Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 145: The Coaching Search, the Postseason, & Answering Some Questions

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

This short episode speaks about the coaching search and why the Pistons are right in going for an unknown quantity rather than a safe choice with known flaws, goes over happenings in the postseason, and answers some questions. 

Welcome back, everybody listening to Drive Into the Basket. I am Mike, your host. And I'm trying something a bit new today. I've been considering lately maybe, you know, in terms of content allowing, definitely during the season itself, which is far away. It's doing some many episodes throughout the week, as opposed to just, you know, the one episode that I post on Wednesday morning. So this is a time when, of course, the content of the show has focused a great deal upon the draft.

As a result, haven't really gotten to talk a great deal. about some other things going on with the Pistons and around the league. So today I'm going to get to those, you know, answer some questions I've seen, and also talk a little bit about the playoffs. So number one, and the biggest thing out to the draft of the Pistons is the coaching search. So here's the thing with the coaching search for me. And we know with the Pistons, it's just down to three candidates, those being Kevin Olly, Charles Lee, and Jaron Collins,

assuming I'm pronouncing his name right. So here's the struggle that I have is that none of them have any experience as Mbby. head coaches. It's just impossible to look into, you know, in the case of Jaron Collins and in the case of Charles Lee, it's impossible to look into their time as assistants and be able to tell how much was them, how much was the head coach, how much was other assistants. Sometimes you get guys in there and you say, man, you know, this guy was clearly doing a lot of work. We're talking about assistance. Nick Nurse, we kind of knew that about Nick Nurse that he was running the offense already in the final year in which Dwayne Casey was the coach in Toronto, the year in which

Dwayne Casey won coach of the year. Toronto had a new offense. They had the best regular season ever, yada, yada, yada. So Nick Nurse in, we had good insight into what was going on there. You know, we knew that at the very least he's, you know, it already formulated and is running an NBA offense. So, but for the most part, you look at assistants who have not coached in the NBA before, and there are plenty of assistants used to be head coaches. And so they're now unable to find an NBA job. Their hope is to get back into an NBA coaching role. For example, Mike Brown, with the Warriors. He's now coach of the Kings and one coach of the year this year and this past season rather. So there's just really no way of knowing when it comes to Charles Lee and Jaron

Collins. Kevin Olly, of course, has been coaching an overtime elite, which as has been noted repeatedly on this show, is a joke of a league. And there's no way of knowing there either. I mean, we know that he coached North Carolina to an NCAA championship, excuse me, Yukon to an NCAA championship. I was there at MSG when they'd be. the Spartans, that very ill-fated Spartans team, when Keith Appling completely fell apart. Things haven't gone too well for that starting five in general in life. It's a pretty sad story. Whatever the case, I mean, that's college. You never know how college is going to translate to the NBA. You have some college coaches who do very well. You have some who flop. You even have some very experienced

ones like Bayline, for example, whom I thought would be a great, just a great option to come in with the Cavaliers and Ride Hurd and a bunch of young players. But it turns out he just was not able to adapt from a role in which he was coaching college kids to one in which he was coaching professionals. This is just a big difference there. So that's one of the reasons I've horribly talked about the coaching search at all. I mean, not even a few minutes about it, if I remember correctly on the show is that I have nothing to go on, like just genuinely nothing to go on. I don't know, you know, like I know that there's a certain amount of ambivalence amongst

Pistons fandom, at least as I have seen about Kevin Alley. And I don't know if he's a good choice or not. So one thing I will say is that I'm glad that the Pistons are not going for a known safe quantity retread, which, you know, if this were the Pistons of five years ago, absolutely would have happened. Did happen, in fact, with Dwayne Gasey. He was a known quantity retread with known flaws that were not going to change, and there are plenty of coaches around the league like that. Doc Rivers, who my hope gets fired if the Sixers do not win the championship,

