Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 129: Where the Rebuild Stands

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Three years after the Pistons made the decision to pivot to a rebuild, where does the progress stand? Some discussion on that, plus talk of Marvin Bagley's upcoming absence, Hamidou Diallo's return to the rotation, and Killian Hayes' recent suspension.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Driving to the Basket, part of the Basketball Podcast Network. I am Mike, your host, and hope all of you had a very happy holiday season. Hard to believe we're already into 2023. Hard to believe we are also, as I record this, which is on Tuesday night, the night before I post, we are one game shy of halfway through the Detroit Pist since 2022-2020 season. It has gone very fast, and I would wager not quite as any of us would have hoped.

If we'd sat down prior to the season and, you know, had a big roundtable of Detroit Pistons fandom. And the question had been asked, well, if I were to tell you that after 40 games, Pistons would be 10 and 30 and to have the worst winning percentage in the league, what would you say? And I think a lot of us would say, well, then, you know, with Kate on the team and his sophomore season with all of his promise, you bring in Jaden Ivy, and you're hoping for improvement from a lot of young players, or at least a few of them, then, you know, something must have gone really. really, really wrong. And, yeah, obviously something did go wrong. Kate is out. The team has been a

mess. There have been a few bright spots, but it's been a tough season, without a doubt, not what we are really looking for. And of course, the best you can say at this point, you know, in terms of the potential outcome, the season as a whole, you know, barring an incredible turnaround is, hey, okay, the pistons are very well positioned, the Victor Wenban Yamma sweepstakes. And would it be all worthwhile if the Pistons come away with the first overall pick. Well, yeah, obviously, because the, you know, Victor looks to be just an incredible, a transcendent NBA prospect. My only concerns about him really are his health. But we're a ways away from draft lottery night. It does kind of suck that, again, we're looking forward to draft lottery nights. I didn't expect the plans this

season by any means. I mean, the Pistons, I didn't feel like got that much better. Losing Jeremy Grant was a step backward. Of course, his production's been replaced by Boyon, which is not something I expected coming into the season. The boy is, of course, significantly worse on offense. But just in general, I mean, the Pistons didn't add enough talent to really take that step in a conference that is more competitive than it has been in a very long time. That said, here I am talking about the play on when the Pistons are 10 and 30, whatever. Season is where it is. Just can hope for more progress from the young players throughout the breadth of it. It's definitely been ugly to this point. And my thoughts for this episode,

I talk about a few items of recent news, but just to go over, you know, where are we? It's been almost three years at this point since the Pistons. It's actually been three years, like three years to the day as I record this. Since we saw the Pist, signs that the Pistons were really pivoting to a rebuild. Since the day in 2020, this is actually, I looked back January 3rd of 2020. We heard that the Pistons were putting Andre Drummond on the trade block, where he garnered a very, very minimal return, as he should have. So the Pistons have been out at this for a while because after that, I mean, it was hard tank. The Pissons were trying to lose games to get draft position in 2020.

And then, of course, we had the last two seasons. We all know what happened then. And this has all been to build toward the Pistons returning to a point at which they can contend, which has not been the case for a very, very long time. At come the end of the season, it will have been 15 seasons since the last time the Pistons really a respectable playoff team that was back in 2008. They lost that game against, the game six against the Celtics. And of course, we all know what happened next season.

and they traded Choncy, that the window of the going to work Pistons was rapidly closing at that stage. It's been a long time. And the rebuild feels like it's been a long time since it has been a long time at the stage. And some good things have happened without a doubt. The Pistons have got some good talent on the team. But, you know, let's, you know, take a look at where they are and where they need to be. Now, I think that this was a couple years ago. I did an episode of this podcast called The Roster Needs of a Contender.

And I'll be honest, I just thought of that. and have not gone through and relistened to it. But it was basically, I know enough, I can remember enough to tell you that, you know, it was about, you know, what does your team need to contend in today's NBA? So what do you need to contend in today's NBA? I still subscribe, you know, number one, I mean, superstars. Superstars are an absolute necessity to win, you know, to win you championships in today's NBA.

The days of the going to work pistons are very, very, very, very much past. The NBA is a very, very different place. Not only does defense no longer win championships, like you can't win on defense. the NBA made that impossible because it, you know, unless you were a fan of the Spurs or a fan of the Pistons, it was incredibly boring to watch those teams. It was incredibly boring to turn on a TV and watch just a defensive battle in which your team was completely smothered by the other team. And thus we had the changes to hand-checking, which came about in 2005. And those would have, you know, far-reaching implications.

Of course, defense became a lot more difficult. And just winning as a hard-nosed defensive team was no longer possible. Do you still need to be a good defensive team to win a championship these days? Yes. You can't do without the offense. You know, you need to have an elite offense. And to have that elite offense, you need superstar scores. That's non-negotiable in today's NBA. So, you know, I still subscribe to this formula. You either got to have yourself two superstar scores or one superstar score and two all-star scores.

