Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 138: Almost There

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

This episode (posted later in the week due to sickness, then re-posted due to hosting issues) discusses the misery of watching the Pistons down the stretch of this season, speaks on the unlikely possibility of a future Duren - Wiseman duo in the frontcourt, analyzes Isaiah Stewart's season performance at power forward, and expands on whether or not Wiseman and Bagley are both likely to be on the roster next season.   (This was originally posted on Sunday, then re-uploaded on Monday). 

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to another episode of Drive Into the Basket No longer part of the basketball podcast network. Yeah, sadly, TBPN decided on the 31st to close its door as effective immediately. I've been with the network for about two years since June of 2021. And I had a good experience with TBPN. And in case any of the employees that are listening, want to thank the network for allowing me and my former co-host, Dante and Tommy, to get paid for doing a passion project that all of us would have done for free. So I wish all the best to the folks over at TBPN and hope you all land on your feet.

All right, moving on, for those of you who didn't see my post on the podcast Twitter accounts, that is rarely active because I don't know. I just don't really like social media all that much. I always think to myself, you know, I'm going to produce good content for the listeners on there. And it's always in the back of my minds. and I'll try to get to it.

Whatever the case, for those of you didn't see what I said on there, I was very sick earlier in the week. By the time Wednesday, excuse me, Tuesday rolled around, which is usually when I would record since I post on Wednesday mornings. I was still sounding a little bit too much like the Godfather for my liking. And it would have just been difficult to talk for that amount of time. In any case, I just decided to put it off. So that's why I'm posting an episode on the Sunday night, and I'm going to post on the usual day this coming Wednesday as well. So I'm recording this after the loss against the magic. That was game number 78.

So here is where the Pistons stand in terms of the standings. The Spurs pulled out a win against the Kings tonight. So they are at 20 wins with four games remaining. The Pistons are four games behind them. There are three games behind the Rockets, who also have four games remaining. There are no record-related tiebreakers in terms of the lottery. If you have the same record as another team, then it's basically just a coin flip. So at this point, if the Pistons lose two more games, they guarantee themselves the worst record in the league.

Of course, that's not what any of us wanted going into the season. However, it does guarantee that they will not fall past pick number five. That is not really of the greatest comfort in this draft, unfortunately, because it's really a top two draft, top three for really Brian and Brandon Miller. And it's a little disappointing. Going into this year, it was thought that this was going to be a very strong draft, a very deep draft in the top 10. And unfortunately, it just has not really turned out to be the case.

Of course, you've got Victor Wenamma, who could be a spectacular player, Scoot Henderson's ceiling, I think, very highly. of Brandon Miller, you know, maybe he could turn out to be very good player. And I'm sure that, you know, you'll always have other players in the lottery and elsewhere in the first round turn out to be very good players. But this isn't really a draft to be super excited about outside of, in my opinion, the top two, maybe, I don't know, Brandon Miller, we'll talk about him when I do my draft preview episodes. Whatever the case, this season has turned into basketball misery. All of us know it. It has been very, very bad. The Pistons were rebuilding at the end of the 2019,

2020 season they get interrupted by COVID. Back then, okay, well, Pistons are trying to lose. Let's have fun with it. 2020, 2021 season, okay? Pistons trying to lose. Let's have fun with it. You know, they're doing the right thing. And, you know, at least it's a mildly entertaining.

It's an entertaining product at least 2021, 2022. Okay, the Pistons, you know, it's a somewhat entertaining product. You know, we've at least got K'd down the stretch. And in this season, it's just, I mean, the whole season has been a little bit miserable because it's been a dysfunctional team, excuse me, a dysfunctional roster from day one, for a variety of factors, not dysfunctional as in team behavior or locker room, just on-court product. And when Kate Cunningham, I mean, he came in, he wasn't really playing great, but he was at an absolutely essential part of this roster having any hope of really, I wouldn't say, succeeding,

but not being bad. And then when he went out, I mean, it's been incredibly ugly ever since. But, I mean, the roster just constructed as it was, was never going to be able to play defense, for example, and had a better shot at having a less than gruesomely bad offense. But then Gabe went down, Sadiege Bay self-destructed, and here we are. But you couple that's going down the stretch. And the organization, I would say, is doing the right thing and trying not to win games,

like actually trying to lose games in terms of, say, keeping Alec Berks out and keeping Blamogdanovich out. And even with Isaiah Stewart, I would imagine it's more of a matter of we just want to be careful. there's no reason to rush the guy back because in the last two seasons, Weaver and Casey have never kept young players out unless there was a good reason to do so, except for that one game against the Thunder last year when Cade and Bay played like seven minutes, seven, eight minutes apiece. You know, that was a tank bowl. They really wanted to lose that game. But on the whole, there has been no just keeping young players out who might have minor nagging injuries just for the sake of losing games. They've always had those young players in there. But yeah, now in this situation, I mean, the roster had major problems