because he is just not a particularly good coach. He is a decent coach, one who has a. a lot of flaws that, you know, I like to refer to, I like to refer to these guys as just fossilized coaches. They have flaws that are there, are known by everybody, including the opposition, and are never going to go away. Dwayne Casey is another example of that. You know, these guys can improve a little bit. And Dwayne Casey did improve a little bit from, for example, when he was the coach in Toronto, he seems to have learned a little bit from Nick Nurse, or just from the fact of what the offense that Nick Nurse formulated. And again, if any of you don't know this story,

after 2017 after the Cavaliers after the Raptors lost the Cavaliers for the second time in a row Masai Ujiri who's the president of basketball operations over there said we're moving to a new offense it's going to be a modern offense and Nick Nurse was given the task of formulating that offense as Dwayne Casey just ran an offense that did not lend itself to the spacing and efficiency era was just a lot of mid-range offense just a lot of isolation offense And, you know, he kind of carried that on to his time at the Pistons a little bit post-Blake, of course,

because if Dwayne Casey had a go-to veteran to whom he could give the ball, he was just going to do that over and over and over and over again. And say here, insert veterans name here, please take the ball and score with it. And of course, that was what he did with Blake Griffin. He said, just take the ball and score with it. And if you can't do it, they weren't very, very likely going to lose. It was the same thing with Lowry and DeRosen in Toronto. Pre-Dose changes. And it went back to that during that final playoff run against the Cavaliers in 2018.

in which a not very good Cavs team. First, almost very, very nearly lost to the Pacers, the Oladipo Pacers who weren't so great. And then after that series, very, very nearly lost to the Celtics who were without Kyrie Irving, who, you know, whatever you think about Kyrie, he was the best player on the team back then. And in the middle, of course, they ate the Raptors for lunch in four games. Whatever the case, Casey went back to that during the playoffs,

went back to that, here, take the ball and please score. But in lieu of that, and he did the same thing with Jeremy Grant, and even with Blyon. but he was able at least to move to kind of like a more, I guess the shot selection in his offense has got a lot better. So sometimes coaches can learn. Of course, Casey never learns to coach in the late game. Doc Rivers still doesn't know how to coach in the late game.

Neither of those guys can really adapt when it's necessary. We saw it with Budenholzer in, well, we've seen it with Budenholzer many times. And his postseason offenses are basically the same as Casey's in that. It's basically Janus, or with the box rather, it's like, okay, here, Janus or or Jeru or Chris, please take the ball and score with it. We need either one of you to have a spectacular game, two of you to have great games, and all three of you to have good games, or we're going to lose. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

And, you know, it's very simple-minded offensively and was absolutely unable to make the necessary changes, you know, just when circumstances merited it simply because something wasn't working or because the opposition, the opposing coach, made a major adjustment. And, I mean, that series and, you know, what happened to the Bucks in game, I think it was game five. Yeah. At the final, the elimination game, it was inexcusably bad coaching. Eric Spolstra made some changes.

Eric Spolster was a fantastic coach. Fantastic. You know, you could always put him up there as, you know, it's arguably the best coach in the league. He made some changes, and it was basically supposed to be playing chess and Mike Boodenholzer playing checkers because Mike Boodenholzer doesn't know how to play chess in terms of basketball. So Spelster made some changes, and Boodenholzer couldn't adapt.

It was just the same thing here. Janice, Drew, Chris, take the ball, please score with it. And on defense, I mean, he was, you know, spells for ransom great stuff. And, you know, Bud just couldn't adjust. And that's why he got fired. And it's very unlikely, I think, that he'll ever get a good coaching opportunity again. Maybe an opportunity where you can coach up a young team. Even that, I wouldn't give to him.

It's very unusual for these kind of, like, fossilized coaches, these old coaches who are known quantities and have known flaws to be given, like, genuinely good coaching opportunities. for a team that's really trying to contend. Doc Rivers was a rare example of that, and it was a bad idea, needless to say. So, I mean, I don't think that a coach like Bud or any of these sort of fossil-ass coaches were ever, even kind of like even a remote consideration for the pistons. This front office seems to be going for just really new blood

in terms of coaching, hopefully new blood of the high ceiling, instead of a coach whom you know, who's a known quantity, but just has these flaws that are going to be very damaging, and I'm 100% behind that, absolutely. I would never have wanted them to take even a look at Mike Boutenholzer, who I think is just one step above, one step above Dwayne Casey. He seems to be very well liked by his players, just like Casey. It's a useful quality, but it's not enough.

