Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 124: Signs of Progress!

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

This episode checks in on the signs of progress seen over the past week, particularly in the area of one Cade Cunningham. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800- GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/LA/MI/NJ/TN/PA/WV/WY), 1-800- NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).  21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MI/NH/NJ/   NY/OR/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. $200 in Free bets: New customers only. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 pregame moneyline bet. $200 issued as eight (8) $25 free bets. Bet must win. Ends 1/8/23 @ 8pm. Risk-Free Stepped Up SGP: 1 Token issued per eligible game. Opt in req. Min $1 bet. Max bet limits apply. Min. 3-leg. Each leg min. -300 odds, total bet +100 odds or longer. Ends at start of final game of the 2022-2023 NBA Season. See eligibility & terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/basketballterms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. You're listening to Drive Into the Basket, part of the Basketball podcast network. I am Mike, your host, and I'm here today to talk to you about the Detroit Pistons. So let's launch right into it. So I'm recording this the day after the Pistons lost a very, very close game to the Milwaukee Bucks, which itself came the day after they won a game against the Golden State Warriors. And we have had some, excuse me, seen some good things happen over the last week or so. So I'm going to start with the biggest one.

You know it. I know it's a guy who's been really, you know, is who's coming and made a real impact. It's Nerlands Noel. I'm just joking, of course. Noel actually was pretty good last game. To the extent of what you get out of Nerlands, no,

obviously I'm not going to talk about Nerlins very much in this episode, but what you can get out of Nerlands, Noel, is you get a strong interior defender, you know, a decent role man, so that's pretty good screens, not very good switch defense, and very limited utility on offense, because he's going to do very, very little bit finished plays around the basket,

which you can do at a decent level, but don't ask him to catch difficult passes because he can't really do that. Solid third string center. He was basically Jalen Duren Insurance because of Marvin Bagley, becoming injured, Duren Guts, and also, Noel not really being ready to go at the beginning of the season. Duren got a shot, and I think he'll stay in the rotation over Noel. Noel was Duren Insurance, so that's where he is right now.

So let's move on to the guy, obviously, who's the talk of the town that's Cade County, him. I said last episode, in the last episode, he'd really been struggling at that point, that I really wasn't worried about Cade that I think that, I thought at the time, I still think so. If you were still struggling, I'd be saying this, that the guy's just too talented and then too hardworking and too smart to really continue struggling as he was. And he really picked it up. He had been oddly lethargic and indecisive for, you know, for the early games of the season. And that's definitely changed over the last four games, two games against the Hawks.

of course the games against the Warriors and against the Bucks. He has been much more like we saw last season. The Kate Cunningham, who is very cerebral and is very decisive and intends to make the right decision much more often than not. And it's been great to see. We've also seen just this spectacular performance from mid-range. He just loves to go around picks and take mid-range pull-ups. And you've heard me talk a lot about how very, very difficult it is to make those efficient,

but also how it's a great shot to have in your arsenal. if you can make it work. Like Kevin Durant, obviously I'm not comparing K'd to Kevin Durant. He's got an extremely long way to go as a score to get there. Almost everybody in NBA history is nowhere near as good as Kevin Durand as a shooter. But if you look at Kevin Durant, I mean, he takes just a crap little to pull-up twos, and he shoots them at a high percentage, and it helps that he's also nearly seven feet tall. But if it's a shot you can get, then it's fantastic to have.

Same thing with Demar de Rosen last season, who was just a great mid-range shooter. and you give him to the ball and he can get a bucket for you. So Kate has been using that a lot to generate offense. He's also been having a lot more success getting to the basket, where, of course, you're going to score at a higher percentage. And in an ideal world, be able to draw free throws, which she is not quite doing yet. And we've also, we've seen him parlay the attention that he's getting

because he's now attracting a great deal of attention on his way to the basket, and he's parlaying that into offense for his teammates. Now, Kate, I don't want to call him, I've never wanted to call him like a straight heliocentric, or there are very few of those. But I think he's really on a pretty, you know, significantly toward that another spectrum. We'll put it. We'll put it that way.