in the first place in the first place, period. I mean, in this situation. I mean, I had major problems in the first place, period, because there was no hope it was ever going to be able to play defense, for example. But, you know, now here we are with Berks out, with Bogdanovich out, with Stewart out, Stewart, you know, Berks and Bogdanovich have been the two best scores in the team this season, like, period, bar none. And Isaiah Stewart is at least a positive value player, who provides some stabilization on defense. And what are you left with here? I mean, you are essentially, like, you look at tonight's roster, who are you playing? I mean, I'm just going to preface this by saying, basically, you know, before I get into it further, don't.

Don't feel bad. I hate to put it this way. I say this is somebody who tries to watch every minute of every game. Don't feel bad if you're feeling a little bit fatigued this year. Okay. You know, especially, I mean, you look back, I'm sure there are many of us who were, you know, who are watching, if we go back, you know, year by year, like 2019, all those years, all those 2019, all those years, all those things, all those years, all those last two years, you know, all those people who are going back to the era of the era, and the Pistons were just trying to compete with teams that had no hope of doing it. And like, during the Van Gundy years, those last two years when it was just incredibly frustrating. And, you know, people who are going back to the era of the era. of late-stage Dumars, who for his last five or so seasons, you know, from like 2008 to 2013, was possibly the worst GM in the league. And I mean, I got back to the Pistons at the end of 2014. I did not have to watch the 2013-2014 season in which they feel that a roster of Brandon Jennings. And Jennings, all right, I always love the guy for what he did, you know, growing into the leader that he was during that like 15-game span after Josh Smith was waived. on the whole, Brandon Jennings was a no-defense chucker,

the most part with the Pistons, aside from those, like, I don't know, what was it, like a month, maybe? Something like five weeks, I guess. He was pretty bad for the Pistons. So Jennings, who was never going to be an efficient score, you had KCP, who was a rookie and not reliable, and then you had the worst front court assembled, and the most bizarre front court assembled in, like, the last however many years,

in the NBA, which is Josh Smith, Greg Monroe, and Andre Drummond, all of whom operate in the interior and on whom we could shoot. Cool. So if you sat through that season, then, you know, I applaud you. That's some serious loyalty. I don't really know where I'm going with this. So back to the beginning, it has been a brutal, like last couple of months, like really, really brutal that the end to this season has been more grinding for me than any season I've ever watched before. That includes 2016, 2017, when, well, this one has been more grinding than that. That was more unpleasant. You know, for those of you who remember everything that went wrong in that season,

man, it was ugly. But, you know, the last six weeks, yeah, it's just been an absolute grind. And I'm really, really sorry to say this. And this is the first time I've ever felt this way since I started watching the Pistons again. So these more than eight years at this point, I'm kind of looking forward to the season being over. Once the season is over, I'm not going to be too happy because it's five and a half weeks of the lottery. And there's another five and a half weeks of the draft. It's going to be a long time.

long, long time. And even for the Pistons to see where they are going to fall on draft nights, which could be a very, very good night for us or a very, very bad night for us. But, yeah, you look at the product that we watch tonight. And I'll go back to saying that, yes, it makes sense to lose at this point. I'm just talking about why this has been so miserable. Like, there's this little little part of me that, you know, that over the last week or so has thought, like, man, you know, I'm pining back to the days when, you know, I could watch and, you know, the Pistons were going to pull out a win. I don't actually feel that way. It's just the fatigue talking. I mean, those years in which the Pistons were just in the middle trying to just make the

playoffs and be like number seven or number eight, number eight seed with a team that had very little upside. We're not exciting. I mean, there was a very short time when we felt like the Pistons had upside, like after that competitive sweep against the calves, but that lasted for about an offseason until the season itself almost immediately went wrong. Whatever. So just to just a joke around a bit, or this isn't really a joke. This is more like just, I don't know, dark humor, whatever it is. I mean, you look at the roster, and just to get across, you know, why these games are so miserable, beyond the fact that this is losing, which we become accustomed to. Tonight's game, the roster was Jaden Ivy, who's been fun to watch.

Corey Joseph, well, maintained, is a fairly good third-string point card in the league. And after him, Kaelian Hay is the worst score in the league. Jalen Duren, the youngest player in the league, still very raw, a second round pick, Isaiah Livers, who has not really gotten to play much in the NBA. A fringe NBA player in Eugene Omeliori. Okay, got his name right, finally. a two-way player, Roden, and then three reclamation projects, Hampton, Wiseman, Bagley. So, it was going to be ugly, and it was ugly.

