Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 122: On the Eve of the Regular Season

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

This episode features a final preview of the regular season: predictions for the first 20 games and the season as a whole, and discussion of what to look for with regard to each of the roster's major players of interest.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Drive into the Basket, part of the Basketball Podcast Network. I am Mike, joined tonight by my buddy, Chris Woj. You might remember him. He was on the show about four episodes ago, I believe. Chris, nice to have you in the show again. Great to be back and bringing a fan's perspective to the show. Fantastic. Well, I mean, I would say I'm bringing a fan's perspective as well, but in any case. So this is going to be the season preview episode, I guess, you know, the second season preview episode. We're recording this on Monday night, so about four. 48 hours, well, less in fact, 48 hours before the season opener against the Orlando Magic. And tonight we're just going to talk about, and make some predictions, put it that way. We'll talk about what we think the Pistons record will be in the first 20 games, how we think the season is going to shake out in general.

And then we'll just talk players, well, specifically to young players, and what we think those seasons will look like. So let's launch right into it. Now, Chris, you, as usual, have done a tremendous amount of research. research. You put a lot of time into examining the schedule for the first 20 games, and much tell us a bit about it. The only word that I can bring to this is brutal. The first 20 games start off with a very light introduction to the season. We get to see Orlando, New York, Indiana, Washington, basically four teams that we are going to be battling it out with in the war for

Wembenyama. And it feels like we're going to come out of the gates firing with something like that off the start. But as soon as you get past those first four games, it gets ugly. These first 20 games, they're going to include a West Coast swing. And even worse than that, they're going to include six of the Pistons, 14 back-to-backs. That's not a fun way to start the season for a young team if I got to say so myself. Yeah, it's definitely a difficult start to the season. I particularly like the swing during which the Pistons have six games in a row against playoff caliber teams. I mean, like you said, they start the season pretty, you know, pretty easily, fairly easily at least the magic, the Knicks, the Pacers, the Wizards. Those are going to be almost certainly all teams that are going to finish outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Now maybe the Knicks make it to the plans. And then you've got the Hawks twice. You got the Hawks twice. And then the Cavaliers, there should be no slouches either. Yeah, we're going to be looking at playoff teams from the East. playoff teams from the west. We're going to see both of the teams that I have slated as the top teams in their conferences. I think that Boston's going to wind up at the front of the Eastern Conference, even with

their coaching issues, even with, you know, Robert Williams being out to start the season. I think that the Clippers are going to be assuming Kauai and PG-13 are healthy, the top team in the Western Conference. We get to see some really stiff competitions. It's going to be fun. It is going to be fun as a fan, though. We're going to get to see some really exciting young team. Atlanta with that new pairing of DeJante Murray and Trey Young.

We're going to get to see Cleveland's young developing players in all of their full glory. We're going to get to see Toronto's bevy of wings. We're going to get to see, again, assuming health similar with the Clippers, Denver Nuggets team that could lead the West as well. Yeah. It's going to be a lot of fun for a Pistons fan, wanting to see all of those super-sons. stars around the league. It's not going to be so much fun for Pistons fan wanting to see the Pistons getting off to a hot start. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I mean, if you look at the number of easy games the Pistons have. I mean, you've got the magic, who knows if they'll be easy. Oh,

we'll just talk. Teams against not so good games. Excuse me, games against not so good teams, if I'm not saying it backwards. So you've got one game against the magic. You've got one game against the Thunder. And then you've got one game against the Jazz. And aside from that, it's pretty difficult. I mean, assuming that you think the kings are going to be better this year, maybe you put them in that category, but it's going to be different. It's just, it's going to be a difficult schedule. Well, I would, I'm, I'm, I'm more than willing to throw into that category of bad teams. If we're going to say bad teams are, say, bottom third of the league, I'm willing to put Washington into that pile. I'm willing to put Indiana into that pile.

I'm willing to put the Knicks into that pile. So we're going to see some teams that are going to be in the bottom third of the league. We're going to see an okay. number of those teams. But the contenders that we're going to see are, we're going to be seeing these contenders both in terms of strong teams and in terms of seeing them in difficult conditions. The teams that we're facing on the back ends of these back-to-backs, we see Atlanta on the back end of the back-to-back.

Milwaukee's the back end, Boston, the Lakers. So that's four of those six back-to-backs I mentioned. We're also going to see Utah and Indiana on the back-ends. So that's pretty, rough. It is truly rough. We want to get straight down to it. I feel relatively, I feel like I would have to be optimistic to say that I think that we would come out of the first 20 games with seven wins. I feel like saying six wins, and that's where I feel like we'll be. Yeah. I mean, I think it says at all at this point. I mean, at the Pistons, yeah, their first four games relatively easy,

but their first three are three games in four nights. The third one is the third game in four nights. It's away. It's on the second night of a back-to-back. I mean, that is almost a scheduled loss. but yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a murderers row. So I wouldn't be surprised to see the Pistons come out of it with five wins. I mean, if we're talking especially, again, this is a very young team. We know that. And you can't really count on a lot going right with young teams. I don't think you can really count on them really coming together very early in the season either.

Well, and based on what we've seen in the preseason, it's a young team that is operating with a defensive scheme that they might not be ready to play. Oh, yes. this whole switch everything thing is it seems to be a little bit over their heads at the moment and it's the sort of thing that makes me feel like the team might be putting in a stealth tank looking for looking to give these guys every opportunity to succeed in terms of minutes in terms of opportunity to play together playing with cohesive lineups but a situation where if you put them in the wrong scheme or a scheme that they're just not ready for it's it's going to be incredibly difficult to win games. Yeah, on defense, definitely, this is a lineup that's not super well-suited

to switching everything. It's a lineup that's long. It's not a lineup that is large. It's not a lineup that's athletic. I mean, I was just thinking the other day, like for those of you who follow the Red Wings with Elmer Soderblum, I know you're a Blue Jackets fan, but yeah, for those listeners, probably a lot of you follow the Red Wings. If Elmer Soderblum is a true 6'8 foot 8, like if he's actually 6'8 inches, he would be the tallest member of the Piston starting lineup. I mean, that's, and you could say length is important. Length is absolutely important. But, you know, even Stewart is definitely undersized at his position.

Yeah. I mean, I would say it's a windup that's not a not very athletic either. No, I was just saying it's not, it's not a windup that's not very athletic either. I mean, Bojan's not going to go. He's not going to go. I mean, Bay does a decent job. You know, Stewart's good in switching. I guess I being catered decent.

But like we saw it particularly against the Pelicans when Gus would just get switched under Valenzunis and it's like good night. Absolutely. I mean, well, yeah, when you said initially that we didn't have size, we didn't have athleticism, I was ready to push back. But when you really focus on the starting lineup alone, yeah, I have to agree with you. Absolutely. I look at the team, though, and I do like the way we're trending in terms of both of those things. When you look at the fact that we've got Stewart, who does have, he doesn't necessarily have height, but he has size. I actually really enjoyed seeing him trying. to seeing him try to challenge Zion Williams at the basket. It was a lot of fun. He puts some comparable size up there. Nobody actually matches up with Zion in terms of size and ferocity. But Stewart's game, it's wonderful to see. We know that Duren is an athletic freak with all the size on the planet. And we've

added Jaden Ivy to the lineup, who is, for his lack of height, is a strong and incredibly athletic guard. So we can see the makings of a team that has size and athleticism in the future. And we can see it in there, we can see it there in the rotation. It's just not experienced enough to play this kind of a defensive scheme yet. Yeah, I would say that there are certain players who are not ideally suited to switching everything either, like, you know, Bagley, even Hamadu just, yes, not so much trouble like defending on switches, but, you know, making the right switch, making the right rotation, at least off the pole, whatever. I digress there. But yeah, I agree that.

