Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 123: A Calm Take on the Early Struggles

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

This episode analyzes the frustrating start to the season.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Drive into the Basket, part of the basketball podcast network. I am Mike, your host, coming at you today with a solo episode. Tonight, I'm just going to speak at length on the Pistons so far in the season. Now, this is not going to be a particularly uplifting episode. It's also not an overreaction episode. I know that it's very tempting thing to see a team struggle early on, or also on the other end of the spectrum to see a team that's doing super well over on. Excuse me, super well early on. And just things. you know, just come to conclusions very early. So I always do my best not to do that. You know, of course, you know, it's anybody's guess as to how well I do. I think I do a pretty good job of not overreacting. But, you know, so I'm just going to talk about how I feel things have gone so far. And most of this ties to concerns I had before the season began. So I'm just going to go over the players. I'll go over some team trends. And this is absolutely and utterly not I told you so stuff. I mean, this is, I told you so. I absolutely try to never let that get into anything. I think it's, I don't know whom I'd be telling it to anyway, because this is not something I was

arguing with people about. So I'm not sure why you even brought that into the picture. This is, this is just going to be observations based on concerns that I had going into the season. I'll put it that way. Yeah, I don't know where I told you so. We'd come into it in retrospect. And these were all, you know, and the negative things that I've seen were all things that, let me put it this way. If, if I'm going into a season and I say, that I'm concerned about this or that I don't think that will go well or I don't think a player is this good. I am hoping to be wrong. Like, you know, for example, I have voiced my reservations about Sadiq Bay as a creator in the past. I hope I'm wrong. And Isaiah Stewart as well, I hope I'm wrong about him as well

about my feelings about his limitations. You know, I hope that any Pistons player will go out there, you know, if I have reservations about them, I hope that any of them will go out there and prove me wrong. since me, just like anybody else, just want to see this team succeed. You know, that's what I would love to see most. If Killian Hayes turns into a superstar, it's like, great. You know, I have a low opinion of Killian Hayes right now. I would absolutely love to see that opinion change. That would be the best possible outcome for me for Killian and for any other player that, you know,

that I'm kind of iffy about. So let's get right into it. I'm going to talk about some good first. There's definitely some good so far. So one thing, you know, one thing to start with, Jaden Ivy. So Ivy hasn't been perfect, you know, struggled a bit on defense. But the guy has absolutely been as advertised in terms of his ability to drive into the interior with his just fantastic athleticism and draw multiple coverage. You know, that's great. And he's been a very

pleasant surprise also in terms of his passing. It's not perfect. He still makes some not so great passes off the drive. And, you know, I don't think he's ever going to be a guy who's like a master passer in terms of his core vision and whatnot. But the man drives in, he gets double coverage almost every time. And he does a fair job of finding the open man. and he has alleviated some of the concerns I had in terms of, in the pre-draft process, which of that is this guy not only going to be a reasonably able passer, but also a willing passer because some guys just want to drive in and score. And some guys are willing to pass, but they just don't see the open man.

And Ivy's done a decent job at seeing the open man. He's also been very willing to pass, and that has been great to see. And, you know, he's just an exciting player to watch too. There are clearly some things to iron out. He needs to work on scoring with his left hand. He needs to work on just refining his game because at this point, I think he's still very accustomed to just being able to blitz past people, and that's not quite as easy at the NBA level. But he's been able to find good lanes a lot of the time.

He's able to contort himself and score through some tough coverage. Granted, he hasn't really played against any really difficult defenses yet. And so we'll see how that goes. But, you know, Ivy's raw in some ways. And the hope is that he can iron these things out, you know, as his career progresses. I've said in the past that Mathrim was my 1A and Ivy is my 1B. I think Ivy's got more development to go. He's got a higher ceiling than Matherin.

And again, you know, the Pistons drafted Ivy. The Pacer's drafted Matherin. It's like, I don't want to say I would love for Matherin to fail, but it would not make me upset to see Matherin fail. Do you know, at this point, I'm all on on Ivy. I mean, he's the one I want to see succeed, obviously. But if we're looking at Benedict Matherin, for example, who started out with three very good games,

before finally struggling in his fourth game. He's just kind of got more readiness. He's got more ability to contribute immediately just by way of being a very high quality, three-point shooter, including on motion threes, and just a good off-ball attacker. Ivy needs to work on his off-ball game, and in part because it's just, you know,

it's good to have those off-ball skills, but also in part because of the fit with Cade, which I'll talk about later. I mean, that's going to be an important thing going forward. So Mathrim was going to come into the NBA always with kind of like a higher floor because he's just able to do very valuable up-ball things in a way that Ivy isn't quite able to do yet. You know, still a work-in-progress is a three-point shirt.

He's really going to speed up that release. He's got to spot up at the three-point line, ideally, rather than a few feet behind it, that's an easily fixed thing. But he's a work-in-progress, it's a three-point shooter, whereas Mathuron is a very, is a fairly polished product already, and just has, is going to have an easier time scoring from within the flow of the offense, whereas Ivy is all about the drive, and he's going to need to develop in terms of finding value away from the drive as well. But for now, you know, he's been fun to watch.

He's got a lot of fire. And, you know, it's, we hope for big things. I think, again, between the two of them, he's absolutely got the higher ceiling. One of my reservations before the draft was that I felt like Mathrim was more likely to provide, more likely to develop along such lines that he would, he's just more likely to provide the same value to the Pistons as Ivy would, just given the roster.

situation with Cade, for example, that Abby was going to come into primarily around Cade, Kate who himself is very possession heavy. And as we've seen from what we saw last season and in college, does his best work when he's playing heavily on the ball. But in any case, I digress. Ivy's been a bright spot on defense. He's struggled. He needs to work on that awareness.

