Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 128: Areas of Improvement

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

This episode goes over important areas in which each of the team's significant young players (sans the injured Cade) would do well to improve, plus some discussion about the team's ugly collapse against the Clippers.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Drive into the Basket, part of the basketball podcast network. I am Mike, your host, recording us about 24 hours after that unfortunate collapse we saw against the Los Angeles Clippers. And this episode is going to be focused, as I noted last week, on sort of what can each of the young players do to improve. Talk a little bit about this game first. It was obviously a terrible, horrible collapse in a game that's, You know, you look at a team like the Pistons, and it's like, okay, they're not going to win games. And yeah, okay, do you want to draw positioning?

You don't want to lose game after game after game. You just, you really don't. That's not good for morale. It's not good for any player. And so you want to win one here and there. And if you can get a win against a good team, then great. That's just, that is good for team morale, for team spirit, just for the emotional behavioral, not behavior, well-being, emotional well-being of these players who are human beings. beings. They're professionals and they can handle losses, but I'm 100% sure that it still

stings to lose game after game after game, notwithstanding their awareness of where they are as a team, you know, the team that they're playing on, which right now doesn't really have to have to win a lot of games. So this would have been not just for the fans, you know, I know it's, it's difficult on us as fans too to watch the team lose game after game after game. But I think it would have been good for the players to win this one also. So we all know. went wrong. What went wrong? Excuse me. Yeah. We saw it. Tyrone Wu. I almost hit Doc Rivers there. He hasn't been the coach of the Glippers for a while. But at Tyu pulled the starters with about 3.30 remaining. And the Pistons blew it 13 point lead. And so it was at 14. I can't remember 13 or 14 point

lead. And then of course completely collapsed it over time. So how did it happen? I mean, number one, the players aren't very good. You know, that's just that that's what it is. The players right now, should say, are not very good. The players in the floor was the starters for the pistons, and they didn't close out well. Okay, that is what it is. Though, honestly, any starting lineup should have been able to hold this lead. You know, 13-point lead, but three and a half minutes left is just enough in the vast majority of circumstances, period, when the other team puts in Moses Brown and I think

it's a mere coffee, came in as well, and Paul George is off the floor, and Marcus Morris is off the floor. I think Norman Powell is still on, but whatever the case, this is just not a good roster. And your starting lineup should be able to handle that regardless. They should be able to hold a lead against a good opposing lineup. This one did not. Okay. So that's on the players, and that is what it is. And then we come to Dwayne Casey. And I know I'm belaboring this point. I'll just say it again. Dwayne Casey is a really, really, really, really bad late game coach, a coach who is not only non-adaptive, but tends to seemingly shrink within himself when it comes to these late-game scenarios and go from poor offensive coach to basically absentee offensive coach as any cohesion or coherence in the offense seems to completely slip away. And the players just fall back on ISO, just fall back on road sets, fall back on just doing very, very little.

whether it's out of a timeout or just in commonplace. So, okay, the Pistons screwed up. You know, they gave up a couple baskets. I think they were down. They were up seven. Okay. I don't remember if Casey called the timeout. I don't think he did.

I do know that he changed nothing. Clippers came further back. And then we had these two critical positions. And again, in Casey did nothing really to intervene. And he doesn't. In these situations, he doesn't do anything in enemy. He doesn't change anything. Like he doesn't gain more.

He doesn't take more control. He loses control. And so it's not just that he stands by while, while things are collapsing, it's that he becomes even worse. I mean, he just seems to just relinquish control when things are collapsing. So we had these final two possessions. And the first one was, okay, we're just going to run Killian Hayes in a pick and roll for a pull-up two. And it's like, okay, Killian's doing pretty well on pull-up twos.

But that's, I mean, that's an easy play to see coming. I mean, everybody knows what Killian's going to do. I mean, the audience knows, the players know the coach. know that Killian is going to come around that pick and roll. He's not going to try to get to the basket. He's just going to take a pull-up to him. You know what he's going to do. And also, there's just not a good set to be running in a critical situation.

I mean, this is Casey comes on the heels of Stan Van Gundy, who is even worse at calling out of time out plays. Like, genuinely, I just got stuck there between genuinely and legitimately. Horrible, like absolutely and utterly horrible. And I've thought since Casey came onto the team, and this is how I felt even before I came onto the team when he was being considered, when he was being considered, is that he shares in smaller measure.

Some of Stan Van Gundy's significant, just crowning coaching flaws. And of course, you've got kind of lack of imagination and rigidity and whatever else. And Van Gundy's, I'm like in the extreme end and all these negative qualities. Casey has them to a lesser degree, but still has them. Culling plays out of timeouts is not one of his strong suits. Of course, Van Gundy was catastrophically worse. Like, for example, oh, this one's good. So we all know Andre Drummond.

He just Van Gondi desperately wanted Drummond to be a good post player. Instead, Drummond was like one of the worst. I wouldn't say one of the worst, the worst, the worst, high volume post player of like the last 15 years in the NBA. I mean, he was comically bad. And so it's back, and I think this was a long time ago, this was like, or I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Here's a stat that was trotted out.