He's a bad postseason coach. He can win on the regular season if he has a tremendous amount of talent. Sure, you look back to those Atlanta teams, like the 60-win Atlanta team in 2014, 2015. I got completely annihilated by the Cavs, of course, in the conference finals. Just a very different time as well. you know back then like the spacing and efficiency era and the NBA has just absolutely narrowed margins like you cannot there are certain things that you used to be able to afford that you just can't because the raisers you know the margins are razor thin and one of those is coaching if you have a pad coach it hurts a lot more now I mean much smaller things can mean that the margin between victory and defeat and it takes a better coach you know to walk the necessary lines in in today's NBA which has just much more

specific and I don't know, it's, I don't want to say severe, but it just has very, you got to know how to coach, basically, and you got to know how to coach smartly in a way that you didn't have to 15 years ago. I mean, just the game demands better coaches who are able to run like a really good offense and are able to coach in the necessary ways in the postseason. I know that's a little bit vague, but my point is that there, there's this old generation of coaches who is just not good enough anymore, and Bud is one of those. I've seen some questions about Monty Williams. If the sons fire him, do the pistons have any interest?

And, I don't know, I mean, it kind of appears that the pistons have narrowed it down to their final three, but let's say that's not the case. Would I be interested in Monty Williams? The answer is no. Same sort of thing. A coach who's been around a long time and his flaws are known. He, like Bud and like Casey, very well liked by his players, well, not DeAndre Aden. DeAndre Aidan, I'll talk about him in a little while.

I've grown to strongly dislike. He's exactly the kind of athlete. I despise professional athlete I despise. But Monty has a limited ceiling as well and also difficulty adapting. Now, I had the pleasure of being able to go to game two between the Nuggets and the Sons. I live in Denver. And I wasn't seeing anything new in particular. It was just a lot uglier.

Basically, Monty's scheme was, hey, we've got Chris Ball, we've got Devin Booker. and very similar to Budenhalser, really, but almost worse in a way. And we've got Kevin Durant. Hey, one of you three, just take the ball and create some offense in the midrange. We're not going to try to make ball movements, you know, be a thing for generating open opportunities in the interior. You know, as bad as DeAndre was, you know, they really could have given him more looks. Or, for example, just put Yokic in the pick and roll. Yokic is the Achilles heel in terms of defense.

I mean, he's a bad defender. He can easily be exploited. but Monsi didn't even bother trying. You know, he was running an offense that didn't really try to penetrate to the rim, you know, attack the rim. It tried to attack Nicola Yokic at the rim, and Nicola Yokic to the rim is very bad. Didn't try to switch on the Yokic, didn't but Yokch in the pick and roll. It's pretty much just, I didn't even use Chris Paul as a playmaker.

It's just, hey, U3. Like, Durant's just take the ball and, you know, do your typical mid-range pull-ups. And Booker, you go in and do your mid-range pull-ups or your short-range pull-ups, and hey, Chris Paul gets your typical spot on the left elbow. and take the fadeaway jumper. And it was just hideously ugly. And it's the kind of thing where it's like, okay, yeah, if your players are all shooting well, then that's going to work.

But it just wasn't working out. And Moni, of course, didn't really make any changes at all. You could say, yeah, if KD had a better series and Katie had a bad series, then things could have been different. But the offense was just ugly. It was really ugly. And for the second straight year, you know, Moni, his team went into an elimination game and got completely wiped out.

