Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 158: Summer League 2023 Final Recap

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

This episode fully recaps Summer League 2023 and answers some questions. 

Welcome back, everybody you'll listen to another episode of Drive Into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I have no doubt that the vast majority of you know that by now. I'm not sure why I continue saying it, maybe for the newcomers. Anyway, so let's just launch right into it. Just do a review of the last three games of Summer League, who did well, et cetera, et cetera, and then just give some grades for everybody who played for the Pistons in Summer League. It was a good time. It was really nice that the Pistons fielded some roster players.

It was really nice that ASAR played four games. And, you know, there was some good. There was some good. There was some bad. And we're going to talk about that. So let's get started with, well, why not? We'll get started with kind of the man of the hour, so to speak. And that's James Wiseman.

No, I'm just kidding. That's Assar Thompson. So I spoke about him quite a bit last week. It was fun to watch him. You can see the potential there. You can see the ceiling. He's a very stout defender. I mean, I'm really impressed with his agility.

Just his ability to stay with guys, his ability to really fast-twitch contest shots. His ability to basically contest a shot and remain on the ground enough that he's still able to follow a guy who pump fakes on him, just how he knows where to be his quick hands, his ability to steal the ball, get into passing lanes, rotate. He's a very smart defender. that athleticism and length, of course, help a great deal. So he's just a guy I see, you know, it's Summer League, but you can see the combination of defensive IQ and athleticism and, you know, this guy with potential all defensive upside is how I see it at this point. His ability as a passer.

You can see that very well also. It needs to work a little bit on a targeting off the drive, but that's promising. He's a very willing passer. I mean, that might sound pretty elementary, but it's not necessarily a given with any given player. And also, I mean, his processing speed, he knows when to pass. He knows, he'll make the right decision, you know, I think the vast majority of the time. And that's a skill, of course, you can't teach. It's not something that's going to get you all the way there, but it's definitely a ceiling razor. He's somebody who can process the game and make good decisions on a split-second basis,

and that's a very, very good skill to have, needless to say. And you can just kind of see his role as a very connective player. You know, a guy who can do a bit of everything. You know, again, he's going to be strong on defense. He's going to be a strong passer. He's going to be a guy who makes the right decisions. And, you know, flash some decent rebounding chops. He goes hard to the boards and he flies in.

I mean, the guy's vertical is very impressive. Of course, I think what a lot of people remember is that put back dunk against the spurs, which was genuinely very impressive. He went up on two feet and his head was about, you know, roughly above the rim, I believe. the real question mark, of course, remains the scoring at which he struggled in Summer League, particularly from three. He also just, he gave up a lot of opportunities from three choosing to drive instead. And when he did shoot threes, he wasn't very accurate. He finished at 27% from the perimeter.

And on low volume, he attempted only 2.8 threes per game, or that was his average, rather. On the whole, attempted about 11 shots per game, which was actually less than Marcus Sasser, less than Wise. me needless to say. And basically we saw a continuation of the ways in which he struggled in overtime elite as a half-court scorer. As a transition score, he's quite strong, of course. He's got a very good acceleration, particularly if you give him two steps, runs the poor super well. He's very athletic, and he can score above the rim. I mean, most NBA players can score above the rim at full tilt, but I think Asar is going to be a very strong transition scorer, and he'll be a strong transition passer as well. He flashed some of that. But in the

half-court, at overtime elite and overtime elite. I know, overtime he really didn't have a go-to move in the half court. He did get fouled a lot by not so great over time elite defenders. I mean, however you want to qualify that, but he wasn't good at scoring at the rim. He really struggled to attack to score through contact, rather. His in-between game was pretty darn poor, too, and of course, as a three-point shooter, he was pretty shaky. You know, he went up and down, inconsistent, and a lot is made of his playoffs in which he shot really well in high volume, but that was only four games. I mean, that's by any statistical model is going to register as an aberration. So he struggled like that in Summer League. He wasn't very good on the drive. He didn't really

attempt much mid-range offense. Much of what he did attempt was pull-ups, like leaning pull-ups off the drive, which are very, very difficult for anybody in the NBA. You rarely see anybody even try to attempt those. And again, from three, he struggled. A lot of his scoring was just opportunistic. You know, busting through open lanes, scoring on putbacks, in transition. And, you know, he did do some attacking off the drive. Again, this is against Julie caliber offenses. So that remains the big question mark. Like, if Assar Thompson was coming out of overtime elite as a pretty strong scorer,

then he definitely goes above Brandon Miller. You know, if his brother had come out of overtime elite as a good shooter, I mean, this would have been a number of an overall pick in most drafts. He would have gone number two without a doubt. I mean, they're both coming out a man with the issue of him being at square zero as a shooter. And Assar being further ahead as a shooter, but being a bigger question mark as a score. So in the first place in the NBA, he's got to be able to shoot. If he can shoot in the high 30s, then you've got, I've said it, and I'll continue saying it,

