Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 157: Isaiah Stewart’s Extension & Mid-Summer League Review

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

This episode discusses Isaiah Stewart's new contract extension and shares some thoughts and observations of the first two games of Summer League. 

Welcome back. Everybody, you're listening to another episode of Drive Into the Basket. I'm Mike, your host, freshly back actually for the first weekend of Summer League in Las Vegas. I had the opportunity to go up there. Fortunately, it's not a very long trip for me as I live in Denver, just a couple hours by plane. So I'll just start with that. It was a pretty cool experience. For those of you who are considering checking it out in successive years, I would recommend it. It's pretty laid back. Basically, you just buy a ticket. And if you're not buying a ticket in the preferred section, which costs quite a bit more money, then you just get there early, stick yourself out a good seat or find yourself one after people leave.

And you get to see an entire day's with the games. I watched, goodness, a great deal of basketball over the course of Saturday and Sunday. And, you know, it was cool. Got some pretty sweet seats up close for the most part. And it was just a cool experience. Obviously, a different experience from a regular basketball game

because just the, I don't know, pomp and circumstance, I suppose you could say is very different. Of course, the crowd is very different to. People are generally there for just one. specific team. But in any event, it was cool to get to see that much basketball from up close in just two days. And like I said, I'd strongly recommend it for those of you who are interested in Summer League basketball. And for my part, it was also just a great fix in that I feel like I'm going through NBA withdrawal after not having seen any of it for, well, at least for the

pistons are concerned for three months. And we're not going to see it for another three months now. So in this episode, I'm going to talk about, of course, the first two games of Summer League for The Pistons. And also going to speak a bit, and I'll get started with that, on Isaiah Stewart's extension. So we found out yesterday, this being Tuesday night, that Isaiah Stewart had been signed to a four-year, $64 million contract extension. And it's technically, I'm told about 15, or I've read, rather, about $15 million per year instead of $16, $1 million of that is locked behind bonuses. However, if those are judged to be likely bonuses by the league office, and there are two types of bonuses, there are likely and unlikely bonuses, again, as decided by the league front office.

Anything that's determined to be a likely bonus, like something that a player is likely to get, obviously, that counts against the cap, whether or not he earns it. So if that's the case with Stewart's bonuses, which, well, I guess there's no point speculating either way. But if it is the case with Stewart's bonuses, the criteria for which have not been revealed, then if he doesn't get them, he'll just get paid $15 million. And it'll go $16 million against the cap anyway. way, but this is all just speculation. So in any event, how do I feel about Isaiah Stewart's extension? I feel pretty happy with it, and I'm okay with the number.

I know that, I mean, it makes perfect sense that, you know, if you're a fan and you've been watching the NBA for a long time, you look and you shudder at the number. And it's important, like I said in the last episode, look at these things as a percentage of the cap, not as a flat number. Like, if you go back to 2016, back when people thought that salaries were insane with that huge cap spike and, I don't know, Timothy and Mosgov got $16 million a year, which would have been crazy even under today's cap. But that was under a very, very substantially lesser salary cap. As of now, I mean, once we get to next season, the 2024, 2025 season, Stewart's going to be making

about 10% of the cap. Right now, it's a little bit more than that. This is not a bad salary for a guy whom you might consider an important part of your team. Now, what does Stewart bring to the table? Oh, of course, it should be noted that also Stewart's still quite young. You know, he's going to be in his mid-20s when this contract ends. And still has room for growth, in my opinion. Now, what does Stewart bring to the table? Number one, definitely the emotional heartbeat of the team, locker room leader, a guy who on the court is just going to give 100% of his all on every possession.

Like I've said it before when I was, whatever, I don't want to tout myself and say that that's something that I liked that I had said. But I didn't think a good way of putting it when I was comparing Stuart to Jaris Walker, who just chronically avoids contact. And I had the pleasure of watching him, well, pleasure, ironic pleasure of watching him play against the Wizards. And I think his first possession off the dribble was a bad pull-up, too, that he missed. And then the second one was an air ball.

So in any event, you know, because there have been some comparisons between Stuart and Jaris Walker, comparisons which I still don't really believe held much water at all. But the way I put it, like Jaros Walker on offense is going to avoid contact. Isaiah Stewart, if you tell him, Isaiah, you know, we think the best of you the coaches, of course, we think the best thing for you to do for you to help your team win is to run full speed into the opposing center on every possession, he would do it. Isaiah Stewart is somebody who will do pretty much anything to help his team win. He's one of those players whom I believe would be just fine taking zero shots a game if he was

told that that was what he should do in order for his team to have the best chance of winning. He is 100% and 150% of that were possible team guy. And he is in the 100th percentile in the NBA in terms of work ethic. The guy doesn't take a single second off on the court. So is that on its own? enough to make a good player. No, however, Stewart does bring other assets as well. It is an important thing, however, a guy who's really going to set the tone for your team, who's going to set the example out on the court. And apparently in the locker room as well, he's very well regarded and is a

