Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 14: Back in Business

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

The podcast returns after a three-month hiatus. This episode discusses the recent hiring of Troy Weaver as the organization's new general manager, and meanders through further commentary upon the rebuild---the first stages of which we'll not see until August.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. I am Mike. I'm here with Tommy as usual, and we are back after a three-month hiatus. It has been quite some time. We hope all of you have been staying healthy and safe, and have been wearing masks. Please wear masks. So we are back after the first big piece of Pistons news since March when the season shut down, and that is the hiring of Troy Weaver. The Pistons had technically been without a general manager since the release of Stan Bang Gundy in 2018.

Ed Stefansky had been hired as more of an advisor, initially as an advisor actually, just to aid with the hiring of a coach and a general manager. He had helped decide upon the hiring of Dwayne Casey as coach and then had had himself appointed more or less to the job of general manager. Nobody exactly knows how it's happened. Yeah, we'd say he's done a decent job. Tommy feels otherwise. I mean, we said he's been given a little bit more credit than he deserves, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But for now, Troy Weaver, here's a guy who actually had been sought after by several teams, including the Pistons over the last, I think, four or five years, I believe the Hawks and the Bulls had tried to nap away from Oklahoma City. The Pistons had tried to hire him in 2018.

And for whatever reason, you know, maybe D.T. saw this as a good opportunity. Maybe he was offered a lot of money. Who knows? he has finally after a long time left the Oklahoma City Organization where he was around for a great deal of things happening. He was actually the guy who really insisted that they take Russell Westbrook back in whenever that was. It seems like a very long time ago. And he's just been viewed for a long time as one of the very capable brain trusts, particularly in the realm of acquisition, identification acquisition of young talent. So anyway, it's pass it over Tommy.

What do you think about this hiring? Yeah, I mean, it's been two years in the making. This is a guy that they reportedly wanted in 2018, and I'm really happy that the guy that they did pick, they picked him because of his record in the draft. And it shows that the Pistons are now putting more emphasis on the draft. And they seem to realize now that their old strategy wasn't working. They've been throwing around the word rebuild

and a lot of other words for rebuild, but not tanking. We'll talk about that later, but they picked them for the right reasons, and I think they could have done a lot worse. I'm glad it wasn't like another yes man. It seems like while they're on the same page as Stefanski, Tom Gore's, and Arndellem, I think that they're kind of coming around to the idea of maybe not trying to compete for the playoffs and the eighth seed every year. So I'm glad that they picked a guy who they think can lead them through this rebuild, and I like this higher. Yeah, I like it as well. I'm not super familiar with, of course, who is. Anybody who's not part of the business, of course, nobody's going to be super familiar with all the major personnel, front office personnel of all the organizations.

But from all that I've heard, he's very well regarded. Again, as we both said, particularly in the area of drafting. And drafting, of course, such a hugely important part of any team. It doesn't matter if you're rebuilding or not. Teams like the Spurs have managed to keep their talent pool, relatively full. I mean, that's starting to run out. But we'll see, I guess. This year may very well be the year that they finally missed the playoffs. But it's just so important draft, well, even if you're a good team, you've got to keep your locker or your cabinet, whatever, of young talent stocked for

several reasons. Of course, very important to have that cheap young talent, even if you're a good team. You've got to always be planning for the future. And even just having a that talent means you can make trade, you know, you kind of win now trades if you're a good team as well. So it's something at which the Pistons have for a long time been very bad. Stan Van Gundy, as we know, was a terrible drafter, awful. And for all of his faults as general manager and coach, sure, it's not going to do his fault as coach, but for all he did poorly as general manager, I mean, that may have been his single most damaging flaw, which is really saying something. Dumars was a dreadful drafter.

You know, he hit his, you know, a couple of, a couple of, well, the picks that were important for the championship of the Pistons. One that was Tashon Prince and Memo O'Cour, you know, not all-star guys, decent picks. You know, we, of course, know that he blew the pick in 2003, real bad. And just throughout his tenure as general manager would just, he was, he was very, very bad at drafting. So if we even get a guy here who's capable of getting the Pistons, a good shot every year of nabbing a good guy in the draft, then fantastic, because that's important. Obviously, there's more to management than that,

and hopefully he can do well on the trade markets and in free agency as well. So I think it's a good hire. Again, I'm just going entirely off of everything I've read and heard. Well, heard more or less the same as read. I'm not, unfortunately, don't have sources within the NBA world as much as I would like otherwise. But yeah, so I'm feeling a little hopeful.

And I think Stefansky has done okay over the last couple of years. Not great. I know you think he's been a little bit overrated in terms of what he's brought to the Pistons. You know, why don't you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so like you mentioned, Stefansky was brought in as an advisor and he was supposed to help us hire a GM in 2018. And then two of the top names, the two guys that I wanted, Rosas and Shane Badeye. And even in 2020, since Roses was already gone to the wolves, Badey was the guy that I wanted.