And part of that was on the players, but part of that was on his inability to, you know, he just can't make changes. He's on the fly. He's not as bad as bud. He's not as bad as Casey. But I just don't want another coach who's just like, this is a guy we know. And, you know, we know what his flaws are. So if money became available, I would say, no, I'm not interested. The last time the Pistons were looking for a coach in 2018, I wanted them to go with an unknown quantity, like a young coach with a lot of upside. And goodness knows that, you know, nightmare of mismatched parts that that roster was needed an innovative minds in the event the Pistons went with the safe choice. And I mean, we can be

realistic here. That roster, I don't want to say let's be realistic here. I think that this is, that this was the case. So put it that way, I pretty strongly believe this, that that team absolutely did not have it. It just did not have, that roster could not really have competed for anything meaningful. You know, maybe if everything went right, it would have gotten to the second rounds. But the roster was a mess in terms of, you know, just not having the right parts, not having enough talents and so on and so forth. But Dwayne Casey was the, you know, if you had to pick a guy like the wrong guy to coach it would have been a guy who who completely whacked any sort of innovativeness, you know, along the lines of Casey. But fortunately, that was a long time ago,

and that roster is long in the past and can't hurt us anymore. But I'm just, I'm relieved that the Troy Weaver regime is looking to do something different. All right, speaking of Moni, DeAndre Aden, this is inevitably going to get brought up. I mean, DeAndre Aden, I'll tell you why I despise DeAndre Aden. He's this sort of athlete who floats. You know, he's lazy, doesn't really play a team game, does not seem at all really dedicated to working hard on or off the courts, on the courts, you know, in obvious ways. And off the court to improve his game, he's very wrapped up in his petty grievances and has, like, it seems a severe entitlement complex.

Like, it seems like he's genuinely been pissed off at Monty Williams for removing him from game seven last year against the Mavericks, even though Aiden himself was not playing well at all. And he was definitely, like, absolutely inexcusably bad. in the series against the Nuggets, just didn't put in the work. You know, it's kind of like shades of drummond. It's that, you know, not the same, but similar. Just a guy who doesn't put in the work and doesn't play for his team,

doesn't have the right attitude, has the wrong, very much the wrong attitude, in fact. And just, you know, realistically, in my opinion, it doesn't really seem to care all that much about being the best he can be on the court. And needless to say, a horrible first overall pick in general, I mean, even without the benefit of hindsight, it's like if you're going to pick a center first overall, this guy had better be special. And just Aiden wasn't that guy.

He was like this strong interior scorer and decent defender who still couldn't shoot, couldn't really necessarily really create all that much for himself. It's just he's not like this kind of Anthony Davis type player, this sort of center you take number one overall, not even at Carl Anthony Towns. It was at least that, you know, had all the hallmarks of an absolutely elite score. And yeah, we're talking like in the spacing era, taking a center first overall.

I mean, you better be pretty darn sure. Meanwhile, you had Luca Donchich, and even though nobody expected Luca to be this good, he was still the most accomplished player and the most accomplished young player in the history of the second best basketball league in the world. And Devin Booker wanted a point card. Devin Booker did not really want to be playing the role of primary handler. So they could have taken Luca, but instead they took Aidan. It was a mind-boggling choice in the first place to take, you know, just to take a center

first overall, you know, a center like Aiden first overall. So it's like, okay, well, Aighton's out of Phoenix. Is there really any possibility of him coming to the Pistons? I would say no in part because, I mean, he's the kind of player. Troy Weaver would not be interested in Troy Weaver, who's all about character. Number two, I mean, he's just not that great. Aiton's really not all that good. I mean, he is a talented interior score who can put the ball on the floor a little bit.

And, you know, he's a decent shooter for mid-range. But he's not an elite score. He's not an elite defender. He's not a hard worker. I mean, he's a guy. He's a strong interior score. he can't space the floor. He plays like above average defense.

He's got attitude issues. He's got work ethic issues. He has seemingly no desire whatsoever to impose his will upon basketball games. He's just not all that great right now. And he's being paid a max contract for what that's worth. So I would say the Pistons would have no interest. I don't have any interest. And I felt this exact same way.

This is not an I told you so. It's just I felt the exact same way last year when there was the talk of, oh, maybe the Pistons can work out of sign and trade. with that have been possible, who knows, but I just didn't have any interest at all. And at this point, I'm very relieved he's not on the team because it would be absolutely, I mean, beyond the fact that it would suck to have a guy being paid that much on the team. I would have to watch him 82 times a year at least. And I just don't want to watch a player like that, definitely not after Drummond, but not at all, period.