You know, leaving aside circumstances of injury or whatever else, like, you know, for example, the Raptors, you know, they're two good scorers. We're quite one or than Pascal Seaccombe, Waurier's and technically an all-star, he didn't particularly good playoffs, whatever the case. So you need that superstar talent. and you need a team that's good at shooting. You need a team that's got sufficient athleticism. Do you need a team that's properly switchable because that defense is important?

If you have like any, you know, severe problem members of your team on defense, they will be attacked constantly. You need good fortune, of course, in any postseason. And, you know, this all seems like a significant way in the future. I mean, the idea, I'm sure, in this rebuild, you get what you can. In any rebuild, you get what you can on the draft. And then, you know, you hope to get whatever,

you need to finish, you know, to complete your roster in trade or in free agency. So I'm saying this again in the midst of a 10 and 30 season, like the third and the third rebuilt season to be basically close to three and a half by the time this one is over. So it feels a little bit weird. I'm not saying necessarily the Pistons are in bad position. The Pistons have some high ceiling young talent. But as I said earlier, like in an episode very early in the season, the Pistons have a good start. The team is also incredibly incomplete at the stage.

So I'm sure if I were to poll all of you, if I could do that, the most common response I would get as to if, you know, if I asked the question, what's the most important factor here? What's the most important factor in Pistons rebuild at this point? Well, I mean, I suppose some of you would say, you know, win the next draft lottery and get Victor Wenban Yama. Okay, it's like, okay, that's fair. But in terms of what has already happened, I'm sure that in a land slide, the number one answer would be Kate Cunningham becomes a superstar. And I think that Kate has a superstar ceiling. He was that highly touted number one overall pick in a strong draft for a reason. You know, really nobody in that draft, oddly enough, is yet to pop off, so to speak.

It's only season number two. So that's a weird way of putting it. Nobody's having like a killer season two yet, put it that way. Of course, Kate is out. Jalen Green is chucking away on like really me efficiency and committing about as many turnovers as assists. And Evan Mobley has found himself as like, the number three, number four option for the Cavaliers who are now a very good team.

Scotty Barnes is in the midst of a major sophomore slump. Goodness, Jalen sucks can't stay healthy. Franz Wagner is really the best off out of all of those rookies at this point. I mean, he's fairly impressive, solid role player. Whatever, I digress. I've said it before. I'll say it again. I'll keep saying it.

I think Kate Cunningham is a superstar ceiling. And he unfortunately came into this season with a tibial stress fractured. And if you're playing on any injury in the NBA, it's going to hurt significantly. I mean, the NBA is a league of such a high standard that if you are dealing with a nagging disadvantage, like having a stress fracture in your lower leg, it's probably going to hurt you to such a degree that you're going to lose just a certain amount of edge. So it's going to make your life a lot more difficult. We all came into the season hoping that Kay was going to be able to drive effectively at the net, be able to, of course, significantly improve his three point percentage. You know, how much was the injury he was playing with how much did that impact those two things? because he was still settling for a lot of mid-range pull-ups.

And like I've said about Killian, sure, if you can hit those a 50%, that's great, but that's not going to be a means to an end for you, though he had some games in which he was unstoppable for mid-range. And if you're shooting high-fifties from mid-range, you know, go ahead, take those shots constantly. You know, if you can create those shots off the dribble and make them, you know, sweet. But he was having trouble getting into the basket still, despite having had it quite a bit of strength.

He was, needless to say, struggling a great deal from three still. I got to think that his injury did impact the former, did it impact the latter? Who knows? It's entirely possible. I mean, obviously, you're pushing off your lower leg there when you're going up for a shot. All told, yeah, it was, he didn't exactly look as we had hoped. And I think the injury is a reasonable excuse for that. In terms of his playmaking six assists against three turnovers, that was promising. You obviously want to be better than a two to one assist turnover ratio, but his penchant for turnovers on kind of not NBA qualified passes was an issue, you know, was an issue coming into the league. And it seemed like he'd

really improved upon that. Whatever the case, I think that Cade is still a guy who can come in on heavy, you know, and will, and it will improve to, you know, hopefully that I think will, at the very least, be a perennial all-star in this league and hopefully be the superstar. And I think he can be, like, he's a guy who's, who's extremely smart. I think can come, be one of those, I'll put it this way, just come in and handle the ball on heavy possession. I'd be excellent at breaking down defenses at finding guys to whom that opens up at always making the right play on offense. or for the most part, nobody always makes the right play. But really bringing his excellent offensive IQ and ability to think ahead to the table,

being able to score from all three levels. We've seen that he can score mid-range pull-ups. I think he'll be able to attack the basket effectively. And I got to think that shooting touch will come back also. And I think he's a guy who's ultimately going to be shooting those pull-up threes as well, just a very, very difficult cover who can break down the defense and make the right play. And, you know, hopefully score on volume as well, a guy who's going to be able to lead your offense and lead your team because he's very much by every account we have a leader also like on and off the