It was back in like 2017. I think, man, I haven't talked to this guy in a long time. I think it was Duncan Smith. So during that 2016-2017 season, I believe that's extended to the previous two seasons as well. Drummond was less efficient from the post than he was from a free-throw line. And that was at the point at which he was genuinely the worst free-throw shooter in the history of the league. So this, I think, was in 2016, the 2016-2017 season. And so the Pistons were playing against the Jazz.

The Jazz went on and went on a run. Van Gundy called a timeout. And his out-of-time-out play was to post up Andre Drummond, like arguably the World, the league's worst post player among centers against Rudy Gobert, the best defender in the league. And obviously, you know, the outcome is predictable. Or another time when, and this would have been in, I believe, January of 2018, so not long before the trade that brought Blake Griffin to the Pistons. They were in a last, you know, final play scenario against the Pelicans, I think. and he didn't put Luke Carnard on the floor.

He decided to keep Ish Smith out there and have him inbound the ball, which meant that nobody was guarding Ish, because nobody respected, rightly so respecting him as a shooter. He had drummond on there, even though the Pissons were down three. Obviously, the play didn't work out. And of course, he gave it to Avery Bradley. Because he loved Avery Bradley, even though Bradley at that point had devolved into like a complete and utter nightmare on offense for the Pissons.

Whatever. In any case, so I guess that's one way of saying it could be worse. But, you know, Casey then, I believe, called another out-of-time-out player. No, I think that was the out-of-time-out play. And then the next time they came down, which was a possession of which I think in this situation, they could have won the game. Sorry, I really should have gone back and watched the final minutes. Part of me is not very inclined to, but this was the last real play the Pistons ran.

It was just running down the clock until Killian had it with like six seconds. left running around a pick. And again, everybody knows what he's going to do. Even he knows what he's going to do. He knows he's not going to attack the basket. He knows he's just, he's going to go around. He's going to look for a pull-up. So in this situation, the clippers managed to stop him and keep him from taking that. So he was caught in no man's land with very little time left in the shot clock. And so he passes to Jalen Duren. And Jalen Duren is caught in no man's land with very little time left in the shot clock. So he, to his credit, finds and halls a pass over to the opposite side of the courts to Alec Berks, who, to his own credit, just to leap and catch the

past and still attempt to shot, but it's a bad shot. I mean, these are not out of timeout sets. These are just a coach who seemingly just falls apart, late in games. Then, of course, overtime came along. Now, the clippers blew the pistons out. Casey called a timeout in the middle of it, and the gist of his message seems to have been, you know, guys go out there and give it your best shot and just do better because they did nothing different. So one thing we can't say about Casey in terms of late game scenarios is that he has lost a lot of games for the pistons down the straight. You know, a lot of claims helped to lose. But of that way, his coaching has helped to lose a lot of close games with the pistons over the last two plus seasons.

And in some ways, that has been a positive. Of course, in this kind of situation, it's extremely annoying, even though the pistons aren't trying to win. And because they really could use this game, also because the bad coaching fatigue that I know a lot of us has is becoming realer and realer. For my part, I'm so deep in the Dwayne Casey coaching experience in Detroit that last night I just felt just a sense of vague resignation rather than anger. It's just it's going to happen with him. So was this one for the best? I mean, it's like yay, the Pistons.

You know, cool. Another loss in the standings. You know, draft positioning is important. Were there any positives to be taken away from this? Well, number one, I really wish the Pistons would have won. I think that would have been for the best. I think the fact that they got an additional loss. And as the season marches toward a very strong draft class,

It was not worthwhile. I don't think that's a very, very, very minor silver lining at this point. I don't think the pistons are going to go in there and shoot like 50% from three anytime soon. And I think the shooting was nice, but they really shot, they really punched far about their weight in that capacity. There were some good things about, you know, good things in the game. Like Jalen Duren has been a bright spot generally lately. Isaiah Stewart looked pretty good.

But it hurts. It hurt to watch. And maybe, maybe this, that's a little bit of meat. and they're talking that, excuse me, just a small part of me that's like, well, I just want, I want to see this team get some wins. I don't think so, though. I think I fully, I think even on every level feel like, okay, I know this team isn't going to win many games, but I think that I just wish they had won this one.

So as far as Casey goes, I'll say it again, do I advocate that the team fire him right now? No, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think that would make any good sense. I think it would be disruptive. And I don't think the pistons are likely to. to gain more than they would lose from doing that. I mean, this is not a team that's going to be winning many games anyway. And in case he does run a good block of him and his players do really like him.

And he does seem to be good for player development. Though, you know, who knows, there could be true with another coach. And there are certain cases, there are certain players, cases in which I'm not 100% sure that he's always the best coach. But in terms of development, and Jaden Ivy in particular, I'll talk about that. I'm just, I'm in a point. Like, I wouldn't be upset if he were to be fired. And certainly, I hope that they move on in the offseason.

I think it's time very much, though. You know, Casey is what he is, and even for a developing roster, and especially for a roster that's looking to move on to hopefully winning more games next season. I just don't think he's it. I think he is what he is. I have a term for older coaches become fossilized, which means that they're not going to change. Casey's not the only one. You look to the aforementioned Doc Rivers, who just has a bunch of faults.

