them to keep me on the roster. But if they're toiling in that bottom three again, I don't think, I think Troy Weaver will move him for sure. Yeah, at what point do you think Troy Weaver, I'll just go with the last question.

I know I said that was the last one. At what points if you're Troy Weaver and like, let's say you are 12th in the conference at the deadline, do you pull the plug and just say we're going to go for the draft now? Yeah, I think you move him because you've got players like Hamadu, livers needs minutes. Yeah, there's young guys there that could use those development minutes because that's the thing with Boyan. My initial reaction, because I literally woke up until the trade,

So I initially tweeted my three reactions, and one of them was, oh, Dorens going to get more minutes now because Kio's gone. But Bogdanovich still sort of takes up, well, he's pretty much going to be played exclusively at the four, I think, which takes up a lot of front court minutes still. So I think you would probably move him to open up opportunities for others. Yeah, I think that's just a major story one to watch with Boyana is just going to be the balancing act between getting him some minutes to help the Pistons score, help him space the four, but not taking two. many minutes away from young players who have hopefully more of a future with the team. So, all right. So this is Jack Kelly of Detroit Bad Boys. Jack, thank you again.

Always pleasure to have you on the show. Of course, Mark. Always love jumping on talking hubes with you, man. Thank you so much. Absolutely, man. All right. So, folks, thank you all for listening. Catch you in the next episode.