leader there too, which is completely unsurprising to me. And he's just a guy who's going to do whatever it takes, whatever he can to help the team win. And without stints, period, I mean, you might think that all NBA players are professionals who will do that as a matter of. of course. Of course, that's not true. I mean, you have some on the extreme end of, opposite end of that. Like we saw Drummond for years. And in any case, I mean, most guys fall somewhere in the middle. Like I guess that Isaiah Stewart is really like at the tippy top of the NBA. He's one of the hardest workers in the entire league. So he brings other assets as well. We can start with the defense, the interior defense in particular. And this is stuff I've said before, but I want to say it again,

because we're talking about Isaiah Stewart. And then there are definitely some very positive qualities he brings the floor on defense. At center, provided that his teammates aren't sieves like they were to start last year, like that Boyon-Bay-Stuart-front court was an absolute and utter abomination, like the least athletic starting front coin I've ever seen in the NBA, in addition to being very undersized. Bay was a bad defender, a really bad defender last year. Boyan is a bad defender.

Ivy was a very bad defender last year, too, is what it is. He knows it. And so Stewart was forced to contend with the fact that three of his teammates were just outright bad defenders. And one of Stewart's weaknesses, and I'll talk about his weaknesses. I have talked about his weaknesses. I did so last week. You know, his primary weakness is just in his athleticism, not a fast guy by any means on the run, not explosive, poor leaper, and have been undersized. So whatever the case, the downshot of that, if I'm using the right word there, is that he is not going to be able to reposition a significant distance and then contest a shot. So that was an issue for him

at the beginning of last season, because three of the guys around him were just letting, they just couldn't defend the perimeter. They were just guys constantly getting in there, and Stewart would be forced to dash from one place to another. And if he's dashing from one place to the other, he's not going to get there in time to jump and contest a shot. So provided that his teammates are not sieves, he is a very strong interior defender. And he is a defender whose strength varies very, very little from the perimeter into the

basket. Like, he is more or less just as strong anywhere within the arc as a defender. He's a strong rim protector. Like, if you look by the percentages last season, or the season before last, rather, the 2020 season, one of the best rim protectors in the league by percentage. He's very good at that. He's a strong paint protector, just in general, in the area that's not, you know, just not just defending against shots at the rim. I mean, he's a very strong paint protector in general. I mean, he has a smart defender. He knows how to use his body. He knows how to use his length. He knows where to be. He doesn't really make many mistakes. I should get to that in the IQ segment of things. I mean, he's a very smart defender. And he uses that in conjunction with his very, very strong frame and his excellent length to just keep guys out of the paint to disrupt shots. Like even from a rim on a rim protection basis, I remember these instances, for example, in his rookie year, like defending against LeBron or defending it's against somebody else. I mean, you can initiate contact with Isaiah Stewart and thanks to his just tremendous, strong frame and low center of gravity. He's not likely to move very much, which helps him in contesting shots at the rim also helps him contesting just shots in the paint. In general,

keeping guys, whether it's his assignment or others, he has to come help on from getting good position to take a shot. Again, you can't move him very easily. You know, well, if you're Yokch, you can. I got to watch Yokic up close, you know, a couple of times going at it in the paint with Stewart. Wait, did he play the second time? I can't remember the first time, yeah, watching Yokets just completely body Stewart out of the way was really something else. The guy's incredibly strong. But for the most part, you're going to have difficulty moving Stewart. And he's very good at defending in space. He's very good at using his length to disrupt the opposition in the interior to guard passing lanes and so on and so forth. Fair shot blocker as well. And when you force

him to switch out to the perimeter, no defense is ever going to target Isaiah Stewart on switches because it is a complete fool's errand because he's an absolutely excellent switch defender. So This is a guy I like to call on no variance defender in that, you know, whether you're playing drop or switch or whatever scheme against him, he's not going to lose very much, if anything at all, you know, having to change between those two. And most centers do. Most centers are going to be weaker to one extent or another in switch versus drop. And Isaiah Stewart just doesn't have that. He's a strong pick and roll defender. Just a great decision maker in general. Where he is a little bit weaker on defense is when he needs to defend against vertical spacing. Again, he's not a very good bleeper. And he's a very good bleeper. And he's a very good keeper. And he's a great decision maker. And he's a good. He's a great decision maker. And he's. And he's, he's a great. He's a great not very tall. And he's not a very good recovery defender, so to speak. If somebody gets by him, he's unlikely to swat the shot because he just doesn't really have the explosiveness in the leaping to get there in time. And as a weak side room protector for those same reasons, he's not great. However, for the most part, I mean, those aren't crippling weaknesses by any means. And I should mention also against guys who are both taller and more athletic than he is,

he can kind of struggle a little bit at defending against rebounds, offensive rebounds. But again, There are those weaknesses, and those come of the fact, again, that he's not the most athletic and he's not the tallest. If we had Stewart, you know, who was like a strong NBA athlete, this guy would have gone. Who knows, maybe the Pistons would have picked him number seven in 2020. Wouldn't surprise me, given how much really Weaver values character and work ethic. Maybe I'm reaching because he clearly wanted his primary handler of the future. Man, the Pistons kind of needed that, but who knows. Anyway, getting over those weaknesses, Stuart is still a very, very strong interior defender,

again, particularly in the right circumstances. And I think he will be even more valuable in the playoffs where just switch defense becomes ever yet more important. And if the Pistons can field the full five-man lineup of guys who are non-targetable on switches, then fantastic and just having a center out there who's not going to struggle at all, no matter if you switch a fast guard onto him is a very, very nice thing to have. So those are strengths on defense. On office, things get a little bit more, a little bit murk here.