I mean, he's a better winning coach, in my opinion, but he has a bunch of faults. that are never going to change and that are bad for his team. And it is, it just is what it is. So I hope the pissens move on in the offseason. So let's move on the meat of the episode. So let's start with Killian Hayes. I spoke last week about what I think that Killian has been doing well lately. And of course, Killian is in the midst of what is for him kind of a career renaissance.

Funny thing to say, even though he's, you know, because he's only in his third season. But it's definitely noticeable given just given how much he struggled and his first, like, one in a quarter season, the quarter season being his rookie season. Just just how awful he was in his second season and to begin this one, whatever the case. So we went over that. I said, I still believe that a guy might be heading in the direction of a solid backup point guard on a good team in the future. I'd be happy with that. I know it came out recently that Tyrese Halliburton said he was going to be drafted by Detroit, which hurts a little bit because of how Tyrese has ended up. I mean, the guys could very well be considered a top five point card at this point.

I mean, there are a lot of good point cards in this week, so maybe top five. I'd have to even look at the list here. He's going to be a very good point card, I think. You think about your draft scenarios, do you get Halliburton? I mean, you probably win more games with Halliburton. The Pistons lost a lot of close ones the season before with either a very bad haze or an entirely absent haze on the roster. and in Halliburton, who is good in his rookie season.

Billy may have made the difference. Who knows? In that case, do you end up with like an Evan Mobley instead? It's an interesting scenario to think about. And there was a matter of him wanting to go to Sacramento. And I believe I asked James Edwards. He was a Pistons beat writer for the athletic about that. I don't remember when.

And he said that the Pistons drafted Taze over Halliburton, not because of that, just because they wanted Killian. They wanted Killian. They wanted him more than they wanted Halliburton. And, of course, I was on the Killian train back then. I'm not pointing fingers here. But, yeah, that was just something I, that came to mind as I was talking about this. Yeah, he said he had a great workout.

Donovan Mitchell said the same thing, actually, incidentally, back in, you know, about his workout with the Pistons prior to the 2018 draft. That one heard as well. But that's an entirely, entirely different story. And that was a long time ago now. It was almost five years. All right. So, Killian, what he can improve?

So number one is consistency. he's had some good games, you know, by all means. And I'm kind of dating his current stretch back to the 27th of October, excuse me, 27th of November, which is a game against the Cavaliers. So he's on game 15, he's played 15 games since that time. And he still kind of has two awful games to every genuinely good one with, you know, with quite a few MET games as well. Only three games in the past 15 at or above decent efficiency for a player at his position,

in the NBA. So consistency is a thing. He's just, he's still had quite a bit in the way of stinkers. And efficiency. All right. This is one of the big things. Like his efficiency is still bad. Like if you date it back to, uh, today game against Cleveland, 43.5% from the field, uh, 34.3% from three is three shooting percentage of a 51, which is not so good, especially for a player who doesn't really penetrate to the interior. I'll get to that. So So Killian has an inefficient shot profile, and part of that is his continued skittishness about attacking into contact. So he takes a relatively small volume of threes, or I should say he makes about, his

averages about one and a half, three point makes per game. And he attempts a lot of pull-up twos and floaters and other kind of like generally not so efficient mid-range offense. And to his credit, over this 15-game span, he's been averaging about 49% on more than five pull-up twos per game. And that's great. I mean, that's a very good percentage. As I said, that's a very useful weapon having your arsenal. However, it should only be a weapon for very, very few players is that it means to an end. But for Killian, they really are his go-to option. And as I said, I mean, high 40s on pull-up two. two's like sweet. That's that's really good. But, you know, if that's mainly what you're doing, it means you're going to be an inefficient offensive player because those just aren't that efficient. So Killian doesn't take a lot of threes, excuse me, doesn't make a lot of threes. And he doesn't get to the rim. And offense at the rim is generally very high efficiency just simply because it's

a place where he scored a high percentage and also because you get free throws, free throws a very, very high percentage offense. And Killian doesn't do that. He just, he, Not only, it's not so much that he doesn't do it well. It's that he just doesn't really try. He doesn't try to attack into the interior. He just generally pulls up for a two-point jumper or the occasional floater. So that hurts. Yeah, like his free throw rate is, you know, comically low, like absolutely terrible.

If you look at starting weed handlers across the span, you know, I'm referring to that 15 game span, nobody is worse than he is. The only guy you could look at is kind of like, oh, maybe like a weed handler is Ben Simmons, though. I mean, the guy's playing behind Kyrie, playing behind Durant. And in any case, Ben Simmons is not the guy you want to be comparing yourself to as far as being willing to attack into contact and possibly get to the free throw line. Basically, Killian is averaging, like, you know, well under two free throw attempts per 100 possessions, which is like a horrible. Oh, not horrible, whatever you want to call. You don't have to call it horrible.

It's extremely low. So he doesn't get that offense either. So basically, inefficient shot profile. You know, if he wants to take a lot more threes, sweet, that'll help things. It means he'll be, you know, creating less offense, whatever. But, I mean, this brings us to, really, the crux of the issue with Killian or a crux of an issue with Killian, which is that he does not attack the interior. And that means that he doesn't get access to that high efficiency offense at the REM. He doesn't get access to that high efficiency offense at the free throw line.