He needs to work on getting up, you know, hopefully not hitting the ground quite as much, but getting up promptly and running back on defense. There are definitely some things to iron out, but it's a promising. start. Another promising thing, you know, another positive thing, and this is not a surprise. Boyam Bogdanovich is a very, very good three-point shooter. He has been exactly as advertised in that capacity so far. This is a basic thing. I mean, he's just an elite three-point shooter. He always want to have elite three-point shooters. That's something the pistons. I mean, have they, I might be forgetting somebody. I don't think so. I'm thinking back to the last

time they really had an established elite three-point shooter. And I don't know, I'm probably forgetting somebody, but I feel like it's been quite some time. I mean, you could say Wayne Ellington, but Wayne Ellington was not really that kind of high usage perimeter shooter. Mike Boyon is, I mean, Boyon's got a long history as a strong three-point shooter. I mean, he came into the NBA fairly late, but he's an established guy who shoots the three to very high percentage, and he's been exactly as advertised so far, and that's good to have. Having him in the starting lineup, I don't think is quite as good of a thing. I'll get into that a little bit later on. So those have definitely been two positives. Jalen Duren, still raw.

And still, of course, noticeably has a long way to go in terms of his game sense, in terms of his touch around the basket, and whatnot. But he's come in and gotten early minutes in a situation in which I believe he was not intended to do. I don't think he was intended at all by the coaching staff to get into the rotation this early. But with the injury to Marvin Bagley and Noel not really being ready off the bat, he was thrust in the lineup right away. And there's definitely some things he's done well, particularly on defense. I mean, on the boards as well, there were those concerns in Summer League, which, you know, because in Summer League, he was really just, depending upon his size to get him rebounds that worked in the NCAA, did not work in Summer League, was definitely not going to work in the NBA.

He's been fighting for them now, and that's great, absolutely great. He's been engaged. There were questions about his motor. He's been very engaged. He's been working hard. And on defense, he's done a good job. I mean, I was high on Durence defense and remained high on Durance defensive potential. I believe he can be what I have called, I've called Stewart, this one of those low variants,

both variants defenders basically guys who are not going to lose much switching between just a basic interior defense role and when they're forced to switch. I'm not sure if Duren will be quite as good as Stewart on switches. Duren, however, has the example of being taller and being a far better leaper and way better able to recover, rather. If somebody gets by him or if somebody gets by one of his teammates, he can fly in and block a shot, which of course Stewart can't do. So I'm very high endurance defensive potential. We've seen some of that so far. There are times when he's gotten lost, but he's been solid enough on switches. And he's been pretty good at rim protection.

And he's got a ways to go. But for an 18-year-old, I mean, that's definitely promising stuff. And that's been good to see as well. Has he been a positive player so far? I would say no. But that's fine. I'm not concerned about that. I'm happy about what I've seen so far.

But unfortunately, the positives kind of end there. The season, we're only four games in, but it has definitely been, at this point, more full of negatives than positives. I'm not going to talk about some things that I think will change. Like, for example, like Sadiq thus far on the season, kind of struggling from three, whatever. It's been four games. I mean, I think we can pretty safely conclude that Sadiq is going to be a solid three-point shooter throughout his NBA career. That's my opinion anyway.

Like, Isaiah Stewart struggling from three. Like, I have confidence in Isaiah's shot. I think he'll get that together. Like, I don't think there's anybody else really to say, like, Kada struggled off the drive aside from that fourth quarter against Indiana when he was very decisive and just attacked the basket quickly and from the right angles and sweet that looked really good and he's been kind of hesitant a lot of the time other than that he has looked strangely slow at times we haven't seen the same sort of body control and poise really we saw last year in which he would just go into

the pick and roll and put guys in his back while he figured out what to do also you're going to notice that my voice changed about 10 seconds ago maybe I was very congested and went and put on a breathe red strip, which has helped a bit. Anyway, that useless piece of information aside. So I think that Kate is far too smart and far too gifted a player for that to continue. So these are things that I'm not worried about. What I'm worried about are issues that are unlikely to change, that I judge to be unlikely to change are just fundamental structural issues. So I'm going to go into a particular order here. Number one is Hamidu, not number one. This is just the first, again, no particular order. So what I'll start with is Hamadu.

And I'm just going to start with him because I've sort of jokingly been a Hamidu stand. just in the capacity of, you know, I do genuinely think that he could be a very good player if he becomes a league average three-point shooter. You know, I think he could be a very good player for the pistons in that situation. I was disappointed last season when he came in after the off-season, which was basically like, you know, your shot is the thing you have to work on. You know, it's all that's keeping you from being like a very respectable NBA score. It did not work in a shot. That was obvious when he came in last season. So I was like, okay, well, you know, we've heard all sorts of good things about how hard this team is

working in the off-season. And Hamad, who's got to know. than he needs a shot. And we had Dwayne Casey say before the season like, oh, Hamadu doesn't need to shoot it. I'd be shocked if Dwayne actually believes that whatever the case, Hamadu came in, has come in and he's looked terrible. I think it's pretty clear he did not work in his shot at all. I don't think he worked in his free throws either. And maybe I'm being a little pretentious in saying this, but I mean, I kind of feel like this is something that a player in his position should be aware of, that you're unlikely to really have an NBA career, be an effective player as a perimeter player if you cannot shoot. And it just, I don't know if Hamadu hasn't put

the work in, or it's possible that he really did put the work in, but he's just bad at it. This happens. There's no guarantee that you're going to become a better three-point shooter just by practicing. Like, an example that always comes to mind for me is Andre Roberson, who definitely put an enormous amount of work into trying to become an effective three-point shooter, and it never worked. And he's out of the league now, in part because of that, and in part because of some injuries that really robbed him of some of his athleticism. And, I mean, he used to be an absolute, like, an elite defender, like genuinely an elite defender. But even on a thunder, team that had Kevin Durant and had Brussels Westbrook, who back then, you know, wasn't as much

of an issue that he couldn't shoot. Even on that team that had two superstar scores, he was a big problem in the starting lineup. The fact that he couldn't shoot was an issue. So whatever the case, it's possible that Hamidu just put in the effort and it hasn't worked out. But for whatever reason, and this is absolutely pure speculation on my part, my guess would be that he didn't put in the work, but it's irrelevant. It's a move point. Maybe he did put it. in the work. That's not a judgment you need to make, and it's not a judgment I'm qualified to make. So let's just strike that from the record. Whether he put in the effort or not, it does not look like it has really produced results. I mean, he hasn't exactly taken many threes, to say the least.