I'll put it that way. One thing that I will say, and I have said, and I will continue to say, is that I believe in Isaiah Stewart as a shooter. You know, I just, I believe in his touch. I've seen it since his rookie year. I think he has the touch to be a good shooter. And I think that he is a player who will ultimately shoot in the high 30s from three. And in my opinion, that's a very important thing, because Isaiah, he has his struggles providing value on offense, rather. I talked the last episode about what I think about Isaiah Power Forward, which is basically that I think he has very little to offer on. offense because he's just not going to be beating anybody off the ball. He doesn't have a great handle. And he's not going to be likely beating anybody on the ball. And basically all he's going to have to

offer is more or less standstill spot up shooting in addition to off, you know, off ball screens, on ball screens and high effort. So those are things. Those exist. But his score is very limited. So at center to just the fact that he is a below the rim score, who has decent touch, but not great touch. And you really want to have great touch to compensate for being a below the rim score. And also can't really vertically space. The first. floor and isn't the easiest to get the ball to on the role. Also, his hands are occasionally an issue. He's not a very strong player on the role. We'll put it that way. He sets great screens. I mean, there's no doubting that you don't want to run into an Isaiah Stewart screen and he hits,

just as with everything else he does, he throws them full on. But in terms of his ability to actually score on the role, he's a little bit more limited. So I would say he's less limited as a score at center than at power forward and something that should be mentioned and that I think Dwayne Casey did a very, very poor job of utilizing is that Isaiah Stewart is a pretty good standstill mid-range shooter, too. It's not a play you want to be running for him, but it's valuable in that if you give him the space, he can shoot it. You want him to be given as little bit, you know, as little space as possible by the defenders, I mean, for them to have to guard him closely. So in any event, to get back to what I was saying, I think that in order for Isaiah Stewart

to be a non-negative player on offense, he's going to have to shoot the ball well, and I think that he will. And if he can shoot, sure, he's still not the greatest role man, but he needs to be respected on the pick and pop. So he needs to be played closely in the pick and roll nonetheless. And, you know, you give him that, and I think he'll have enough to be, you know, a decent offensive contributor to go along with his strong defense. I've said it before. I think that his primary position in the NBA is going to be center, just where he's a strong defender and I think can provide more offensive value despite his shortcomings of the position versus power forward where I think he's, He's more of just kind of like an average defender and is going to have very little to offer on offense.

But, yeah, it's a good shooter on offense. Again, threaten the pick and pop. If he can hit that mid-range shot as well when he's just used as an interior pivot of sorts just to do handoffs and whatnot. Basically, if you can't leave him open anywhere, that's just an additional way of spacing the floor for your teammates. And, of course, being a good three-point shooter is valuable in all the obvious ways. plus, you know, you run him with Kate and Ivy and a couple of other shooters, then you can run a true five-out offense. Definitely a good thing to have and a difficult thing to defend against.

So as long as the shooting comes along, I'm very happy with this contract. If it doesn't, I think it's going to be an overpay. That is what it is clearly. I would say very clearly the team believes in Isaiah Stewart as a shooter, and so do I. I think he'll get there. I think we'll see much better things from Isaiah this season in terms of shooting. and I think that he could ultimately approach or be around 40% on catch and shoots.

I think that he has that potential as a shooter. He certainly has the work ethic, but you have to have the touch to, in addition to the work ethic, and I think that he does. And, of course, on top of that, like I said, it's tough to put a price on what he brings to the team just in terms of his mentality and his leadership. And the example he sets, again, not enough to make one a good player necessarily, but I think that he brings – I'm not saying that's all he has. put it that way. I think he brings that on top of his other skills. I'll put it this way. I think

this is a good value contract and I'm personally just happy that he's going to be with the team for the next four years, five years rather, unsurprised as well, because I counted it very, very likely that he would be extended this summer just again because the front office clearly absolutely loves the guy and really values, in addition to what he brings on the court in terms of his skills, also really values his mentality and his work ethic and his personality and so on and so forth. All right. So that's Isaiah Stewart. And yeah, again, I'm not concerned about the contract because I'm very confident in his development as a shooter. I'm not concerned about the size of the contract, rather. I think it will be a value that will be just fine and, you know, maybe even a good value. And I think particularly

good value in the postseason. Yeah, I remember watching actually game seven between the Mavericks in the Sons a couple of years ago in game seven when Aiden had been benched. Bionbo was in the game and I was thinking, man, I don't doubt that the Sons in this situation would love against, again, this five-out offense that the Mavericks were playing, where Luca, of course, was the star contributor. It's like, I think they would love to just have a guy like Stewart out there who can really just play super well into this switch scheme, you know, this, excuse me, this switch-focused offense that they're playing.