He isn't drawing fouls from the other team, which is also a thing. It was also very, very nice to be able to do. It also means he's not breaking down defense. And a player who cannot break down defenses is a limited player. And especially if you are a lead handler who cannot break down defenses, you are giving up a lot. Now, let's compare Killian to Cade. I think that Killian has better vision and is better passer,

like a better pure passer, at least with his left hand, than Cade. But it's in this situation, it's how much can you really bring those skills to bear? Like how much you putting yourself into a situation to maximize those assets? and I'd say that killing gets a great deal less out of those, you know, that aspect of his game, then Cade, who isn't quite as good at pure pass or gets out of his own. That's because Cade is very good at breaking down imposing defenses. He penetrates, opponents have to come to help, and then he makes the right pass to take advantage

to that, whether it's, don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm not comparing killing to Cade and saying that Cade is like, does not have good passing vision because he does. He's more turnover prone, of course. But he's a very, very, very, very smart guy, very smart basketball. player. I don't know. Those two aren't necessarily always one and the same, but we don't need to judge whatever. We're just talking about his basketball IQ here. His offensive IQ is excellent. So he makes a pass, either to an open man or to somebody else. It's just generally the right pass

to get the defense wrong footed. And it doesn't have to be just the driving kick that's always going to get you the shot. It can be the right pass that really starts the cascade that gets the pissed into good opportunity that really just gets the defense wrong-footed. And like Miami is the ultimate expression of this. Like somebody will penetrate or no butt with these days. And there's a lot of ball movements. The ball gets kicked around and around and around and around and around. And eventually, well, not this here because the heat is struggling. But in ideal circumstances, the defense is eventually wrong-footed enough that, you know, they get a good opportunity. Like generally, the defense ends up, you know, ends up in bad shape, you know, in bad position, just out of position.

and Elaine is found. Of course, that spolster. Spolster is amazing coach. So Killian doesn't do this. Joe knowing when he's driving in, I mean, he doesn't attract help. The defenses know what he's going to do. They don't send another man at him, excuse me. And so it's just your typical one-on-one offense. And one-on-one, what I mean is that there's only one defender attached to him

and nobody goes away from the assignment they have because they know that they don't need to. He's not going to penetrate into the interior and score at the basket. They don't need to come in and stop that. He's not willing to drive any contact, and he's just not going to try to penetrate into the interior. And so not only, again, is he not getting access to that high efficiency offense? But he's, you know, it's kind of what you see is what you get. Like, he might get a good pass to a teammate for a shot. But, you know, that pass, whatever pass he makes is just that pass.

I mean, nothing else is, nothing is going to come. Hopefully a good shot will come a bit. But, I mean, it has situation probably less of a good shot than you would find. And if he were able to break down defenses, because again, nobody has come to help. So he's not like hitting a wide open man in the corner for the most part. Sometimes he does. But his average pass is not going to, his average driving kick is not going to find like the super wide open guy. But it's like whatever happens just tends to stop there.

Like because he has not wrong foot of the defense at all. Whatever comes of that pass if it's not a shot is just kind of a reset. So I've spoken at length about this. like that the fact that like a lead handler can't break down opposing defenses who cannot penetrate just who cannot wrong foot defenses that way is losing a lot of value I guess it's a very very essential skill to have for a weed handler and I mean some guys can compensate for it by just being like spectacular shooters but I'm struggling to think of one right now amongst lead handlers amongst guys who are really facilitators for others instead of just guys who are pure creators like

Durant for example you just take him in the ball and say get me a bucket and he does it better than almost anybody else ever has so. it's an issue with Killian's game and it's one that's going to continue to hurt him in just in terms of leading an offense and in terms of being and having a more efficient shot profile and Till and that's an if he does something about it. So Killian start trying. I don't know what I don't know why he's not trying. I don't know if Twain Casey encourages it. I've got to think he does and Killian just doesn't do it. I don't know what the issue is but he's about his contact versus anybody in the NBA And that's no good.

So for Kalyan, insistency, shot profile, attack the rim. Because I brought up this equation before. My equation for value is what you provide in the court minus your opportunity cost. And the opportunity cost of fielding a weed handler who cannot attack the interior, cannot break down opposing defenses is significant. You know, you could instead have a lead handler who can do those things. And it's, yeah, I suppose I just made certainly a statement of the obvious. But I consider it a pretty big swing factor for Killian and something that without it,

it's going to be difficult for him to, it's really going to limit his ceiling, even as a backup point card. That's how I see it at the moment in any case. Let's move on to Jalen Duren. So again, talked about what Dern last week about what Duren has done well. And for the most part, he's just doing what's asked of him. Like on offense, yeah, what I'm going to talk about now is offense. He's just doing what's asked of him, which is basically just be a garbage man and finish easy

baskets. So strong dunker, by all means. And but one area in which he has been pretty weak in an area in which he was also very weak. And the NCAA is on the layups. He's shooting 36% on those in the season, which is needless to say really, really bad for guys, you know, but for anybody, but certainly for big who's primarily just finishing and then really isn't trying to create much. And then 37% on those as a starter. Sure, he can dunk a lot of stuff, but layups are still important. And there are situations in which you are not going to be able to dunk the ball, of course.