He wasn't mentioned at all this time. But it felt like back then that these guys withdrew from consideration because it seemed like maybe the piston still didn't want to tank or they still didn't want to rebuild. It was like maybe they wanted to bring somebody in who could take the 2018 roster and make that work or try to spend that into something better. And I don't think that's a very desirable job for an up-and-coming GM who's like trying to establish himself as a good player because it seems like the game is rigged against you because it's very, very hard to build something out of nothing in the NBA.

and I don't think we had that much talent back then in terms of like value. So what happened was Stefansky just didn't pick anybody. And for the last couple years, he's been calling the shots essentially. And we know that 2018 or 19, it made the playoffs, got destroyed out of the playoffs by the box. and then it finally started to seem like maybe they're going to make some moves for the future. And then that was kind of forced by all the injuries that the Pistons had, even when they brought in Derek Rose and Marquief Morris. They finally started making moves that kind of indicated that they didn't want to try to go for the eighth to see it again.

They let go of Marquif Morris. They let go of Reggie Jackson. They traded Andre Drummond for a couple expirings and a second rounder. And you don't make those moves if you're trying to win because ultimately they are still, if you're trying to win, they're still more valuable on the team, obviously. So the fact that they waited that long, and maybe that's because Gores didn't want to do it and finally, everybody was like, yeah, okay, finally now we'll start making those moves. They hurt themselves by waiting this long because maybe when the season where Blake Griffin was

third team all NBA, maybe the start of last season where Andre Jumman was playing really, really well while Blake Riffin was out. Maybe those are the times when you should have sold high on those guys so that you could have more assets now. And that's something that we saw OKC do. When Paul George wanted out to L.A., they didn't hold on to Westbrook. They moved him immediately as well. And now Oklahoma City, even though they overachieved in most people's opinions, They still have a lot of extra first rounders from the Clippers and from Houston. And they're in a much better position because they didn't hold on to Westbrook once they realized, okay, we don't reasonably have a chance at contending now that PG is leaving.

So it's unfortunate to me that they let Stafansky or Gore's made Stifansky hold on to these players and let their value drop further. Everybody talks about the 30 million in Capspace, this first round pick that we have. But to me, it feels like it would have been better if they had just made those moves earlier. Because this $30 million in Capspace, it has to go a long way.

We only have eight players on the roster going into next year. And five of those are rookie contracts, and four of those five are shooting guards. That 30 million has to go a long. long way and then we have to re-sign. We have to try to resign Christian Wood. So I feel like it's not as great of a situation as it could have been. And maybe that's not all Stafanke's fault. Maybe that's just, it's the organization, it's Tom Gore's and the front

office's fault for maybe not recognizing we need to get off this, off this group of guys sooner. So that's, that's my feeling on that. I, I'm happy that they're making the moves now, but they did hurt themselves by waiting this long to make these moves. Yeah, I certainly agree with that. I think personally, I believe that's more a function of the influence of Tom Gores, who has really been up to this season, was all about, we want to win now. We've got to build a winning culture and so on and so forth. And, I mean, that went extra wrong thanks to the incompetence he hired, or in the case of Dumars maintained,

that Dumars was already doing very poorly at that point. Dumars, I'll say, once I'm going to a short tangent about this. So I kind of feel like Troy Weber has the capacity to come in and be like the first real professional all-around good GM, and I'm hoping this will be it, that the business have had in a long time.

I'm a little lower on Dumars than some people. You know, I think personally the best, The last good all around GM the Pistons had was Jack McCloskey, who resigned in 1992. He was the architect of the Bad Boy Pistons championship teams. So, Dumas won a championship as GM. You can't take that away from him, but he was kind of a guy who I feel just hit some home runs, great home runs, you know, and getting Rip, Chaunty, trading, getting Grand Hill, actually getting Ben Wallace. It's part of the Grand Hill trade.

And then drafting Tashon and trading for Rishit. Fantastic, great. He did a lot of things right. But kind of after he hit those home runs, and even before that, when he missed out on, you know, three Hall of Famers in the 2003 draft, things kind of went downhill. He didn't really, after 2000, after the Rishid trade, things were downhill real fast. And he didn't really do much good after that. And just the team atrophied. And then he was the worst executive in the league for the last five years.

as you said before, bad drafter, not particularly good at keeping the team refreshed with talent. You know, even by 2005, the Pistons barely had a bench in the playoffs. And, you know, he made the right choice to let Ben Wallace truck because Big Ben went downhill pretty quick. Oh, truck, let Ben Wallace leave, rather, 2006, because Ben really went downhill pretty quickly after that. So I feel like we haven't had a GM who can really,

It's been a long time since the business of had a GM who can kind of, you know, who is really able to draft well, to really think on his feet, you know, make the right decisions in real time, keep making the right decisions, not rest on his laurels, and just keep a team together in the long term. Even if you're not going to win, I mean, great if you can win a championship. That's obviously the goal. But somebody who just does what's necessary every year. And sometimes if what's necessary is rebuilding, then knows when to do that. course, this assumes that Tom Gores is willing to let that happen. And I don't, I don't, uh,

I think, like I wasn't happy about the Stefansky hire. And frankly, I'm, I'm kind of happy that the team will hopefully be passing out of his hands now because the man just has a very undistinguished management pedigree. Like, uh, he joined the Nets shortly after they made it to two finals in the row presided over their decline, then went on to the 76ers. Oh, on the Nets, he botched every single one of his draft picks, everyone. Went on to the Sixers, the pre-processed Sixers, did poorly there, drafted Evan Turner over to Marcus Cousins, Paul George, Gordon Hayward, and so on and so forth. Moved on, I believe it was after that, to the Grizzlies.