We've seen Stewart, for example, defend against. against Wuka in the past. And Luka is Wuka. Oftentimes, he's going to score no matter how good your defense is. But Stewart did great in terms of switch defense on Wuka. But of course, like I said, it's pretty rare that a team even bothers trying to get a switch onto Stewart. But yeah, I think that, again, provided the shooting is there, he'll be even more valuable in the postseason than he is in the regular season. And if the shooting's there, if he's playing center, again, not too hot on him at Power Forward. But if he's playing backup center, for example, then I have no doubt that he'll be able to contribute good value in the regular season two. All right, well, I ended up talking about

Isaiah Stewart quite a bit more than I had intended. But, yeah, I just love Isaiah Stewart. And yeah, don't need to think that he's a perfect player in order to love the guy. He certainly has his flaws, but that's fine. The vast majority of players in the NBA have their flaws. The vast, vast majority of players in the NBA are role players. There's nothing wrong with being a role player, and I really like what Isaiah brings to the table. All right, so moving on, let's talk a little bit about my feelings regarding the first two games of Summer League. And the next game will be against the Raptors, and it'll drop probably about, I don't know, like 14 or 15 hours

after I post this episode. So this is just, I don't know, I don't know if I feel like this is going to become outdated or what. We're not sure if Ivy and Duren are playing. And, oh, yeah, one thing I should mention, I guess I'll talk a little bit about the games that I saw. I got to see that second game, or Victor Wambayama, against the trailblazers, and the guy is scary in person, like, genuinely scary. You couple his size with good mobility.

He doesn't really need good athleticism, but his athleticism is all right with the touch that he has on offense. He didn't do a ton on defense, but on offense, I mean, is terrifying. It's going to be very, I know it's just Summer League, but you can see it. Just it's exceptionally difficult to stop this guy on offense. even if his shooting doesn't come along, it's going to be difficult to stop the guy. And if it does, I mean, I'm not saying he's going to be like the greatest score of all time, but it's going to be tough.

The guy is huge. In terms of his height, he's super long, he's super tall, and he's got really good touch. And it was just a pleasure to watch him play. And the crowd was really into it. They just wanted to see this guy succeed. Another one, Jabari Smith Jr. So I had Jabari Smith Jr.

kind of had waffled back and forth between number one number two in his draft class last year. And I had him there because I felt that even if his off the dribble offense didn't come along, I mean, at your very, very worst, this wasn't the reason I had him there. But I felt that even at his worst, you would get a guy who was a very strong three and deep player who could provide value in any situation. And I thought he stood a fair chance, even though I never thought the guy would be good off the dribble. And he's still, I think, can have his issues as a passer in the NBA. And just what I mean by off the dribble is actually attacking the basket. I don't think that's ever going to be a big part of his game.

But I thought that he could get it together. He stood a high chance of getting it together as a pure shooter off the dribble. And he really showed a lot of that at Summer League, at least in that game against the Pistons. Well, that carryover to the NBA, I don't know. But he really looked like a shooter, shooter there. And, you know, if you can get a guy who could conceivably play, like, you know, 6'10 Chris Middleton, it's a very, very valuable guy to have somebody who is also very good

at just shooting over people through close contests on the perimeter, even in isolation. vision. Cam Whitmore, I felt like, looked better than he actually was. He was more or less just hitting his pull-up threes. And cool, that's a great shot to make if you can do it. At the same time, you're going to be probably defended more adequately in the NBA than he were at Summer League, even though that may sound silly. I don't think Cam Whitmore is going to be shooting, you know, numerous pull-up threes through very close contests at the NBA level. And really his slow shot and in low elevation. I mean, he did shoot fairly well, decently well, rather than, you know, well, actually not that well.

He could make some threes to pull up threes through close contests in the NCAA, but his pull-up three-point percentage was actually pretty poor. But at the NBA level, I mean, the guy is going to probably need to do something about his release, which is slow and low, very little elevation. It's going to get him blocked a fair amount of the time, or not a fair amount of time. It's going to be a risk. I'll put it that way. Chet looked, he looked okay.