see some struggles in the defensive scheme. And I wonder if Casey, like I feel like Casey's a fairly strong defensive coach in the NBA. I think he's a bad offensive coach. But I, you know, I wonder, like, is this scheme all about the team being very young or is the scheme more about just how he likes to do things? I mean, I feel like as the NBA has evolved, he's become increasingly outdated, whatever. Anybody who's listened to this show for a long time knows I don't have a high opinion of Casey as an on-court coach. But then we can look at the offense, though. And I feel like the preseason shouldn't be taken as a bellwether necessarily of anything. I'd say it was not encouraging. I would agree with that. I think that part of that is the fact that they do not look

like they have a regular season rhythm as shooters. So I think that's one of the big things that I noted with Cade as a primary example. Cade looked bad as a shooter in the preseason. But to me, that feels like it's to be expected. When we look at last season, I looked in particular at four stretches of games that Cade played in. He missed time at the beginning of the season in December, in February, and then you have the post-all-star break. If you look just at those stretches of Cade's season, let's say the first four games coming off each of those four stretches. So you cut out those 16 games. In those 16 games, Cade shot 22% from three-point range. The rest of the season, he shot 34 and a half. So he just doesn't tend to come in.

off of a non-playing situation and look good as a shooter. So I expect, given the opportunity to play these preseason games, I expect him to come into the regular season shooting rather well. Okay, interesting. Yeah, I would say, well, I'm just thinking back to Reggie Bullock. I mean, I'm not sure if you remember this. The guy with the Pistons was a horrifically slow starter. He would come in and just be absolutely comically bad from three,

and then one day he would just improve and you would be an elite three-point shooter. I don't remember that specifically. I do fondly remember Reggie Bullock. I truly enjoyed having him on the team. One of many, honestly, one of many very, very good NBA role players that were a part of a team that needed much, much more than just role players under Stan Van Gundy. Oh, definitely. They also needed something more than Stan Van Gundy. Oh, without a doubt.

Absolutely no doubt of that. So, all right. So what's Peggett as far as our estimates? So you think the Pistons, how many games do you think to win in the first 20? I'm going to go with six. I'm going to assume that they'll pull five against the bad teams and get at least one win against a quality opponent. I went with, in my assumptions, I went with a win against Milwaukee. They play Milwaukee back-to-back games, the second of them with a day of rest.

I'm going to assume that Milwaukee is going to let the foot off the gas a little bit for one of those two games. and hopefully it'll be that one. Interesting. Well, I'm just going to sort of be very optimistic here and say seven. I know it's only one win more than you're estimating. I think the Pistons could easily win four or five. I mean, I don't think that's outside the realm of possibility. It wouldn't be crazy.

It would not. It would not be crazy because I don't think at this point, certainly going into the season, I don't think they're going to be much better, if at all, then teams like the Magic or the Pacers. Well, when you're talking winning that few games over a 20-game stretch, you've got to recognize the fact, that that is assuming at least one probably long losing streak in there.

And in my estimate, I've got them with a four game and a seven game losing streak. And even when you're playing against a lot of really good teams, like we are especially on the back end of that 20, where we go at one stretch, we go six straight games, Boston, Toronto, Clippers, Lakers, Lakers, Kings, Nuggets. That's six games where when you just look at it, you pencil in six straight loss, but six straight losses, even for a bad to mediocre team, isn't tremendously likely. So I think six, seven wins feels pretty likely for a young team like the Pistons,

especially if they're fighting hard. Yeah, I would say, yeah, like I said, I'll be optimistic. You can go with seven. I don't think they're going to win more than seven games. Yeah, just a note to the listeners here, our buddy Chris is a statistician. I don't if you could hear it in his lingo, but definitely works with stats a lot. So let's go a little bit beyond that. And I know that we can't necessarily predict injury luck, for example.

I mean, that's the one confounding factor for any team, obviously. You know, if you look at the Lakers last year, for example, it was that in Westbrook being garbage, that basically, that certainly, that was those were the factors that got them out of playoffs. Right, but they were also old. Yeah, but I think if you have a healthy LeBron James, you have a healthy Anthony Davis, any team with those two is unlikely to miss the postseason. True.

But they both missed significant time. And then there was Westbrook. But LeBron James does miss about 25 games per year the last four years. Yeah, these days he does. Yeah. But they, I feel like we're just never able to find their rhythm. But yeah, like I do absolutely agree with your point, though. Yeah, definitely.

So as we look beyond that, so the schedule gets easier and maybe the team comes together a bit. I mean, do you see, I suppose, do you see this team jelling and getting through a stretch of schedule where they can really become competitive? Is it going to be too late for them to, I mean, I think you and. I mean, we can have this discussion. Do you think the Pistons are going to you? I think we had this discussion actually about a month ago. We'll do it again briefly. Do you think the Pistons have any chance of sniffing the play-ins at this point? They absolutely have a chance to sniff the play-in. I think if you look at, for example, a under-talented young team last year that saw tremendous health throughout the season in the Charlotte Hornets. That was a team that I would say was fairly comparable to where the

Pistons are now. They had a little bit more, I would say, proven veteran talent on their team. But even given the time missed by Gordon Hayward, they were by far the healthiest team in the NBA. And you saw where that got them. Even with a player like La Mello Ball leading them that was potentially a net negative as a player as their primary, you know, ball handler and quote unquote superstar. Well, they had a strong offense, though. They had a very strong offense. They were just a catastrophe on defense. I'm just saying that a part of that comes from the fact that they were tremendously healthy.

If they'd have suffered an average number of injuries, they wouldn't have had that offense because you don't have a lot of depth with a team like that or even a team like the Pistons this year. Fair enough. So I think that if we have tremendous health, we can absolutely sniff the play in. Well, they also had Kenny Atkinson, rather. No, it was James Barago. Yeah, I was going to say no.

Atkinson was only their, well, I won't see who was their. coach. He was their presumptive coach for, what, three days? Right. Yeah, before I decided to go back to the Warriors, I still wanted to happen. There probably money, if I had to guess, or Michael Jordan, or a combination of the two. So, yeah, James Barago, that was a pretty talented offensive coach, I feel like. They definitely did have just some dynamic talent. They had, they definitely had the talents to run a good offense. But I feel like coaching is another confounding factor for the Pistons, because I feel like we can probably count on Dwayne Casey to lose a few games for the

pistons across the course of the season just by making terrible decisions and completely losing control of games like he does typically in close games down the stretch. He is an absolutely horrible coach, like legitimately genuinely horrible. Man, you know that I don't necessarily agree with that because I believe there's more than just being an in-game manager. And I think that he does a good job with player development. I think when you look at his career with Toronto and you look at the trajectory of development and with the Pistons so far. So far, I am relatively pleased with the development trajectory of young players under

Dwayne Casey with the Pistons. I think that when I look at Toronto and what he did in Toronto before, if you go player by player and look at all of the first round picks starting with, I think Dermard de Rosen was a first round pick a year or two before Dwayne Casey became their head coach. If you start with Demarderosen and move forward, one thing you can say is that their first round picks didn't bust. Whether they became solid NBA players with Toronto or after Toronto, he kept them on a good, solid developmental trajectory.

Now, was he a spectacular developmental coach? No, he was good. And that's where I think he sits. I think there are many things that he does good as a coach. Game managing is not one of them. Yes, I would definitely agree that game managing is not one of them. Absolutely, I'll give Casey his deserved praise, in my opinion, deserve it praise in terms of his ability to develop players, the ability to run a locker room during difficult situations. But, yeah, as an in-game coach, I feel like he's probably going to lose the piss in some games.

Like, down the stretch of close games, basically he just collapses into ISO after ISO after ISO. Yeah, the big decision, not his comfort zone. The really big decision with this team moving forward, you know, we look forward at what's going to happen beyond this year. A lot of this discussion today is going to be focused on this year. If we look beyond the big questions for the Pistons are, number one, what do they get with this presumptive, hopefully, hopefully final high lottery pick coming up and who will be the team's next head coach? Because we all know that Casey's transitioning into the front office,

the Pistons have telegraphed that. Who are they bringing in to lead this team? Yeah. Casey's contract expires at the end of the 2023, 2024 season. and he had that one-year contract extension, just for anybody who was wondering. Originally signed on for five years. Those are the big mysteries. There's really not much to discuss with regards to those things,

you know, the draft pick next year, the next head coach, but definitely can acknowledge those are two big points moving forward. Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth thinking about, like if the Pistons do come out of the gate and lose six out of their first 20 games, are they realistically going to be able to make back enough grounds in a very strong Eastern Conference to end up 10th or a ball? of. I think it's possible. I think that when you start up, when you have bad stretches with an incredibly difficult set of opponents, you're also moving forward going to have stretches against

some Patsies. So when I looked at what they would come out to for the whole season, I'm thinking that this team is going to be somewhere in the range of, and this is broad, but, you know, 25 to 35 wins is a reasonable range to me. Anywhere in that 25 to 35 feels completely feasible. and when I say 35 is feasible in my head, I'm also thinking that there's that crazy good health, good luck possibility of a 40-win season. That would be quite a coup. It would. It would.