You know, to the Raptors for some of their bad seasons, went to the Grizzlies, to the VP of player personnel, I believe, during the decline of the grit and grind, grizzlies, and so on and so forth. So he just, he hasn't done well as a manager in the NBA. In this case, I think he did, you know, B-plus, or who knows? See, here's the thing, is that Ed Stefansky may have been the guy. Finally, you know, you got a true professional who's been in this league for a long time, even if he hasn't done super well.

He may have been the guy who, after all the injuries last year, and just in the bits of the piss and doing poorly, was able to convince Tom Gores and to, stand up to him and say that what we're doing right now isn't working. And we need to be steadfast, even in like 2019, during the 2018-2019 season, when they decided to just dump Reggie Bullock instead of just, you know, zeroing in on, my goodness, we need to keep as much talent as we can right now, even if it's not going to work out just for the sake of this year because we want to win right now. The Pistons didn't have that talent to win then. And then in this past season when things just went downhill.

We'll never know, probably, or probably not for a while, if we ever do know what Stefansky's role was in holding Tom Gores back, because I don't think Van Gundy was willing to do that or had the fortitude to do that or whatever. I don't know. Dumas seemed really most motivated by keeping his job as the final year of his tenure particularly showed, you know, trading away a first-round pick to get a rid of Ben Gordon so he could sign Josh Smith

and trading away Chris Middleton as a throw-in in a trade that brought him Brandon Jennings, who to that point had not been a good point guard and so on and so forth. So if Stefanski was the guy who finally convinced Tom Gores of that, then just for the sake of

ending a cycle that have been just incredibly depressing for Pistons fans that give him a great grade in his time as sort of interim GM. Beyond that, I don't think he was particularly agile. I don't think there was any chance with Gores looking over the shoulder of trading Blake Griffin

just because Blake, you know, that trade was low-hanging fruit for both Tom Gores and Jeff Bauer and Stan Van Gundy. Tom Gores, because great, we finally got our star. We're going to sell tickets now. We're going to be a great team or at least a good team. And, of course, that didn't turn out to be the case. But I'm sure, you know,

I know we both remember the first game after the Blake trade. The first game he played when Tom Gores was clearly very, very inebriated and very happy, like embarrassingly inebriated on television. And it was a little hanging fruit for Van Gundy and then Jeff Bauer because they were desperate to save their jobs. So I think there was no real possibility of trading Griffin. The Pistons were just, we're going to go ahead with this team that was, more or less a considerably crappier version of the Lob City Clippers with a similar lack of depth.

And I don't think there was anything Ed could have done about it. As far as how he did with his own management moves, like in his first season, he had no mobility, thanks to the cap-bind. Van Gundy had inflicted upon the pistons. Glenn Robinson III wasn't a bad signing. He just didn't pan out, so annoyingly he went out and to do fairly well with the Warriors. Bruce Brown looks to be a decent pick. The two first round pick, second run picks, rather he spent on Kyrie Thomas, who knows, I think there's more to look at from last year's draft.

I mean, the very sort of border on corrupt decision he made to trade KBJ, you know, Kevin Porter Jr., 30th pickaway for a guy who was a client of the son of a Pistons executive who may not, may not ever make it to the NBA. It was a little suspect even if they were trying to avoid sending, trying to avoid another guaranteed company. contract. And it's hard to say how exactly he conducted himself around the drum and trade. And the likes of Galilean Morris, did he try to play hardball? Did he miss opportunities? Who knows? At this point, though, I'm willing to just say, but the 30th overall pick, I'm a little annoyed.

But beyond that, I'm willing to say, you know, he, you know, he got through stage zero of the rebuild, which is dumping as many, as much of your bad, you know, as much of your bad contract as you can, or just clearing out. out the roster. You know, I like Jackson by the end because he developed a new team player, even though it wasn't a very, very effective player anymore. I was so glad to see Drummond gone. I don't believe the reports that Tom Gore's torpedo those trades, that there were trades in place that Van Gundy had put into place in that Gore's torpedo those, the single source of that information was this obscure sports writer, a small-time sports writer from a relatively small-time publication.

It was not picked up at all by anybody on the national level. But I'm so glad that Drummond is gone, and maybe the Pistons can just get a shot at turning over a new page here. So I don't think it's badly about Stefanski. That said, I'm happy. You know, I'm happy he's not going to be the one hopefully to preside over the rebuild. So, like you said, yeah, the Pistons have a certain amount of cap space now. That's less valuable than some might think. it's probably going to be less than 30 million.

Like right now, I believe it stands at 38 million with the cap projections, maybe a little more. But the cap projection is going to go down thanks to the loss of revenue. And you're right. You've got a lot of space to fill. If you want to resign Christian Wood, that's between probably $10 and $15 million. And then you've got to sign a bunch of other plays. Even if you sign them in a minimum deal, as you know how much space to work with.