Moving on to another guy in the Suns, it's like, okay, well, this iteration of the Suns definitely didn't do too well. Would they be interested in moving on from Booker, I'd say very, very unlikely after the playoffs that he just had, where he really came into his own, both as an incredible score. I mean, he was amazing, like, genuinely amazing. And really also, you know, as a leader of that team, even on a team with Chris Paul and with Kevin Durant, would the sons move on from him? I mean, he'd have to ask out. I don't think that's going to happen.

So I'd say that would end it right there. And even if he did, I mean, the pistons would need to, like, fork over the first overall pick in order to get Devin Booker out of Phoenix. I mean, they just don't have the trade assets at this point. Let's say they get number four on the draft. You could throw Ivy and number two at Phoenix, and they'd still say, no. The Pistons, we need to send over a lot of assets,

including, I mean, this assumes that the Sons are willing to blow it up, which is what it would take for them to trade Devin Booker, who is absolutely the franchise player at this point. And if that were the case, then you'd be looking at some pretty darn good young players and quite a few draft picks. Pistons can't trade away those draft picks right now. And I doubt Devin Booker is on the market. But I mean, there was apparently, I think this is in the first round where Devin Booker ran over to Stan Van Gundy who was doing color commentary and said, you know, he should have drafted me.

Devin Booker, who's a Michigan boy and, you know, grew up watching the going to work Pistons and there's a big Red Wings van and so on and so forth or at least he wears Red Wings jerseys. And Stan Van Gundy said, yeah, if I drafted you, I'd still be coaching. I strongly doubt that because the likes of Devin Booker wasn't going to keep an awful coach like Van Gundy, who was completely an absolutely unfit to coach. coach in the current era from getting fired would be a very kind of very different history for the Pistons. The Booker really wasn't all that great, you know, through his rookie contract. It was pretty good, but really not all that great. It took him time. You know, you could be, I don't think they can realistically be blamed on where he was playing. It just took him time to come into his own. He plays a difficult style of basketball. I'm not saying he was bad, but like he's an all-MBA

caliber player at this point. Another thing I've seen, Jalen Brown, who just got second team all-MBA, and is therefore eligible for a supermax from Boston. Is there any possibility of bringing Jalen Brown to Detroit if the Pistons Boo's in the conference finals? He would have to leave an enormous amount of money off the table, or on the table, rather, because you cannot sign and trade a supermax. Anybody who signs a supermax extension or just signs a standard supermax contract, extension, of course, being, you know, before you hit free agency, but anybody who signs a supermax with his team,

and you can only sign the supermax with the team that you're already on. And free agency or signs an extension, you cannot be traded for free agency. year. So he would have to leave a huge amount of money on the table that's not happening. Or I think it's incredibly unlikely. And the Pistons, I mean, sure, you could demand a sign and trade, but I don't know, the Pistons would have no leverage there. Basically, Jalen Brown would have to say, I'm not resigning with you. I want to go to the Pistons and you better do a sign and trade. You're getting nothing in return for me. I guess theoretically possible, but incredibly unlikely. You know, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, as far as my feelings on Jalen Brown, and even if

that were a possibility. I think the guy is Kyrie Jr., a guy with a lot of idiotic ideas, which he likes to espouse his truth. And I think, you know, he's, if you call him, you know, baby Kyrie, I think it's not out of the question. He's going to grow into, like, actual equivalent to Kyrie in the future. And that's an extremely disruptive player. It's also a player who just sets a terrible example, you know, in that respect. You know, unfortunately, there are plenty of young people who look up to professional athletes. And Charles Barkley put it well. He's like, you know, this was back in the 90s.

I think he said we're not role models. Don't look at professional athletes as role models. And he's right. Just the fact that somebody is excellent at sports does not mean that they are somebody who should look up to. These are regular people who are amazing at sports. Some of them are role models. Like Dirk Novitsky, look up to that guy.