I'll put it that way. And again, this is Summer League. I should clarify that, well, my name for Summer League is over. reaction season. It's a cool thing to see, but I don't think there's necessarily a ton to take away from it necessarily beyond some obvious things and mostly positives. But a little bit of this way with Chet, I just feel the same way I did about him when he was drafted even before the draft. I mean, leaving aside, but I think our very, very real injury concerns beyond what he's already suffered. I think the guy could be excellent if he puts on enough mass to play center. I just don't think

that he's going to really necessarily be all that great of power for it. I mean, think he'll be a great rim protector if he can put on that mess. It'll be a strong pain protector. He's not an awesome switch defender, but I think he'll hold his own. And he's also a super strong score around the basket, who's, I think, going to be able to stretch the floor. And he's got somewhat of a decent handle. Maybe be able to do a little bit of attacking off the dribble. But at Summer League, I mean, he just, he's struggled, not coincides, excuse me, in part due to the fact that he just he'd get hit and he'd lose the ball.

or he wasn't able to get himself close to the basket, or it's just I felt like a lot of his struggles came from the fact that he is still very, very thin, and not everybody can put on mass. Some guys can completely pig out, and just by dint of genetics, they just can't really get much bigger, or at least can't add much muscle, or even in some cases much fat. I mean, I'm sure all of us have known the person who could eat, you know, who could eat their faces off, and they just stayed super, super skinny.

And again, that just comes down to genetics. so. But the guy certainly is tall and very, very thin. There's no doubt about that seeing him in person. He's got an interesting frame, a little bit different from Wembe's, not quite as fluid. Brandon Miller really doesn't look like he's quite settled in yet. He was still pretty darned bad. I don't exactly know what to say about that beyond the fact that, again, it's just summer league. He's definitely at a rough time, and I certainly think that he should not have been taken number two. but, you know, give him time, give him space to develop. I think that his floor on the NBA is as a solid three-point shooter and a decent defender,

though the athleticism certainly is nothing special. There's no doubt about that. Of course, we knew that before the draft. And unfortunately, it was not around for the game between the Trailblazers and the Rockets. I was just getting off the plane at the time. Didn't get to go to the games on Friday night, by all accounts. That one was a bar and burner, as they say. Anyway, let's move on to the Pistons.

So, as I said before, this is Summer League. I don't think necessarily any strong, anythings should be taken away from it. But there are some things I believe we can look at and remark upon. So one thing I want to start with, unfortunately, well, this will be brief. The coaching, in the first couple games, was very bad. We saw some teams go out and run actual offenses, the Rockets included, the Mavericks, the Thunder. I mean, I'm just talking at the games that I was in person to watch, the Pacers, the Wizards, sort of. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about the Hornets, I was going to say, James Book Knight, who was drafted in 2021 on the lottery, and who had been thought of at that time as a possible number six pick up up to the time of the draft and ended up dropping, has been awful in the NBA and was awful at Summer League.

The guy is remarkably bad. Oh, so is Johnny Davis. Poor guy. Waste he's got the Taco Bell commercials. So anyway, the coaching, I believe it was Jared Jack, who was by all accounts, a good development dude, definitely didn't do a good job in terms of fronting an actual offense. And I should note that I've had it up to my eyeballs already with bad coaching from the Pistons in Summer League or otherwise. You know, watching, I came back to the Pistons in 2014, watching Stan Bang Gandhi be maybe sort of okay in his first season aside from the 20-something games in which he decided that Josh Smith, should be the center of the offense.

That was definitely not good coaching. Pistons, I believe, went three and 24. Start the season before he finally bench Smith. Josh Smith was not a guy you made the center of your offense. Let's just put it that way. Anyway, I thought he was decent the rest of that season. Pretty limited in the second season, and then terrible in the next two. And so you all know how I feel.

I just said, y'all, I'm from Michigan. I've never lived in the South. You all know how I feel about Dwayne Casey and his limitations as a coach. I'm looking forward to Monty because I think. I think Monty's a solid coach, and I'm looking forward to watching games and not getting exasperated at the coach doing something that lessens his team's chances of winning and wondering why this coach, and I'm not, like, I've never subscribed to the notion, and I don't like anybody should, that just because you're a professional coach, you are above criticism,

or that fan, you know, a fan might now look at your coaching and say you're doing this wrong, because we've seen it, and we've seen it, you know, countless times in professional sports in North America alone. You know, we've seen it in management as well. Any of you who were around from Matt Millen, woohoo, you know, guy who got to be an executive and was unequivocally terrible and a great deal of what the fans said about him. And what he did was 100% accurate.

So for me, it's looking at things like looking at things the coach is doing and saying, why you're doing this, you're a professional coach. And with Casey, of course, this is a lot of stuff that he was doing all the way back to Toronto. And it's still beyond me how a pro-MBA coach can be that rigid and fail to improve. but Casey is not the only one in that category. You look at Doc Rivers and Mike Boodenholzer and so on and so forth, that old very rigid cadre of, and I believe are very outdated coaches at this point,

or quite outdated in any reason, in any case, rather, not fit to coach winning teams that have aspirations of success in the playoffs. So Jared Jack, I felt like really just ran sort of a pickup basketball scheme, like just go out there and play your game, and, you know, let's not merely run many pick and rolls. why should we bother trying to get us, you know, Assar Thompson the ball. It was basically frozen out in the first game. Should we run off ball actions to get Marcus Sasser open for motion threes?