It's incredibly, incredibly unlikely. I'm just saying it's not impossible. That's true. Yeah, I agree it's not impossible. Well, anybody would have to agree that it's not impossible because it is literally not impossible. Statistician and you would tell me that, yeah. So, yeah, but I just think the biggest question is going to be what happens with our health and when do if they occur, when do the serious injuries occur? If they occur early, the team's going to go in the tank.

The draft talent at the top next year is too good not to. So if we get into a position where because of injuries, the play in is not even remotely possible, then this is going to be a 25. win team, a 20 to 25 win team again, maybe. I'm not sure if I agree with that because I think that the Pistons will not pull the plug on the season. I mean, the last two seasons, it was only the last six weeks in which they really started tanking. So I think that would be surprising and it wouldn't really fit the pattern. I think that this season is likely to be about it until maybe those last six weeks of the

pistons are reeling at the bottom of the standings. And then this front office knows what to do. I mean, they say, okay, well, we're going to start selectively resting players. and try to improve those draft odds as much as they can and make Mike absolutely miserable as he just roots for losses and just hopes with all of his heart that the Pistons, whom he loves, will just find ways to lose games. Whatever, I digress. No, you got to be, it's an important part where fans and understanding what we're doing

as fans is important to me. It's all about compartmentalizing. When you just have to be able to sit down to an individual game as a fan and root for the win and just forget about the rest of it because your rooting interest during any one given game has nothing to do with whether or not they're going to decide to lose games moving forward. Rout for the wins and then be disappointed about the win later. Yeah.

Well, it's tough for me to root for wins at the end of a season when I know that draft position is at stake. I can go back two seasons to the 20, I guess this was just solely to 2020. Well, 2020, 2021, I guess we did have some games in 2020. But yeah, I go back to that season. And I think it gets forgotten a little bit that it took some hardcore tanking at the end of the season to get the Pistons into that spot, second worst team at which they ultimately won the first overall pick. So yeah, at the end of seasons, if the Pistons are fighting for drop position and the plane is completely out of reach, yeah, I don't know. I can't root for wins earlier in the season.

Like last season, basically it was probably around the end of December when I just decided, okay, well, you know, Kelly Olenick got injured, whatever. I think Jeremy Grant got injured around that point, too, but I was also like, okay. prior to that point, I'd gotten pissed about Casey's coaching, but at some point I just kind of concluded, okay, the Pistons are not going to win this season. I'm going to stop worrying about losses and just focus on players. Yeah, I think the entire tank storyline, you've just got to kind of consider how much of the idea

that this year is a special tank situation is the reality around NBA front offices versus a media fabrication. because when you really look at it, you don't just have Victor Wemba Nama and Scoot Henderson. You have some truly athletically gifted players that run this draft five, six, seven players deep. You've got your Thompson twins.

You've got your Cam Whitmore. You've got a number of players who can really be tremendous lottery tickets going into the lottery. So, you know, our team's going to tank to some extreme length, hoping for Scoot and Victor, who look every bit as special as we hope they're going to be. Or is it more of a normal tanking situation because teams recognize that there is tremendous athleticism

in this draft down into the middle of the lottery? I think it's a wait-and-see situation for the Pistons, just like last season. They'll just wait and see, but this roster takes them. I think it's 100% that Boyan has gone. And by the way, thank you to the listener who messaged me to tell me that I was pronouncing

his name wrong. That's very helpful. Definitely a baseball moment for me. So thank you. You weren't saying a bogg, were you? No, I was saying Bojan, which is completely wrong. So yeah, genuinely thank you for the, thank you to that listener.

I appreciate it. So I would say that Boean is completely, is definitely 100% gone if the persons are not in play in range come the February trade deadline. and I don't think the Pissons really have, I mean, who knows, maybe Alec Berks has gone at that point too. I would say Boyan, Noel, and Berks are all trade targets for teams around the league. Noelle, maybe.

But, yeah, I mean, you're going to get second round draft, maybe a weight purse for Boyan. And then maybe a second, you know, a couple second round pick for each of the other two, maybe a couple seconds for Burks, for four perks, rather maybe, depending if he's healthy, guys like him are always going to be useful in the playoffs. Noel, a little bit less so. but whatever the case, that is a way for the Pistons to make themselves worse to trade that mine. So I'm going to go ahead and say maybe 31 wins. It's just going to me might completely, you know, unable to take into account certain factors such as injuries and hot streaks and whatnot.

Projection for the Pistons. We'll say 31, 32 wins. What about you? You know what? I'm going to go with, I'll go with 32. You're going to go 31. I'll go with 32. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we'll either hope for that number. to be either quite a bit higher or quite a bit lower because I don't think that's that's where you want to be. 31, 32 wins is not an ideal situation. Okay, let's move on to the players. So we're just going to, I mean, we can discuss in brief like Nerlin's Noel and

Alec Berks and Rodney McGruder and whoever all. I mean, these are just veterans who are going to play as much as the team needs them to. I'd say if Corey Joseph plays significant minutes, it's either injuries or something going drastically wrong. Rodney McGruder is just kind of like a plug-and-play guy when you need some shooting. Berks, solid forest baser, Noel, Jalen Duren insurance, and I know

I'm forgetting some, and Kevin Knox is maybe a way into the lineup. I really thought that Berks was going to get a lot more playing time before we picked up Boyon, and I will say though that although once we picked up Boyon, I thought, oh, wow, we're

going to have a little bit of a logjam with those two vets. With as slow as Boyon's looked in the preseason, we could see a little bit more of Alec Berks once he gets back from his foot injury. Yeah, definitely. That might be more Alec Berks and Boyon conversation than we need today. Yeah, Boyon.

I mean, Boyon's there for shooting. My hope is that eventually he'll end up on the bench of the pistons or, you know, who knows, maybe he'll take a miracle for Jayland Duran end up in the starting lineup. But man, that's the line up needs some athleticism in it. But, yeah, we can get to that. So, yeah, these are guys who are going to play as much or as little as the team needs them depending on how the youth does. And that's a good point about Berks.

I hadn't thought about that in the context of how Boyon's acquisition may have impacted at Berks' playing time. So we'll see. But yeah, one thing I want to note about Noel is that, though, he has a very strong where he protected the guy is not a good switch defender. So, you know, if Duren's ready to play, he's likely, though who knows how likely that is, though he's apparently, you know, he's certainly with Bagley out is going to see his minutes. It's going to take time for him to figure out how to play without falling.

It's just an artifact of being that young. Yeah, why don't we start with Duren, you know, as far as our season's predictions. Yeah, I agree with you. He looks a little bit lost. I mean, this was something, he's very raw, like very, very, very raw. Physically he is not, but in every other way he is. Yeah, his saving grace in the preseason was his body control. Absolutely his body control.

He is a tremendously balanced athlete on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, so when I think almost all of his foul, trouble came as a result of the fact that he was often out of position and was mistiming his jumps. But he was a huge rebounding asset because of the fact that he was consistently under control physically. Yeah. He also just knows where to be.

He's long. He's very strong. Of course, about 250 pounds. 6.11 with a 7.5 wingspan. Yeah. He's very strong. Yeah. We saw some solid switch defense from him.

We saw some decent rim protection from him. but he's just going to need some time to adjust to the speed of the NBA game, the smarts of the NBA game. And on offense, my question about him going into the draft was about his touch around the basket. And it wasn't really all that encouraging. If he wasn't in college, if he wasn't able to dunk it, he struggled a little bit. And we saw a little bit of that in preseason as well. Yeah, but I don't think we saw poor hands.

Not poor hands. Yeah, it seems like he's got a comfort with the basket. ball in his hands and it's going to take some time for him to understand how to put the ball in the bucket but i don't think it's going to be a matter of him chucking the ball off the backboard and the rim like a brick yeah well we'll see i mean my my main question around him like because here's here's the only realistic route i see to to failure on the NBA for durham and this is more of a far-reaching thing like i think he's going to be a strong defender i mean he's got good instincts he's strong at defending the rim i think he's going to be a strong switch defender i don't think he'll be his

quite as like zero variance as I would put it with Stewart you know Stuart you put him as an interior defender

you put him out in the perimeter switching onto a guard he's unlikely to really lose much in between the two of those and that's a very

valuable characteristic not sure of Duren will be quite that good but Duren unlike Stewart will be able to deal with taller or more athletic players

a lob defense help defense you know kind of flying into to block a shot well I think that Stewart has the advantage of one of the biggest

things that I saw from Stewart right from the get. As soon as Stewart came into the league, Stuart has, yeah, I think you'd hear the more the more elaborate broadcasters on the NBA networks would say that he has feet like a ballerina.