A guy was going to be on the ball a lot of the time. And you really want him, obviously, to be drawing that much attention from the defense. That's where his playmaking can really come into play. And though he still has been somewhat turnover prone, it's, I mean, he's looking really good as far as the passes that he's making, you know, aside from, he still makes some passes that he shouldn't make that get picked off. But overall, just looking really good at a three-point shot still needs to come along. He was sinking his pull-up threes against the bucks. If Cade can shoot pull-up threes, at a good percentage, you can shoot pull-up two is at a good percentage.

And if he can just refine things a little bit more as far as getting to the baskets, it's an extremely difficult player to cover. You've got to cover him close at the three-point line. You've got to cover him close in the interior because he can pull up on you. And that just makes it a lot easier to get to the basket. And you also see that some of the strength that he put on in the off-season is really coming into play because he can take a bump. He can take pretty hard bumps around the basket and still get there.

But yeah, what I've been most impressed with is just the shooting, you know, just the jump shooting, particularly in the interior. Like I said, I shouldn't say the shooting all around because his three-point shooting is still work in progress. But yeah, he has just looked really, really good, you know, the decisive cerebral offensive, you know, shot creator and creator for his teammates that we want Cade to be on really high usage. So that's been exciting. And you really see the player who's like, I'd say almost certain to be the best player the Pistons have had in a very, very long time.

You see what's what he's going to look like. Like you see, we're seeing the development that you want to see. So it's exciting. And future is definitely bright for Cade. And, you know, on defense, he's been doing a pretty good job as well, aside from the foul trouble. You know, he's, he's a very engaged defender. He's not making the same mistakes he did last year. And terms of ball watching and giving up open threes. So that's good to see. I think that Cable, and I've thought this, I think that C will be a somewhat positive defender. And, you know, obviously one, I've obviously one plus value defenders. I don't think he's going to be like a really good one, let alone an elite defender, but I think it'll be a positive value one. And if you have a guy who

is real good on offense and gives you a little bit of positive value or even just doesn't lose your value in defense, I mean, sweet, fantastic. So that's looking good. That's the most, notable plus, obviously, of the last week. And it's been very exciting. So way to go, Cade. Moving on to number two, Jaden Ivy, always going to be the second most interesting player on this roster. And Ivy, some good, some bad. So one thing that I brought up last week that I continue to think, I mean, that it's going to take some ironing out. And I'm not sure it's going to happen under Dwayne Casey, who unfortunately is just not the greatest at innovating and finding good fits between players who overlap a bit.

Because Cade and Ivey are both much better. You know, they do their best work on the ball. With a ball in their hands, generally attacking in the interior. And it's tough to have, you know, Cade is the guy when he's on the floor. You know, you've seen it in these last four games. You know, he's the guy. He's handling and shooting on heavy volume. And so Jaden Avi needs to find a way to get into that offense in a valuable way.

And this is part of what I was talking about, primarily what I was talking about, really. And, you know, I did a pre-draft episode about Jaden Ivy. And there are some concerns that I had then that aren't concerns now. But I still look at the fit and it's going to take some doing because Ivy is going to need to find a way to provide good value when he's off the ball. So shooting, of course, his catch and shoot needs work. Like it's very slow. He doesn't really seem altogether comfortable. his form is a little questionable.

So not necessarily a strong catch and shoot guy at this point, and that's got to change. And he's just got to become more active when he's off the ball in terms of as an off ball mover, which he should be really good because he's one of the more explosive players in the NBA. However, like I said, Dwayne Casey is really not the guy to take a fit that requires some innovation and actually make it work. His solution at this point is generally just to have Ivy standing around

at the three-point line, a situation in which Ivy is not providing much. value at all. He's providing much value, much less value than he could have otherwise. Like your ideal picture with Cade and with Ivy is, number one, to have two guys who can create offense. I mean, that's great to have. But as far as using them well together, of course, Ivy's going to have to be that good offball player. But Cade drives in, for example, and you have Ivy just move explicitly outball into the interior, because Kay just drawn two defenders. You know, meanwhile, rather, Kay just drawn two defenders, Ivy slashing into the interior,

get him the ball, and maybe he gets a shot, probably gets a shot. He doesn't. He can pass it to somebody else as the defense has had to go help on, you know, had to go help onto him. And then you've probably successfully, you've got a way to successfully wrong foot defenses on a regular basis. And that's what you want to do. You want to get the defense reeling. It's going to get you your best shot of finding an open way into the basket or getting an open three. But we don't see that. And I don't think it's a matter of Ivy being raw or, you know, just needed to ease him into it. Offball moving isn't very difficult. I'll just come back to. to it. I mean, I've said it so many times. Dwayne Casey, I think, is just a very poor offensive coach.