court. So if we're looking and I feel confident, pretty confident in this, if we're looking, okay, if the Pistons have that superstar, I'd say I think there's a pretty good shot that, you know, that at least you have that superstar who's hopefully going to be able to weed the team going forward. Excuse me. And then you'll look beyond that. So of course, going into this last draft. You got to think that the priority was finding, you know, in number two, to K to number one, you know, another guy who could score at hopefully at least the star level. And that's where you ended up at Jaden Ivy. I've said it before. Jaden was my one B behind Benedict Matherin, who I should note, well, two things I should note. Number one, I hope that Jaden Ivy, despite my preference

being Benedict Matherin, I hope that Jaden Ivy is the better player. And number two, Matherin started strong and has been awful for like his last 20 games. I guess I'm saying the second one just for informational purposes because it still see that narrative out there. Oh man, you know, Matherin is he's having such a strong season. Oh, he started strong and he's been pretty darn bad. So is Ivy. But it's been pretty darn bad for a little while now. Not that that necessarily matters in any case. So yeah, there was that hope. I'm sure that was the hope for Troy Weaver as well. I mean, one of the reasons I really did not want, for example, Keegan Murray was like I thought that the pistons really need another guy who can create at a high level.

I felt like Matherin had that potential. Ivy, of course, has that potential as well. I think that of the two, Ivy has the higher ceiling. My questions are on the draft were, is he going to reach it? What's his likelihood of reaching it, particularly reaching the same sort of, same level of value as Mathron when he's going to have to be, you know, not playing on a ball quite as much because we're playing next to Cade. You know, we'll see how that goes.

I'll maintain that, you know, well, obviously, we'll see more of it next. season. Hopefully it's under a different coach because I don't think Dwayne case is the guy who's ever going to make that work. But do you look at Jaden Avi? Okay, definitely a high ceiling, extremely athletic. You know, crafty on his way to the basket, though he's kind of stuck in no man's land right now in terms of his efforts to actually attack the basket. He's just kind of stuck in a weird place. And, you know, if he can get it together as a shooter and, you know, be a strong on-ball score, I think, be also a fairly, a guy who can take the ball already in motion and attack the rim, you know, when he's got somebody to kind of create for him or create good circumstances for him,

I think he'll be particularly dangerous. So if he can do that, if he can shoot well enough, he can find ways to be, to be effective off the ball, and he can improve from where he's at and becoming a capable secondary creator. Sure, you know, I think definitely under a better offensive coach, you could have Jaden Ivy scoring a star level. I think that I'm a little bit less certain about him that I am about Cade, just because my concerns about Ivy, my concerns about Ivy pretty much remain the same as they were going into the draft, you know, is he going to be able to be really successful in a more secondary

role? Is he going to be able to, like, he's not going to be playing on the ball as much as he was in college if he's playing next decade. And so he's going to have to, you know, be effective. Nonetheless, he's going to have to find ways he's going to have to be good off ball player. Is he going to, you know, when he is on the ball, can he make those split second reads and passes that he struggled with at times in the NCAA against the vast more difficult defenses in the NBA? And can he be a consistent shooter? There's also the in-between game. But yeah, so those are still there.

But, you know, almost every draft pick is a risk, you know, especially when you're shooting any guy like Abby. But yeah, so remains to be seen. But a difficult season for him so far. Like as I speak, you know, despite the fact that he, you know, he did fairly decently well early on at this point. He's at 41% from the field and 31.5% from three. And he's averaging about one assist more than, you know, four assists versus 2.8 turnovers.

it's been a tough time for him. Almost 73% from free throw range, too. That was an issue from in college too. Yeah, but let's look on the bright, you know, let's look at an optimistic take here. You have Ivy, if he develops, you know, hopefully it becomes that star score is a good fit with Kate.

Okay, great. Then, you know, you've, in terms of your high level talent, you've gotten yourself pretty close to where you need to be. And then hopefully you trade for a guy, you know, somebody to be the third piece of that puzzle and you're in good shape. And this is, I suppose you say that.

Okay, great. You know, we've happily ever after everything is fine. I'm just kind of winging this. I thought I would just come in and I wouldn't say have a discussion because I'm just pretty much talking to myself about where the Pistons are. I didn't really put together a thesis about this.

You know, having admitted that, I mean, what's what else the Pesons have on the team? The current best score of Boyan Bogdanovich who is getting, geez, I always forget how, I know Boyan's 33, so I'm going to click and see what it says. Okay, Boyan's very close to 34.

He's about three months away from 34, three and a half months. So best current score on the team. Blyon's come in. He's been very impressive. I did not anticipate him being this good on offense. I thought he was a guy who really benefited from playing within an excellent system next to some good players, one in particular, Donovan Mitchell.