I believe he's stuck at one on the season, but, you know, that's not a promising sign in itself. He's been horrible from the free throw line. And that's not encouraging either. I just feel like when Alec Berks is back, we're likely to see Hamadu drop out of the rotation. Or maybe Casey will give him like another 10 games, but you're dealing with a bench lineup that does not have much shooting in it. I would not be upset to see Hamidu out of the, you know, just out of the bench lineup. You can only just have so many non-shooters there before it becomes, before it starts to become an issue. And even having one non-shooter on the perimeter is kind of a problem. So if I had to make a judgment now and this make it really sad, I would say that Hamidu is probably not in the team next season.

You might not see all that many minutes this season. It's just, I feel like, you know, maybe like last season, he, he was in the starting lineup for quite a while, and he looked like he was doing a fairly good job. Just the issue is that in a bad offense, you know, it's not going to be anywhere near as noticeable in a bad offense and a bad team. What a perimeter player can't shoot is going to do to your offense, the options he'll take away, just how much easier it makes things on the defense. And so I think it's just like a guy like him, I'll put it this way, would not be getting minutes on a good team.

He might be a, you know, he probably could stick around in the league for a little while, based in his athleticism and his conceivable ceiling if he becomes able to shoot as a depth player. You know, a guy who maybe gets minutes in a bad team, but to Hamadu who can't shoot, and even do some in the starting lineup last season, even if he plays that way, he's not going to get minutes on a good team. He's absolutely not going to play in the playoffs because a guy like him who can't shoot, it gets mercilessly punished in the playoffs, not a postseason player if he can't shoot, and it's not really much of a regular season player or other.

So it makes me sad, but I think that what we see right now with Hamadu is what we're likely to get. he needs that shot and it hasn't worked out. I don't think that, I mean, maybe he's kept like on a minimum deal, but I got to think he'd prefer to go to a situation where he'd have more of a chance because I feel like the minutes are going to close up for him next season. Of course, we're well ahead of that point, but I'm very, very discouraged with what I've seen so far. Another guy who's been very discouraging, Killian Hayes.

So Killian had his struggles last season. I mean, we know that he's a strong one on one defender unless he's forced to operate in a pick and roll with athletic guards. but, you know, so, yeah, he's got his strengths on defense. And there's no denying that he's a gifted passer, though, of course, he can't exactly bring that to bear in the NBA right now. He's a very smart player. Also cannot really bring that to bear because that's largely just centers around his passing.

So last season, he was one of the worst offensive players in the league in terms of efficiency, in terms of overall impact. Like, even in that relatively strong stretch he had, which was, you know, he had that, which was highlighted by that big game against an OKC squad that was doing its absolute level best to lose. This was an OKC squad that waived. Olivier Saar for playing too well. That was almost certainly the cause of it.

And they would, and you know, when you helped them win a couple of games, and they just weren't having that. You know, they wanted the tank and it turned out pretty well for them. You know, thanks to the lottery. But yeah,

as a starter last season, Kalyam was an unequivocal disaster on offense. I mean, I haven't gone and looked through all the stats from last year, or just based on what I know. But, I mean, absolute. So, you know,

I don't know if we can call him the worst starter, but he was an absolute disaster on offense. He couldn't shoot. He wasn't, able to, and he wasn't even willing to really drive in the paint and take contact, but he couldn't shoot. He couldn't do anything useful with the ball as far as, you know, creating anything for himself or for others. He was horribly inefficient. He was basically a waste of shock luck when he was handling. And he was a liability to the offense and to his teammates whose lives he made more

difficult. He was awful. And, you know, Killian's a young player. And, you know, at this point, I believe he is 21. And so it's like, okay, well, I mean, he had most of his rookie season wiped out. This was the sophomore season. It was very discouraging to see a player be that bad on offense. I mean, he was remarkably bad. And even for a rookie, he would have been remarkably bad. But, you know, he's young, whatever.

You know, you give this guy time. You give players like this time. And he's got a full NBA season under his belt. You go into the off season. He knows what he needs to work on. And you hope for some improvement. Now, Killian has been very discouraging because he has not improved at all on offense. Like, it does not seem to have improved one bit.

You know, he came at a preseason looking more aggressive and confidence is in Mastin the NBA, and he was very tentative before. And he's been acting decisively. Unfortunately, he's been acting decisively in the course of playing very, very bad basketball on offense. He still can't shoot. He's still super inefficient. Like, he was awful within the three point, like outside and also within the three point line last season. I mean, he was remarkably bad.

And that has persisted. I mean, he's kind of making more moves toward driving into the basket, but sorry, that's the term that I use. It's also the name of the show that wasn't deliberate. So he's made more efforts toward it, sort of. He still doesn't go up the middle. He still avoids contact. And when he's driving also, defenses have no respect for him.

Nobody comes to help. And I got to think that's probably because of game planning, but absolutely nobody comes to help. They know that he's not good at getting into the basket in the first place, and also that he's unlikely to drive through contact. So nobody comes to help. That means that he has no open men to hit. And that, of course, is a huge nerve to his basket.

the fact that he cannot get to and score at the basket. Robsman has high efficiency shots, high efficiency shots, high efficiency shots, and a little bit of a tongue twister there, and, you know, the free throw attempts and so on and so forth. Basically, he still settles for a fair number of those awful, you know, long mid-range shots, which he is not good at, you know, or long floaters, which are difficult to make efficient for any player.

So it's a mess. He can't score, but he cannot create. the conditions to bring his playmaking to bear. He is a colossal minus on offense. Just colossal. Of course, the opponents don't respect him at the three-point line. Needless to say, that makes life more difficult than everybody else. So can't score.