Now, why bother? You know, there's just no reason to do that. Let's just, excuse me, let's just let's give those reps to Xavier Simpson and Stanley Amude. They're the future of the pistons, you know, instead of Sasser and Assar when Ivy's off the court. And, you know, instead of doing, you know, again, stuff that makes sense for the youth on the team, let James Wiseman post up and keep feeding him. It was bad pickup basketball, and I just kind of resented the fact that

Jared Jack clearly was not running a system, any sort of, you know, a system of any depth whatsoever. And, yeah, just I don't think that benefited anybody at all. So let's talk about the notable players. So Jaden Ivy, in the first game, wasn't really trying to do all that much, I'll put it that way. It wasn't doing a lot of the things that he did well in the NBA. Like, you weren't seeing him just turn the afterburners on and turn the corner and score at the basketball like he could do.

He was just taking a lot of pull-up threes. I'm not exactly. Again, there's no reason for Jaden Ivy to be coming into Summer League just to take pull-up threes and take reps away from other players to work on things. And players will just experiment in Summer League, and that's part of it. Game two, he played more of kind of a typical Jaden Ivy game and did pretty well. Don't really have much to say about Ivy. He didn't really show us anything new. And I think for him and Duren and Wiseman in part, it was summer league is just to get them some reps on the court against decent, you know, in decent five-on-five action against respectable competition, which they saw in the summer league because other teams were playing their second-year players more than usual too, which was great to see.

It has typically been for quite some time that successful first-year players don't play in summer league in the second season. and we saw a lot of them there this year. We will continue to see them, though. My guess is that an increasing number of them will get shut down, if not, a large number, if not for game three, then for game four. So not much to say about Ivy. Let's talk Duren. So Duren, I thought, did pretty well as a scorer.

He did flash some floor spacing capability. A couple of these pull-up twos, and I don't think you're going to have Jalen Duren taking pull-up twos during the season. I mean, I think it's important to distinguish between, like when you see NBA players in the gym, gym like Mitchell Robinson sinking threes and crossing guys up. It's not what you can do in a gym or in summer league, which is still, even against, you know, decent NBA players is still drastically less in terms of the quality of competition than one will face in the NBA. So it's what is

worthy of attempting in the NBA. And there is a world in which Jayland Duren can take some short pull-ups. I mean, we saw him flash that a bit at Memphis. And if he can do that, fantastic. I mean, he's just diversified as scoring even more. Not diversified to scoring even more because he's not a super diverse scorer right now, but he has given himself another weapon, particularly in his short role. Good to have. As far as his three-point shooting, I don't think he's going to be utilized very much as a three-point shooter in the NBA, in part because it just doesn't really make a ton of sense to bring him away from the basket. He's a strong finisher. He's a strong offensive rebounder. You pull him away to the perimeter. You're losing both of those things.

maybe in a situation in which you really want to isolate and attack a matchup and Cade or Ivy or whoever it is, we'll just wave everybody off and then the center has to defend Duren at the three point line, or you are probably going to be giving up an easy basket. Sure, it's useful in that scenario. So if you can get that three point shot together, great. However, I mean, I'm having these little flashbacks to Drummond spotting up on the perimeter. Of course, he sucked at shooting threes unequivocally. But there's going to be no reason to just have Durence,

spotting up on a regular basis, even if he has a reasonably reliable three-point shot, but it would be a good weapon to have. And, you know, beyond that just showed his typical strengths as a, you know, as an interior to finisher, excuse me, interior finisher, his, his athleticism on the role and as a vertical spacer, his, you know, she showed, he was, he's clearly working in creating offense around the basket. He uses, it's a work in progress, but he seems to have the touch, and he definitely uses his body effectively. On defense, because he was playing, next to James Wiseman. And no, I don't think that's going to happen in the regular season. This is just the thing that you do in Summer League because you want both of these guys to get

the maximum amount of run and they were staggered a lot of the time. Durham was the one who ended up defending a power forward and he's just not a guy you want defending a power forward or defending on a dedicated basis because he did have a share of difficulties. Though also I think he was playing a little bit of a lazy game, especially on close outs, for example. He just really wasn't working too hard. But a guy whom I think is going to play center, obviously. So you're going to have him doing some switching. I think he'll do well on that. I think his main strength, though I think there's not going to be a lot of variance between his switch and his drop defense is going to be as a drop defender, though. But I don't know why I say

his main strength. I think he'll be good at both. James Wiseman. So last good things to say about him, James Wiseman in game one was actually decent. You know, bear of mind, this is a fourth year player. He hasn't played a ton of the NBA, but he is, you know, 22 years old, or is it 23, whatever. He's in the fourth year of his rookie contract. But in the first game, he was playing within the floor of the offense. And what I think, where I think James Blysmann is going to be at his best, is serving as a finisher, both just in standard actions and as a role man on vertically spacing the four, hopefully shooting threes, and hopefully just playing decent defense on the other end. And in the first game, he was, you know, largely doing that. He still needs to work on setting screens because he just