And, you know, even if you look at the starting lineup, like, you've got a Jaden Ivy, again, fun to watch. Killian Hayes, endlessly frustrating. I mean, I would feel a lot better about the guy if he would just, like, all of his teammates do, agreed to drive into the interior, accept contact, rather than pathologically avoiding it. Like I saw Corey Joseph, I think this was against the thunder. There was this play in which he just barreled right up the middle and tried to get up, switch hands, scoop lay up and got fouled. And I thought, man, and we saw it from the replay from the angle behind the basket.

So you see him coming right at you, just barreling toward the basket. And I'm like, why haven't we ever seen that from Killian? It's like, oh yeah, that's right, because Killian has never barreled up the middle, ever. I mean, it's these things like with Killian. I've said it before. I'll say it again. The guy has his struggles. Okay, fine.

yeah, he's a bad shooter. And that's a problem. He has to fix that. You know, for example, that's a big problem. He has other problems. One problem that is 100% fully within his control, drive into contact. Do not pathologically avoid contact to the point where, well, A, nobody respects you as a driver. B, you're never actually going to penetrate the basketball regardless.

And that's why they don't respect you because they know you're not even going to try. C, you're denying yourself high percentage offense at the rim and at the free throw line. You know, D, you're resorting to what is and what has. been for him a really, really inefficient shot diets of mid-range pull-ups and floaters on which he has shot poorly. That has been the vast majority of his shots this season. So yeah, we're watching that. We're watching him brick-umpteen shots. You get to watch Bagley and Wiseman, who have many of the same problems, both guys who can't really shoot, don't really pass, can't really play defense, and play the exact same way on offense. So if you're playing them together, one of them

is doing his thing. It may or may not be doing it well. And the other one's just all. on the periphery and on defense they're a complete catastrophe so that's that's a lot of fun to watch the two of them and i feel like i'm getting into rant territory here so i'm going to stop but if you've been watching the pistons to this point if you've been continuing to stick with them give yourself a pat in the back and we'll all just hope together the next season is going to be a lot more enjoyable this is about as bad as it gets these last you know these last six weeks or so are about as bad as it gets so lately episodes have just been a general potpoury of subjects and this is going to be no exception I'm just going to cover a variety of subjects here.

So I'll start with one. I've seen some questions about Wiseman and Duren. So Troy Weaver picked, after he picked up, Wiseman talked about these teams with a lot of size in the front court and how he wants to emulate that. And something I've seen discussed, you know, can Wiseman and Duren be that sort of really sizable, effective front court that some other teams have? And I'm going to say, in terms of, do the two of them have a future as an effective pairing in the NBA? I'm going to say I would be, sadly, shocked. So you look at the two of them on offense. All right?

Both of them are, they have a lot of overlap in terms of strengths. For one, they are both at their strongest by far in the interior, close to the basket, running on the pick and roll, just finishing for other players. So what do you do in that situation? You can't run them both there because, I mean, again, inevitably, you're going to get much less out of one of them. And you're also going to clog the interior. That's a no-no.

You don't want to do that. So let's say Wiseman becomes able to shoot. There's some upside there and really he's got to be able to do it if really wants to be a valuable player unless he makes enormous strides on defense. But I mean, if he makes big strides on defense and still can't shoot, then he's still probably a backup caliber starter. Excuse me a backup caliber player and not a starter. Whatever the case.

Let's say he becomes able to shoot. Well, you put him out to the perimeter and you're wasting then a great deal of what he would potentially have to offer because, again, a great deal of his effectiveness is around the basket and the pick and roll. Even if Duren can shoot, there's very, very little. sense to kicking him out to the perimeter because he's a strong offensive rebounder. But in any event, so in that case, with Wiseman, you're just basically playing him from the perimeter. He's a player who doesn't have a lot of mobility. He's not really going to be beating

guys off the ball. In that situation, you are better off just playing somebody who is more suited to perform at power forward on offense, somebody who is more mobile, somebody who is going to be able to offer more for whom it's not. We're just kicking you out to the perimeter here so that we can play you with Jalen Duren and largely what you're going to do is shoot threes. There are other guys who are going to be better able to do that. Wiseman is not very well suited to power forward at all in terms of mobility on either end. His mobility is good for center for power forward, below average. So in what situation does that become worthwhile to give up that potency on offense, you know, to pay that opportunity cost of fielding Wiseman there instead of somebody who is more valuable.