And that is what it is, or I can say it is what it is, because I'm going to find it frustrating no matter what. But yeah, I'm just as ever hoping that he decides to retire after this season and just passes the reins on to somebody who is more fit to run an effective modern NBA offense as a better offensive mind. Do I think it's likely? And no, I think that Dwayne Casey will be the coach through next season, which I did. At that point, I mean, I don't think it's going to be ideal for the Pistons. I mean, you look at, you'll have K, and you'll have, you know, Sadiq and Isaiah's to whoever else. I mean, it's not going to be as development focused. And if it's not as development focused, then Dwayne Casey's utility really

starts to fall off because when it comes to in-game stuff, he's just not, he's not good. But back to Ivy. I mean, I could, I could complain about Casey or criticize Casey, a better way of putting it for a very long time. There's everybody, you all know how I feel about Dwayne Casey. He's got his strengths and his weaknesses and most of his weaknesses come into the, they really come into play on the court and absolutely in the playoffs, like 100% in the playoffs. Anyway, I'm doing exactly what I said. I'm still talking about Dway. So Jaden Ivy, you know, that's been kind of an issue on offense, not necessarily his fault. And he's had his share of issues on defense. He really needs to, you know, his defensive awareness needs to work just in

terms of where he should be and what his, what his defender is doing, particularly off the ball. And he's kind of prone to, you know, jumping when he shouldn't and giving the opposition a foul. But let's go to the good stuff, though. So the stuff is good stuff as same as it was last week. I mean, the guy is incredibly athletic. He can, he's got great body control. He can get in the air. He can finish some very difficult shots at the rim.

That's great to have. He's been doing fairly well at hitting the open man. He still turns the ball over at times in his efforts to do so. But he's a very willing passer, and that's great to see. I mean, that, again, was one of my concerns with him. Is he going to be a willing passer? Do I think, again, do I think he's going to be like an elite passer? He's got great offensive awareness and just great offensive IQ as a passer.

Now, I don't, but he doesn't need to be. It'd be nice if he were, but he doesn't need to be. And what we're seeing from him right now is encouraging. And the pull-up threes are nice, too. If I'm not mistaken, he's shooting those a decent percentage. However, he needs to take more threes. This is a similar thing with Cade, though. You know, if you can score a high percentage of the basket, great.

But unless you're, like, amazing at it, it's difficult to be like a really efficient score without shooting more threes. And again, this comes to Kate as well. Like you can shoot upwards of 50% from midrange, but that's not like a super efficient shot. I mean, you're shooting 50% and you're just shooting from mid range. I mean, it's still an efficient shot by the standards of half-court offense. That gives you an effective field goal percentage.

If you're shooting like 52% of 52, which is about average, if you're not shooting those free throws, though, you're below average in terms of true shooting. Whatever. I mean, it comes down to it self-created offenses, always going to be at a lower standard of efficiency. You know, you're just going to score a lesser degree of efficiency if you're self-creating a lot of offense. The issue with these pistons is that, you know, with the talent on the team and also with the coaching, and back to Casey, who just loves to isolate as players and say, here, please take the ball and go score with them.

I mean, you're just not getting as high percentage opportunities as you would, as you would otherwise, but also Ivy needs to be more willing to shoot threes and better at his catch-and-shoots. But when it comes to attacking the basket. I mean, he's absolutely as advertised. He's got some refinement to do. I think he is more raw than the likes of Matheron. Or, you know, you could say, I don't know, Keegan Murray, who was going to be a more finished product. But I think those two players are going to be more limited. But it might take Ivy some time to really come into his own, because there are aspects of his game that are pretty raw. But absolutely exciting to watch, you know, much-needed elite athleticism. And, you know, I'm pretty happy with the way things have gone so far.