Can't two-point guard things? He's been terrible. And again, the season is still young. What's concerning for me is that we see no progress over last season. Like not one slight bit of progress over last season. And that makes me concern for the rest of the season going forward because, again, he was sorry for any listener who was, coming kind of who has heard me say this and is hearing me repeat it again. I mean,

he was extremely bad last season on offense and there seemed to be no changes. And just on a personal level, and I don't think he's going to continue being as bad as he has been. I think he's hit like three field goals on the season. I mean, he's been far worse than he was last season. And I expect him to improve in that capacity. I do not expect that he's going to improve a great deal. I mean, at this point, when you see that little progress, when you see that nothing. is going right so far. So I think it's likely that he'll improve back to bad at least from absolutely heinously awful as he has been so far.

But I just, I don't have high hopes. It's really discouraging to see a player like this comeback from an important offseason and not look better at all. So that is, that has not been ideal. And like I said, I got a little bit sidetracked, you know, having said on a personal level. So on a personal level, it was really frustrating for me to watch Killiam last season. The thing that frustrated me most was the guy refused.

to drive in and accept contact. And it's like, dude, you have your struggles. Okay, this is a thing that everybody on your team does. And it's something that you are refusing to do and could enhance your game. Now, would it be realistic, we enhance his game. If he just still sucks, it getting into the basket. No, but it's like give it a shot. Do what your teammates do.

You know, put your body on the line like everybody else does. And that was what bothered me about him most. But it also bothered me that he was awful on offense. And it's just, I get tired of what. I'm already tired of watching him this season. I mean, that's an irrelevant point, but he's tough to watch. So again, this is no particular order, but this is definitely a hot topic, hot button item, rather. And that's Kate Cunningham, who was absolutely struggled out of the gate.

He's definitely had his moments when he looked like last season's gate, like particularly that fourth quarter against the Pacers, that first game against a pretty bad Orlando team. I mean, he absolutely has had his moments when it's like, okay, last season's Cade is still there. But at many points, again, he looks slow. he looks hesitant. That body control from last season largely isn't there. He just, he's not his usual self. His shooting has been really bad.

There's talk that he's still tweaking his shot. And on some level, it's frustrating. It's like, okay, you guys want a higher arc on it than he had in college, but you turned a 40% three-point shooter in the NCAA into the guy who struggled last season and has been terrible so far. Like his just, his shooting has been very rough so far in terms of, it's just looked ugly. I mean, a shot for him and how the ball comes off of his hands and how it hits the rim.

It's ugly. And that sucks to see. Fortunately, Kate is kind of, he's a guy that I'm not super concerned about again. He's just that gifted and he's that smart. And I'm confident that shot will come together eventually. It's just unfortunate to see. And I'm not sure what's going on with him mentally. I'm not sure what's going on with him physically.

But again, we have seen those flashes and I think he'll get it together. It's just unpleasant to see the slow start. I don't really have too much to say about Sadeek. I think that I've said it in the past, and I continue to believe that this is true, that he's primarily going to be a three-point shooter who might be able to do some creation now and then in fortuitous, you know, under advantageous circumstances. And that's how it's been this season. Again, he struggled a little bit from the three-point one.

But I think, you know, he'll be the same consistent three-point shooter we have always seen, that we have seen throughout, aside from that first court of the season last year, in which they're extenuating circumstances, aside from that we have seen throughout his career in the NBA so far. I haven't seen anything so far that's really made me. feel any better about his capacity as a creator. I mean, he's always going to be a disadvantage just in terms of the fact that he doesn't have a good handle. I'll start at a different place. He is a full average NBA athlete, and he does not have a good handle to compensate. And it was concerns about a ceiling that dropped him to the business at number 19. So it's like in a way that's

positive that he doesn't have these things. Otherwise, he wouldn't be on the team, most likely. You know, if he had a better handle, better athleticism in a 2020 draft, likely a guy who goes probably at the low end of the top 10. It was surprising that he's, dropped to number 19 where the Pist and selected him. So don't have much to say about him. Who knows, maybe he'll flash more. But like I said, our land on the show. Yeah, this is just, I'm not worried about him.

I hesitate to call Kevin Knox a disappointment because his entire NBA career has been a big struggle so far. So that suffice to say he has been bad. Yeah, it's just like cool. It would have been nice if he had played a little bit better so on to so far. But kind of like Killian, he's just picked up where he's left off, where he left off before, except he left off after a much longer period. I don't know why I'm even talking about Kevin Knox.

So let's move on to Isaiah Stewart. So everybody who's listening to this show knows how I feel about Isaiah Stewart. Like I love the guy's mentality. I love his competitiveness. I think he's a fantastic character guy and a tone setter. And if you want to go down this direction, definitely kind of like the sort of like ultimate Detroit basketball player on the roster right now, just really tough, really physical, like incredibly hardworking. like what's not to love about Isaiah as a person.

And on defense, for the most part, he's very good. And that aside from certain circumstances, like we saw with Mitchell Robinson, against the Knicks, like we saw against Jalen Smith and Isaiah Jackson, I think I'm getting the name right, against the Pacers. Like he struggles a great deal against guys who can just dunk over him. He can't really defend against Wabs because he can't run and then jump very well. he's not a good jumper and he's undersized. If guys get past him, he can't really recover,

and he can't really play helps that defense. Whatever the case, for the most part, he's a strong, he's a very strong defender, just as a general pain protector, as a general rim protector and as a switched defender. Now, there are issues in the starting lineup, and these are issues that are magnified by the fact that the front court as a whole is extremely unathletic, and I'll get into that later,

but we're seeing the same sort of thing that we saw from Stewart last season. in which he was unequivocally a bottom 10 starting center on offense. He was a very weak interior finisher. Of course, he can't run the pick and roll because he's undersized. He's a poor leaper. And, you know, if you pass on the ball off, then he doesn't have the greatest hands in terms of catching it. You got to get him the ball on the grounds, and then he finishes from below the rim, and it's just not a recipe for success, not a recipe for high percentage in the restricted area. And he's very much struggled in the restricted area so far this season. I don't anticipate him being a strong finisher, that period, in the end.