Yeah, he's got excellent lateral mobility. He changes direction really, really well. He's able to, it works for his defense, it works for his offense, gets his feet under him really well when he's shooting the ball. Stewart's feet

are always exactly where they need to be to recover where he needs to. He makes that switch, or if he dives down into the paint off of a perimeter defending position, he's able to get back out to a shooter quick. His feet are always in position. Duren doesn't seem to have as much of that. But Duren has every bit that, I would say that Duren has every bit the quickness that Stewart has, the lateral quickness and movement that Stewart does. It's just a little bit harder for him to change position.

Yeah. Well, it's a little bit harder for almost everybody at the position. at the position to change direction. True. Yeah, definitely. So the only route I see to failure for him is if he can't really improve his touch around the basket when he's laying it up, the question for me heading into the draft was, is this just something he can work on or is he inherently bad at it?

Because there are some players who are inherently bad at it. And so if his touch around the rim is poor when he's not dunking it and he's a poor free throw shooter, then you have a player who might really not be all that efficient. And that's a big, big, big, no-no for a traditional big. but we're getting way ahead of ourselves there. Oh, yeah. We talk about Duren, I think that I really am only a little bit worried about that because your touch with your hands is only a part of what's going on when you're putting the ball in the bucket.

I think that his ability to keep his body under control. I noted it when we were talking about his rebounding. I think that it's going to be a tremendous advantage for him when it comes to putting the ball into the bucket. Being able to consistently be in an under-control position. means that your hands don't need to be as good. Yeah, well, I suppose we'll see. Yeah, I mean, what I'm going to be looking for from him this season, depending how many minutes he plays, of course, you know,

who knows once Bagley comes back, once Noel comes back. I mean, Duren will have determined, I think, at that point, if he's going to stay in the lineup or not. I mean, if he's ready, then he's playing over Noel, obviously. But what I'll be looking for from him is just adjusting to the NBA game. I mean, during preseason, he will completely lost on offense. And like I said, I think he's very raw. And also, Casey, for whatever reason, is not running many picking rules during as strong in the role.

And so I would say how it will be utilized on offense is probably just primarily on the role. Or we're just boxing out for offensive rebounds. Yeah, I'm not as worried about his offensive skill set this year. I figure as long as he's able to roll the basket, that's all we're going to need from him. I just want to see him. And this is a trope when it comes to NBA analysis, but limit the fouls. Yeah, absolutely. 100%.

I mean, Stewart had that issue in his physical NBA NCAA defenders. It takes some adjustment, definitely. So yeah, we'll see on that. So let's move on to our other rookie, Jaden Ivy. But first, a very, very quick word from our sponsors. NBA fans, the weight is over. Basketball is back, so tip off the season with Draft King Sportsbook and official sports betting part of the NBA. New customers can make any $5 NBA money line bet and get $200 in free bets if your team wins.

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Here's promo code TBPN. Make any $5 bet this week and get $200 in free vets if your team wins. Only a draft king sports book with promo code TBPN. Minimum major eligibility and restricted restrictions supplies. He's shown notes for details. Okay, let's move on to Jaden Avi. Of course, the Pistons' fifth overall pick. And what will you be looking for from him this season?

as far as improvements, you know, what you think that he might struggle with out of the gates, what you think just based on this college game? I would say that, yeah, I mean, I think with Jaden Ivy, the number one question this year is how good is he as a decision maker when he finds his way into the paint? Because we understand that he is not a finished product as a shooter. I think he has a nice quick shot release, but even when he's, he doesn't need that quick release. He doesn't tend to elevate on his shot very much.

So I think there's a little bit of room for improvement on his shot. And I think we all see that with his outcomes as a college shooter. And so far in the summer league in the preseason, we know what he is as a finisher. The question is, what is he going to do when he has to make a decision? And that's what I'm looking for from. And how good are his decisions when he needs to make them? Yeah, I think that was definitely one of the things I was concerned about,

even pre-draft, just looking at his tape. from Purdue is, you know, how fast can he make those reads, like the right reads and the right passes at the NBA level. And I feel like we really saw him focus in Summer League, you know, in the short amount of time he played and also in preseason on taking advantage of the really significant gravity he generates off the drive to create options, or excuse me, to create open books for his teammates. He did a decent job, but it was more kind of rudimentary stuff. But if he can do it, great. I don't really expect big things out of him. But as long as he's not driving the double coverage and turning the ball over or just completely failing to take advantage of that gravity.

I'll be satisfied with that. I think it'll be a learning curve. For me, you mentioned his shooting. One thing I would like him to do, stop spotting up or pulling up like two or three feet behind the three point line. Like put your toes on right behind the line. Take the shortest shot you can. It's like eat a healthier shot diet, man. But definitely that's going to be a big thing for him to the shooting. And I think he might struggle coming out of the gate. And it's entirely possible with the week we saw with Cade last season. Sometimes it can take a season for a player to really get up the speed as a three-point shooter if he's not very strong coming into the NBA already.

Yeah, in terms of passing, I saw the exact same thing you did with regards to his summer league and his preseason play. I saw that he's willing. I think that's the big thing. Coming out of Purdue, I worried about whether or not he'd be willing. And he's clearly willing. The question is, will he be good at it? But I quibble a little bit with what you said with regards to where he should.

shoots from. I think that what shooters need to do is they need to find their spots. The question is, where's his spot? What's he doing in practice? Is the shot with his toes on the line where his spot is? Is he practicing from a spot that is two feet outside the line? The key is getting to his spot, shooting from his spot, and working with that muscle memory. Yeah, I agree with that. I just question if making a shot more difficult for him is really what he should be doing. Like he was pulling up, you know, like about the same distance behind the line in the NCAA only like the line is further away in the NBA right three point line is further away so now he's pulling up from you know it's like you would think that he'd be probably right around the line then but instead he's just still pulling up you know for a deep

three and I feel like that's kind of unnecessary but you know I'd be I'd be thrilled if he shoots 36% from three the season I think that would be great I feel like one thing I would have tended to agree with you in previous years but I think that in recent years with the way that NBA shooters have demonstrated the deep ball. Oh, yeah. We kind of have to come to an understanding that there's not as big of a difference between toes on the line and three feet behind the line as we once thought there was. Oh, I think that there is still a significant difference.

Some players are just fantastic at hitting deep threes. And I just think some of it is, I agree with you on that, totally. But I think it's more of a difference between toes on the line and six, seven feet outside the line. I think that when you're just talking a difference of two or three feet, it's more a matter of what is your spot? Where are you practicing? And I agree with, I had shared your concern basically about the willingness to make those passes. Like one of the reasons that I was not, that Ivy was kind of my one B rather than my one A, math room was my one A, was that I, before the draft I was kind of concerned. It's like, is Ivy going to be willing the NBA level to be that really secondary

playmaker and not just want to be the guy who's on the ball all the time that would make really the questionable ability to make those reads and passes more of an issue and also to make him a worse fit next to Cade. But I feel like I was almost relieved. But my concern over that was alleviated, but the fact that the business drafted him at all because it's like they're not going to draft a ball dominant guard to play next to their like borderline heliocentric creator in Cade. But yeah, so for me with Ivy, I'm just hoping for improvement across the season in terms

of his passing. he's got to, I think, refine himself a little bit at the NBA level in terms of attacking into contact rather than, you know, Purdue when he would just turn on the afterburners, turn the corner of the right and score before the rim protection got there, and also the shooting. Yeah. That's the three things I'll be looking for. I tell you what, though, I am very excited about his finishing. I am really encouraged by what he has shown so far in the preseason.