situations in which you'll get it in a difficult position. And if you've got solid touch, you might be able to get yourself an and one, you know, as you're followed. And it's just points. If you're, if you have bad touch around the basket in terms of layups, it's points that you're going to be giving up. Now, we're not talking about an Andre Drummond situation here. I mean, Duren seems fully willing to use his,

his excellent physical assets to carve out space for himself. He's not, he does not have like the horrible scoring touch that Drummond had, a drummond who just seemed to have no minds for when he should shoot it and how he should shoot it when he should shoot it like you know take some time established position get a good shot up didn't want to be physical just wanted to get his bit just wanted to get his bucket as soon as he could had really no eye for when to do it obviously wasn't much of a passer when you know just wanted to shoot it whatever not he so durin is not that but durin just kind of struggles on what should

be fairly simple attempts for him if he's not dunking it And that was the case at Memphis as well. Like amongst the four major centers in the draft, I suppose it was five. It was Duren, Holmgren, Mark Williams, Coloco, and Kessler. So he was quite a bit worse on the wayups than Kessler and Koloco. He was a great deal worse than Williams and Holmgren. And that was a question. It's like, is this just an issue of rawness or poor touch?

Again, that's not a discussion I want to get into in this episode. But it's especially if you're traditional big and you're really going to be relied upon because you're not providing, you know, spacing or any sort of creation to finish at a really high percentage around the basket. As a layups have got to be there. You're not just, you're not just always going to be able to dunk the ball. So that's something you should work on. Now, when it comes to Duran, I've heard, you know, there's always the question of

comps, you know, for any player. And there are a lot of players who play like he does. like we hope that he, the player we hope he will be, which is, you know, very physically imposing, you know,

dunks everything he can, plays really strong defense and very athletic. And one name, so, you know, there are a fair number of players played that way. One name that I've heard come up recently that I feel like

maybe setting people up for disappointment a little bit is Dwight Howard. So, you know, we know what Dwight Howard became ultimately in his career. But for those first like six or so seasons, not his first six or so seasons. A six or so seasons before his injury in L.A.

And that season in L.A. was not good for him. And those injuries took a ton out of him. I mean, what Dwight Howard was was just an incredibly imposing big man, who was on course at that point to be arguably, you know, one of the greatest big men of all time. In those six seasons, like almost unarguably a top five player in the NBA. You know, average for like 20 points on high efficiency. He was the league's best rebounder.

He won three defensive player to year awards. He made first team all NBA five times. He carried a really incredibly unimpressive Magic Squad to the 2009 finals and so on and so forth. So I think it just should be remembered when it comes to Dwight that very, very few players have had, like very few players in the last two decades have had that sort of success. So in any case, what I feel like I see from Duren-Wa-wey is almost kind of a slightly less athletic but hopefully a little bit more switchable prime Tyson-Chamler, who was genuinely a very good player. I mean, defensive player the year one year, very high efficiency score and, you know, really

strong role man. And, yeah, that's just kind of what I'm seeing. But partially that's because Daron loves to tap out offensive rebounds. And that was something that kind of Tyson Chammer, that was almost his trademark as a rebounder was that he would go up and he would tap offensive rebounds out to the perimeter. Whatever the case, yeah, I would be very happy if he reached those heights. Tyson Jammer, of course, also just a super hard worker and a team player, NBA champion, of course, needless to say, with the Mavericks back in 2011.

So that's one thing. Also for Duran, rim protection. So Duran on paper looks like, okay, you know, really strong of blocking the ball, contest shots really well. On rim defense, he's kind of struggling. And that's partly because it's just something that, you know, he's raw and needs to do some work on it. I think he's got the touch there, so to speak.

He's got the mind for it. It's just, this is just one of those things for me. could you look at him and I look at him and say, okay, he just needs to learn. Also, not an ideal situation. The way that Casey runs this offense in terms of switching and just the troubles that the pistons have in terms of bad defenders means that, like, honest to goodness, like, rim defense is not really like happening here. Like, ironically, it's generally, if anybody's doing it, it's Marvin Bagley, and that's in part

because he can't switch and just plays drop defense. He's also terrible at rim protection of his own accord. So, yeah, just in terms of developing that opportunity to just play a more traditional rim defense role, while also switching, of course, I'm not talking about him just hanging out near the rim, which is basically what New Orleans Noel has to do, just hang out in the interior. You can't do that in the NBA these days. He will be asked to switch. But the whole switch everything thing is making things quite a bit worse.

So he's not exactly being set up for success in the situation. Even Isaiah Stewart is having a horrible, even at center, even before Duren began to start. though I guess Stuart was next to Bagley before that. Whatever the case, Stuart even was having a difficult time in terms of rim protection and is still having a difficult time in terms of room protection just because of the scheme, the scheme and the presence of some bad defenders near them next to him. So yeah, not really an ideal situation for Jayland Duren, I would say. And not much more to say about that.