Again, this is if Wiseman can shoot. So this is hypothetical situation. Well, it would be worth that there are a couple factors that would come into it. Number one, just having a couple really, really strong creators in the starting lineup, that's helpful, of course. And I'm thinking at Cleveland at this point, and I'll get to that comparison later very shortly. But your bigger thing is if these were two dominant defenders, then you pay that cost to a degree on offense. And again, having those super, you know, having those stark creators in the starting lineup is going to matter even there because you are paying a cost on offense. But Duran, I think he'll get there as a defender. And I feel fairly confident that the mistakes, and he's made, he makes a lot of mistakes on defense,

and he's not really been all that great at contesting shots. He gets there, but he's not great at contesting them, and doesn't necessarily use his length as well as he could. And I feel fairly confident that that's because of Ronis, rather than due to just the lack of IQ. With Wiseman, it is anybody's guess, and he's starting from a frighteningly low place as a defender. So I think the prospect of the two of them becoming elite defenders, I think Duren could get there. I'd be shocked if Weissman did, be happy if he just became, you know, an average defender. So I don't say the two of them getting there, but in any event, you know, one duo, of course, that is constantly brought up, and this is an extremely effective defensive duo, is Mowgli and Allen for the

Cavaliers. Now they are both genuinely very, very good defenders. Now, there of them can shoot. On most teams, that would be a very big issue, but fortunately for the Cavs, they have two superstar creators at Guard and Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell. which helps to ameliorate that. Otherwise, it would be a big issue that both of them can't shoot. But again, in the first place, those are two excellent defenders playing together. And, of course, Mobley is perfectly well-suited from a mobility standpoint to be playing at power forward. So I guess I'm going down this line because Weaver made that comment about size in the front court. So you look at Cleveland. I mean, they're a notable example. And that's why the two of them work.

And who else is there? There's Brooke Lopez and Janice and Tadacompo. Janus, of course, is one of the greatest interior health defenders of all time in the NBA. And Brooke Lopez himself, I mean, is a very strong drop defender, not some great as a switch defender, but a very strong drop defender. Brooke is there on offense basically to space the floor for Janus. Yannis is an initiator. It's blank and power forward. Needs the center who can space the floor. That's what Brooke is there for.

That's what Portis is there for. But that's a very different situation, too. I mean, you have Janus, who is Janus, of course, who makes this a different situation in the first place. And who else do we have Horford and Williams? So Horford had some issues on defense last year, actually. I mean, so this size in the starting lineup, I mean, Horford's not like a super big guy. I don't know either is Williams. I believe Horford's like 610 and Williams is 69.

So I don't think we're even talking in that situation. I don't think that's a reference being made to it. And who else is there, like, you know, Yokic and Michael Porter Jr. And Michael Porter Jr. is very much a forward. This isn't like a situation in which you're playing like two bigs together there. MPJ is very much a perimeter player. who is every bit, the archetype of a forward. Same thing with, let's say, Franz Wagner and Wendell Carter Jr.

Again, Wagner, very much forward there. You're not playing two bigs together. And who else? Like Carl Anthony Towns and Gobert? I mean, who knows how well that's going to work. But, yeah, so it's a strange sentiment. You know, there's size in the front court, and then there's sort of makes sense size in the front court,

players who make sense. And I'm not sure if we'll really ever see Duren and Wiseman effectively play together. You know, it has to make sense to play them together. I think the likeliest outcome is Wiseman, he and Wiseman forming a rotation, and that's assuming that both of them work out. A traditional big, like Duren, ideally you don't want to be playing him like 30 plus minutes a night, so that still leaves a significant amount of minutes for Wiseman,

assuming everything pans out. Or your best case scenario, best case likely scenario, you know, excuse me, best case scenario in terms of likely scenarios, and I'm using that to distinguish between, like the best case scenario, it would of course be the two of them forming like this great duo in the interior. I think the likely best case scenario, and I'm not saying that this is necessarily likely, but would be that you have to trade one of them because they're both starting caliber centers. Is that likely happen? Who knows? It's just absolutely an utterly, no way to tell at this point. We're just hoping when it comes to Wiseman that, again,

his issues are just for honest, rather than him just having horrible IQ on both ends. Because right now he has a terrible decision maker on both ends of the fore. moving on. So this year was the Isaiah Stewart Power Forward experiment. And I'll say it like I always do. You know, I love Isaiah Stewart as a basketball player in terms of his mentality and his work ethic and his team first focus and so on and so forth. I mean, the guy will never take a moment off on the court. He'll do exactly what his team asks of him, period. And he's a leader. He sets the tone. He's by all accounts great in the locker room. You know, fantastic. And in situations, and, you know, he certainly has his strengths on the court as well. And this was a year in which, you know, Durham was around.

And, you know, Bagley was kind of around. Whatever the case, Isaiah had played almost all of his minutes at center in his first two seasons. They decided we're going to see what he has to offer a power forward. And if you had to ask me, do I consider this year to have been a success at all for Isaiah Stewart as a power forward? I would say no, unequivocally no. And I would say, and I believe this, that Isaiah Stewart doesn't. not have much to offer power forward.