I think that one thing that he has shown is that he will continue at the NBA level to demonstrate strength. He's not a tall player, but he is a very strong player, and he likes to finish with strength. He likes to finish through contact. I think that's going to be a big asset to him. Yeah, he did a great job in preseason of drawing free throws, definitely, and was also very relievingly, you know, for me, good from the free throw line because he was very inconsistent in Purdue. True. Yeah. All right. So let's move on to, of course, the big ticket item on this team is Kate Cunningham. And as you said, he had a horrible, horrible preseason. And he came out and said that he really wasn't playing like himself. So I would say for me, I'm just going to go ahead

and take the lead in terms of what I'd like to see from Cade. Two things. Number one, the shooting, the perimeter shooting. I think Kate probably would have been a rookie to year last year if he'd shot like 35% from three, maybe higher than that, a little bit higher than that. Let's put it this way. If he had been somewhere near as good of a shooter as he was at Oklahoma State, I don't remember how wetty shot. Was it like 32%? I can't remember, which is weird because I definitely saw the figure quite a bit. But he was very inconsistent last season.

Even outside of that first difficult stretch, he, like a lot of his made threes were loaded into a small number of games. So if he can get that shooting together, great. I mean, that's a huge step in the direction of him becoming a superstar, and I think he can do it. The other one is the turnovers, make less careless turnovers. Yeah, I think he, I think part of it is he is, he is a, his style of three-point shooter, being a player who is ball dominant to an extent,

means that he is taking pull-up jumpers from places that are not his spots, so to speak. And that's going to lead to a lot of variance when teams don't let him get to his spots. He was, as I noted before, he was a 22% shooter last year in the first four games coming off of any extended time away from the court, which matched up with his preseason being a 20% shooter this preseason. So he is going to be high variance, but I think that to an extent that high variance is going to even out to a decent three-point shooting percentage,

assuming he does not miss time, something better than we saw last year. The point that you make about that high variance, though, is super relevant. it's just a matter of expanding the number of spots that he is capable of shooting from. The truly great pull-up shooters, they are able to shoot from spots all the way around the perimeter. Yeah, that's true.

I mean, I would be happy if he just made his catch-and-shoots at a high level. The pull-up is great to have. And I did not take time to look at that. I'm kind of curious about that. Yeah, he wasn't a great pull-up shooter last year. Excuse me, he wasn't a great catch-and-shoots shooter last season. I mean, the pull-up three would be fantastic. I mean, that would make him borderline unguardable, you know, as he continues to improve.

But the catch-and-shoe three, I feel like, just has to come along, too. Because he's not going to be playing in the ball all the time. And the business don't want him to be, like, this hardcore heliocentric guy, I feel like. I'm going to have some off-ball play there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would say my biggest concern with him, I'm not so concerned about the shooting. I think the shooting is going to come around.

As I said, I think that the shooting is going to be more a matter of how many, you know, him developing more spots around the perimeter. that he's comfortable with, that he's practiced with. My big concern with him is going to be, well, he's mentioned and he said that he's put on, so to speak, 15 pounds in the last year, added a little bit of grown man size to him. And I think that if that's so, if that size is coming with strength, it's going to hit at my biggest concern, which is the fact that he seemed to get knocked off of the ball when he entered the paint quite a lot last year. take it to the basket and he has this preternatural ability to know where everybody is on the court.

I've referred to him as a genius with the ball on the offensive end. And it doesn't matter what level of genius you are if a little bit of contact knocks you off of your control of the basketball. I think if he's a little bit stronger or at least significantly stronger really, and he's no longer being knocked off the basketball, that's going to really reduce those turnovers that he had last year. Well, I think he'll also draw more free throws, but the turnovers I'd like to see gone with the careless ones when he throws a pass into a lane that is open, but this is the NBA,

so it closes very quickly. He had quite a few of those in the preseason, unfortunately. Yeah, I thought the turnovers that really concerned me were where he fumbled the ball. I really thought that he had an issue with fumbling ball last year that was concerning. Yeah, there were definitely times. So, all right, so that's Kate. And, you know, I expect he's going to make major strong. rides. The shooting, I think, may continue to be a little bit shaky early on, but, and who knows

about the spacing. I mean, it depends on Sadiek Bay. He'll have good shooting with Boyon. That's for sure. I think Stuart will get it together. Who knows about Ivy? I think he'll have any easier time that he did it last season in terms of not being mobbed. And I think he'll, I think he'll have an easier time as far as attacking the basket and drawing free throws. I just, yeah, the shooting is really what I'll be watching. Yeah, it's really hard to have a conversation about Cade that feels novel or interesting because at this point I feel like almost everybody has said or heard everything there is with regards to what it is that Cade Cunningham has to do to be the man for the Pistons moving forward because there is so much to like about Cade Cunningham that we look at these couple of

elements that are primarily inefficiency related and we've really heard them harped on for the entirety of this offseason so far. Yes, definitely. So on that, that note, let's move on to, I think, the player who is probably of the greatest interest of those we haven't discussed yet, and that would be Sadiq Bay, who, as I believe started, become a little bit polarizing amongst the Pistons fan base, or at least the very small percentage of the Pistons fan base whose opinions I witness on Reddit and on Discord and on Twitter. Yeah, because there's the real question there, like, what is Bay ultimately going to be? Is he going to be this 3-Indie guy, or those his defense really bear some improvements?

but on offense, is he going to be primarily a three-point shooter? Or is there a good creator inside of him? Because last season, when he started off in this horribly ham-fitted experiment, or it's basically like here, Siddy, take the ball at the top of the key, or excuse me, at the top of the three-point line and just I-Zone score, which is extremely difficult. But as a creator, he struggled overall as a creator throughout the course of the season, though even after that, he did better after that first quarter of the season

when he was just restored to a more very, very secondary, where mostly just shooting threes and playing to his strengths. Yeah, there were limitations to his game. as a creator throughout the season, but absolutely when they really focused on it early through the half month of October that they played and the month of November, it wasn't pretty and it absolutely impacted his shooting numbers. It was ugly, but once they let him settle into a role he was more comfortable with, I thought he was, well, it isn't just that I thought he was tremendously consistent.

he was tremendously consistent over the course of the season once they let him settle into it. And I think it's pretty clear what he's going to be to me. I just maybe he eventually adds playmaking, but at this stage in the game, he is a relatively reliable spot-up shooter. Yeah, I think that the consistency could still use some work. I suppose if you're thinking game by game, on a month-by-month basis,

you knew what you were getting out of Sadieh Bay. Over the course of a month, if we go, let's just to look at the months of December, January, February, March, right? So, well, he came into the season, and that first full month they played last year, he shot splits of going, you know, field goal. It was horrible. Three point percentage free throw shooting, 32, 2775.

Yeah, he was all right. But if we look at December through March, his field goal percentage was 40, 42, 40, 42. His three-point percentage, 37, 37, 36. Free throw shooting, 91, 83, 85, 78. Okay. So on a month-by-month basis, he was tremendously consistent last year. Yeah, his percentages weren't ideal, though,

for a guy who's taking a lot of open catch and shoot threes. You'd really like to see better from three than about 36 and a half, which is what you average from there. Yeah, especially if it's, is definitely going to be probably the primary staple of his game. And for a guy who's taking that many threes, I mean, you'd like to see him at least in the, you know, at least around 40% for a wide. Yeah, he was as a as a catch and shoot, and most of his shots were catch and shoot.

He was a 38% catch and shoot three point shoot around the season compared to 25% pull-up. So he's clearly a catch-and-shoot player. And I think that if you only looked at, I didn't break it down to just those full months. but in 2020, well, in his rookie season, in 2021, he was a 40% catch and shoot shooter. And we see that he dipped by two percentage points to 38% catch and shoot last year in 21, 22. I'm betting that if you removed November, October, that very beginning of the season from the numbers, that number probably does rise back up closer or if not over that 40% mark that he hit his rookie year. So I think as a catch and shoot, three-point shooter, he's been about a 40% guy.

I think he's pretty reliable there. Like I said, I can really vary game by game. He relates to the games in which he catches fire, you know, as opposed to the games in which he might struggle a little bit. I mean, unfortunately, I mean, I can look up the statistic, but unfortunately, MBA.com can be a little bit temperamental at times. And right now it's being kind of temperamental in terms of allowing me to actually look at the shooting stats. actually I think I've identified the issue I was putting in the wrong date so we'll wait for that to look briefly but what was interesting to me I'll tell you what's something that was interesting to me I was just glancing at stuff that I honestly wasn't even thinking about prior to looking at the numbers before we chatted today but you know I noted that he was a 38% catch and shoot three point shooter compared to a 25% pull-up shooter well looking at his two point numbers and understanding of course that these are limited numbers because he was a 38% catch and shoot three-point shooter compared to a 25% pull-up shooter well looking at his two-point numbers and understanding of course that these are limited numbers because he was was very much a perimeter-oriented player last year. There weren't a lot of two-point attempts from him. He was 37% on his catch-and-shoot jumpers and 37% on his pull-up jumpers inside the arc.