So let's move on to, you know, it was my idea coming into this episode that I was mainly going to focus on the positives. And that kind of feel like I have to a degree, but I've spent too much time complaining about Dwayne Casey. All right, I'm going to stop talking about Dwayne Casey. Let's talk about Bojan, Boyan, Boyan, I got it this time. Boyan Bogdanovich. So, they've recently signed by the Piss and Sue an extension. Two years, about 40 million. Only $2 million on the second year is guaranteed. And for anybody who is wondering, you're typically, almost invariably in the NBA with extensions,

you end up with a six-month trade restriction. So there's something called an extend-in trade, which is very rare, because extensions almost invariably give a player a significant raise. And in order for an extended trade, you cannot give the player in the first year of his deal more than 105% of his current salary, rather his salary in the final year of his deal. And you also can't give more than three years, and that includes the final year in the deal. So basically two-year extension. And now the other criterion is just you can't get more than 5% raises versus 8%, which you

would commonly do with bird rights. But those first two criteria is very, very rare for an extension to abide by both of them. But in Boyan's case, Boyan's extension abided by all three. of those criteria. So he could be traded today if the Pistons wanted to. So I think that that extension, I like it, just one more year. He's a useful player. It's a reasonable salary.

And I feel like it probably increases his trade value, the fact that he's got, I mean, the team trades for him. I mean, he'll have mothers this season. And then next season, which is fully guaranteed. And the season after that, you can choose if you want to keep him or not. And if you choose not, then you're only $2 million. There's only $2 million in caps based down the drain. That's not very much.

And it's meaningless to a team that's over the cap anyway. It's a small point. You cannot use non-guaranteed salary for the purposes of salary matching. The NBA closed that loophole in the 2017 CBA, collective bargaining agreement, which governs all the rules of the salary cap as well as other things. Well, all the, whatever, all the very labyrinthine rules around salaries and so on and so forth. You know what I mean. So the Pistons couldn't be like, oh, well, a team, you could take this and we could take some bad seller from you.

And then you just don't guarantee boy on salary in the final year. But still, you can't do that. In any case, I was happy with the contract. And, yeah, I think it enhances his trade value, whether or not he'll still be on the team. Who knows? He has been still on the team, rather, even at the end of the season, who knows. But he has been absolutely lights out as a shooter. I mean, he's an elite three-point shooters.

Right now, shooting 51% on really high volume, which makes him one of the best three-point, well, by percentage, I think the best high-volume three-point shooter in the league. I'd have to check the stats. It could be wrong. But, I mean, he has been amazing. He's done it on some tough shots. He's done on basic catch-and-shoots, but also catching shoots through pretty heavy coverage. He's just a savvy veteran and an excellent shooter.

And he's done his typical, like attacking of close-outs and attacking of solar players, particularly big men. and he's done that successfully. So, I mean, I don't think, I mean, on defense, he's been as you would expect, which is not good. But on offense, I mean, he's provided the pistons with something they desperately needed, which is really a reliable, high volume, high percentage three-point shooter. And it seems like just a lovable dude also, which is cool. Oh, something to mention.

You know, he's shooting fantastic when the three-point line, he's at above 94% from the free throw line where he's going about four and a half times per game. So just a good vet who's a really sweet shooter and really smart. And that's been fun. You know, good for you, Boyon. A good trade by Troy Weaver. You know, I still have, let's put it this way, like the only downside, again, the athleticism in the front court.

And that in large part comes down to Isaiah Stewart. You know, it's pretty rare for your center to be as undersized, non-athletic as Isaiah. Whatever. Obviously, it's worthwhile, of course, that boy on in the starting lineup. I mean, nobody's disputing. Not only anybody should dispute that. But yeah, so he's looked great, incredibly efficient, and just a good dude to have on the team. And so now a quick word from our sponsor. NBA fans, the wait is over. Basketball is back, so tip off

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eligibility restrictions applies. He's show notes for details. Moving on to just other notables. I don't know much more to say about Jalen Duren. He got hurt recently. Halmadu Dio landed on his ankle, so not ideal. But It's the same as it was when I was talking last week. I mean, it's nice. He's doing pretty well for a player who is as raw as he is. He's got some things to iron out in terms of just on offense in general, just his touch, his awareness, the decisions he makes as free throw percentage.

And that's another thing about Ivy who's got to improve his own free throw percentage. But yeah, it's always fun to watch a young player who's by all appearances going to have probably a significant impact in the Pistons future on defense. he's been quite good. You know, not perfect, but can switch. Really, you know, he's good at protecting the rim. He recovers well. His help defense is very good at the rim.