But again, you know, in a deep pool of players on offense with the jazz. Instead, he's come in and basically, I mean, he's replaced and then some, the offensive production that Jeremy Graham provided for the Pistons West season. And that said, he's going to be about 34 when the season ends. Assuming the Pistons are, I mean, he's a guy whose game is, I think, going to age well enough that he's not going to fall out of the league. He definitely doesn't depend on his athleticism. He depends upon his smarts and his shooting ability. But is he going to be a guy who's on the team, you know, hopefully the Pistons are a playoff team two years from now?

You know, unless things really go wrong at the top end at being Ivy and K. I'm confident they will be, you know, is Bion on the timeline, I would say probably not. So I just don't think he's going to be a major piece of the ball. moving forward. Also, Boyon, here's, and here's one thing. I think we should mention if we're talking about the possibility of trading him. And I don't, as I said a few episodes ago, I'd not convinced that it's a good idea to trade him at this point, because it'll just take a, take a roster that's already pretty, it's having trouble on offense. Well, so you're having even more trouble on defense. And Boyan's a big part of that because the guys a mess on defense. But that's basically my point.

Actually, we go to his defense in terms of should the Pistons trade Boyan Bogdanovich, he's got some issues as a postseason player. He was one of the major cogs of that. whole, you know, the Jazz have, Frudy Gobert, was, you know, was a great defender, but his teammates were all turnstiles storyline of the last two off seasons when the jazz ended up out of the playoffs because they couldn't play defense. Bliam was a big part of that, like a big, big part of that. In the playoffs, if you're a bad defender, you get targeted. The other team will run schemes either to isolate on you or just basically to do whatever they can to exploit your weakness. And Boyam was exploited. It didn't help, obviously, that Donovan Mitchell turned into

a traffic going on defense also, or that, if I remember correctly, Royce O'Neill was pretty darn bad, or that just you can target Gobert in the postseason. It's completely unutterly bizarre to me, that the Timberwolves gave up that much for Gobert, who is not a good suit, does not have agency on offense. And if you just run a scheme that brings him out to the perimeter, then his value plummet because he's not in the interior anymore. And he's not only that, I would say that's the biggest deal on top of that. He's not an elite switch defender by any means. He's okay. But whatever of the case, that there is a substantial reduction in boy on's, you know, playoff ceiling. I'm not going to call it playoff ceiling, playoff value.

This is the words I was looking for. So who else do we have? Jalen Duren. Okay. And Duren has been impressive since, you know, especially given how raw he was coming in. I mean, Duren, he reclassified. He was in, he was at Memphis for what should have been or what otherwise have been his senior year of high school.

If he had not reclassified, he would be a freshman in college right now. He came in very raw. He's been very strong in the boards. He showed quite a bit of potential on defense. He's got a ways to go in terms of his refinement on offense. Right now he's basically just focusing on being a garbage man and, you know, in a finisher of easy baskets. He's got a lot of promise. And, you know, I think that he's a guy if he develops as we hope,

and I think that he stands a good chance of doing so. It could be a starting center of the future. The questions, of course, abound about, not abound or questions about what his offensive ceiling is. Is he ever going to be a shooter? you know, who knows, is what's his touch around the basket like? Hopefully he can improve on basic layups, but he's, you know, he's powerful enough that he's going to be able to dunk a lot.

It's a matter of if you get them to get him the ball in a difficult situation. Can he score with it? You know, those are points gained or points lost. You look at his free throw percentage, which, you know, has been improving, but it's still on the season of 56%. So what's your sealing version of Jalen Duran? I'm not going to get into can the guy launch threes because that's just in complete unknown territory right now. Some guys do. Some guys don't. We've seen non-shooters become shooters. We've seen

the guys who are traditional bigs become shooters. But sometimes it doesn't happen. So let's look at what Jalen Duren could be. Maybe he's not able to do that. So in terms of his ceiling, we saw some work at Memphis in which he operated on the short role, either as a passer or taking kind of like short pull-up jumpers. If he can do that, great. His agency on offense improves. It increases quite a bit because he can do a little bit of creation from away from the basket. And he's just versatility as a passer in the short roll would be very, very nice. And we've seen that Duren is able to make the right pass. He's always looking around when he gets the ball.

It's not just, I get the ball and I'm just going to try to jam it. I get the ball and I'm just going to get rid of it in a road fashion, which is what it is for a lot of traditional bays. So there's that upside as a passer. Where will it take him? Who knows? But if he becomes a capable passer, if he's able to do that sort of work out of the short roll, great. If he improves and do a better finisher. and then if he can be the defender,

that I hope he can be, and that I think he's got a fair shot of becoming a guy who's able to be very strong in drop coverage and also quite capable in switch coverage. The guy, I mean, he's highly athletic. He's able to play effective, helps out rim defense. He's able to play effective recovery rim defense. He's, I mean, he's still learning.