I'm not a huge fan of the defensive scheme. I know the personnel are not so good. I don't think that this defense is necessary. and the question of it's the greatest for his development. Also, yeah, but as far as traditional rim protecting goes when he gets to do it, he, yeah, like a lot of when he does it, though, I mean, again, imagine this is what shows up in the stats is, like, let's say he has to switch and just basically come from the perimeter on end, you know, moving a lot early to keep up with

the player is faster than he is. So again, yeah, like I said, you know, even that he's contesting and he's going to have to do that. the NBA period, and I think he'll be good at it. But he's not doing a lot of, like, really basic traditional rim defense. And when he does do it, there's just some learning that that needs to do. Let's move on to the aforementioned Martin Bagley. Defense, obviously, he needs to improve upon it. I mentioned last week he'd improved a little bit in terms of drop coverage,

just in terms of one-on-one defense against opposing centers in the paint. And, yeah, also, like I said, you know, any improvement is improvement. It's good to see. He's still an utter mess in terms of just traditional rim protection, one of the absolute worst in the league, in fact. And he's also, though he has improved a little bit and drop, he's still bad there. He's a complete nightmare in terms of switches. Make hopeless in a switch-heavy defensive scheme.

His defensive IQ is terrible. So if the opposition forces, if he's on the floor and the opposition forces the pistons to do a bunch of switches, which of course they will happily do because they switch everything. That's the nature of the defense, but better or worse. Again, I'm not a huge fan. If that happens, then Bagley, it'll eventually fall apart. And the opposition will get a good in most situations. They'll fall apart and the offense will get a good opportunity because Marvin Bagley will

screw up a switch because he does not have the awareness of just the defense of IQ to do that. So yeah, in terms of like basically the pistons, Casey seems to just use him as much as possible as a drop defender, possibly just an awareness of that fact. And again, with Bagley, I don't think this is a likely way to improve. prove a good deal. I think this is a guy who should not really realistically be playing center at all on defense. It can be avoided. That's a pretty big weakness in terms of just how he plays on offense right now. He needs, so that gets into another topic. Like, yeah, if he's going to be playing primarily at center, then I don't see it working at all for that matter. I mean, he's just such a

catastrophic minus on the defensive end, even if it becomes quite a bit better on offense. I mean, that's just another thing. No matter where he's playing, he's going to need to become significantly more versatile and more effective on offense. He's been shooting a good percentage from the restricted area. He's been creating some offense there from around the rim and making some difficult shots. And it's like, that's great. He's also attempting a fair amount of offense from the interior, but outside of the restricted area. He's hitting that, I think the mid-40s, obviously that's very bad.

He's not shooting threes. That's not going to fly. When he does shoot threes, it's not going well. Basically, Marvin Bagley, who I think is going to be in this league for as long as he's in this league primarily is power forward again because his defense is horrific and sure you can babysit him with somebody you can play defense uh who can play uh who can maybe play um center on defense while bagley play center on offense it's not an ideal situation don't see that being um being being really very sustainable at all in particular if he's starting which i yeah you hope for it but

you know do we really think the Marvin bagway's going to be that guy uh who's going to be power forward and uh in in a con contender i hope so but it looks increasingly unlikely. But whatever he's going to do, I mean, it's his defense, even as a perimeter defender, again, if he has to switch. Like, if you play him a power forward, you don't have to deal with this terrible interior defense, but he's still a liability. So he has to be a good offensive player, like a genuinely good offense player. This needs to be a guy who is a genuine three-point threat who is willing and able to shoot those, who can draw his assignment out to the perimeter, to guard him closely, create better spacing for his, for his teammates,

to attack those closeouts and do that effectively, to become solid enough on the drive, as well as being a vertical spacing threat, as well as being a solid role man. I mean, Marvin Bagley is going to need to be genuinely good on offense to be a rotation player for a contender. So his defense would love to see some improvement there. His offense needs a lot of improvement too. Right now, he is just a guy who scores from the interior. He's a solid enough role man, who, you know, who's a pretty good interior, you know,

it's a pretty good score around the rim while being a horrible. defender and that's nowhere near good enough to be, you know, to be anywhere near a positive value player in the NBA. So Bagley for me has been very disappointing so far. The season's still young, but we need to see a lot of improvement on offense. Now I'll co-court from our sponsor. The NBA season is heating up and there's still so many unknowns, for example, which team will have come out of each conference into the postseason. If you're looking to get on the action, bet with drafting sportsbook and official sports betting partner to the NBA. New customers can bet just $5 per game money on any NBA team to win their game and get $150 in free

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He got hot. It's like it's nice to see him do well at it, but I don't think this is the thing you really can expect to see repeated. And we have any time soon. We'd not expect to see repeated on a regular basis, certainly. And we have not in the game since. So he's been struggling because teams know what he's going to do. And he really needs to work. They know he's going to drive in and they collapse. And Jaden Ivy has been doing his best to be a solid passer. He's not kind of like a guy who's, I hope he will eventually.

This is one of my concerns about him. I don't think he's likely to be the guy who's going to make those really good split second reads and passes. Like, for example, the guy whom a lot of people wanted to comp him to, which was John Morant, who, and though Ivy is athletic, of course, Morant is, you know, is spectacular athlete and unbelievably agile and also a very strong passer. Ivy isn't that kind of passer. And he doesn't have, he's immensely athletic himself, like tremendously athletic. He doesn't have Morant's like kind of like top 0.1% athleticism for a guard.

I don't mean to say that Morant isn't a smart player. I mean, it's a super smart offensive player. Absolutely. And that includes his manner of attacking the basket. But he's also just so explosive and so fast. and so agile that if there's a lane, he's going to just be able to explode through it. And Ivy's not quite that athletic. He's still a guy who's going to have to be smart like the vast majority of players do.