Absolutely. I mean, there is nothing not to like about how Dirk Novetsky comport himself. I mean, he was just, you know, he was an incredible basketball player, one. Sure, but he's just a model sportsman. And by every account I've ever heard, just a good. great guy, 100% great guy. And so there are a sportsman, yeah, where, you know, what, you know, kids, teenagers should absolutely look up to, but not by default. Unfortunately, it seems like many do in a variety of sports. But, you know, I know I'm going off on an ASA. My point is that I'm a little

concerned about, you know, if Jalen Brown, and an incredibly unlikely event that he were to end up with the Pistons, well, at least in the short term, that that could be an issue, that his hijinks could be an issue in the locker room and outside, but that's, I believe, an entirely move point. He's just that I dislike the way that he can board himself, put it that way. And yeah, let's talk postseason now. So I'm recording this the day after the Sixers completely blue lead to the Celtics. Excuse me, completely blue an excellent chance. I mean, they absolutely wasted a terrible game by Jason Tatum, who ultimately came on near the end of the game.

I think they scored 11 points in the fourth quarter. Not ideal. I don't like that they are wasting years of the primes of Joel Embed and James Harden on a bad coach like Duck Rivers, who is, I would say, arguably, the most accomplished postseason choker in the history of the NBA. Not a good choice as coach. Definitely an upgrade over Brent Brown, Brett Brown, excuse me, who is a horrible coach. But, man, Elton Brown, Elton Brand was a force of nature for the Sixers. It is an absolute miracle that the Sixers is still in any position to contend. after dealing with Frisk Colangelo and then Elton Brands who did more damage in two years as general manager than maybe anybody else in NBA history. And one of those decisions that he made was hiring Doc Rivers.

It's like, dude, hired a good coach. Don't hire a coach who is absolutely going to put a ceiling on a new team, but he did. I would like the Sixers to win a championship. I really like Joelle Embeddeed. I would like to see James Harden win a championship. You know, I mean, game seven is tomorrow. So whatever. a prediction. I just hope they make it through there. And I feel like this is really the conference

finals because I just don't think Miami's that great from a talent perspective. They'll have Tyler Harrow back relatively soon and they do have Eric Spolster and they do have them out of bio. But, you know, they did get far last year. Of course, you know, they got deep into the Eastern Conference Finals. But I feel like the Celtics versus the Sixers is really the Eastern Conference Finals. I think the Knicks are going to lose in the second round against the heats. And then whoever plays the heat is very likely to beat them, especially because I mean, Jimmy's been And Jimmy is an incredible playoff, you know, incredible playoff contributor, incredible playoff performer Jimmy Pelwer. But he's carrying such a Herculane Lowe right now.

I just don't question whether he can sustain this into the conference finals. So I would say whoever wins this series is going to the finals. And then out west, we'll find out tonight. Or, you know, if you're listening to this episode, I'll probably have known already. Whether the Warriors are going to hold on or the Lakers are going to make it through. I mean, all credits the Lakers, they really revamped that team at the track. trade deadline, same as the Cavs did with LeBron. You know, LeBron was around for that too back in 2018, though.

I'd argue that this Lakers team is significantly better than that one. Second best player on that team was a really in decline, Kevin Love. I mean, Anthony Davis, he really gets overlooked a lot, I believe, because he's injured quite a bit of the time. But Anthony Davis is an amazing basketball player. And when he's healthy, he's extremely difficult to stop. He is excellent on offense, and he is a very, very, very good defender. Best player on the team, I'd say that without hesitation, better than LeBron at this stage of LeBron's career. And beyond that, I mean, they aren't a bad team.

I mean, that's, that's, that's a talented team under a capable coach. The Warriors, I kind of feel are, I mean, their windows closing with this group of players. I mean, Curry is still incredible. But, you know, Thompson isn't what he used to be. I mean, Dremont, I don't know if you can say that he's lost to step, but I mean, this, this is a team that is aging out. Generally, players will start to go into decline in their 30s, you know, in their early 30s. This is a team where their principals are reaching their mid-30s. And unfortunately for them, I mean, the thought was, you know, that Golden State had really lucked out.