Like, I understand the inclination to think, like, you know, he's undersized for a center. You know, we've got these centers in the team. It'd be great if he could play power forward. But Isaiah, for some of the same reasons, he can struggle in some situations. The center, I would say, just has very little to offer that power forward. Just this skill set does not lend itself well at all to the position. So here's where Isaiah Stewart is as a center. So as a center, he is in most situations a strong defensive anchor.

like those situations being he's not surrounded by terrible defenders like he was this season. So as long as he's got reasonably decent perimeter defenders who aren't giving up penetration constantly, then hey, you know, he's a strong interior defender. He's a strong rim protector. He's a strong pain protector. And he's a strong switch defender. I mean, he's altogether just all around a strong defender with only a couple of weaknesses. Well, I'll say three weaknesses.

You know, one of which is he's terrible lob defense because he's undersized and can't really jump. There are some matchups in which his opponent can just rebound and score over him, you know, when he's up against centers who are both tall and much more athletic than he is. And finally, if somebody gets past him, he can't really play recovery defense. But fortunately, in most situations, again, like his first two seasons, he doesn't have to play recovery defense because he can be in the right spot. Now, the times in which he struggles are like this season, in which his perimeter defenders just cannot stop anybody, period, because Stewart is not very most. mobile and he's not a good weeper. If you force him to reposition before he contests, you know, if he has to just dash from one area to the floor to the other and then contest, he's not going to contest well because he's not going to be able to get there and jump both.

So opponents can simply score over him. You know, it doesn't matter guards, centers, whoever it is. I mean, generally, there are going to be guards or forwards who are making that penetration. Then they just score over him because he's there, but he can't jump in time to contest a shot. That said, the vast majority of situations, he's not going to be playing with a bunch of horrendous perimeter defenders. So yeah, he's a strong defender. And in this kind of defender you can use in any situation in the playoffs because he's what I've hit the term I coin for for defenders like him. There are no variance defenders, which is basically whether you're playing them in drop coverage or in switch coverage, they're not, there's going to be very, very little difference in the quality

of the defense they can play. I mean, Isaiah is a great switch defender. You force somebody, you make him defend somebody from the perimeter on in. He can do a great job against some very good players. And that's not the case for all, you know, for all centers. I mean, but for most centers, for the vast majority of centers, Rudy-Oberra, for example, you know, is the most infamous example lately. I mean, game-changing, absolutely, you know, without any equivocation, call the guy game-changing interior defender. You know, call him the stifle tower for nothing. He can absolutely change the character of an interior defense, one of the greatest of all time in that respect. However, you bring him out to the perimeter. He's no longer that great. He's not a liability, but you're losing

a lot of his defensive potency if he's made to defend on the perimeter, and Isaiah Stewart is not. So by all means, again, in normal situations, a very strong interior defender. On offense, things yet worse because he's undersized and because he's a poor leaper, can't play above the rim, you know, scores below the room, can't really catch lobs. He's a bad pick and roll center. I mean, just bad. His hands aren't that good either, but yeah, he can't vertically space the floor. he has to score from below the basket,

and that's just that's a major disadvantage scoring below the basket, no matter who you are as the center. If you want to compensate for that, your touch has to be very good, his touch is more just average. So you really struggle to find value on offense.

Now, if you can shoot threes, that makes, you know, still he's incomplete, and you want Cade to have a guy you can run the pick and roll with, ideally, Jaden Ivy as well, but Cade's really a guy who lives in the high pick and roll.

But if he can shoot at least and you can feel four shooters around Cade, and if hopefully Cade himself can shoot, then you can display a really spread system that gives you options too. And in the postseason, I mean, you could run out Isaiah Stewart and, I mean, you look at what the Mavericks did against both the Sons, especially the Jazz, but also against the Sons. I mean, if Isaiah Stewart can hit his three at a high percentage and he can just be a much, much better defending version of Maxie Cleaver, then great, that's a valuable playoff player.

And I've probably said this, I probably told this story before, but watching game seven, I mean, that game in which the Mavericks absolutely annihilated the Sons, just watching them completely eviscerate the sons on switches. I was thinking, man, I mean, this would be a good time for the sons to just have Isaiah Stewart out there because you can't. I mean, this was Luca, chiefly. And we've seen Luca try to switch against Isaiah Stewart. It doesn't work. We've seen Tray Young do it. We've seen a lot of players do it. I mean, Isaiah is an excellent switch defender. So you're moving to power forward. You're really accentuating his weaknesses on defense while minimizing his strengths. Isaiah does not have very good foot speed, you know, in terms of on the run,

his foot speed is not good. If you force him to cover ground in the interior, for example, he's going to get there late. Same sort of thing you saw with El Horford against the Warriors. They forced him to cover a lot of ground in the interior on the run, and he ended up behind. So while he's playing like the primary interior defender from center, this is not an issue. And power forward, it is an issue. Chasing guys around the perimeter. Also an issue because, again, he's just, he's going to be considerably slower than the average player he's chasing around. At the same time, you also lose the benefit of his interior defense in which he is the primary defensive anchor. So that really playing him at defense, excuse me, at center on defense really helps to maximize his strengths while minimizing his weaknesses.