And, yeah, that's nice. I just, I don't want to repeat what I said when I said last episode. So I'm going to move on from Durham. There's not much new to talk about him. I had to say about him. Isaiah Stewart, who's really, again, that's somebody I talked about a lot last episode, just continues to be very weak in this lineup.

Like having such on athletic partners in the front, you know, on the front court with him and just having a defense that has more difficulty now than it did last season, that preventing penetration. I mean, you see it in games like Isaiah, if he has to relocate to challenge a shot, he can't move and jump at the same time. That's obviously not a problem for Jalen Duren. Yeah, so he can't move. If he has to relocate and challenge a shot, it's going to be pretty easy to score over him if you get past him. and also not an issue for Jalen Duren. If you get past Isaiah Stewart, he's not going to be able to recover because he just can't sky to block a shot at that point.

We've seen Duren do it quite a bit. And just his defense has been very significantly reduced in value. That's an underrated consequence of losing Jeremy Grant. Grant only played about half the games last season. But he's a solid, very athletic defender in the front court. He's a good help defender at the rim. And it's just we're learning. the season that Isaiah's defense is somewhat dependent upon the players around him.

And you could say that to a degree about any player in the league, but he loses a lot when the defenders around him decline in value, a decline in quality, rather. His shooting still hasn't come along. That is what it is. His interior offense, you know, decent. It just, it also just sucks when, like, there are possessions in which, like, Cade will come flying into the interior and you'll see that he wants to hit a role man for a lob and then he sees it Stewart like this is something excuse me this is something like maybe you belabor the points and

I don't remember if I did my last episode before or after the first talks game but you see with almost every team you've got these athletic bigs who are very high percentage finishers that is nice to have and you can give it to Stewart in some ways like he's getting in the line more which I don't think it's going to last because I think it's mostly incidental he's been grabbing a lot of rebounds, which is cool to see. It's just like, I'm almost, I was almost ready at this point, just to have Jayland Duren come into the starting lineup, even though he's, you know, he's got his share of issues and probably isn't ready. It's just like, as you continue to play Isaiah Stewart, you're losing, you're losing so much in the, you know, on both ends. Like, I love Isaiah. Like,

as, as a human being in the basketball court, like, you could not aspire to be a harder worker than he is. and a very, very team-first guy. And, I mean, there's just nothing not to love about his attitude, his mentality, you know, what he brings in terms of overall character. And so it's kind of hurt me that at times I'm like, please, I'm basically waiting for Duren to come out of the court because Isaiah's shortcomings are so apparent. So I've said it before, I'll say it again,

almost certainly a bench bag in the future. And that'll require his shooting. It's just his shooting has to come along if he's not going to be a negative presence on offense because his pick and roll is more of a pick and clog. And so you're not throwing him mobs and he's not finishing at a high percentage. But, you know, so it's mildly painful to say, and I've gotten lower on Isaiah with each passing year. But he has his strengths. It's just like, I don't think these strengths are ever going to manifest themselves in the starting lineup. So let's see who else can we talk about. Isaiah livers.

So has come in and given you what you think, which is high percentage three-point shooting. He's about 39% of the year, and he's not just taking simple catch-and-shoots. just a smart, solid all-around role player at this point, which is exactly what I would what I've expected him to be. I mean, it's not the greatest inside the arc. But he comes in and he has the mentality of a player who has played significantly more time in the NBA than he has just a smart player. You can count on him to make the right play. I'm very unselfish. And, you know, you can count him to make the right play on defense as well. And though he is not the fastest guy in his feet, I've been, I've been happy to see that when he is switched,

onto a faster player. He does not have trouble generally staying in front of them. He's able to move his feet very well. He's not slow per se. I just, I had some concerns coming into the season. It's like you get him switched. And of course, he's gotten switched onto faster players because the piston switch everything. But he's held his own. And that's great. So just the smart role player who can play competent defense and shoot threes at a fairly high percentage is good to have. And even if he doesn't amount to much more than that, which I think is not unlikely, because I just don't think he's, I know you can say, well, hey, it's very early on. I mean, the guy's 24.

He's not very athletic. He doesn't really have much of a history at all at attacking the basket, you know, with a ball in his hands. He doesn't have the greatest handle. So I'm not high in his ability to become a good creator. But if he's just a solid role player, it's a hard worker, high character guy who can play, you know, plus defense and shoot three is at a high level. And I said, it's a kind of player that everybody wants to have.