You know, even super fast guards have to be about getting to good spots and scoring from them, rather than just trying to blitz right up the middle and just score base in his athleticism alone. You know, most explosive guards in the NBA can't do. that and he, you know, he can't get away in his athleticism alone. So basically what happens right now is that he'll just go straight up the middle. And a lot of the time, he'll either try to score just through multiple NBA defenders and get swatted. Like, he's been blocked 37 times on layup at times. That's quite a, you know, that's quite a bit because, I mean, you can do that in NCAA, just get past guys and get there, you know, before NCAA Cal where defenders could really

properly contest you. And the NBA, it's not going to fly. Or he'll realize he's never reach the basket. He'll try to pass it. Often it's not going to be a good pass or it'll be a turnover because, yeah, again, I'm not sure if he's ever going to be that guy who really makes like legitimately good reads and passes off the drive. I think he'll get to a point where he can make these basic passes he's been making. But he gets himself a new bad position, you know, his passes at this point, not likely to be a good one. But in any case, we're just talking scoring here. So he'll either just end up taking a shot that gets swatted because he just attempted into the coverage that was too difficult. He'll get himself into a position where he's

trying to score, but he's just too tightly contested and misses. And, you know, in both of those instances, it's generally a 5 v4 break the other way. Just basically, he needs to refine how he's driving. Like in the NCAA, his go-to move was just to turn the corner, going to the right on an NCAA-calibular defender and get to the rim and score from the right side of the basket before the rim protection got there. And you're not going to be able to do that in the NBA. I mean, defenders and defenses are just too good. So he's got to know how to pick his battles, plan his roots, get to his spots. I mean, these are things I think that he'll learn. But for right now, it's a struggle. The fact that he has no in-between game is not helpful. I mean, it's difficult to be efficient from, you know, from mid-range,

even from, you know, in the pain outside the restricted area on floaters. It's, you know, those are difficult shots. And there are also shots at which Ivy is really bad. I mean, you want to have at least the capacity to punish opposing teams if they just give you those shots. Most guys can't really do it super well. But just to put it succinctly, Ivy is just bad at it. He was bad at it at Purdue. You know, like on pull-up two in his sophomore season at Purdue, he shot the high teens.

It wasn't a huge volume. Like maybe, you know, if I. I remember correctly in the low 40s, but he was awful with them. He's still awful with them in the NBA, not that awful, but 31% on mid-range shots, 30% on full-up twos, 30% on shots inside the paint and outside the restricted area. MBA.com isn't super reliable on properly logging the number of floaters player takes, but it lists them as 27% on those. So he doesn't really have that to fall back on at all.

Basically, it's just blitz into the interior and try to score at the basket or try to score, or try that in between the offense that he's really bad at. His pull-up three is also really gone on the gutter. So really in terms of an on-ball attacker at this point, he's really struggling. His catch-and-shoot numbers have improved, which is nice. From three, he's at about 36 weight, I think, 37 percent on those. And that's nice, though he's still very inconsistent, which is also an issue for him at Purdue, or was an issue for him at Purdue, rather.

It's just a tremendous inconsistency from Purdue. So decision-making has to improve. And I think this is something that'll learn. I'll have said it before. I'll say it again. I think that Ivy's going to take some time in the NBA. I think it might be next season before we really see him come online. That said, the coaching is not helping him at all.

Basically, Dwayne Casey does not know what to run to. He does not have the offensive acumen to run to ball handlers in tandem. Killian Hayes is currently the ball handler. Ivy gets pushed to periphery the offense and his involvement is generally, let's give him a pick and then just ask him to blow him. blitz into the interior and defense is no how to play him. That's not good for him. I mean, he doesn't really get much in the way of chances to attack, you know, to get the ball when he's already on the move in an advantageous position and attack the basket from there. It's basically

just here, let's get the guy to get the guy to pick and ask him to just blitz into the interior and score at the room. And he, you know, he's, that's not really putting him in a position to succeed at this point. Again, it's something at which I think he's going to improve a lot, but yeah, I don't think he's really being put in position to succeed at this stage. So, yeah, that's what I'd say about Ivy, just, you know, refine his decision making, especially on the drive. I mean, you can say work on an in-between game. Of course, that's going to be important and work on your consistency.

These are kind of somewhat raw developing players' problems. So that's kind of a lot to ask. These are just general issues that need to be worked on. But, yeah, when he has been on the floor, even like, there are plenty of times when he's on the floor without killing. I mean because Casey actually at Tense says has been staggering them recently, especially in games. This is definitely the case against the Clippers when Corey Joseph hasn't been playing. And, you know, even in that situation when Ivy is the sole ball handle or he struggles because it's, you know, it's basically just pick and roll, pick and roll, pick and roll. And it's a little bit simplistic.