Maybe you can absorb one bad contract. Or trade Tony Snell's expiring deal for, a bad contract. But we have noted that Troy Weaver has said that the Pistons really aren't in favor of tanking, that it's going to be on a year-by-year basis. So who knows if he's willing to do that. I know I would personally just like to see the Pissons embark on a year, just on a two- or three-year thing. Maybe just say, we'll do two years and see what we're going, because that gives you a lot

more ability to plan for the long term. So what did you think about what he said? Yeah, I'm reminded of one of the quotes from the press conference. that he did with Tom Goers, as Stefansky, Arndellem, and a few of the questions that he asked from the media guys. And the quote is, traditional rebuilds are pretty much a thing of the past. It's a two or three year rebuild and see what you have and then two or three years again. And then he goes on to say, but our philosophy is one year rebuild every year, try to be competitive,

go to the drawing board without mortgaging the future, and try to put the best team on the floor. So that quote has kind of stuck with me because there's there is a lot of information in there. And it's like some of it almost feels like it's contradicting it because I mean when we've talked about what or me, at least me personally, when I talk about what I would like the piston to do, I am fully in favor of like that three to four year, you know, focus on development. Don't spend significant amounts of money on guys who are going to like really increase your win count. You want to bring in veterans that will help you develop your young talent, that sort of thing. But he says one-year rebuilds without mortgaging the future.

When I heard that line, like he said one-year rebuild, my heart sank, and then he said, without mortgaging the future, and I felt a lot better. Because what you don't want is, like, he takes our cap space, and he looks and he signs like De Rosen or Fred Van Vleet in the off-season. You know, that's the sort of move that's going to put us right back in mediocrity, and that's exactly what you want to avoid. So for a guy who's like biggest claim to fame is his his skills in the draft, I think it's important that we don't try to get out of the draft, like those high picks and those opportunities too soon. Like Gore's even said, like it's very important to hit in the draft now, especially for us as a small market.

So I hope that Troy Weaver is paid. with this and he goes through the full cycle of a proper rebuild, whether or not that's just a quote for the media so that he doesn't actually have to say, because you obviously can't even say that you're tanking. You'll get heavy fines for that sort of thing. But I hope that like a one-year rebuild is not his actual plan. I hope that he focuses on development. Because you even look at OKC. They drafted three straight eventual MVP's and Kevin Durant, Russell, Westbrook and then James Harden, who they did trade away before he broke out. But even with that level of talent in three years, it took three years for them to gain that type of talent.

And then they went on to draft Stephen Adams. And I think they traded for Sergei Baca. I think he was part of the Hardin trade. It takes time. It was actually Stephen Adams was taken with a pick that was attained from the Hardin trade. So he didn't join until later. Yes. Yeah, the starting center for the Thunder during their run of the championship,

excuse me, to the finals, was Kendrick Perkins. There was actually some controversy over this because they could have easily had Tyson Chandler. But, yeah, so Hardin was gone by the time Adams came in, and Ibago was a draft pick. Right. And all I'm trying to say there with this is just the biggest thing that I think the Pistons haven't had in the last 12, 13 years now is the patience to do these things right. And I hope that Troy Weaver has that because ultimately you can't build these things in one season. You can't build this sort of thing overnight, especially since the Pistons don't have much in the way of

free agent draw. So I think there are better ways for us to use our cap space. And it's not even a huge factor because as much as much cap space as we do have, even after the salary cap is probably lowered by all the loss of revenue issues. I don't think we were going to bring in guys who are like win now guys, and I hope that he doesn't. I'm interested to see the kinds of guys he brings in. James Edwards III mentioned that the new GM would get to hire the rest of his staff, and hopefully we get to see more indications of the Pistons' new direction in the coming months. as we see maybe who they draft, who they bring in with their cap space and their free agency

money. And, you know, that's the most important thing to me. I hope that Troy Weaver just is patient. And I hope that this one-year thing is just a nice quote to like kind of calm the fans down who don't want to go through a very, very long rebuild. Yeah, I suppose we'll see talk is cheap, as we know. And I agree, the Pistons have to make a decision one way or another. As much as people would really like to see Prisham would stay retaining him,

would most likely mean more wins. Maybe he's a guy you, well, here's the risk. The risk is that he actually is a very good player. And then you win games, and then he's not going to win games on his own, but you might find yourself stuck in the middle very quickly, which you want to avoid. Maybe you get a good draft pick. Maybe you take Edwards this summer, if you get the first overall pick.

Maybe you take Killian Hayes and he turns into a pretty good point guard. And if Wood is good and if Griffin actually is pretty healthy, then you might be playing for like the, like somewhere between the 10th and the 8th seed. And that's exactly where you don't want to be in the Pistons at that point. Don't really have much in the way it means to get better unless Wood and Hayes and Seku, or whoever it is, continue to get better. And, you know, maybe that works out. Maybe Bruce Brown develops into, manage us to become a decent offensive,

player and your first round pick turns out to be good and sec who turns out to be a capable combo forward and would i don't know i don't think he's going to be an all-star world probably i think there remains much to be seen given that the guy's sample size as a starter was well sample size on big minutes was elasted all of 13 games and the pistons lost 12 of them it's like is this what is this guy is is he a really good score actually he's the guy who puts up good stats and a bad team team, who knows, but you're still sort of in the middle, and the pistons need to make a choice. And we know, you know, I think, that one year rebuilds, unless you get lucky, like real lucky, are not likely to work.