And I wish that he were the first, the first, the first, man off the bench and it's like, goodness, how do I talk about this without getting back to Dwayne Casey? So an issue is that, so the pistons have on paper, like four good shooters in the starting lineup, or at least you have Kate who still needs to work on it, and you have Ivy who kind of still needs to work on it, and Sadiq who struggled a bit, and then you have Boyan, who's one of the best shooters in the league, and then Stewart who's still really struggling. But you've got ostensibly, like a decent degree of space in there. Unfortunately, Hamidu Diallo is the first man off the bench. he typically replaces Sadiq, so you're down to kind of worse spacing.

And then Killian Hayes comes into the game. And at that point, you're down to like, I don't know, like two real shooters in the lineup. And I wish it were livers first off the bench. So what you do is as you take Bay out, you put livers in, and then you take Boyon out. And hopefully Bay at that point is not too far off from coming into the game. So I wish at this point that livers are the first men off the bench, unfortunately. the coach of the team has very, very rigid rotation. So instead of Tomadu Dioa.

So Hamadu had a fairly good game against the bucks. He continues to be not good overall. I mean, he's had a very, very poor start to the season. I think he could play better than he can right now, but he still can't shoot. That's a problem. And I think if he doesn't abruptly improve, I think that this is probably his last year with the Pistons.

Because the last season, it looked like he was controlled, tribuning in a pretty good level. I mean, ultimately, that player who can't shoot, it's a super punishing league for a player who can't shoot. Mike's super punishing. I mean, you have guys who, for example, are great defenders like Matisse Stuybel and Ben Simmons. The Simmons has been terrible so far this season. I mean, not particularly good on defense even, but you have very high level defenders who can't shoot. And, you know, in Simmons's case, who is very good attack in the basket. It's just like, no matter what you provide, aside from shooting, if you can't shoot, you better have a team in your perimeter player. You better have a team that is playing around you, like Janus, for example, or Jimmy Butler.

And again, they're playing Bam out of bio with Butler, so that's two non-shooters, but Eric Spolster can make just about anything work. So it's just a league that is completely intolerant to perimeter players who can't shoot. You can't really play them in the playoffs at all. And it's not like Hamidu is providing great value in the offense and the defensive end of things. on offense. I mean, it's hard for a guy. I mean, it's particularly hard in this lineup because he's almost invariably on the floor with at least one of the non-shooter, which just makes life a lot more difficult for him because those open lanes are very difficult to come by. It also makes life more difficult than everybody else. But, you know, if you can't shoot, I mean, it's, I've said

it before, you know, I'll say it again. Yeah, yeah. That being able to shoot well or not being able to shoot at all. I mean, if he's able to shoot well, he could be, I think, a guy who scores a lot of points. If he can't shoot, I think he's a guy who might have another couple years in the league, and then we'll flunk out. So nothing has changed. I don't anticipate anything will change. And I think that he's the primary candidate to lose a lot of minutes when Alec Berks comes back. So, you know, what will Berks provide another shooter off the bench? And Burks is a pretty elite shooter. That'll be very nice to have. And I just don't see how Hamidu will realistically remain in the lineup at that stage.

And then we get to one other guy who nobody likes to talk, well, not if anybody likes to talk about him, it never has any good news. And that's Killian, for whom nothing has changed. I mean, I don't expect that he's going to continue shooting this poorly. I mean, it has been absolutely comically bad. Like, absolutely comically bad. He is averaging one made field goal per game on six attempts,

which is 17% from the field, 13% from three. His effective field goal percentage is 19%. I mean, it's, you look at true shooting where the average is, I think, upwards of 56%. I don't know, the teams, the players tend to start a little bit more slowly at the beginning of the year a lot of the time. But killing is a 21%, which is, you know, I would say impressive in all the wrong ways. His turnover percentage isn't really all that much lower than his assist percentage. He's been terrible. And, you know, on an emotional level, I think I said.

said this last week. I'm really tired of watching him. It's not as painful as it was when I had to watch him in the starting lineup, you know, when really management and an experiment that kind of made sense because it's like, okay, we want to see if our last two lottery picks can play together, though I think it was doomed to failure from the very beginning. Because even if Killian had improved, I mean, so much of his value on offense is ostensibly should be found in him playing a possession heavy role. Unfortunately, he's not able to do that. So, I, I've seen the question posed in multiple places, like, is it okay if killing can't shoot? You know, is it okay that he's just providing value on defense and as a passer?