He's still learning to move his feet laterally and to stay with guys and just to position himself properly. And again, this is a guy who right now should be freshman in college. The question, of course, is, you know, how much of it, like, there's, you can't, like, you cannot develop elite defensive IQ. You've either got it or you've not, or you haven't got it. So it's a question of how much of this is, is just a lack of experience versus what is his level of, of just general defensive acumen. So if he does have that high level defensive acumen, he can couple it with his physical assets, then great. You have a guy who might make some all

defensive teams. So I know I'm just getting into optimism territory. here. But, you know, if he can get there, if he become that strong, that strong, very, very strong defender and that a stronger interior finisher and in a solid passer, then, um, cool, you know, you've got just starting center the future on a contender. At the same time, I don't even know where I'm going with this now because I'm just talking about optimistic outcomes. And with Jaylen Duren, I don't really, I definitely don't feel at all comfortable with talking about, you know, just making projections. The guy is like 37 games into his NBA career right now. And his and I did only turn 19 years old this season.

But you've got promise there, is my point, is where you're looking at. And all right, so you look beyond that, you know, where are the pistons in terms of the assets that they've accrued? So you've got Isaiah Stewart. Been over Isaiah Stewart. It's great that he's improved to shooting. And he's like a fantastic character guy. And I hope, you know, he's a pretty strong rebounder. I hope he's on the team for a long, long time.

You know, solid role player who might feel confident, well, you know, can soak up minutes in the playoffs. So he could be an ideal guy to put out there at times, you know, should other teams really go small? Because Isaiah loses nothing by going out to defend on the perimeter. You know, he's just a fantastic switch defender. And as we've seen, he can also, he can space the floor. So if the pistons really want to go small against an opponent and in a situation like, I mean, who knows? Who knows what the situation would be? You go up against the Cavaliers, for example.

And you just, you just want to keep Jared Allen away from, well, it doesn't work. You can't do that against the Cavaliers because Jared Allen will punish you for going small. So whatever, I'm not going to postulate in a scenario. It would be like a Gobert-like scenario when you have a guy who really, a guy who can't punish you for going small on him. And it just, whatever. Isaiah, I think, will have, will definitely have his role in the playoffs without a doubt. And he's got some versatility.

He's got his issues at center. But, you know, in terms of defending against bigger guys and defending against guys, other guys who will just score over him. But, sorry about the sniffling. But, you know, it strikes me that he would suit well for playoff basketball. that said, I would say a role player, probably a long-term bench player. Sadiq Bay, who this season has unfortunately not given us

really any of the sort of security that we would have liked. He's had a rough time, to say the least. He's shooting by far his worst from three thus far in the NBA. He has not been good from the field overall. He's actually gone downhill in terms of his two-point percentage, which was near 50%, which is really a big improvement. He's down to 47% there again now. you know, despite some big three-point, three-point improvements,

way where some big games, Sadiq's having kind of a rough time, especially for a player of his archetype, was still taking about 50% of his shots from three. Now, the hope was that Sadiq would be that guy who was, you know, going into the season, it was like, okay, Sadiek's definitely, you know, definitely a long-term starter for this team going forward. Like he has, you know, he's a guy who, I know some people are hoping,

some people, for example, there was talking into the season, can he be that number three guy in a championship team? I would have been thrilled if he was the number four guy in the championship team. In the event, he has had his issues with the boy, you know, with not his issues, but, I mean, he and boy and put them on the floor together. The issue, you know, they play the same role of kind of play finishers. And anything that Bay can do aside from kind of bodying guys in the inside, Boyan can do better. So that was kind of a not a great thing for Zedek. You kicked him to the bench.

It wasn't really anything special there. His defense has been really bad. You know, you want to talk about, I mean, worse than Boyan. maybe, you know, at least roughly as bad. So who knows what we have there now? I think this three point percentage will improve. That defense is majorly concerning. What do we have there?

You know, last year I think we would have felt a lot better that, okay, we've got another guy here who can definitely be a long-term role player for this team, and I hope that's still the case. Hope that's just a downseason, but it's been a completely weird thing. And it's shaking some of my faith in Citi. Killian, who, you know, who was brought on originally ostensibly to be point guard of the future for the Pistons. I mean, and that almost regardless of how well he had played,

unless he played really well, and this is in his rookie season. I mean, the Pissons were never not going to take Cade out of their way with the number one overall pick, just because Killiam was on the team. But the whole kind of primary handler of the future thing went away the second that Cade was drafted. Killian has had, has been much improved over the last like 15 games. He's still struggling quite a bit, still can't penetrate or won't penetrate. But let's say he's a guy who just becomes an elite high volume three point shooter, who can play strong defense and just do some secondary playmaking.

Cool, bam, role player guy you can play in the postseason. And Isaiah Livers, again, I think he'd just be a solid role player, just a guy who can, you know, play generally decent defense and hopefully hit his threes at high percentage. And then Bagley, who is a complete unknown at this point is still a very negative value NBA player. And Hamadu, I'll talk about both of them a little bit later in this episode. And of course, Corey Joseph, who unfortunately,

despite being a titan of basketball that he is, is already 31 years old. And I don't even know where I was going with that joke. You guys know I all know that I think pretty well of Cojo, not necessarily as a basketball player, but it's just a solid guy to have on a rebuilding team. It's mostly just that I think that he gets flack that he doesn't deserve. Okay, so you've got your potential superstar. You've got hopefully another star score on Ivy.