NBA, it's just real hard to be a below-the-rimmed score at center and be a strong finisher. It's just a big disadvantage. But, yeah, as a starting center, like before the Pistons traded for Bojan, darn it, I've been pronouncing his name wrong again. I hope I've been doing that this entire episode. Boyon, there we go. Before the Pistons traded for Boyon, I thought that Bagley was going to be the starting power forward, and I'm quite certain that that was the plan.

And in that situation, you would have, you know, they pretty much probably just rely on, Stewart to do a lot of outside shooting, and that hasn't been very good so far. But again, I'm confident it'll come along. It might take some time. But you'd have Bagley as the primary, as the role man. You'd have Bagley as the interior finisher as the lob target. So you'd have that kind of guy. But you don't have Bagley in the starting lineup now. You've got Boyon, who's that provides nothing of the sort. And in this situation, like you've got an even West athletic front court than you had last season with Jeremy Grant out of the picture. And Toma Diallo played small forward for a while last season.

Sure, that's athleticism in the front court, though. The guy's more of a, I'd say more shooting guard than small forward, whatever. That's a different discussion. But, yeah, you've got Jeremy Grants that said you downgrade him in terms of his athletic capabilities down to Blyon. Yeah, that's a loss. But when it comes to Stewart, yeah, so that guy that lob threat that role man, I mean, you really see, there's not in the lineup.

And I feel like this season in particular you're seeing him. you saw it last season, but you're really seeing even more so now with what you lose on offense by having Stewart on the floor, because he has very limited utility. I mean, the guy sets great screens. Again, he really works hard. He's a capable offensive rebounder, and hopefully he'll be that shooter. But he's a weak finisher. He can't run the role.

And neither can anybody else in the starting lineup. He's absolutely not a lob threat, you know, unless you get him like a solid runway. And even then, he's got like a foot and a half catch radius above the rim. And yeah, these are big weaknesses. And it hurts that the Pistons don't have that guy. It really hurts. I mean, and you definitely doubly don't want it now with Ivy in the lineup. So that's been painful.

And again, he's had his defensive issues too. Like this is another area where it's very noticeable that the Pistons don't have that athletic big. Like he has real trouble defending against those taller and more athletic centers. And but just going back to offense, like tonight, I'm recording this after the game against the Wizards. There is this one play in which he set a pick. He rolled Ivy jetted in, and Ivy tried a lot of the ball to him. And of course, Stewart, too, has a lot of positive qualities, is undersized at about six, seven and a half, and is like a very poor lever. The guy, again, if you're getting a good runway, he can, you know, catch a really very accurately thrown lob. But barring that, I mean,

he can barely, you know, he's barely going to get any lift. So maybe, like, maybe on a second jump when he's trying to rebound. But it even hurts on the defensive end of things. Like Stewart is not a strong defensive rebounder. Like in terms of defensive rebounding, the taller you are, just being tall and being a strong leaper is a lot of the battle. Of course, he still got a box out, but just being able to jump higher, you know, as long as you can get position and jump higher than the guys around you, you're going to stand a good shot at getting that rebound and Stewart can't do that. And that's a particular issue against taller and more athletic centers again.

But yeah, he also just can't catch those lobs. So, I mean, that's an option that's not there. having a strong role man is an option that's just not there. Having a guy you can shovel two under the basket and have him finish at a high percentage that's not there. And that hurts. And it was also depressing tonight. I mean, this is nothing that can happen to him on defense. I know I'm flying back and forth between offense and defense. But you see guys like Kuzma, who have good size and solid athleticism and can just score over Stewart in certain situations.

And there are players who can do that. There are guards who can do that in some circumstances, like real high flyers. Like Damien Miller really comes to mind. I mean, they're on a ton, but Stewart's just got limitations. You know, you can reasonably say that sure, as he gets older, he's going to develop in aspects of his game, but regrettably, he can't get taller and he can't really become a better leaper. Like, you could bring up like, oh, well, he just needs to work on his leaping.

Margin's just so small in the NBA, and guys are so developed physically by the time they come into the NBA. I mean, the likelihood of Stewart any amount of work, and I don't doubt that Stewart has put in a tremendous amount of it, you know, that he would do whatever he could, going to make Stewart a substantively better leaver. I just, I think that's all but completely out of the question. Now, if Stewart were a good leaper, I mean, you unequivocally the pistons would not even have bothered to draft Jalen Duren because, you know, a guy like Isaiah Stewart, who can play above the rim, you know, that's, that's an all defense guy, almost certainly,

or excuse me, all defensive guy. I've been saying that run for a long time. It's all defensive team. Not, not, not, I just got stuck on it because of Tony Allen, who in that series against the Warriors back in 2015 when he was shutting down Steph Curry back before the Warriors just put Andrew Bogot on him and forced the Grizzlies. This was a very formative thing that Steve Kerr did and forced the Grizzlies to either play four and five on offense or lose Tony Allen on defense and let Steph Curry run free. But, you know, the Grizzlies won games three and four and there were these circumstances in which Tony Allen would stop Curry and the replay would have him shout, first team, all defense. So that's what got stuck in my head as far as all

defense versus all defensive. Or maybe I have it right with all defense, though I don't think so. In any case, a steward can play above the rim. I mean, that's a, you know, that's a flawless defender, really. You know, a guy who has no weaknesses. And on offense, strong role man, strong finisher, unfortunately he isn't. And if you were, I mean, the Pistons probably would have had to draft him number seven instead of Killian Hayes, which would not have been a tragedy in retrospect. You know, that that assumes that he wouldn't have been drafted even higher. But who knows? Unfortunately, that's not to be. I think that the steward is going to be a bench player going forward for good piston's team.

But in the meantime, having him as the starting center hurts. It continues to hurt just like it did last season. It's helpful if that shot comes along. But there's nothing that can, that there's no amount of work by which he's going to be able to overcome the limitations that his physical qualities will impose upon him. Now, what can the pistons do instead? I mean, I wouldn't be upset if they started Jalen Duren. Would that be bad for his development? I'm not sure.