And power forward does the opposite. You're losing the benefit of that interior defense. And you're forcing him to cover ground. And you're also forcing him to try to play weak side help defense, which you can't do. You know, even if he gets there in time, Isaiah Stewart is not a guy who's going to be flying out of nowhere to block shots because he's a really poor leaper, undersized and a poor leaper. and that it's assuming he's going to get there in the first place, which is unlikely because, again, he's quite slow in terms of running speed. So you're really wasting his defensive potential,

just really wasting what he can offer on defensive center, and you're just accentuating his weaknesses in terms of poor leaping and poor foot speed. Meanwhile, on offense, I mean, he can't really, I mean, he's obviously not going to be beating opponents off the ball. He doesn't have very good handle. I mean, he's basically just limited to shooting wide open catch and shoot threes, And that's not a lot. I mean, there's a significant opportunity cost to that.

And I know I've seen it brought up, you know, PJ Tucker does that. Okay, well, I mean, PJ Tucker is, you know, one of the kings of the corner three, but whereas Isaiah is still as a three-point shooter. And I think he'll get there, so we can leave that aside. But PJ Tucker is a strong defender of power forward. And the reason PJ Tucker doesn't really take many shots is that he chronically, I don't say chronically, it's a funny way of putting it, constantly plays like next to superstar teammates and offenses that really,

just shunt him into a minor role where he's just there to space the floor from the corners. And if he has to shoot, then he shoots. And space the floor, he can. Again, he is one of the best corner three-point shooters in the league on a perennial basis. Whatever the case, P.J. Tucker is also just much, much, much, much better suited to defend the position. I feel like I need to stress this that Isaiah Stewart is not mobile. At power forward, he is significantly below average in terms of mobility. and PJ Tucker, though it may look different in terms of like, oh, here's a guy in his mid-30s,

who's not super athletic either. He is significantly more mobile on the run than Isaiah Stewart is. So you have Stewart who's not really providing very good defense at Power Forward, and also on offense is very limited in what he can offer. And so do I see Isaiah Stewart as like a long-term successful player Power Forward? I don't think it's his ideal position by any means. And I'd be shocked if you were able to, if you were able to, like, happily. you know, happily surprised. If you were able to make it work, like, as a starter, yeah, I'd be shocked there. I don't think he can do that.

But even as a backup, I think he's likely to be kind of a versatile. I think he's going to play most of his minutes at center. But he has to be able to shoot, like, period. No matter where he's playing, he's going to have to shoot because it's an interior score, he just doesn't really have it. And I've seen the Horford comparison brought up, probably because Horford really isn't the quickest guy either. And he played basically power forward with the Celtics who made it.

to the championship last season. Horford, again, like I mentioned, had his issues on defense. The Warriors would just make him run in the interior, and he's not fast enough for that anymore. But Horford is also, I mean, Al Horford is such a smart player. I mean, Horford is one of the smartest players in the best basketball league in the world. And he's very, very versatile, much more versatile than Isaiah. He's more athletic than Isaiah. I don't remember how old Horford is mid-30s. He's more than 10 years older than Isaiah, I'm quite sure. And he's still more athletic, they got a better leaper faster. But I hate to put it this way, but Isaiah, I mean, he said that he wanted to try to model his game after Horford's. And that's the same as me saying,

I'd like to model my, you know, theoretical physics game after Albert Einstein's. I mean, not everybody has genius level IQ. And Horford has basically genius level IQ in terms of basketball. And Isaiah does not, nor do I have Einstein level IQ in terms of theoretical physics. So it just doesn't really work that way. And so I just count that comparison as not really having much water, holding much water, rather, the only way in which it would be, really the only comparison is that Isaiah is playing at power forward and kind of like a sort of too big system, you know, like Horford is and that they're both not particularly quick on their feet. It's just that Horford is more, I'd say that they're probably both fairly equal as interior defend. Well,

Boston played an interesting system in terms of who was actually doing. in the interior defense in the playoffs last season. But Horford just does so much more to offer on offense than Isaiah does, like so much more. All right, let's circle back to another couple of bigs. And I guess that is really just defining the character of this episode at this point. We're going to talk about Wiseman again, and we're going to talk about bagley. And no, I'm not going to talk about how they overlap. I'm going to talk about because I've seen this asked as well, which one of them stays in the team next season

because it's just, it's hideously ugly. I mean, we can't, just you can't play the two of them together, especially if the Pistons are talking about hopefully winning more games next season, you cannot play the two of them together, period. I mean, there's the offensive overlap, the defensive struggles, it just can't happen. Even if one of them really learns to be a good shooter, it just can't happen. So I think we can say with a high degree of certainty that James Wiseman, who is just recently acquired this year, is going to be on the team next season. You know, for better or worse, Troy Weaver seems to be pretty bullish on the guy.