You've got the potentially high ceiling center in Duren, who I think in any case will develop to the point where he could start at center, maybe not be like a great contributor, but could start. I feel pretty strongly that J. 1-1-Derm will get to a point where you could start at center for a contender. So hopefully, you know, you're hoping, or I'm hoping, and we're all hoping that he can be a little bit more than just good enough to do that. But you've got that.

And then you've got, you know, hopefully another, another few role players in Stewart, Hayes, and Bay. And then your hope after that is to either be able to draft into the superstar caliber talent or trade for one. Or who knows, though this is always unlikely for the Pistons, maybe Simon and free agency. So I guess at the end of this really lengthy analysis, I would say that at this point, the Pistons, I think, are not looking necessarily bad at all. Of course, there's a lot more that you need.

You need a major, you know, you really just need things in terms of talent development is really all that it's about in this team right now. I think that in terms of getting draft lottery luck and, you know, having sell a talent available in the draft and also just doing some decent drafting. The Pistons are in fairly good position provided that the talent that they have developed as they hope. So obviously, I don't know what it needs to be said that the Pistons are far better in a far better position than they were, say, five years ago or four years ago, four seasons ago, this was, you know, Blake Griffin in the midst of his all-MBA season when the Pistons were basically hopeless to do anything but

make it to the postseason and really had nothing in the way of sealing. excuse me, they had a really poor ceiling because there was very little you could hope for in terms of development. I mean, you had pretty much nobody on the team at that point. Your best young player was Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown is having a good season, by the way. I'd like to, for those who have said, why if the Pistons kind of moves, I'd like to point out that he was a solid role player in Brooklyn. And while he has drastically improved as a three-point shooter, it really helps be playing next to Nicole Yokic. Really helps to be playing a lot of, you know, in a situation in which you are going to get a lot of open shots and you're freed up by having arguably the greatest offensive player in the league and without a doubt a center who can do things that no other center has ever been able to do. Real nice.

If you're that guy, if you're like, did that kind of role player like Bruce Brown playing next to the goal, you know, which doesn't really good season. But whatever the case, obviously the Pistons in terms of having the capacity to eventually, hopefully feel the team that can meaningfully compete or dress way ahead of where they were a few years ago.

You know, I think that goes without saying. And just in terms of where the rebuild stands, I think that's the stage, you know, like put it this way, the table has been set fairly well, or you can say the stage has been set fairly well in terms of accumulating young talents with, you know, with good ceilings. And it just comes down to now

how that talent will develop. And if we see the development we hope for, which I don't think is unrealistic from, you know, from Cade, from Ivy, from J. Land Duren. And the Pistons are, are able to really capitalize, hopefully they get good luck in the upcoming draft and are able to capitalize on and then just add another really good talent to the roster. And you see that good development from the players already on the team. And then you take some of the assets they have, or whenever, you know, wherever they get that first round pick back under their control and can trade future first.

And then hopefully you add another player on top. Then, you know, cool, maybe you have a contender in the picture at that point. Or maybe if you have Victor Wenam on the team, maybe you don't even need to add that third guy. So I guess what I'm saying, things do seem pretty bleak right now. but in terms of the rebuild as a whole, I think that things are in a decent place, very incomplete. You know, a lot still has to happen in terms of development kind of in the right way

and then maybe some other roster additions going the right way. And of course, draft lottery luck would help a lot in the upcoming summer. But I think that despite how bad things are right now, I'd say that the Pistons and that the rebuild is in a decent spot. And of course, I was going to say, you know, nothing to do with wait and watch. That's all we can do is fans. but I guess we say nothing to do but wait and watch and hope that that development cuts right. But it definitely has been a long road to this point already.

There's no denying that. All right. So there are a few other items I'd like to get to in the remainder of this episode. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. The NBA season is heating up and there's still so many unknowns. For example, who will meet in the finals? And at this point, I'm going to predict the Celtics and the Nuggets. If you're looking to get on any action, bet with drafting sportsbook and official sports betting part of the NBA.

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Minimum age and eligibility restrictions applies. So show notes for details. Okay, so item one, Marvin Bagley, whom we found out earlier today is going to miss a projected 60 weeks due to having broken a couple of his fingers against in the recent game against the port and trailblazes. So sad news for Bagley, for whom injuries have been a constant companion throughout his time in the NBA. He has missed a lot of time due to injury during his time since entering the NBA. And oddly enough, a lot of this has been due to hand injuries. I don't know if you can call somebody injury prone in the hands. I mean, that would be very novel.

But in his second season, he missed a ton of time with what's called a non-displaced fracture, which is to his right thumb. He injured it early on after only about, if I'm looking at it right now, 13 games. And he was set to make a comeback. And then the COVID shutdown happens, and then he hurt his foot, I believe, a lower body injury and wasn't able to play in the bubble in the king's very short appearance in the bubble. And then in the next season, he missed a significant amount of time with a fracture of his left hand. And now he's broken two fingers again in his right hand.