then you've got a guy who could start on any team, you know, including a championship team. Because as long as he is able to provide that sort of offense when called upon, that's enough. You know, that's going to be enough to make him a very valuable player when you take everything else into account. And we're talking being a reliable three-point shooter at a good percentage. excuse the sniffles. And not like a 34% three-point shooter. And again, if he can add that off-the-dribble game to his repertoire,

whether that's kind of impromptu in the pick and roll or just attacking good matchups, you know, advantageous matchups, then that's where you see the all-star ceiling. But for right now, he's an unfinished product in that capacity. Now, I've been asked, is Assar Thompson, you know, given what else he can do, is it good enough if he's just not a particularly good shooter? and, you know, like, let's say, like, in the low 30s, and the answer is almost certainly not. We all know offense is king in the NBA, and I'm not, because a lot of you have been listening for a long time,

and you've heard me talk many, many times about why it is a huge problem if you're a perimeter player who can't shoot in today's NBA, and why it is a crippling weakness. Like, I've heard it said about, you know, random about, you know, Nookie in a relationship that if you're getting it, it's only part of the relationship, but if you're not, if you're dissatisfied there, it becomes a really big part of the relationship. And it's kind of like that with shooting. If you can do it, it's just part of your game. I'm talking as a perimeter player, things are obviously different as the center, but even then not being able to shoot as a weakness, which means that if you're a traditional big, you better be good in the other areas, because you are giving up value

by not being able to shoot. But anyway, so in basketball as a perimeter player, if you can shoot, it's just part of your game. For some players, a very, very big part of your game, but it's just part your game. But if you can't shoot, it basically grows to encompass everything. I mean, it is a crippling weakness. So you can get away with it more if you have very unusual circumstances, like the Durant Irving, Hardin, or the Hardin wasn't around for much of that. With the Nets, I mean, if you have two guys who can create on high volume and isolation at a high percentage, then, you know, the calculus just sort of changes because you're running an actual offense much less. make no mistake. I mean, we all know how amazing Durant is as a shooter, as a guy who creates

off the dribble, just creates jump shots off the dribble. And Kyrie is a doofus, but he's also absolutely a lead as a scorer. So in that situation, you can play a guy like Bruce Brown, for example, on the net, who wasn't really all that great. Because he couldn't shoot, he was a fringe role player, and he would not have really been very acceptable to put on the floor for the average playoff team. And on 29 out of 30 teams, you know, maybe you could argue the Warriors, but that's 28 out of 30 teams, he would not have been a positive value player. On the Nets, he was like a decent fringe role player. And when it came to the offseason and he was leaving the Nets, they weren't going to keep him because their luxury tax bill was gigantic already. He didn't have many

suitors. And what ultimately was the difference between him being a fringe role player as a guy who was a fairly strong defender, a super hard worker, you know, a solid passer and so on and so forth, a pretty smart player as well. The difference between him being a very fringe role player and being a valuable role player was the fact that he became able to shoot the three accurately on volume. And it's not like he was an elite three-point shooter, but he was solid enough, and that removed that horribly crippling weakness and gave him a lot more value on offense as well. So no longer what is almost certain for any, just about any perimeter player to be a negative if you're a horrible three-point shooter,

or if you're just bad or you're just completely unreliable. In that events, you're very, very, very likely to be a negative value player. So that went away, and he was also able to participate in all the benefits of a three-point offense. And his team was able to derive those benefits as well and not have to deal with the drawbacks of having a non-spacing threat. So I would say if, yeah, Assar needs to be a reliable shooter. I'll put it that way. There are perimeter players who operate in extenuating circumstances.

or ideal circumstances, rather, like Dremont, for example, who just landed in the perfect situation, which he doesn't need to shoot. And you have Janice, who has a team built around him. You got to have him on the floor with four shooters in the postseason. Also mentioning the postseason, if you cannot shoot, your permanent player can't shoot in the postseason and you're not like one of those superstars who has a team built around you, you're not going to play for the most part. Margins in the postseason are even thinner than they are on the regular season. Stakes are higher. Teams pull out all the stops, and you will get punished much more in the playoffs if you are a non-shooter. And again, the stakes are very high.