So I'm really curious whether he can bring his three-point pull-up numbers to parity with his catch-and-shoot numbers like his two-point numbers were, or if his two-point numbers were just an artifact of being, you know, low attempts. Yeah, I, yeah, I think this is really going to see the season, be the season when we see what Bay is made of. I mean, I think it's his third season. It's his age 23 season. And like, I think this is when we'll see whether he is a guy who can create a fair

amounts or if he's just going to be a guy who's almost, who's going to take the vast majority of his shots from three and is going to do some spot creation. Definitely preseason was not super encouraging. And, you know, and if Bay is a role player who is the fourth, best player in a championship team. I mean, that's fantastic. It's a very good player to have. He does, on defense will also kind of see what he's made. I mean, the guy's a super hard worker. He's a smart player. I think he's going to be on this team for a long time. But that's what I'm going to

be looking for, basically. Some just shooting consistency game over game, but really, if he has, if he's going to go far beyond just being a hopefully pretty high percentage catch and shoot guy, who's going to be counted upon to make the right play on offense. And there's no shame. in him being a role player, if that's what he is. I mean, there's no shame in that. I mean, that's still a very valuable player. Well, part of the question as well is, is there room for him to develop that on the Pistons with Ivy coming in? I don't think I would be concerned about there being space for him to develop. And, oh, yes, finally, after opening two browsers, MBA.com came through. So, yeah, on his wide open threes, shot 37% last season.

I'll be enough shot better on just on more slightly more closely guarded threes from the middle of December onward. So not bad, but you want to see that mark go up, you know, a fair amount if you're looking at a guy. You know, if Bay wants to be an elite three-point shooter, yeah, you want that number, you know, three, four, five percent higher, which may sound small, but is not if he's taking a bunch of these shots. But who knows, maybe I'm being a little bit nitpigy. But yeah, just to just to move on because I know we're getting close to an hour here already. what are you going to be looking for on the season from Sadiq? I think we've kind of covered it. I'm looking for him to establish himself as a,

well, you mentioned that he's an inconsistent three-point shooter on a game-to-game basis. You know what? I'm okay with him maintaining around that 40% catch-and-shoot, 40-plus-percent catch-and-shoot. Just, yeah, keep it up consistently, play his role within the team. It's hard to say what I'm looking for from him because of the fact. that I want to see them featuring Jaden Ivy. I want to see them giving Hayes an opportunity to try to be a more aggressive player with the ball. I want to see Isaiah Livers given a chance.

We're going to talk about those other two soon. But it's hard to say, it's hard to explain what I'm looking for out of Bay without pointing out of the presence of these guys that we want to see taking shots. So it feels like I'm looking for Sadiq Bay to be okay. with taking a small step back in a way in terms of his role on the offense, while still showing and even improving those shooting percentages. As a defender, I just want to see him continue to be a solid switch defender, able to move up and down from the two to the four. I'm kind of curious what's going to happen with regards to his ability to guard a little bit lower on the spectrum.

He's talked a lot about his time spent, working on conditioning and his body this summer, how does that translate to his quickness around the perimeter? Gotcha. All right, so moving on to definitely the most polarizing prospect of the Pistons, which is Killian Hayes going into his third season, basically his rugby season was wiped out by injury for all intents and purposes.

Yeah, the next James Hardin. Yeah, this is a reference to not like an actual comparison that was made, but, you know, hey, a guy who's really smart, runs the pick and roll at a high level, can shoot pull-up threes. of course didn't happen that way. But, yeah, we're talking about the top prospect in the 2020 draft here. Come on now. Yeah.

Oh, yes. He's talking about Kevin O'Connor. Gotcha. Okay, so that's exactly what you're talking about. I hear you. Of course. Okay. So, yeah, Killian, yeah, his rookie season was basically wiped out.

And last season, he was really bad. I mean, fairly strong defender, one of the worst offensive players in the league. Like, as a starter, maybe the worst offensive starter in the league. So going into his third season and, And, you know, what are we looking for from Killian? I know we're going to agree in the shooting. I'm like the shooting. And I think we're going to agree is not a good.

Yeah, I'd say if anything, we're looking for Killian Hayes to start looking like he can be a reasonable facsimile to Marcus Smart. Oh, I don't really like that comparison. Marcus, so here's the thing about Marcus Smart. Well, number one, he's like 35 pounds heavier. It's something like this. He's quite a bit beefier than Killian, which helps him to guard larger players. But also, he's on a Boston team where it's a little bit less important than he would shoot. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. He's really, really strong. And that makes a difference. He's also super greasy. And whereas Killian avoids contact, especially in the offensive end, hopefully he'll be better about that. But he's not a physical player. Marcus Smart is like one of the more physical players in the league. I'd say Hayes is a pretty physical defender.

Hayes doesn't have the mass on the defensive end. He doesn't seem afraid of contact defensively, which is interesting because he's so afraid of contact offensively. But I would say, hopefully do you want Killian to reach that. Obviously, you want Killian to reach that level on defense, and I hope you can get there. But on offense, whereas Smart can be a pretty weak three-point shooter.

I think Killian needs to be like a high 30s three-point shooter to really succeed in the NBA. Absolutely. Yeah, I have no fear about Killian Hayes being an NBA caliber defender. I think he's already shown that he's there. The defensive end is not a concern with Killian Hayes. He's quality. Offensively, he needs to demonstrate that he can shoot.

He needs to demonstrate that he possesses. a right hand. Yeah, definitely. On defense, I would say my only area of concern for him is the pick and rule. And some of that, I believe, is just biomechanics. He runs very, very upright, which means that if he hits a screen, I mean, well, number one, it's difficult for him to navigate screens quickly. Then he often ends up well behind the guy. If he runs into a defender, then he's, you know, you couple that with the fact that he does not have a good defensive first step or an offensive, a good offensive first step, and he can get really behind running around screens, particularly If you're talking about where he's strong defensively, he's really a 1.5 to a 3.5.

He can't guard the biggest fours and he can't guard the quickest ones. Yeah. And not to say that, not this. I can imagine, yeah. Well, I was going to say, well, in the modern NBA, I would say that there are some fours that he can defend on switches. He can't defend them as a primary defender, but there are some smaller fours that he can body up pretty well with his strength. But, yeah, obviously, he is not going to be able to handle any fours on a, you can't. a full game basis.

Yeah. As far as the... Yeah, the explosive point guards in the league can also give him issues, but yeah, definitely a plus defensive player. And I think if you can get, like I said in the last episode, if you can get that shot together, and I think I'll stick in the NBA for a long time on that basis. You know, I hate, like I said,

I hate to make this comparison, but a Wanzo ball sort of player, though, that fit is... It's not unreasonable, though. It's not unreasonable, but it really depends upon fit. Like, if he can be playing next to two strong creators, great. What is his role? That's what minimizes Wanzo Ball's weaknesses.

What is his role in future in Detroit, though, is the question. You've got Caden Ivy are clearly the starters of the future. So out of the seventh pick in the 2020 draft, is Killian Hayes a success as the third guard? Well, I mean, the ideal situation would be him improving enough that he can either be the backup point guard of the future or he can be traded if he's too good to be the backup point guard of the future. But, you know,

what I'm looking for him this season, yeah, that shooting and also him showing, you know, the right hand is going to play into this, that he can actually break down defenses and reach the basket. He's not going to be like a bona fide playmaker unless he can break down defenses and, you know, by penetrating in there and you've got to reach the basket to get that high percentage scoring to draw the free throws, but also to unhinge the defense and really bring his playmaking to bear. Right.

And one thing for sure. Those are two things for me. We, we absolutely need to root for, you know, I understand that nobody is rooting against Killian Hayes, but we absolutely need to root. for the best because we have picked up that option. You know, he is under contract through next year. And whether we're keeping him or we're trading him, we have him under contract through next season.