So injuries to both of his hands, which he has missed a lot of time. Maybe injury prone there somehow. Maybe just really bad fortune, whatever the case, he's out for a while. I spoke in last week's episode about my frustrations about how he's played so far. Bagley, has had a bad season so far. His stats may not look that bad. He's almost invariably worse than his stats, significantly worse. than his stats, in part because he's absolutely terrible on defense.

Excuse me. He, and again, this is something in whatever last week, he's really bad at drop coverage. He's made some improvements, but he's still really bad. He's an awful rim protector. And if you put him in a switching scheme, he's eventually going to make a mistake because his defensive IQ is rock bottom. Like, it's absolutely awful. He just does not seem to have that acumen.

And so he's really got to find his value on offense. And he is not finding his value on offense. He's a fairly capable score around the basket. He can do a little bit of creation. But he's not a guy who's shoveling the ball to him. He's just an overpowering score who is just going to be able to create around the basket at a high percentage. He's just nothing special in that respect. He's nothing particularly special in that respect.

And he's not a shooter either. He's shooting about 27%. He does not attempt many threes. He's averaging about 1.3 attempts per game. And he's hitting those at 27%. He was to say it's bad. He does not attack from the perimeter. I mean, he's not closed out.

on so he can hardly attack closeouts, but he's not attacking off the dribble, of course. He is a limited offensive player, and that's really where he has to find his value. Like I said last week, I think he also just needs to, I think that his ultimate position if he's going to find good value in the NBA is going to be a power forward, which will spare him the need to be a dedicated interior defender of any stripe, because I just don't think he's ever going to be able to do it or more to the point. I think he's going to continue to be horrible at it. But there was a moment against the Timberwolves that sticks out in mind, the game against

Timberwolves that sticks out to mind for me. And he actually had a decent game against Timberwolves. So the Timberwolves really just fell apart and our team that's horribly struggling at the moment. Whatever the case, he got the ball at the perimeter. And Rudy Gobert basically just sagged off and said, okay, go ahead and shoot. And that can't happen with Marvin Bagley. Marvin Bagley needs to be a dangerous offensive player. And it just really stuck in mind, I think, because it was Rudy Gobert, who can,

who is still an elite interior defender and you can really decrease the quality of his defense by, you know, if you have a center who can drag him out to the perimeter. and Marvin Bagley's playing center right now, just how it is, or has been playing center. I'll put it that way off the bench. But Gobert knew he didn't need to respect Bagley, and he just said shoot the ball, and Bagley did, and he missed. And he's just not a very good offensive player right now. He is a limited offensive player who is, you know, center who's a decent scorer.

He was a, you know, maybe above average score around the basket, can't stretch the floor, can do some like elementary creation from around the basket, but not from anywhere else. And it's horrible on defense. It's been a disappointing season, in my opinion, for Marvin Bagley. And, you know, sure, he's not being used like he was last year as just a persistent role man with Cabe, which was good for him. But even last season, he was not a positive value player. You know, there are plenty of guys who are able to be capable of op threats and just finish it a good percentage on easy opportunities created for them by others. And I mean, Bagley shot in the high 70s.

I think 78% of the restricted area last season. And if you can keep that up, that's excellent. But still, in that case, you're a guy who's just a very strong finisher. It does not really bring much else on offense at all. and is a horrible defender. And granted, he was playing a lot of center at that point. But I think it power forward probably the, he's less of a liability, though.

Again, if you put him in a situation in which he's got to, in which he's required to make the right reads and rotations and switches, it's likely he's going to be the eventual point of failure, point of failure in your defense. So he's just got to find good value on offense and he is not. So obviously, you know, it sucks that he's injured. I mean, that goes without saying, I don't really know where I was going with that, I suppose.

But it had been a disappointing season for him so far. The question is in terms of throughout the duration of his absence, which is, you know, six to eight weeks is a significant period of time. What does Dway and Casey do? When Marvin was absent recently for what I believe was just a couple of games due to a non-COVID illness, what Casey did was just push guys up the lineup, like Kamadu Diyalo found his way back in. because, you know, Kevin Knox and Sadiq Bay were playing up the lineup. And then Casey would, he would just take, I can't remember whom he took out first,

whether it was Duren or Stewart, and he would just stagger them for the rest of the half. I don't think that's likely to happen for the next 608 weeks. That's made for some seriously small lineups. And it's just not something I see Casey persistently doing, especially because I think he's really at this point trying to play Isaiah Stewart a power forward a lot. just for the sake of trying to see what can be unlocked in that capacity in terms of Isaiah's game. So I believe we're going to see some Nerlands-Nuel minutes. Nerlands has hardly played at all to such a degree that, you know, like when Bagley was out,

it's like, it was out earlier in the season. I mean, I guess Casey had not yet begun playing Stewart very much a power forward, but we kind of wonder what the situation is. You know, it's like, Noel has just been absence to a sort of strange degree. But I'd be surprised if we don't see a certain number of Noel minutes. Probably a somewhat significant number of Noel minutes for the foreseeable future. Or Dwayne Kayses, it just hates him, and we don't see him at all. One of the two.