And I would say that the answer to that is a resounding unequivocal no. Like even if Killian were a much better defender, because I think that his defense is not, let's put it this way. I just, I don't think his defense is really all that great. He is strong one-on-one in certain situations, mostly slower speed situations inside the ark, where things have slowed down a little bit and somebody's not completely jetting into the basket.

In those situations, he's strong. You know, he can stop guys, he can steal the ball really well. He moves his feet well. And in that situation, he's a genuinely strong NBA defender. You put him in the pick and roll against a guard who is quicker than him.

He is likely to get torched. It just is what it is. And, you know, you could say that, oh, you know, you're looking, for example, like in three of the past four games, he's up against Trey Young, which is Sue is super quick. And against Steph Curry,

who's super, he is really quick himself, and is Steph Curry. but the fact is you're not a strong defender if these guys, neither of whom are explosive, are able to just lose you by setting up a simple pick, excuse me. And teams have gotten the message. You know,

you send Killian into the pick and roll and you lose him. You know, his assignment loses him. And he ends up several steps behind. And if you're talking particularly about the better point guards in the league, that means you're probably going to get scored on. Or if you don't get, you know,

if you don't get scored on by the point guard himself, then he's going to unhinked. the offense enough because he's gained that degree of separation that the other team, you know, the offense stands a good shot of getting, of getting a high percentage look. So I would not call Killian a strong defender, you know, strong all-around defender. His team defense is pretty average just in terms of making the right decisions. And he can make his share of mistakes there, even if he were a much better defender, again. And even if he were able to, you know, a very, you know, pretty high level passer.

It's just his value on offense would be eroded significantly by the fact that he can't shoot. which removes from the ability to take very high efficiency shots from the perimeter. I mean, three-point shot is very high efficiency shot, particularly open threes, but also makes him a spacing liability to, you know, teams can just sag off of him, and they do sag off of him. For example, the Warriors were giving him absolutely no respect, absolutely no respect at all. There was one play on which, like, you know, I took a picture of it because I'm like, this is absolutely gruesome.

It was hard to tell who his defender was because there were two guys, you know, the one I don't remember who he was on, but he had sagged into the pain a bit too. And basically, Killian's defender was standing next to him on the border of the key. And it's like, you know, these guys were about eight feet away from Killian. And you had somebody, I don't remember who it was from the Pistons who was trying to drive into the paint. But they just don't respect him. In this situation, again, his defense really isn't all that. His defense comes nowhere near to compensating for his offense, like not even in the same universe.

Even last year, it did not come anywhere near, in which he was simply bad. bad, really bad, rather than absolutely, absolutely, you know, it's an absolute catastrophe right now. And he can't make the passing work either because he drives in. And even when he's able to gain separation, the defenses don't respect him. Nobody comes to help. So generally the people to him he could pass are not open. And he can't attack the basket.

And this is the thing. He gets no respect from the defense because they know he can't attack the basket. And when he does gain separation, and this happened like he, very unusually in the pick and roll, gained separation four times. last night against the bucks. Three of them, he went for a long floater, a long left-handed floater. It is not a high percentage shot.

And, I mean, the guy defending the rim is more than happy to just be in position to contest. He doesn't have to worry about killing attacking the basket. Not only he's killing bad at it, he's not willing to do it if he is confronted with a rim protector. He's never going to try to attack the guy. He's never going to try to draw free throws. He's never going to try to attack the basket.

it. And that is very punishable, and defense is punish it. And again, he's not unhinging any defense. Nobody's coming to help. So the ability, you know, the effect of his passing and his main selling point, you know, should be his high best, his eye offensive IQ and his high ability as a passer, you know, in a possession to have a role that was undoubtedly, you know, undoubtedly the vision that the Pistons had of him when he was brought in to be the point guard of the future. But, you know, you can't do that. if you can't attack the basket, and if teams have no respect for you, and if you can't score. And it's just ugly. And I wonder at what point in the season. Like, I wouldn't be averse to seeing Killian given time in the G League. I mean, it is just immensely ugly. I believe at this point he could still be sent down.