You like to see, like, what I would like to see is for the pistons to be bad next season. That might not be so easy to pull off if you take, if you, if you resigned wood, it's going to be more difficult. What I would like to see them do, excuse me, what I would like to see them do, tradeaway rows forever you can find. I know they like him as a veteran leader, but the guy just gobbles usage. And that's really not ideal. If you're trying to get to young players,

maximum time, maximum usage, just maximum opportunity for development. Mike to see them tradeaway canard, there's no reason for him to be on this team anymore if they're not competing soon. Signing him to another contract, just, I mean, he's still a fairly good, you know, a pretty good player.

Maybe number three option, unaffected team. if he keeps developing, but the person's just having no use for him right now. Also, you know, there's the question of his injuries. Do you really want to assign him to an eight-figure-a-year contract? I mean, I know you think he could get $15 million. I think the guy probably at this point top off at 10 or 11 if he has a, you know, that's if he really has a breakout season, unless he has a super breakout season, rather.

I think it's limitations in terms of athleticism and, and, just anthra metrics like winks man for example yeah so uh i think you want to move him at the draft for whatever you can get from the sons or otherwise you know if you can get another first round pick in this year's draft or better yet a first round pick in next year's draft you know even if it might just fall you know even if it's uh even you know take it this year like top 10 protected this year and then uh you know less protected next year so i think you want to get rid of him uh i mean other guys on the roster, I think the only guys in the roster you really want to keep. I mean, if you can trade Griffin for a bad contract, you do that in a second.

Because he's talked about, okay, I'll be here, you know, half-heartedly, I'll be here through the rebuild if that's what they need. I don't think he wants to be here. I don't think the pistons want him to be around. Another usage-eating player who might help you win and takes up a ton of caps base. Like, I think the pistons really need to be aiming not to win next year. Winning if you're rebuilding does not pay at all, because the drafts, is so important. So if you look at the guys, I think you want to be on the team,

I don't think you should keep Galloway. He's a pro's, but he's also a user shooter. You know, you want to focus on Seku, Bruce Brown, if you can. You want to keep Sveed because he's, you know, he's a role player. He can be useful if you keep him in the long term, and he's not really going to boost you. It's just, I don't know, I mean, maybe, you know, we go through the roster. and whom we'd like to see sign and whom we'd like to see Captain a future date.

But I think it just really would behoove the pistons to be bad next season. I mean, you don't want to be in the middle, even if the middle is getting like the 10th pick. That's not somewhere you want to be. So it's just the top situation right now because you still have Griffin on the roster. And if he does fairly well, not only is he going to help win games, but you also have to play around him. And you don't want to play around him. It's not, you can't run a modern offense with Griffin on the floor.

you have to just feed him constantly. So, and basically he just assumes gravity ends. So in any event, I think the pistons remain in a slightly tough place, and they still have the capacity to end up in the middle. I don't think that they will sign free agents in the summer with the possibility of winning, or with the aim of winning. Yeah, and that does remind me of another quote. There was an interview that Weaver did with 97.1.

And one of the quotes from that was we want to be competitive every season. We want to put a team out there that everybody can feel comfortable with. And then he goes on to say, I don't believe in tanking. I believe in trying to be competitive and use everything we have in our tool belt to put a productive team on the floor. I think a lot of teams feel a rebuild is be bad for three or four years, get high picks and try to figure it out. That's not the formula we're going to use here in Detroit. Yeah, that sucks. That's not good to hear.

that's yeah but i don't think it's going to be i don't think he's saying that we're going to try to compete uh i i know that's exactly what he just said but i don't think that means he's going to like use our cap space and like try to put it the most amount of good players out there i think what he's trying to say there is we're not going to do like process level sixers where they put out the worst possible team on the floor i think it's just like a way of saying we're going to bring in the guys who we think are going to try hard every night because that was something that he even mentioned during the press conference. He said that he wants to draft guys.

One of the quotes was, we draft people, not players. He really likes guys who just work really hard. So he doesn't want those guys who are kind of apathetic. And that's a great philosophy, in my opinion. I hadn't even considered that. When I look at the guys that I want, I'm thinking more about which players fit well together, who can you just plug into any team, who's fit dependent. but one of the reasons they mentioned that they were so high on Russell Westbrook

is because they felt like he was such a hard work and obviously he was and even if he wasn't the most efficient player, the best shooter, he's still an MVP and a very, very good player with a third or fourth pick. So to speak to your other points about guys like who we're going to bring back, I think we do want to keep Derek Rose around for another season. especially depending on who we get in the draft. If it's a guy like Cole Anthony, like if we drop a little bit, I think that Cole could learn a lot from Derek Rose about like getting to the rim.

And I do trust that Casey, even if it seems like the rookies aren't going to get a lot of playing time, I think I do trust Casey when it comes to distributing minutes to the young guys because it seemed like it did work with Christian Wood, where you held them back at first. He had defensive issues and he slowly. gave him more and more. And it's hard to argue with the result because Christian took such a incredible leap this year.

As far as Galloway, I think they do bring him back just because I do like stability, especially when, you know, you need to fill out the roster somehow. And yeah, he did shoot a lot better this year. And I think that it's good that the front office and whoever is making these decisions sees the value in people who can shoot. So maybe even if Galloway helps us win a few more games with the shooting, I think it's important that whoever we do draft, they have shooters on the perimeter because that's going to help so much.