doesn't really throw his whole body into it. But he was just playing within the floor the offense and not trying to create in ways that he's really bad at. And on defense, he was all right. I mean, still had his share of poor decisions made, and he really needs to improve upon his decision-making on the defensive end. But on the offensive end, again, yeah, he just played within himself, he even made a couple of decent passes. Great. When it came to the game against the Rockets, he went back to indulging all of his worst habits, and one of those is the post-ups, and I'm annoyed at Jared Jack for even allowing this to happen, because, number one, there was no reason. It just didn't do anybody any good, didn't do Wiseman any good, didn't do the other guys any good, didn't do the guys who should have been getting reps in a more defined offense and not waste, you know, not an offense that was just wasting possessions.

Because though it's just Summer League, it is an opportunity for guys to actually play again in a decent, in a decent, in five-on-five situation against somewhat decent opposition, not NBA level by any means in terms of the opposition and the level of play. But in any case, a lot of it was, hey, like, you know, like last season, I don't know why Duane K. he was allowing this either, hey, I'm just going to post up, seal off and post up, and you can get me the ball, and then I'm going to take a bad shot. Wiseman would post up, he would, you know, he would back his defender toward the basket and twirl and spin and put up a shot that, for the most part, would miss. I don't think he has that touch. I don't do not think he has the touch of a creator around the basket. And though he is young, I mean, he's starting from a very, very low point, put it that way. And Andre Drummond-esque low point, Andre Drummond, who back in his first

couple of seasons, first three seasons, I think, as a post-scorer under a coach who continue to utilize him as such, was the worst free-throw shooter in league history, and I know I'm talking about his post-scoring, but we'll contextualize this by that even though he was the worst free-throw shooter in week history at the time, he was still more efficient from the free-throw line than he was from the post. Wiseman is, like, last season was a little bit better than that. I think 0.77 points per possession. There was a relatively small number of players who attempted at least two field goal, excuse me, averaged at least two field goal attempts from the post every game. Wiseman was by far the worst of those, by far, not even close. And sure, it's only

one season, but just you look at it, it's not really altogether too worthwhile for a player to be posting up in the NBA at all for the most part. I mean, post offense has made a bit of a comeback amongst Bigs. There's more of them can do it in an efficient manner. But still, I mean, it's only worth, again, it's only worth doing if your guy's actually, actually, actually good at it, because it's ball-stopping offense. It's tough to make efficient, and it means that you're not going to get a higher percentage opportunity at the three-point line, for example, from running an actual offense with passing and breaking down defense as you're just giving a ball to the guy, the ball to a guy and asking him to score. And Wiseman, again, I don't think he has the touch.

His hands are not very good. I mean, he's remarkably poor, given, you know, given the size of his hands or whatever you want to say at actually receiving inward passes. And he doesn't pass the ball out of the post, needless to say, he can be relied upon to just completely tunnel vision in and take a bad shot. So that game was a little bit distressing. I was certainly not what I wanted to see in person. There was a non-pistons fan behind me yelling that, you know, yelling at Wiseman in game one to seal up, you know, and take the ball in the post. And I was like, we definitely don't want that. So, I mean, it was a Jared Jack saying, go out there and just, you know, do what you want or go out there and we'll try the post-ups, or was it, was it Wiseman just

deciding to do it? Either way, it was frustrating. It was stupid. I mean, the way he was playing was stupid, and he did a bad job, you know, on the possessions he was given. And even on defense in that game, he really let up. And yeah, he did end up on Jabari Smith, Jr. for a little while because the Rockets squad was playing Jabari Smith Jr. at center. And Wiseman had instances in which he was not even contesting threes properly. It's like, this guy is not going to drive past you. Jabari Smith Jr. It's just like you have very long arms. Just keep the arm up.

Don't keep it at like a 30 degree angle and let him shoot over you, which is exactly what happened. And there were also instances in which he just wasn't working too hard on defense. Like one in which he got blocked by Jabari and it's like, and again, sure, it's Summer League, but this is James Wiseman.

He needs to be working hard. And that possession, he just stayed back to laugh with Jabari Smith Jr. While the Rock had scored in transition. So it was nice when he was playing fully engaged and playing within the flow of the offense and working hard on defense. but man, are these kind of the situations where it's like James Weisman can be an incredibly

frustrating player and the jury is still out as to whether his remarkably poor decision-making on both ends is the product of lack of seasoning or just lacking NBA level defensive IQ, defensive and offensive IQ. The guy has a great body for the NBA. He's super athletic. He's long. He moves well. You know, he's talented as a finisher.

And, you know, he's got some shooting upside. We'll see if that comes together or not. But, man, does he make bad decisions? and improving at that or not doing so is what's going to make or break his NBA career. So more or less, we saw a lot of wise men, the same from Wiseman that we saw in the regular season. When in his time with the Pistons, he was arguably thanks to that horrible decision making one of the worst players in the league. Like honestly, the guy was a traffic cone on defense and just a black hole on offense. It was not good.