I don't think so. I think it would just be so helpful to the starting lineup as a whole. And again, I'll get into the issues with the starting lineup a little later in the episode. Your other option be to start with Nerlin's Noel, who is a strong interior defender. I don't believe he's a good switch defender at all. And also, it's just not going to happen. The likelihood of Duren ending up in the starting lineup over Stewart anytime soon. I mean, he would really need to be out playing Stewart.

over an extended period for Casey, who's all about giving preference to the veterans, you know, and really earn it sort of situations. I mean, Durham would need to really earn it or a situation where, goodness forbid, Stewart goes out with an injury for an extended period. Absolutely do not want to see that. I will never root for a player to get injured. And so, no, not hoping for this scenario. But like another situation, yeah, sure, in which Stewart gets injured.

And Dern ends up in the starting lineup and he does well. And Stewart comes back. He's probably playing from the bench in that situation. I think it's unlikely with steam out of the starting lineup anytime soon. Who knows? Maybe Bagley ends up in the starting lineup somehow, and Stewart's athletic limitations become lesser, but in that situation, excuse me, the impact, rather, sorry, not that does athletic limitations become lesser, or the impact of his athletic limitations, or just physical

limitations become lesser. But, you know, who knows if that'll happen. Even then, it's like, Stuart, you're probably on offense, just shooting spot-up threes and not really providing all that much. So that's the situation with Stewart. And it's kind of frustrating to see. It's not his fault per se. He's always going to do 100% the best he can in every situation.

But yeah, that's how things are right now. So that's what I have on the docket for players to discuss. I mean, I know I got to just about everybody. We haven't seen a ton of Isaiah livers. Corey Joseph is shooting an obnoxious percentage from three on very low volume. I could go on and on about Corey Joseph. I think he is a serviceable role player who does his job. And, you know, I've seen the question asked, you know, if you want this team to win,

I don't remember where I saw it asked. But if you want this team to win, do you play Corey Joseph as your backup point guard or Killian Hayes? And the question is unequivocally Corey Joseph, who is very much a legitimate NBA bench player, whereas Killian is a below replacement level player, was last season, and is this season two. So far, even worse. So, you know, coach has done okay off the bench. bench for a bad team. Definitely an NBA player. No need to talk about him. So moving on to issues on a team-wide basis. I'll get into this one again that I've gotten into before and that was a

big concern for me going into the season is athleticism in the starting lineup. And really in the lineup as a whole, I mean, this team is chiefly guys who are good three-point shooters but very below-average NBA athletes or guys who are good NBA athletes but very below-average shooters or Killian, who's well below average in both capacities. But there are definitely just some issues on a lineup-wide basis, especially looking in the starting lineup. But before we get into that, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors. NBA fans, the weight is over.

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Okay. So moving on to the team-wide issues. So again, I mentioned athleticism. And there were definitely some downsides of the bullion trade. It brought an elite three-point shooter on to the pistons, but it also created some significant issues in the starting lineup that I don't think can be fixed without changing something. Whether that's bringing Boyon, putting Boyon, or even Sadiq,

you know, one of the two on the bench and bringing like Marvin Bagley in there. Or like replacing Stuart with Duren, though that brings its own set of challenges. But, you know, of course, I didn't mention before, sure you're going to lose on defense by doing that. For a starting lineup, that's also always already struggling on defense. You know, of course, Bagley's a bad defender. but just like the slow speed of the starting lineup is a problem. Now, if you look at the front court, I think, and I could be wrong about this,

but I think we'd have to look long and hard. And even if we looked long and hard, we might have trouble finding a front court, which coupled being undersized, being slow and being very poor in terms of the, in the vertical sense of things, in terms of leaping. You take Boyon, Bay, and Stewart, the tallest guy there is Stewart at six and a half, excuse me, six foot seven and a half inches. So you do not have size. You do not have athleticism.

All of these guys are slow on the run, and all of them are very poor leavers. And so what impact does this have? Of course, you know, you've got Stuart and the line. I've talked about having no strong finisher in the lineup. You don't have one at, it's powerful. You don't have one at center. You know, none of these guys are strong finishes off the drive either. You've got, you know, of course, no vertical threat that goes without saying.

But just slow movers. This hurts on defense, you know, in a switch everything defense. are just relocating on defense, getting from point A to point B in time. That's hard if you have guys who are slow. It's just difficult. On offense where the Pistons are really looking for a sort of spread offense, it's really helpful if you guys can get open, they can move around fast and get open at the three-point line.

The Pistons are not good at that either. It's just this front court has major issues, major issues just from all three of its members being quite unathletic. And the lack of size doesn't help either. So I don't see any way around these issues. I don't think that there is a way to fix these. And, I mean, it's definitely a significant cause of the starting lineup having issues on offense. I mean, it doesn't help that Ivy is kind of struggling on defense and that Boyon is a weak defender.

But it is a major weakness to have poor athleticism on a lineup wide scale. And this front court is in terms of athleticism is a nightmare. And that's an issue. You want your guys to be able to move fast. You want ideally to be able to run faster and jump higher than the, opponent that's not always going to be possible. You want at least to, you know, in a lineup wide scale to be reasonably competitive in that respect. Otherwise, I mean, you're going to have trouble getting open, much more trouble getting open looks on offense. You're going to have trouble getting from place

to place on defense in time. And it's a problem. I mean, the starting lineup has big problems. This is a very, very, in my opinion, a very big problem. And there's no way to compensate for it. I mean, this is just a fundamental and unusual shortcoming. It's unusual to have a lineup that looks like this. I mean, you might have it in certain circumstances where it's like, less of an issue if you have, like, if you're on the Nets and you have, like, of course, Kyrie is all sorts of objectionable, but he is an excellent, he isn't a fantastic NBA score. Durant, of course, one of the greatest of all time. And on offense, if you have the two of them and like three relatively poor athletes,

you know, on offense, it's going to hurt you a lot less because those are guys who can just go out and get a bucket for you and be very pretty darn reliable in doing so. The Pistons don't have that. And even the Nets, of course, you know, that hypothetical roster would really struggle on defense, you know, like any other team would. But, you know, of course, the pistons don't have that watch for an offense, needless to say. I mean, if you just have a couple of superstar creators,

that can cover up for a lot of deficiencies. But the pistons don't have that. So it's like, what can you do in this situation? Well, you just got to live with the shortcomings. Again, I think that Bagley would have been the starter of power forward, basically played center on offense and power forward on defense. You bring Boyon in. Again, you've got that elite three-point shooting threat.