Because whoever we do draft, even if we do get a top pick and we get a guy like Killian Hayes, Anthony Edwards, lamello ball, all three of those guys, it's so much better for them and their development, in my opinion, if they have shooters on the perimeter. I think they bring back Yalaway. I agree with you. I do think they should move Kennard ideally before they start having to talk about his extensions because I mean once they do that his value is probably going to take a significant hit in terms of trade value. And then as far as Griffin goes, yeah, if you can move him, move him. But if they get to like

the end of his contract, maybe just keep him for the expiring, honestly. I've accepted that he's most likely going to finish out his contract here, just because it's such a huge contract. And I don't know if his health is going to hold up well enough for him to, you know, come back and put up good numbers again and maybe increase his trade value to the point where maybe a contender is like, oh, we can replace our even older power forward or our worse power forward with the guy like Blake Riffin, who, yeah, he still is a very good player. but the value of his contract is questionable.

So those are my thoughts. I hope that Troy Weaver continues to make those, to look at what they did in OKC. And because there was a lot of personnel decisions like the Paul George and Westbrook trades where they didn't wait for those values to drop any further. They saw where those players were trending and their values, and they said, okay, it's time to move on. There is that. When it comes to Galloway, as far as everything that's been said,

particularly from James Edwards, I think Rod Beard as well, the reason I want to keep him around is because he's a pro is pro, that he's just an extremely professional player, and he's just very well-liked. I don't think it's for his shooting. It's something you've got to consider if the Pistons do end up drafting first, and they pull the trigger on Anthony Edwards, and I think that he's probably their likeliest pick number one, or even if he's still available at number two and number three. you've got way too many shooting guards in the team. Galway's not going to get me minutes.

Something I don't like about Casey is that he does play favorites, and he has preferential toward veterans. So if Blake Griffin's on the floor, if Flanston Galway is on the roster, Galway will get minutes, even if he shouldn't. I'm fairly confident of that. Blake Griffin will get all due deference, even if it's not good for the team.

I'd like to see Kyrie Thomas get a shot, you know, get a chance. And, you know, even if it's not great, you just want to see whatever talent you have on the floor. or whatever talent you have in the team, you just like to see that talent get a chance. So the business is just stupidly deep at shooting guard, even though it's not a very powerful position for them. Like, an ink speed is still more ideal as a shooting guard.

Gary Thomas is basically only play shooting guard. Bruce Brown, people say, maybe it'd be backup point guard in the future. Well, Bruce Brown is still far off from being an effective backup point guard. He's got decent court vision, though. He's extremely to turnover prone guys sag off him because even last season,

he's still shot less than 25% from the break. from above the break, rather. You know, his improvement in corner shooting was good, even though he did it really unload volume. But, you know, if he gets the ball anywhere else, or it doesn't have an eternity to shoot the ball. I mean, he's not going to shoot well from three, and he still sucks to get into the basket.

It's strange for me that such an athletic player cannot play above the basket. So he's still ideal at shooting guard. I'd just like to see Galloway gone for that reason. Also, I've just never been a very big fan of him. So, but, I mean, Blake Griffin, yeah, It's just, it's a bad, it's a damned if you do and damned if you don't for the pistons. If he plays well, you got to, again, if he's healthy, you got to play around him.

Pistence will probably win more games. They don't want to win. And he just, he's a usage reader to, again, you just, you absolutely have to play around him. He's on the floor. He's just not a player. You can kick off the ball and say, okay, we'll just make you, you know, he's not a modern forward. He's not a modern forward. In fact, if you were able to play center, that would now be his ideal position.

So if he's injured and they just can't stay healthy or he's really bad, you can't really trade him. If he plays well, then maybe you trade him at the end of the season. But then the Pistons probably win more games. And again, you've seen some usage sucked away from developing players. So there I think you're just in a bad situation. So the Pistons are on a precarious place. I'm curious to see what happens. What I think will happen this or what I hope will happen this offseason,

you move canard if you can get rid of Griffin that would take a miracle but you do it if you can do it I'm kind of mom on Christian Wood they're kind of ambivalence on Christian Wood again I think he's really exciting to watch he might be gone just because he wants to win

though I don't think he's likely to get a payday from a team that's actually good most of them don't have any cap space the only teams who can really give him a good payday or not really in playoff contention and he might just recognize that he'll get the best contract and probably the most usage with the pistons, but if he's here again,

better shot of winning. But what I like to see them do is fill their open slots on the roster with guys who have talent but just haven't been able to get it together. That's what you really want to do in a rebuild. Take guys to have that talent, sign them to cheap multi-year deals, maybe non-guaranteed for the last year. And then you see if you can develop them. And then maybe by the end of the rebuild,

they're useful players on cheap contracts. So that's where I'd really like to see them. I'd like to see them use as many roster spots as they can on that and just beyond that focus on the talent the pistons have available because at this point the Pistons don't really have much young talent thanks to the last thanks to Stan Van Gundy who left the Pistons very short on trade assets of any kind including young talent.