Number two, Hamidu Diyah. So Hamadu has made a reappearance lately and, you know, has given the Pist in some decent minutes, just kind of as an energy guy. He's scored in double digits in four straight games. Well, the four straight games that he played, he got suspended. and in that game against Orlando, he was in Deviledage, and only 13 and 13 and a half minutes. So I believe that that leads back to the question.

It's like, can Hamadu Diello be a positive value player, like a solid rotation player for you can't shoot. And if you've been listening to a show for a while, you know that I like Hamadu. I feel like he could be a really good player. If he could shoot, he can't shoot. And so I think the answer is no. I think it's more of just kind of like a, you know,

Hamadu can be a solid player. You know, a solid option on a bad team who doesn't have, like a player who doesn't have a glare. deficiency like that to play instead of him. I know I'm sort of a broken record about this, but of course, not being able to shoot the ball as a perimeter player is a massive, massive, massive weakness, and it's generally a career killer these days in the NBA. You can't shoot threes. Number one, you can't shoot threes, and that's a super efficient shot to take. Open threes are very efficient shots. Number two, you cannot participate. You're not a four spacer.

You cannot help the space the floor. You want to space the four in order to create opportunities for people to, for teammates to attack the basket, and defenders are not going to respect you. And number three, you make life more difficult on everybody else, you know, and that's kind of a continuation on point number two there. Guys are defenders are free to and will simply sag off of you

and clog up the interior. That just eliminates driving lanes for everybody else. And this brings to mind for me a play of Hamadoos in the recent game against the magic before he get ejected. Actually, very similar to the play. I just went over between Rudy Gobert and Marvin Bagley, Dielo had the ball at the top of the three-point line.

He was being guarded, I believe, as a result of a switch by, or maybe not, I can't remember. But he was being guarded by Bull Bull, who saw Hamadu, recognized him as a non-shooter, and just planted himself about 10 feet inside the three-point line. Because he knew that Hamadu was unlikely to shoot the ball. If he was going to shoot the ball, he was very, very likely to miss. And so he just decided to position himself to take away the drive, which is, you know, rightly what he judged would be really the only thing that Hamadu would be able to do well in that situation. And in doing so, he also helped to clog up a lot of space in the interior. But also,

Hamadu is pretty much just helpless. It's like, you can't shoot the ball. And Bull Bowl is, has positioned himself very well to stop the drive. So there's nothing you can do, but just get rid of the ball. You all know how I feel about Hamadu. If he were a shooter, I think you could score in the mid to high teens and points per game. If you could just do that, to be the energizer bunny on both ends, then I think you'd be a very valuable player. And that his energy, and his athleticism could go a substantial way toward making up for what is kind of below average defensive IQ. But he can't shoot.

And as I've said, though, it makes me sad to say it. I think that at this point, he's unlikely to become a shooter anytime soon. And I think he's likely to be off the team at the end of the season when his contract includes. And finally, Killian Hayes, who was suspended for three games. So suspensions now over. He'll be back for Wednesday's game against the Warriors, but was suspended for his part in the scuffle that resulted from Mo Wagner shoving him into the crowd. My thoughts on that, I just want to share my thoughts on that, rather.

What Wagner did was dirty, of course, and dangerous. And as I understand it, he has a bit of a history of being a weasel like that. That said, I believe that Killian's response was not exactly ideal. Standing up for himself, you know, fine, absolutely, do that. I mean, I think there are situations in which it's best to not do that. Because if you can get the other guy ejected, I mean, just the other guy is going to be ejected, and you just kind of keep your cool and don't do anything,

and then you are able to continue playing. But, you know, if it were merely standing out for himself, fine. The way that he went about it, I think, was less than ideal. I don't subscribe to the notion that he, you know, willfully just aimed this, this targeted punch at the back of Wagner's head. I think you watch it. It's, in my opinion, pretty clear that this was just a wild forearm thrown by somebody who completely lost his temper.

Nonetheless, it's still pretty dangerous to hit somebody who's back his turns in that area of the body. I think that's not ideal. I think it happened because Killian completely lost it. I think that was the wrong thing to do. I think it would be a growing experience for him and that he won't lose his temper like that again. So not faulting the guy for standing up for himself and what Wagner did was definitely dirty.

But I think the way that he went about it was not great and that the suspension was warranted. It was only three games. So like I said, just wanted to get across my thoughts about that. All right, folks, so that'll be it for today's episode. next episode will be a mid-season review. Just talk about season storylines, how this season has gone versus pre-season expectations,

and give grades for each player. I would love it if you follow the show on Twitter. It's at to the BasketPod. Always love to hear from me on there. And as always, thank you for listening. Catch you in next week's episode.