And again, not something he's doing well at. I don't think something, I don't think, you know, a role that he's very particularly well suited to at this stage. In any case, I feel like I'm rambling about Ivy. so I'm going to move on. Isaiah Stewart, he's to improve on. Keep working on attacking the rim. He's going to be playing a power forward. I mean, he's been shooting super well,

but that's not going to be enough for him. I mean, I don't know if any of us really see Isaiah Stewart as the, who knows, I don't see Isaiah Stewart as the power forward going forward for a contender. I think you're going to have to replace him with somebody better, particularly more skilled as a score. But, I mean, if like he's the fifth best guy in a starting lineup, like, you know, I've seen him, I've heard him compared to PJ Tucker, for example, Then it may be a little bit different, but I mean, PJ Tucker has been a guy who has largely succeeded playing behind, you know, the Janus's and the James Hardens.

And, you know, now that Jimmy Butler's, now the Joelle Ambides of the world. I mean, he's a role player of whom extremely little his assed on offense. As per Stewart, yeah, just continued diversifying your tool set. You know, he's been doing much better at attacking closeouts at doing some bully ball around the rim, though he's not super efficient at that. and passing. This is one thing that that could really be a ceiling skill for Isaiah Stewart. He may just not really have it in him. And if he does not, then this is going to limit what he can do is an offensive play on offense in general.

It's still an awful passer. When he gets the ball, he's generally not looking to pass it. And sure part of this is because he's a play finisher from three. But part of it is just that he does not really seem to have the acumen, is not seem to, like when he's putting the ball on the floor, something at which he's gotten significantly better, he just does not seem to be thinking too much about how to fit within an offense, like make the right passes, whether it's just even thinking to pass at all or making a good

pass. And if he does make a pass, yeah, it's genuinely not a high quality one. And that just may be what it is. And if you have a guy who's just not really able to make the right pass, it turns into a bit of a black hole on offense when he puts the ball on the floor, that's far from ideal. When you're putting the ball on the four, you don't want it to just be just putting the ball on the floor and that's that you want it to also potentially be a means to wrong foot the defense

and get a just just really get that that fully full breaking down of the defense going be part of it not just initiated it be part of it to get your team a better opportunity than you might be able to get yourself that said like I said in the last episode it's still significant to say the least improvement on offense from stewart and finally Sadiq Bey so Sadiq number one find your role I mean obviously three point shooting is is the most important improvement for him. And like I said, like I've said, I don't think that he's going to stay at a poor percentage, like around 30% from three for long. I think he's just, he's been at a high level shoot over too long. I don't think that's just going to go away. When I say find your role,

that that figures into that. I think that, like I said, last week, he just gets a little bit too stuck between, you know, hang around the perimeter, get the ball and shoot it and, you know, get the ball and try to create something with it. Because when he just takes the standard catching shoots, which has been doing more lately, he does better. And so I think he's just got to find a happy medium there because realistically, the majority of the time he gets the ball in the perimeter and in position to shoot it, he should be shooting it, like, right away. And he's been more decisive about that way, as opposed to getting the ball and considering giving the defender time to close in on him and then either taking a side step three, and those are not high percentage for him,

almost for everybody virtually are going to be lower percentage looks than just simple catch and shoots or a drive inward. And, you know, he has been much improved in terms of as a creator, but still, I don't think is ever likely to be his, like, really his strong suit. I don't think, I think ultimately, even if he's in the starting lineup, you're probably going to want a guy who's going to be better than him at creating that offense in the way to the basket doing it and from the perimeter on in, you know, tagging the basket from the perimeter on in. And so I think that the threes should still remain as bread and butter. The ability to put the ball on the floor and create some offense is great.

But, yeah, like I said, just find your role, Sadiek and find your role and play it. Find that happy medium between shooting, between just shooting your catch and shoot threes and doing a bit of attacking from the perimeter as well. And defense. I don't know what happened to him on defense. I feel like in his first two seasons, he was at the very least an even defender who made good decisions. And his defensive head, just in terms of defense, I mean, I don't know where his head

has been at this season because he makes mistake after mistake after mistake. He's been awful. And that has not only been in the starting lineup, but has persisted. He's not a terrible, terrible, terrible, but he is bad at this season. And I don't think he's a terrible or a bad defender at heart. I don't really know what's going on because he just, he's devolved into a guy. I mean, he's not like a horrible liability, but he just makes a lot of mistakes, which he did not make in his first two seasons.

So just needs to get back to where he was at. Smart player, cerebral. smart beyond his years. And for the first two seasons, could be counted upon to make the right decision in the majority of situations and be reliable on both ends and is definitely not been reliable to say to least on defense this season. And then, I suppose, we come finally to Isaiah Livers,

whom I don't really have much to say about and hadn't actually been planning to talk about. This is for a couple of reasons, two reasons together, really, that he hasn't played for a while at this point, and that he started out in just a very limited and very constrained role of you're basically out there just to shoot threes on offense and just to try to be a steady guy on defense, just like a solid character, a very limited role player.

So I just don't think we've really seen enough of him for me to feel like I have much commentary on what he can really improve, though there's also, honestly, for me, just a feeling that he's likely just to be a guy who shoots threes, you know, plays steady defense and doesn't really do much else. Maybe that's not going to be the case. Maybe we'll see him do something different. But we haven't to this stage. That has been what he has done. And he's been out for a while and we'll be for the foreseeable future. So I don't have much to say about him at this point. Anyway, folks, that'll be up for today's episode. As always, want to thank you all for listening. I will catch you in the next episode.