It's been said that he was number one on Weaver's draft board in 2020, which, depending on where Wiseman's career goes could end up being kind of a scary piece of history or a scary reflection upon Troy Weaver as a draft talent evaluator. So it would have to be Bagley who would be moved and now is there a realistic possibility of Bagley being moved. So there are a couple of factors here. Number one to the Pistons still want to see what they have in him. And I would actually take the trade for Wiseman as kind of an indictment along those lines. Do I think Bagley isn't really improved this year? No. No, I don't. The guy is still a terrifically bad defense. He's made some strides as a drop defender, but for the most part is just still an absolutely

horrible defense. You know, you don't want to be playing this guy. As your primary interior defender, you know, you don't want to be playing him as your defensive anchor. I mean, he's just, he's so bad. It takes a certain amount of acumen in terms of the ability to make the right reads and decisions on a lightning fast basis against the best players in the world to play, you know, to play center on defense, even more so than in other positions.

And Bagley doesn't have it. I mean, he just absolutely cannot play there. If you play him there, you are basically asking for opponents to target him and destroy him. And as a power, you know, defending a power forward, I mean, he's not quite as bad because he doesn't have to make his many decisions, but his rotations are terrible. His awareness is terrible. I mean, his awareness is terrible at center and no matter where he's defending. And if you put him through a bunch of switches, where he has to just rotate a bunch of times,

he's going to screw up eventually. So on defense, he is still pretty much a nightmare, are very, very bad. and that consumes a lot of its potential value. And on offense, he really hasn't done a ton to improve that either. He's had some big games in terms of points for the Pistons recently. But he's pretty much a one-trick pony in terms of his ability to score. Well, got him a two-trick pony, whatever. He can do some face-up attacking.

And, you know, aside from that, I mean, he's a fairly talented. I mean, nothing special but talented interior to score around the basket. I mean, it's fairly solid on the role. We haven't seen him catch many wives because Dwayne Casey hates vertical spacing. But, you know, I feel like with Cade, Cade kind of just is one of those rare young players. Case he just let do whatever he wanted. So Bagley got to play a ton of the pick and roll alongside Cade. Though, you know, even last season, I've said this before, I don't know why I constantly qualify that.

But Bagley last season, I mean, he did, he put up a lot of points last season alongside Cade. He was still a negative value player because, again, he's very, very limited. He's quite limited on offense. And he's terrible on defense. So what's disappointing for me is that Bagley, for example, one thing that is a note ifs, ands, or buts, improvement he needs to make to his game period as he needs to become a reliable perimeter shooter, and he seems to have made absolutely no efforts to actually make that happen. Now, he's still a somewhat unwilling shooter who has a really flawed form and by no means

at all whatsoever a soft touch on his three. He's just not a good shooter still. If he's actually going to provide value, he needs to become, like, a worse, below average defender. I don't know if get there and he needs to provide a lot of value on offense. And included amongst that has to be that he's a genuinely good and willing three-point shooter, not just a guy who has to be in the interior to do his damage. And ideally, you know, adds him attacking off the dribble somehow too from the perimeter, which you can't do. Also hates passing. So this is all to say that, you know, Bagley, like if you're the team like the pistons where your best scores are out and you don't really have much else in the way of options, then sure, let him in and you're trying to lose,

when I'm in and have him score some empty points. Well, put up some empty stats. I put it that way. I mean, points are points, but put up some empty stats. In terms of his actual trade value for other teams, I would guess that it remains negative at this point because he's got two more years at $12.5 million apiece. That was a puzzling contract for me.

The Pistons were essentially bidding against themselves because there was a very small number of teams with Capspace. The teams with Capspace were not going to give Marvin Bagley. They just really had absolutely no reason to do so. And the teams that did not have cap space, none of them was going to use the phone non-taxpayer MLA on Marvin Bagley because he's just not. I mean, those are teams that are trying to win in Marvin Bagley at that point was not, and continues to not be a winning player.

And I figured he would get like eight million a year on a two plus one, you know, on a two years plus team option. Instead, Troy Weaver gave him a lot more than that in three guaranteed years. It was kind of puzzling to me. Is it like a crippling contract? No. but it is a contract that definitely gives him more negative trade value. And, you know, people know around the league who Marvin Bagley is at this point.