He's not gone after this year. Yeah, yeah. Just to just to clarify what Chris means here is that Killian's fourth year option has already been picked up. For rookie options, you pick them up a year in advance. Yeah, so, yeah, he's under contract now with the Pistons through 2024. So considering we've already. talked about we've got Cade, we've got Ivy,

Killian Hayses, who we're hoping for as a strong third guard. What are we hoping for in terms of roll out of Hamadu Diallo? What I'm hoping for out of Hamadu DLO is that he can shoot the three in the mid to high 30s. I'm not like a Hamadu

stand, but I'm very high in his potential if he can become an effective shooter. And I think that's the swing skill for him if he's a reliable shooter between being a good NBA starter and an end of bench player on a a bad, not an adept player on a bad team.

So shooting. I was really, really excited for his athleticism and what he could potentially bring to this team as a 6-5-2-3, you know, guard forward type of player if he could shoot the three ball. And considering the strength

that we've seen out of Jaden Ivy already and the skill set that Jaden Ivy possesses, even if Hamadu Dialo develops a shot, he feels like a bigger, but not quite as good player that fits into the same slot as Jaden Ivy. He feels redundant to me. And he just doesn't feel long for the team. Maybe. I mean, if he can, so this is like the fantasy scenario and not likely. And I'll say, as I've said before, the likelihood of Hamidu who's struggled so much as both a three-point shooter and as a free throw shooter at this point, just abruptly developing into a good three-point shooter

is pretty well. I mean, just statistically speaking, if we look at the whole huge sample size of players, it's relatively low. But like the fantasy scenario for me is, okay, Hamadu's like a high 30s three-point shooter when he's open, like, you know, 38% three-point shooter on wide open shots. And then like you tell him, go into the weight room, put on 10 pounds, you're a, you know, you're a small forward of the future and you move, you know, move Bay if you judge him, good for the starting lineup up to the four and hopefully you've got Dern ready at the five. and then you've got an extremely athletic lineup with like three solid creators in it. Is that likely to happen?

I don't really think so. But if Hamadu improves, I think that you extend him, you keep him on the bench. And if he's too good, you trade him. But that's all I'm looking for. That sounds tremendously fun. Yeah, that would be fun. Hamid yellow is fun. Absolutely, but he is.

He's got fire. He's a fighter. But do you think, yeah, not to cut you up, but I mean, my prediction is, that he either shoots decently well in the first 20 games, or he's probably out of the rotation. Wouldn't surprise me. It's hard to say that I think he'd be out of the rotation because I think that what he brings in terms of an energy and readiness

every single game is pretty valuable in terms of setting a tone for a bench. But, yeah, if he's not shooting at some point, they're going to have to move him out of the rotation, given the young guys that they do have, including, you know, you've got another guy who can play as a much larger type of small forward in Isaiah Livers. You've got somebody right there who can immediately soak up the minutes that are lost if Hamadu moves to the bench. Yeah.

So what are you looking for out of Livers? Shooting. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much it for me. I mean, shooting and we see what else he can offer. I don't think Livers is likely to be a long-term three in the NBA. I mean, he's a smart defender, but he's not the fastest defender. I think he's going to be more suited to play power forward across the course of his career.

Yeah. Yeah, I've been clear in previous episodes, but I think Livers is. I think he's a guy who's going to shoot the three at a high level. I think he's a solid defender. I think he's a smart player, you know, a glue guy. Yeah, I think he'll be a solid group player. As we move to an NBA that is more geared around players who are essentially wings, I can agree with that.

He is in any other era in NBA history a very small power forward. But in the modern NBA, yeah, that seems to be where he's going. So I think, yeah, you want to see shooting. The only thing I suppose we'll see this over the course of the season is, does he have anything more to offer outside of shooting? I don't think he's likely to be a strong, you know, really much of a creator at the NBA level. Unless he's that pull-up shooter, I always make reference too very difficult to be an inefficient pull-up

two-point shooter. Yeah. Yeah, we saw some of it in Summer League, but it's like they're Summer League, and then there's the NBA. He's one of those guys, and what's trying in the NBA. He's one of those guys where if he's going to be a creator,

it's going to happen over the course of years. It's not happening this year. I think that we'll see what he's got fairly early. I just got that impression, given his age, and, you know, what he is in terms of athleticism. I think we'll find out fairly early if he's got much as a creator in him. Everything that you hear about him,

he seems to be one of those, knows his role sort of players. And it's hard for me to imagine him stretching himself outside of the box to really show a lot of creation ability. I think he's going to settle in as that catch-and-shoe player. He's going to get the ball, make a quick read, go. Make a quick read, go. Yeah, I mean, I was supposed to see you.

I think that'll be down probably to the coaching staff a little bit, but I agree he's definitely a know-year-old guy. Okay, moving out of the last two. So number one, Marvin Bagley, the third. and I felt like he had a particularly disappointing preseason because I was looking for improvements on offense from him because I feel like he's really going to find that value on offense. So he's out for the first four to six weeks.

It could be longer and could be a little bit shorter too, but he was very fortunate to avoid a more serious injury. Yeah, that was not a pretty situation. Anytime your lower leg moves in the wrong direction like that, you expect something more serious than, What did it ultimately come down to? I think it's a strained MCL. It's a strained MCL, yeah.

So, I mean, it is fortunate for the sake of obviously both his career, but our rotation that he's only going to miss a limited amount of time. But I just, it's hard for me to expect a lot out of marketing. Yeah. I feel like he really needs to make significant strides on offense to make himself worthwhile because on defense, even on the perimeter, he's really not ideal. and so I was hoping that I was hoping to see quite a bit of an improvement as a shooter and it was only preseason but not promising. I feel like he was going to have to, he's going to have to improve a bit as a creator to probably off the dribble because the post is real difficult in the NBA.

Yeah, to me, it feels like his only real superlative athletic skill is he is an incredibly quick jumper. Yes, that's true. I mean, he's a strong athlete overall, strong role man, you know, strong finisher around the basket. but that's just not enough given the difficulties he has on defense. I feel like, yeah, he's got to be more of a weapon on offense. So I'll be particularly looking for that shooting. And then hopefully at least the ability to attack closeouts or create a bit from within the arc. Yeah, I think that given his relative limits as a skill player in terms of his skills development,

you know, shooter, as you noted, his off-the-bounce creation is, you know, as a playmaker for others. the limitations that he has as a player in those ways, it limits him to a role where he is primarily an interior player, and a lot of his skill set is limited by the fact that he does not have tremendous length. He's kind of tall, but he does not have a lot of length. And so that ability to get in the air, to get that second jump, that's really all that I see him possessing. It's helpful because he can limit his foul.

He can be an aggressive, um, shot blocker while limiting his balls and still contesting shots. He can be aggressive as a shot blocker and still get up for rebounds. But I just don't see the upside that some of his, how can I say it, some of his Twitter stands want to say that he has. I think he's got a lot of raw offensive talent. It's a question of bringing it together. And I don't think he's got any future. I'll say it again. I don't think he's got any future as a center on defense. I just don't think he has the defensive IQ to make those reads and make those decisions in a timely fashion and make the right ones. You know, that takes, it just, it takes a certain degree of acumen that I

don't think he has. So I feel like his power forward, got to be able to shoot, got to be able to make some creation. You know, got to capitalize upon and manifest results from that raw offensive talent. And that's, that's the place where I would see him providing value. I would say he's good enough for his contract. I think he can definitely earn his contract. I think that when you look at where the salary cap's going in the next couple of years, what Marvin Bagley is earning is enough for what he can do. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you look at a guy like Rishon Holmes a few years back

who got that about the same salary. That is somewhat lower cap, not like a hugely lower cap, on the basis of him just being, you know, a decent defender, but just a very strong role man, very strong interior score, and not a bad defender. Like, he's not a bad defender. Bagley is a bad defender. So I feel like to justify that contract, he's going to have to show a little bit more than just traditional center things on offense.

I think that where the salary cap's going in the next couple of years, there's a significant difference between their contracts. Yeah, I would just say that $13 million a year by any standard, even if the cap goes up, I mean, like for just the guy who's a traditional center on offense but is a bad defender on the other end, I just don't see it. I don't think it's going to be a big deal either way. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't hamstring the dean. it doesn't want me to get my words together. It doesn't hamstring the team having Marvin Bagley on this contract. Yeah, I agree. So moving on to the last guy, one of everybody's favorite players, Isaiah Stewart.