But, you know, it comes with a substantial cost. I mean, even just replacing him or replacing Bay with the big plus athlete, and again, the only guy you can really think of there is Marvin Bagley, who is currently out. Yeah, it's just, yeah, that's the only way to solve this issue. I mean, the athleticism issue in the starting lineup is not going away. Not with this starting lineup. It's a big problem. And even when you look at Boyon, I think we've seen so far, and this was something again that I was concerned about before the regular season. Not sure if I talked about it, but there's a lot of overlap between Bay and Boyon, both of whom are primarily three.

point shooters who can deal a little bit of creation, attack some closeouts, you know, attack some advantageous matchups. Boyon's better at that than Bay. But like we saw, it's like, I think the Orlando game is a good case in point. I mean, Boyam is really hot. And Bay really didn't have a way to get into the offense because Boyama's ending plays by shooting threes. We saw it again to a degree tonight against the Wizards.

Boyan was ending players. He was the one who was getting the ball. You know, he was the terminus, the guy who would get the ball and shoot an open three or somewhat open three and sink it. And in that situation, Bay doesn't really have much of a way into the game. I mean, his value goes significantly down and the vice versa is true as well. If Bay is the guy with the hot hand that people are finding and he's taking the shot and he's sinking it, I mean, Bollion's value goes down significantly.

It's good to have both of them on the floor as spacing threats. But there's definitely overlap in value. So you kick one of them to the bench. You're losing some shooting, but you're probably getting more value out of the guy who's still on the floor. Of course, you know, if you have two non-shooters in the lineup that becomes an issue. like, let's say Bagley is back and you kick one of them to the bench, you really have to have have Isaiah Stewart shooting at a good percentage. Otherwise, you're running into major spacing issues.

Now, what is preferable having an extremely unathletic starting lineup or having spacing issues? I'd go with spacing issues, to be honest. You know, just giving Cade and Ivy that role presence, having a strong interior finisher. I think that's going to be, you know, that will, I would take that. I would take that and have two struggling shooters in the four, assuming that Isaiah continues to struggle. And Ivy, of course, is still a work in progress. And Kate is struggling, too. So I guess this is an entirely different discussion.

But we've got that overlap also. The fit between Cade and Ivy, I'll just talk about this briefly. So pre-draft, it was kind of like, okay, Kate is it his best, you know, based on, you know, what we know from last season, what we know from his season at Oklahoma State is that is, you know, he really thrives if he's handling the ball on heavy volume. And you don't want Ivy to be too ball dominant next to him. You know, in order to get good value out of both of them, you want them both to be able to be able to play. effectively off the ball, you know, particularly Ivy, who I think is going to be the secondary handler, because I don't think he's, though he is much more athletic than Kate, I think overall he is less gifted as a handler. So you really want Ivy to be able to hit his threes at eye percentage

to really be an active offball mover, which he's been doing. But, you know, it's going to take some innovation. It's going to take Ivy developing along the proper lines. And I had some skepticism about that going into the draft. I feel, I felt a little bit better after the draft because the mere fact that the Pissons had drafted him meant that he clearly did not. expect to be the high volume primary handler. Because, you know, Cade's already on the team. That kind of that position is already taken. I mean, Cates, by everything we've seen, is very gifted in that role.

So, but, you know, Ivey's going to have to develop along the right lines. It's going to take, it's going to need kind of an innovative offense that uses them to their maximum effect. And Dwayne Casey is not the coach to do that. He is not the coach to get the most out of his players on offense at all. He is definitely not the coach to innovate. like the vision for Ivy, like, for example, Cade runs a pick and roll and gets penetration in the interior and draws double coverage. You get Ivy moving off the ball.

You get him the ball in order, you know, maybe he gets the basket or he just passes, you know, somebody has to come and help help off of him. And then he passes the ball to an open man and it's just, you wrong foot the defense. And then you get yourself a good opportunity, a wide open three or a high percentage shot at the basket. Now, Casey is not good at that in the first place, running an innovative offense of any kind. And this is going to be the last thing I talk about. Well, the second and the last thing, you know, prior to me concluding the episode. This is what I would advise that for this is what I do. And I know that there's a lot of criticism of Casey and I think it's 100% justified.

This is just the way that I see it. Dwayne Casey is a below average NBA coach. He is good, but the young players in terms of, you know, nurturing them. He's got a good developmental track record. He runs a good locker room. As an ex is an O's guy on the court, he's bad, on offense in particular. he's bad. Like he's not terrible, but he's definitely very poor. And that's just, you know, we're going to see subpar coaching for Dwayne Casey. That's just, I think in my opinion, that's just

kind of the way that it is. He's a known quantity at this point. He's what I would call fossilized. You know, he's, he's, he just is what he is. He's unlikely to, very unlikely to change. And it's, it's going to be frustrating. I mean, it's really helped the tank the last two years. But I think for me, it's just, it's a factor. Maybe it sounds pompous of me or like condescending. sending me to say so I don't mean that for that to be the case. I'm not saying that other people should do this. This is just how I try to do it. It helps for me if I just accept that it's going to happen, but it's still frustrating. My goodness, it is. It's still frustrating. So I'd say that I do that with a limited degree of success. So the switch everything defense with a bunch of short players

and in a bunch of players who don't really get from point A to point B very fast, you know, aside from Ivy, who again has his own struggles. You know, that's painful to watch. And, you know, Could you argue, well, you've got, you know, four young defenders in the team, the Stewart's already a strong defender. Do you know, is this the best system to run? Maybe, I don't think so. I don't think it's a good idea. And I think that Casey going into the season said, well, we're not just going to run exclusively

switch everything defense. It has been absolutely the primary characteristics so far. And Casey tends to be pretty inflexible. I think that maybe we'll see the pistons run some zone or whatever else. But I think this is probably going to be a major characteristic. And if it is, I don't think that's a good idea. And on offense, it's like, well, Casey, maybe you should run some like, honest to goodness pick and rolls rather than just constantly isolating your guards, which is just happening very regularly. I believe if you go look at the stats, it will list the pistons and Kate in particular as having run a lot of pick and rolls.