I mean I could go on and on about him. It's like, Stanwood Johnson, like, you know, we need a shooter. We need a guy who can shoot. So we'll take the one guy, you know, take the guy whose primary question mark is, shooting or in his scoring. I mean, he is, he was never better, except for like a short stretch at the beginning of the 2017-2018 season where he got a shot at his chance as a starter and was actually decent off the ball. He's a terrible scorer. I mean, his efficiency was awful in his

rookie year, worse than his sophomore year. It was bad in his, and, you know, bad in his third year and then pretty bad in his fourth year, but for that short stint in which he did decent on the bench, decent off the bench, rather. Again, that sets another period in which he did fairly well before he just fell off. And that's another thing. Yeah, that's another thing that I hope that Troy Weaver recognizes is like when I, I know we don't want to talk too much about like our individual draft picks and like our player rankings right now.

But like as far as our philosophy, we talked a little bit about what Troy Weaver said where he wants like the hardest workers. And that's great. What do you hope for of in terms of like team building? because that was obviously one of Stan Van Gundy's biggest issues. I mean, the lineup of what Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond, and Josh Smith. Well, no, he inherited that, actually. He never tried to play the three of them together.

Yeah, I mean, but stuff like that, like the Pistons were always, like, in those last few years, they were always, like, shooting so poorly. And the league is obviously trended towards shooting. So that's something that's very important to me. And even though I personally have Anthony Edwards number one, I don't, I'm just, curious, like, what are you hoping for in terms of, like, the team's identity in the future and the team that Troy Weaver builds? I mean, you have to build, in order to succeed in today's NBA, you have to be an effective

offensive team. That's why, I mean, I'd like to, one thing, this just comes to mind. I'd like to see the Pistons done with traditional centers period. I mean, unless it's like a cheap backup, because it's like, it was just so nice having a center in Christian Wood who could stretch the floor and the Pistons could finally run a modern an offense. Drummond was an awful offensive player. I mean, just perennially terrible efficiency for a traditional center.

They'd also just stupid decisions. And he was a guy who should have been playing like Stephen Adams, but wanted to be Nicole Yolkich. Like, I still think it's funny. Like last year, I mean, he just announced he picking up his player option. Real enthusiastic. He's like, yeah, I'd have trouble finding that elsewhere. So, yeah, I'm going to be in Cleveland.

It's like, you know, it's great to see that you're so dedicated to your new team, again, completely unsurprising. But last summer when he was talking, and this is, again, funny also in the light of his rant after the trade, that there's no friendship or loyalty, you know, which of course I think was primarily because he was traded to Cleveland. And I don't think you really would have to care if he was traded. I think it would have been, you know, just fine if you were traded to a better team. But earlier that, you know, in the off season at the end of the summer, he's like, yeah, I'm going to be opting out. It'll be one of the few big fish. You know, I'm paraphrasing, but a few big fish on the free agent markets.

I've spent my time this summer adding a three-point shot. I've worked on ball handling. You can bring the ball up the floor. It's like, dude, but Detroit, you shot less than 5% from three-point range and you led the league and turnovers for a center. So the players, I mean, I think you just have to be able to run a modern offense. You have to have their shooters. And yeah, Van Gundy's Pistons ranked bottom five and true shooting percentage every year

that he was the coach all four years. And they were the only team in the NBA who had that very very very. very dubious distinction. The guy did not understand how to build a team that could run a modern offense. He did not know how to coach a team that could run a modern offense. So you need to have those shooters. You need basically to be able to run the sort of fast-moving high-paced, somewhat positioned with style of the modern NBA. Also, maybe this is just colored by having to watch under a drum and play all these years with this extremely capricious work ethic and terrible attitude. But he, I mean, I want hardworking players.

It's one of the reasons I'm kind of mom and a little bit of all those. I know we're not, you know, we don't want to get into this. He's just got all these holes in this game. I don't know if he has a work ethic to really, to really change those. Also, I don't think he has any leadership potential. So Anthony Edwards says question marks about his level engagement. I just think he has too much talent to pass him up. But, you know, I want a hardworking team that can run a modern offense.

As much as you, as much as defense has always been. so identified with the ethos of the pistons. It's just you can't win on defense anymore. It's not possible. I mean, you can go further by, I mean, it's good if you have a good defense, absolutely, but offense is unequivocally more important. I mean, the NBA has seen to that. Even, you know, even, I mean, part of it is just the way the NBA has developed into a three-point shooting league, very fast three-point shooting league. But part of it, the NBA even took it a step further and changed the rules. You have freedom of motion, which made offense is even more potent. So you have to build a good offensive team. Defense does not win championships anymore. Defense can help you win a championship

if you also have a really good offense. But no, defense doesn't win championships. Offense wins championships. You can't have an awful defense. But if you have to pick between having the best defense in the league and an average offense versus the best offense in the league and average defense, you know, you obviously go with the best offense. It's just how it is. So, your first and foremost thing is you've got to have a team that can run that modern offense. And it was, you know, it was more enjoyable for me. It was just so enjoyable for me, even if the Pistons were awful, to see them, you know, feel the lineup that could run that modern offense, even if it still wasn't ideal. Like, you want to avoid guys as much as Derek Rose is a hard worker and a professional, you want to avoid guys who can't play off the ball.