And I should put forth the proviso here, too, that I love Isaiah Stewart. I love his work ethic. I love his character. And I think, yeah, there's a lot to love about him. He also has some immutable weaknesses when it comes to physically, in particular, undersized, very poor leaper, pretty poor foot speed, not explosive, and also does not have the greatest hands. Those things are not going to, unfortunately, I think very, very unlikely that he's, the only one he could improve is just his hands.

You say he has pretty poor, you say he has pretty poor foot speed. I'll say that I think that his feet are always in the position that they need to be. No, no, let me tell you what I mean by four foot speed in terms of running, like getting up and down the court, moving exclusively. He's not fast. Yeah, I'd say he's pretty slow in that capacity. Yeah. In terms of lateral movement, like on switches and whatnot, he's great.

He's got excellent lateral mobility. But in terms of like covering distance, he's definitely well below averages his position. Yeah. Yep. Yep. And in terms of what I'm thinking about the body, I'm thinking about that in terms of, I just don't isolate that to feet. When I think of feet, I think of his ability to move in smaller spaces.

Okay. I hear you. Yeah. When I think of foot speed, I'm thinking about. when he hedges and helps off of his mark and recovers back to him, you know, to contest a shot. I think he is tremendously quick in small spaces. Oh, yeah, he's great. He always knows where to be in the pick and roll.

He can rotate between the roll man and the ball handler. I think he knows, he always knows where to be. Yeah, he's great at that. But just like, sorry to interrupt, but it's just like, yeah, he's got his strength. He's a strong interior defender. He's a strong switch defender. and he's just a great glue guy, the super hard worker. It's just like his athletic shortcomings really take away options on offense.

Yeah, I can see where I can see where you say that. So my question for you would be this. Do you think that Isaiah Stewart long term can be a four? No, I don't. I don't think that he has, so I think that on defense that's going to take him away from his primary strength, which is an interior defender. And it's going to, number one, make him, he's going to have to defend on the perimeter. where he can switch pretty well,

but there's the difference between switching well and needing to defend these guys all game. Worse, he's going to need to cover distance in the interior, which is something that he is bad at. That's going to accentuate his weakness as far as just his ability to cover ground on the run. And on offense, I don't think he's going to have anything more to offer than just catch and shoot threes,

and your average power forward is going to be quite a bit more mobile, is going to be able to offer more than him. So in the long term, on a good team, I'd say no. I'd say you're taking him away from his strengths, in the direction of his weaknesses. So you think his defensive strength is primarily on the interior versus his ability to switch? No, I think so here's the thing. I think that he's very strong as a switch defender.

Like I think that there's very little variance between his ability as an interior defender as a defensive anchor and a switch defender. However, you put him at power forward suddenly, like as an interior defender, he doesn't need to cover ground in that same way. He's not dashing through the interior trying to keep up with a guy or to rotate or whatever else. it really playing at center removes the need for him to do those things. A power forward, he will absolutely need to do those things. So you're not sure if you can see him playing next to J. Landurran? Oh, I'd say very unlikely.

I don't think that I think that's going to reduce the quality of his defense. And on offense, like your average power forward is going to be able to do quite a bit more. Like that same like pretty poor mobility is also going to hurt him on offense just in terms of getting open in terms of just off-ball movement in general what he can offer. I don't think there's really going to be much he can do. He doesn't offer a ton on offense as a center either, but yeah, I just, I don't think he's going to be a power forward aside from maybe spot minutes. But as a long-term starter next to J-1 Duren, I'd say absolutely not.

I see him a little bit more positively defensively, I think, than you do, but offensively I think I have the same concerns. My biggest concern with him offensively is he's able to shoot the ball, but what can he do with those quick two dribbles that you need to have when someone closes on you? So he develops that offense, that ability to shoot from three. What's he going to do when the defender closes on him? Can he take two quick dribbles and make a decision? And the question isn't so much, can he make the decision as much as can he actually take those two hard dribbles?

Because I just don't quite trust his hands. Yeah, his hands aren't good. Yeah. I'm not going to belabor the point that I've made many, many times about his difficulties in the pick and rule. A lot of that is his athleticism, but also he has a habit of dropping the ball when passes are whipped to him, like fast passes. He has difficulty handling. And yeah, his hands off the dribble too. Yeah, if he can attack closeout, it's great.

But we've only seen that in a very limited basis. Now, if he can shoot threes, if he's shooting the more regularly and at a good percentage, and I think he will, then he'll have the chance to do that. But my opinion in his three-point shooting is that it's not going to make him like an offensive weapon. It's going to prevent him from being an offensive minus because otherwise he's really just to clog the paint kind of guy who doesn't score at a high percentage in the restricted area. And I think the shooting's for real. I think that not just based on his preseason, but if you look back at 2020, 21, it's so hard to say that year. I keep saying 20, 21, right? But you look back at his rookie year, he was 15 of 48, below 33% throughout the season.

And then the last three games of season, they let him open it up. He shot 6 of 15. And then last year, he took far fewer three-point shots last year. He shot 4 for 28 over the course of the season. And then last seven games of the season shot 11 of 18 from Beyond the Arc. he seems to be capable of being a good three-point shooter when he's given enough shots to get into a rhythm. Yeah, I think he's got the touch.

He definitely got the yips last season. Early on, he could barely hit the rim. And it's just so hard to get, it's so hard to get out of that when you're not given the opportunity to, you know, 28 attempts over the course of, I think he played, he started almost every game that he played last year

and played a total of, I don't have that. 71 games last year. And he took 28 attempts over the first 64 games. So you're just not going to get over the yips when you're taking a shot every third game. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, what I'll be looking for from him is the shooting, first and foremost.

Like I said, I think that's just going to be an absolute necessity for him to not be a minus on offense. I'd like to see him rediscover like the decent amount of success he had is a standstill shooter from the interior as well. is that just forces guys to cover you more closely that it's it's a weapon in its own right but it also just increases space in the interior well being at a three point line increases space in the interior more but whatever another option and and then see what he can do is in terms of attack and closeouts but i think he's a long-term bench center yeah i i agree completely i think on a if if we're talking a team that is looking to win championships to move deep into the playoffs give themselves a chance to be in the final four every year. He is a third big who can give you very good minutes at both

the four and the five. And when I say that, I say that with acknowledgement of the weaknesses that we've noted, but saying that there are a lot of bench fours in the NBA and even some starters that you're going to see in high leverage situations where he could play the four when he's your third guy. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, well, we'll see. Once a bit, since it gets to the playoffs. I think that's definitely an interesting conversation, a very, very different conversation, though I would say like I could see him, for example, like the lineup that's the Mavericks fielded against the Jazz, small ball against Gobert, Fielding Cleaver. I feel like, you know, Stewart could operate in that situation, for example, you know, if you can shoot at a high percentage,

but that's a totally different conversation, definitely. So, yeah, but just to end the conversation about Stewart's and I suppose the conversation as a whole. What will you be looking for from him this season? I mean, ideally, I'd be looking for him to establish himself as somebody that can start at the five, but as I don't think that's quite where he can get, I just want him to establish that three-point shot. That's the main thing. Well, I mentioned that those two hard dribbles.

I want to see him establish the three-point shot, and I want to see him be able to put the ball on the floor to take him. a dribble or two before making a decision and be able to do that without fumbling the basketball. That's probably the most important thing. I think we've seen the progress that he's going to make on defense, his ability to switch, his ability to recover, his stoutness in the post, his ability to challenge guys like Zion. He's got that great 6-8-250. He's got fantastic mass.

So, yeah, I just, I want to see him, I want to see his hands. I want to see his hands improve. Yeah, I hear you. All right. Any closing thoughts? Closing thoughts, man. I would say, let's go. Three out of the first four.

Fair enough. Yeah, I would just say I'm ready for the season to start. It's been a long offseason, and I'm ready to see what this roster can do. Yeah, 48 hours, you'll be on, I would say 48 hours, you'll be on the post-mortem for the Orlando game, huh? Yeah, well, I don't know.

Post-mortem, that's one way putting it in you. Oh, all right, Chris, thank you for coming on the show again. had a good time. Thanks for having me as a fun chat. Yeah, absolutely. All right, folks. So, yeah, this episode's going to post a man about maybe 12 hours before the Pistons play. So looking forward to it.

And as always, thank you for listening. Catch you in the next episode.