Like, after, I believe it's after your third year in the NBA, sending a player down requires, sending a player with more than three years of experience and, or with at least three years of experience, requires, approval from the player and from the players union. So Killian could still be sent down. But it's like he's making life more difficult than everybody. And you ask who would replace him. Corey Joseph is not like a good NBA player, but he is an NBA player. You know, he's a decent backup point card for a not very good team who is a reliable shooter and a more effective passer than Killian simply because he can gain penetration. And, you know, he's not a gifted passer, but he can gain penetration. And he can help to unhinge the defense a bit. And he can, you can

do some passing. Now, do you want Corey Joseph to be playing over your number seven pick from now three drafts ago? Absolutely not. But at what point do you say this is not good for Killian? It's definitely not good for his teammates. You know, send him into a situation where hopefully you can do a little bit better and hopefully refine something. I don't know what it is. But when it comes down to a certain thing, that one thing that killing could, it doesn't just come down to a certain thing, but I'll say one thing that killing could absolutely do, which may give him a significantly, improve something is just take the ball to the basket and attack the defender and accept that his body is going to hit yours. And everybody else in the team will do that. Killiam will not.

I don't think that's very excusable. I don't think he has a medical dispensation to avoid doing so either. And I doubt that Dwayne Casey is just saying, well, you don't have to do that. And I'm sorry that I just spent so long talking about Killian Hayes. I know that it's not a happy subject for the Pistons. And, you know, like the B word is coming into it, that word being bust. He's still young, but he has been terrible in the NBA. And I think it should be reiterated his performance this season. He has regressed from awful on offense to absolutely horrible. And it sucks. You know, it is what it is. I don't think it was a mistake by the Pistons to pick up his fourth year option because you go into the season and you just hope that he improves.

And then if he doesn't improve, then he hope that he improves next season. And that that's, It's not a bad option. It's not a bad gamble to take for a team that has every reason to be patient with its young players and hope that they develop. Of course, they didn't anticipate him looking this bad, though I don't think this will last with him being quite this bad because it doesn't last this way for anybody, like pretty much ever, who's getting significant minutes. But again, I mean, what are you hoping for for him to improve back to the point in which he was deploying last season when he was just one of the, the worst offensive players in the league instead of probably the worst, which is almost certainly what he is at this point, or so close to it, that it's basically indistinguish, you know, it's basically a, you know, a moot comparison or a moot point. So it sucks. It's really unfortunate. And I'll

absolutely own the fact that going into the 2020 draft, I was bullish on Kaelian. You know, I thought that he had the potential to be like at the low end of the top 10 in terms of starting point guards. You know, if he could, if you could effectively attack the basket, if he could duplicate, you know, it was a decent amount of success as a pull-up two-point shooter. And, like, particularly if he could get those step-back threes to work. And so, you know, I had him over Halliburton. I probably had him over Lamello even because I just wasn't confident that Lamello was going to get his shooting together. And I thought that he was just, his attitude would be an issue. Although, apparently, he's definitely not a leader on that Charlotte team. But, yeah, clearly, I did not.

really hit the spot on that one. You know, to say the least, it is what it is. I'm not going to make, like, excuses for it, though I was nowhere near into draft research back then as I have been with the last two drafts. So on that somewhat unhappy note, I think that is going to be it for today's episode. This was really kind of like more of a where do we stand now episode. I try to, you know, I generally try not to record episodes like this. I'd like to talk about storylines and, you know, more interesting deep dives into particular players.

And also, and yeah, whatever. So this is a bit kind of an unusual episode in that respect. But, you know, that's that's what I had to, or what I felt I should talk about tonight. This is at the point at which it's like, I've got a thought in my head. And there's absolutely no reason for me to be pursuing that thought and just, you know, continuing to talk. and continuing a sentence, but I'd do it anyway, which is really something I should work on not doing in all walks of my life. In any case, on that note, that's going to be it for the episode. As always, really appreciate you guys listening, and I just like to reiterate, I really

love hearing from you on Twitter or on Discord anywhere else, love hearing feedback. I just love to talk to listeners, so, you know, absolutely by all means get in contact with me, you know, for whatever, even if it's just to talk basketball. So I will catch you in the next episode.