That's one thing. You know, you just, unless they're awesome, I mean, there's just, there aren't very many guys. very many premier guards or wings these days who can't play off the ball because it limits your options so much. Griffin, unfortunately, he's another one of those guys. He improved his three-point shooting, but he's still a catch-and-shoe guy. So, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's so hard to know the exact direction into which we were going to go.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait like five months. Yeah, oh, yeah, October. Yeah, four months until the draft and free agency is in November. So we got nearly four months to see what he's going to do at all. And then in free agency, we got to wait until November. So it's just real hard to say. I'm more hopeful now. But unfortunately, still never know how much influence Gores is going to wield your best owners of the guys who hire competent personnel and step out of the way.

Rarely does meddling from owners lead to anything good. I don't know how much we've talked about this in the past. but Mark Cuban is pretty much the only owner. I just don't remember. I don't think we've gotten into this in the past beyond decrying the, beyond harshly criticizing the owners who involve themselves too much.

But you've got six owners in the league who are really super meddlesome. Glenn Sarver for the Sons, they have been bad for a long time. Michael Jordan for the Hornets, they have been bad. Vivek Rana died for the Kings. They have been awful.

Jim Dolan for the Knicks that kind of goes without saying he's been a disaster. They've been a terrible team. Tom Gores for the Pistons. Again, the Pistons almost bumbled their way into decent teams, but the guys he employed, I mean, this particular, Stan Van Gundy saw to it that the win now approach, which was bad in the first place. Adav has had absolutely terrible results.

Number six is Mark Cuban, and he's had some good impact. He's certainly very loyal to the team. He shows up for every game. And, you know, and he's had his impact. he's also made some big mistakes and overruled as general managers. Donnie Nelson, who was the long time, I believe he's still the GM of the Mavericks. He said in what I believe was 2014, he said, Janice and Teddekuompo is the next big thing. This guy is going to be incredible.

We have to draft him. And Mark Cuban said, I want Dwight Howard, and I want some extra space, some extra-minded offer him. So I want you to trade down in the draft to get us that extra space. And Donnie Nelson said, no, we've got to draft this guy. you know, he's going to be great. And Mark Humeant said no. And, you know, they missed out and argued with the best player in the league. So if Tom Gores continues to, you know, interpose himself between the general manager

and his ability to make freely make decisions, then Troy Weaver, you know, maybe operating with the disadvantage in the beginning. That said, I don't know if he would have taken this job without being offered a fairly free hand. Or maybe he was just offered a ton of money. so it's so hard to say and we are going to need to wait to see it so yeah we're reaching close to 50 minutes here you got any final thoughts before we close up yeah i just i mean i just wanted to add that uh for all the all the negativity uh that we've talked about with a lot of these guys uh i am happy that they did trade andre drummond especially now that he's opted back into

into cleveland uh that was a great move uh it i'm sure i'm sure that i'm sure you're I'm sure it played a huge part in opening up the space that we now have so that a guy like Troy Weaver looks at our job offering and he sees some flexibility and that's probably very valuable for him. And for Tom Gore's, I'm happy that he's come around and he seems to care enough about winning that he's willing to, you know, kind of roll back the stuff that he said about never wanting to tang or never wanting to not try our hardest. and I appreciate the fact that he does seem to care very much about the team and the community and that he seems to really care about the Pistons being a big part of the community and that he seems to be willing to pay for whatever the team needs. So I am optimistic or more optimistic than I have been in a long time, and I'm very excited to see what Troy Weaver can do.

Yeah, I think there's reason for optimism for the first time in a while. Of course, that's relative. you know that there's been there's been not much reason for optimism for quite a while I do agree with you on Tom Gores for always for all this very damaging meddling he he's always been very willing to spend on the team also for you know some of his quite disreputable business practices but you know that's another here nor there in discussion of basketball you know it's always something worth worth noting I'm not saying they're not important by any means so but in purely basketball

terms. He is perfectly willing to spend another luxury tax. He's always been willing to spend another luxury tax for a good team. You have owners like for Teta for the Rockets and they have a not so long window and he just says, I want you guys out of the

tax. I just want you guys out of the tax. Sorry. I mean, that's a big impediment. But again, yeah, I mean, Gores came around. Eventually, who knows how much of that was DeFonzi's influence, who knows how much of that was him saying, we finally got our star and it just didn't work out at all.

And he did come out and say, yeah, our goal was really, well, he went from like the future is a little bit about now, not so long before. I'm not sure if that was the prior season or just earlier in this season. But either way, he came out and said, you know, it's not our goal to just compete for the seventh of the eighth seat every year. So maybe he just realized it wasn't working. And that's encouraging. Whereas, like I said, encouragement and optimism with the pistons are very, very, very,

relative. There has been I'm not going to feel entirely sold until we see what Troy Weaver does not only in October and November but the year after that as well. Because unless the Pistons are very lucky, a one-year

rebuild is just very unlikely I think it is not likely to put the Pistons in a position to which they can develop into a potential Canada for championship. But I think the primary variable is going to be time Gores and his willingness to be much more patient than he has been in the past.

So I think but that, we will end today's episode. We will be trying to record a little bit more frequently. Unfortunately, there's not a great deal to talk about. We definitely have a draft episode planned in the future, you know, plan in the near future, even though we're not going to know the results of the draft lottery until October, which is pretty painful. And we're planning on a mailbag episode. So those of you who are on Reddit,

you'll see a threat posted there pretty soon just asking for your input. And whatever the case, I want to thank you for listening, and we will catch you next time.