And he's not a winning player. You're not just going to be able to dump him. Cap space is cap space. You know, teams and 12 and a half million is still a significant amount of cap space in terms of teams' willingness to take on that contract. So if he is gone, I mean, there's always the possibility that if the pistons are, you know, goodness forbid, number four, number five in the draft water, and they can trade that for a good player.

Then Marvin Bagley is salary fodder. He'll still be a negative value asset in the trade, but then he's salary fodder, and then maybe he's gone. Aside from that, he could get a little weird next year. And oh, if the Pistons get to draft first overall, which would really make this a mood issue. And who knows where Bagley goes at that point, I'd say he is the odd man out in any situation

that requires somebody to be the odd man out, because Darn is not going anywhere for obvious reasons. Isaiah Stewart is not going anywhere. And Wiseman was just brought on, and he's going to be kept over Bagley if it comes down to, you know, if all other things are equal. And Wiseman himself doesn't really have trade value either. More than Bagley, because, well, let me put it differently. Wiseman has very, very little trade value.

But as opposed to Bagley, people can still look at him and say maybe he's just raw. He didn't play in college. He does not get into play much in the NBA. And, you know, maybe he's just raw and things will improve in terms of his weaknesses in the area of decision-making if he gets more time in the NBA. Whereas Bagley, always been an awful defender. and at this stage, even when he's healthy, I mean, people know what he is. And what he is is not a winning basketball player at this stage.

He's got a long way to go. And I just have very little hope at this point that he is going to substantively improve on defense. I just think he has a low IQ ceiling on the defensive end of the floor. And my goodness, we're close to 40 minutes already. So I'll just go over a couple more minor questions that I've seen. Number one, does Eugene Omar Rui have a future potentially with the piston? So, Omar Rui, if he can become a decent shooter or a reliable shooter, let me put it that way, might have a future as a rotation player in the NBA. However, how many players have we said that about?

And to this stage, he's about a 26%, I believe, close to around 25% in that area, three-point shooter. Not ideal. I mean, we saw it tonight. I mean, he took a ton of threes. I believe he finished like three of ten or something like that. His form just isn't very good. His misses are bad. And he's shot in general very, very poorly from three with the pistons.

Beyond that, he's not really all that athletic. I mean, he's quick enough on his feet, but he's very much a below-the-rimmed score. He's not a guy. I mean, even when he's on the run, he's scoring from on the ground for the most part. He's only about 6 foot 5 without shoes. Like at the combine, he measured at 6.5 in a quarter. I mean, he's fairly short. So he's a guy who, I mean, power forwards is still somewhat slower than small forwards.

There's nowhere near the disparity and that it used to be in a lot of guys. guys these days can play at both forwards, both forward spots. Still, you're okay being a little bit slower, power forward. Um, Omarruyi is slower. I mean, he's a guy whom you'd want to play at power forward, but he's also undersized. Like, again, he's much closer to six foot five than six foot six and six and six foot six even would be small at power forward. So he's in this sort of not ideal tween or niche. That said, if he becomes like a, like a mid to high 30s three point shooter, then maybe he's a guy you keep in your rotation who can, you know, play some small ball center, even though he's also not really big enough to challenge at the rim. So if he can

shoot, you know, fringe rotation player, depth player. And finally, why is Buddy Beheim still tying up a two-way spot? Your guess is as good as mine. Buddy Beheim does not really have much NBA potential to speak of. Definitely well below average as an NBA athlete. Well below average in terms of his NBA length. I mean, he's about six foot five with about a six-foot-five wing span. It doesn't really have much to him as a score, chiefly just a three-point shooter, but not in a lead one. When it comes to athleticism, like, I know I harp on this a lot. Athleticism is a big floor razor and a significant ceiling lowerer. Of course, there are guys who are exceptions to this, like, you know, Luca Dantridge, for example, who is not very athletic at all. It is still

fantastic and Yokic and whatnot. We're talking about a general rule without the exceptions here, but basically starting with poor NBA athleticism is not ideal. I mean, that means you've got to make it up in other ways in what is a very, very athletic league. And Beheim is a very below average NBA athletes, and he just does not have much to compensate for that. If you were like an elite three-point shooter, like an elite motion three-point shooter, maybe you have something there, even though he's still liability on defense. But the guy really isn't anything special even in the G-League. So as far as why he's still holding up that slot, I don't know. I mean, the only thing I think of is the Syracuse connection, which would be highly unfortunate if that is actually

why he's holding up a three-way slot. Generally, two-way players don't amount to anything. Sometimes you hit gems. Sometimes it's rare, but sometimes you get gems. Alex Caruso, Lou Dorts, Duncan Robinson, Max Struz. So sometimes you got something there. So it's not really worth just wasting one than a player who's likely to go nowhere. In any case, folks, that's going to be it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed it. As always, thank you for listening. Catch you in the next episode.