I'm not, I don't feel like I'm exaggerating, you know, completely not, you know, regardless of his raw stats. So to move on to back. news. Asar Thompson. So Asar did struggle a bit as a score, of course, excuse me, and did not get to take many threes. He did pass up some attempts, and he took some tough attempts off the dribble from two. Yeah, sure, that was the downside. There were a lot of upsides for Asar, and I'm sorry if it's starting with the downsides. I didn't mean to do that. But I figured, you know, we'll just get that out of the way. I'd say in every other capacity of the game, and not to say that scoring isn't important, but this is Summer League. In every other capacity of the game, he did very well.

on defense of course engaged smart athletic knows what to do works hard the kid clearly just is a super hard worker who loves basketball i mean that was apparent from up close just you know just from watching him in summer league that was apparent good all around as a connective guy on offense sees the floor well makes the right pass knows what to do can process the game quickly and make the right decisions strong mover off the ball seems like a like a real team player and just seems like a guy who, again, the shooting has to come along, and I think that that will get him to strong starter status if he's able to do it. And again, we're talking being like a legitimately good shooter. And if that off the dribble game comes along, and he definitely struggled with

that as well, then he has all-star upside. But I don't say but and say, and he has, but he has a great deal that's going to be useful at the NBA level in terms of just making the right decision, making the right play, you know, being highly athletic helps. But the intangibles, are there. I think that he'll be a leader also. And I was happy with what I saw up close to the first two games. I was annoyed that he basically got frozen out in game one. Whatever. That should never have happened, of course, but it is what it is. That's not his fault. I was just hoping to see him get more opportunity. So, yeah, as long as that shooting comes along, I mean, I felt like this since before the draft, but as long as the shooting comes along, I think he's going to be the

kind of starter whom any team in the league would want at forward. And finally, let's talk Marcus Sasser. So Sasser didn't really get much opportunity. Again, it would have been as simple as just running actions that might get him open, whether that be for spot-up threes or motion threes. But it seems like that was a little bit too much for Jarrett Jack to handle. I know I'm being a little bit surly, but come on. So Sasser basically, for the most part, just, you know, he got some open.

threes in the corner, but for the most part, just got to attempt a lot of difficult threes. Hardly got any time on the ball. Again, when Ivy was off the floor, it was largely Xavier Simpson. I might be mispronouncing his name, Zavir Simpson. I don't remember. And Stanley Amoudet, well, to a lesser extent, mostly Simpson. And it's like, Jared Jack, what are you doing? You know, let Sasser handle the ball, what a Sasser handle the ball. But so I'm hoping we get to see more of Sasser on the ball in games three and four, because it's just something I'm interested to see. What can he do? He struggled in terms of attacking the basket at the NCAA level.

And wasn't a great playmaker. It's decent, but not really lead guard material. And I just want to see what he can do from on the ball outside of Houston's system. Who knows? But for him, from him, excuse me, for the most part, we just saw him take a lot of difficult threes. And they had to be difficult threes because there's certainly not anything opening up for him. Could have just run him around an off ball screen for an open three, but that didn't happen.

So definitely hoping to see more of him on the ball, hoping to see more of a sarah on the ball. And if we don't get Ivy and Duren for Ivy in particular for game three, maybe we will unless it's just Simpson handling the ball a lot. Though even in that event, I suspect Sasser will be able to get reps as the backup guy. And again, I'd like to CSR with a greater chance to handle the ball as well. So those are my thoughts about Summer League. I didn't really pay too close attention to Jared Rodin, who is with a two-way on a two-way with the pistons last season. or Casolone, who, now what I did notice is that the guy really just wanted to launch up those threes despite the fact that he was not a good shooter.

He is not a good shooter, put it that way, which certainly bore itself out in the first couple games of Summer League. I don't know if Summer League coaches just coach for priority and tell players you shouldn't be the one who's taking all these shots. You should let certain other players do it. That definitely didn't happen. Casalone, I believe, was second only to Ivy in three-point attempts across those two games. more than Sasser, not by a lot, but more. And yeah, again, summer league two-way guy. And then our boy, buddy Beheim, who came in and shied 86% from three.

Obviously not replicable. He is a shooter. There's no doubt about it. And he got up three and a half threes in the course of two games, despite playing very few minutes. Excuse me, seven threes of the course of two games, by playing very few minutes and hit six of them. Beheim, that's pretty much all he can do is shoot the ball.

and unfortunately he waxed at the upside as an NBA athlete and in any other way to actually play at the NBA level. And I hope that he doesn't earn that two-way contract again. He really, as anybody's guess, as to why he was able to maintain it throughout last season. And who knows, maybe he'll play for the cruise. And that's all I have to say about the first two games of the Pist and Summer League. So I'll be back next week, of course, to recap the remaining games. hopefully we have some interesting things to talk about. In any case, as always, folks want to thank you for listening.

I'll catch you in the next episode.