I mean, they got the number two pick because everybody got injured, you know, in the 2020 draft. Yeah, the number two pick, of course, who was now playing for the Pistons. And that could have been a different pick if Clay Thompson had torn as Achilles a day earlier rather than on the day on the morning of the draft, you know, about, I think less than 12 hours before the draft began. You might have seen Lamella Ball or Tyrese Halliburton on the Warriors. So that definitely didn't help things. though I think we can safely say now that Wiseman was just not the right pick for them. I'm not sure why they picked a center on a team that doesn't really use its center all that much. I mean, Kavall Muni does very well for them, and that's in part because very, very little is asked of him.

It's like, all right, Kavana all you have to do is set screens, get rebounds, play garbage man, and, you know, play decent defense, which you can do. Do you want to get Kavam Luni to run the pick and roll, you're going to have problems. But the Warriors don't need them to run the pick and roll. I mean, the Warriors use the pick and roll, I think the least out of any team in the NBA. I mean, they run an offense that is focused around offball screens and Steph Curry and to a lesser extent Clay Thompson and using Draymond Green as the interior pivot in terms of passing. The only team in the league, I would say even, you know, even keeping the sons and taking the sons, excuse me into account, the only team in the league they can get away really with putting three shooters in the floor, given the combination of talent that they have and Steve Kerr, who's a fantastic coach. But, you know, unfortunately for them, Wiseman didn't work out. maybe Coominga will, but he's coming along slowly.

Jordan Poole, I think it just isn't that great, especially in the postseason. You know, he's really a wild card. He could have a very good game on offense or a very bad one, and he can't really play defense, certainly not in the postseason. Jonathan Cominga, yeah, I already just mentioned him, actually. Moses Moody, I think still has it in to be a solid 3-Indie player, but they were hoping to get some stark, you know, some star caliber talent out of the draft picks that they got,

and maybe they will eventually with Coominga, but it's not looking great at this point. for the Warriors. It seems like instead of just having had like this amazing opportunity to reload on, you know, on high ceiling young talent, you know, that talent doesn't look like it's going to arrive in time.

And maybe it would have been better for them to just pick some role players, some guys with high floors who would be able to contribute in the short term. So I think they may have gambled and lost in that respect. But whatever the case, I think I would pick the Lakers to come out of that, which means it's going to be the Lakers against the Nuggets. And I think that's going to be a series. in which the Nuggets will have some difficulty because they'll actually be up against the team that is going to attack them in a way that is going to exploit Nicole Yokic's bad defense.

The Warriors can do it to a degree, but they're not nearly as much about attacking the interior. You have Yokic is going to have to contend with Anthony Davis. He's going to have to contend with guys, you know, the leading amongst which, of course, will be LeBron James, you know, attacking him from the perimeter. the Lakers just can run an offense that will target him much more specifically. And Yokic's defense is really the Achilles heel. I mean, they've put some good defensive players around him. Like Aaron Gordon's a good defender, KCP's a good defender. I mean, KCP is, of course, much, much, much more than a player he was in Detroit.

So is Bruce Brown, who's a solid defender and has genuinely become a very good role player in the NBA. I don't think it was a mistake for the business to trade him. I think it's worth noting that it took him until season three away from Detroit. to really become a good all-around role player. In Brooklyn, he was a guy who got to do very little because he was playing next superstar talent. But they put good defenders next to Nicole Yoke, she can still be exploited.

And the Timberwolves did not really have the means to do that, and their coach sucks too. And the Nuggets did not really have the means to do that. A bunch of guys, you know, the three principals who just do a lot of jump shooting, don't really attack the rim all that much. And a coach also who just did a bad job. And I think it's not going to be that easy against the Lakers.

So if you had to ask me right now, we run a real risk right now of seeing a Lakers Celtics finals, which in a way would be kind of cool, you know, for old times sake, I guess probably the right way of looking at it, right way of putting it. But also, as a Pistons fan, makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little bit. So that'll be it for this episode. I would love to hear from you guys if you'd like to see more of this content in the future, just more of these short episodes in which I guess I just declined about a variety of stuff

that was not covered in the weekly episodes. Either way, as always, I want to thank you all for listening. Catch you in the next episode.