These are more just a name only where it's kind of like just a pick and not roll. Or in Isaiah Stewart's case, it's often like a pick and clog. He doesn't even go all the way to the basket. And it's like, dude, you've got Kate who lives in a high pick and roll and you're not doing this. and it's just a highly simplistic offense that often ends up with the Pistons driving in to take a bad shot, you know, through significant coverage. That's Dwayne Casey. I mean, sure, the Pistons have a lot of young players in the team. These are, that does not necessarily mean that you have to run a bad offense.

And you could say about Dwayne Casey, absolutely, that he's got a bad roster to work with. Yeah, you know, this is not, this is a roster that is more, much more potential than substance right now. but you can both be a, have a bad roster and be a bad coach. You know, bad X's nose guys. Again, I don't think that Casey is terrible. He is definitely, I'd say almost unequivocally. Definitely unequivocally, I would say this.

I mean, there's no almost about it, like a superior coach to say what Stan Van Gundy was in the latter's last two years as business coach. And anybody who once have a discussion about Stan Van Gundy, I know that I've seen, it did say, you know, that it was a bad GM, but a decent coach. I'd be happy to have that discussion with anybody

because I categorically disagree. I think that Van Gundy his last two years was one of the worst coaches I've ever seen in any sport. But whatever, in any case, I'll say to Casey's absolutely a step up on Stan Van Gundy in every way. But yeah, I mean, when it comes to him running an offense,

he's bad at it. He's always been bad at it. This is a guy who, after the Raptors lost to the Cavs, twice straight in the playoffs, I mean, Casey had run a very simplistic offense that was not efficiency focus, that was not three-point focused, and did not emphasize threes, and really just relied on isolations from Demar de Rosen and Kyle Lowry. And after the 2017 playoffs, Masay Ujiri, the very, very capable general manager, I think he's actually president of basketball operations, though, whatever his title is, he passed down the directive that the Raptors are going to run a modern offense. And it was Nick Nurse who was tapped to formulate that offense, which, of course, I think speaks volumes. I mean, Casey was not trusted. Casey doesn't have the capacity to formulate a complicated, you know, a complex offense.

He runs very simplistic stuff. And, you know, that's, again, for me, just something like I have to look at and try to accept and fail at doing that and get frustrated anyway. Because I just, it just happens. But that's, you know, that's what it is. But it's definitely not helpful. It's definitely not helpful. And I definitely do not think that Dwayne Casey gets even. and the sum of the parts that he has, which are not very good, let alone more than the sum of your parts,

which any, you know, if you want to win, if you want to win big in the NBA, you need a coach who's going to do that. But I'd say Casey gets substantially less than the sum of those parts. So it's rough. My hope is that he hangs, hangs it up. It's kind of like hangs up his skates. It's more of a hockey term. My hope is that he retires after the season. So, I mean, hopefully the Pistons have, we've seen significant developing going into the next season.

and when the Pistons are really going to try to start winning, that's, you know, which hopefully, you know, which it seems to be the thing, you know, from what we've heard, that next season is when the organization really hopes to see significant improvement in the win-laws column. I hope that it's a better coach, who's more, who's much more qualified than Dwayn Casey to win games in today's NBA. So I'm just going to end this with just kind of a thought that came to mind yesterday,

yesterday for me, of course, which is that in some ways Troy Weaver, and this is just an overall feeling about the roster. In some ways, Troy Weaver is in a very good job of taking steps toward building a contender. You've got Kate Cunningham on the team. You've got Jaden Avi on the team. I mean, the Pist and strategically tanked to get these players. And you've got, you know, Sadieq Bay, Isaiah Stewart will be good role players. And I think Isaiah Rivers will be a good role player.

But I think Kate and Ivy have every shot of being elite talents. and absolutely you categorically need those elite talents in your team. So in some ways he has done a very, very good job. Some luck has come into it, of course, in the draft lottery in Cades here. The Pistons dropped last year, dropped in the lottery. But so in that way, he's done very well. In another way, this roster is horribly incomplete, you know, especially this season. And you don't expect the roster to be complete this season.

But it has terrible shortfalls in terms of athleticism and shooting. And those are, you know, if you want to be short on shooting, cool. No, not cool. That sucks. It really sucks. If you want to be short on athleticism, well, that sucks too. You don't want to be short on both of them. And hopefully that, you know, conceivably fix the shooting. You cannot fix the athleticism.

So this roster has issues. I mean, this roster is a step, hopefully along the road toward becoming a contender. That's the idea. And I don't think, you know, I think everybody in the organization, you know, in the front office, was prepared for this to be a rough season. But these, I mean, these are issues that my concern is that this season, is that these issues, that this roster has issues that past rosters did not, that the past two seasons did not, that those teams were bad, definitely bad teams, but kind of had more functional rosters

than this year's team. You know, who knows? Always possible that things will improve. It's just that this roster, I guess, I'm not suggesting it. it's going to be worse than the last two seasons rosters. I don't think that'll be the case. Could be as bad as last season's roster. And yeah, last season's roster didn't win many games, period. So, you know, maybe the comparison to the season before really isn't very important or it doesn't hold much substance. But I guess I'll just go back to without making prophecies about what the season

is going to look like, because we could see things improve. Now, I'll just come back to that, that at the same time, the Pistons have made an excellent start. You know, on one hand, the Pistons made an excellent start in building a contender. On the other, at this particular juncture, in this particular season, the roster is still very, very incomplete. So that'll be for today's episode. I want to thank you guys, as always, for listening. And I will catch you in the next episode.