No team is going to do that unless they absolutely have to. You think back with the Pistons, for example, to them playing Ish Smith in the postseason in 2019. If Smith was a decent regular season point guard, though he got worse over the course of his contract with the Pistons as the game grew to penalize non-shooters more and more. But basically, what Milwaukee did, they just backed his defender all. into the paint, deep into the paint, and said, well, you can pass the ball, and everybody, all your teammates are going to be covered because none of us needs to come help on you. Or you can drive into the paint against your defender and Brooke Lopez and probably get

blocked. You know, that's the sort of thing you see out of non-shooters. Excuse me, they're horrible complimentary players. They drag down on offense and you just, you don't want that. So, Massarra's got to be able to shoot. And again, if you can shoot, if you just gets that shot in the high 30s and, you know, he's clearly a hardworking guy, loves the game, then, you know, then you've probably justified the number five pick then and there. And, you know, if he can make that off the dribble game work, then I think he's the number three guy and a contender on a championship team. Another thing I really like about Asar is, I mean, I think you can tell he's going to be one of these workhorses who plays a ton of minutes in the NBA.

And that's just a good thing to have, you know, for obvious reasons. You know, I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility that he's, you know, one day weeds the NBA in minutes. So great I'd give a SAR, you know, just for viewing purposes, it was, you know, an A. In terms of his overall performance, I don't really know how to put it. You know, maybe you give the guy a B or a B plus. You know, you can say B plus or an A minus by Summer League standards because it's glorified pickup basketball. You don't necessarily need to be able to shoot. Needless to say the Pistons were fielding a team with horrible spacing, particularly in the first two games.

but, you know, we'll just give him an A-monist, just dock him a bit because he really couldn't shoot the ball of too well. But fun to watch, promising, has work to do, and that was known when he was drafted. And if, you know, given that the pistons picked him, clearly they have a high degree of confidence that'll get the shot together. They're as fully as is aware of the realities of today's NBA as you and I are. Didn't mean for that to sound arrogant. I'm just talking in terms of being able to shoot the ball. Okay, so let's move on to Jaden Ivy. I don't necessarily have too much to say about Ivy. He didn't really flash anything new.

He didn't really play any different than he had in the regular season. This was just, I get the feeling basically just an opportunity for him to get on the floor in the midst of a six-month hiatus from playing actual honest-to-goodness NBA basketball and play against some decent opposition. Again, it's summer league. The opposition wasn't that great. But he got on the court. He struggled in the first game.

He played well in the second game. I think he was just there. Yeah, just just there to get some competitive. on five action in. So I'll give him a not applicable. Jalen Duren. So Duren came in and basically dominated when he was on the floor. He had his struggles from the, from the free throw line. But aside from that, it was basically just him imposing his will on other players physically, finishing above the rim, finishing when he just received the ball under the rim as well and just had to finish there. Strong in the pick and roll, you know, set really hard screens, physically dominated, just pushing people

around made full use of his excellent mobility for his size, his combination of size and strength. He shot two threes and made one of them. And like I said in last episode, this would be more of kind of like just the nice to have that would be utilized maybe in isolation situations because you're going to want during running the roll and in the paint. I guess if he becomes good enough, you can use him as a pick and pop threat in there. That's super valuable. But it's quite unusual for a total non-shooter at a true traditional center. Even coming out, out of the NCAA, it's fairly unusual for them to develop in the reliable shooters. If Duren can do it, great. If not, that's fine, too.

I don't think anybody, I don't think that the organization is expecting that it'll actually get there. They're just fine with them working on it. The jumpers off the dribble, again, been over that. Hardly anybody can make those efficient. But if you can take really short-range jumpers off the roll, then, you know, more is the better, especially if you couple that with the passing that I think he'll be able to do off the roll. So give Duren an A. he pretty much came in and stepped on people, as you would expect.

You know, good on rebounding as well. He played a little bit fast and loose with the ball. He turned it over four times per game. But again, this is Summer League, and he was trying new stuff. But he was fun to watch. James Wiseman, if you listened to last episode, you know that I wasn't exactly happy with him. In the first game, he looked better than we have ever seen him before,

in my opinion, because he was playing within the flow of the game, not trying to constantly post up. He was just playing in the flow of the offense, and he was playing decent defense, even though that was largely rim protection. So, you know, it's like, yay. In the second game, he was absolutely and utterly horrible. He just reverted to his habits of posting up on offense.

I don't remember who it was, who said this, but whoever said it, you know, good on you because it's hilarious that James Wiseman would post up in the middle of the highway if he thought he could get a, you know, if he thought he could get the ball and ultimately attempt a shot. So really bad player from the post. And when he's not playing in the flow of the offense, it's just ugly and he's a horrible minus, especially because he's at this point in his career, just not a particularly good score on anything but finishing. So, and even on defense, it just got, it just got ugly against the

Rockets. The guy didn't even really have the know-how to, you know, properly contest Jabari Smith at the three-point line. It's like, dude, just raise your hand. Don't hold it at a 30-degree angle. And he was just, he was making his typical bevy of bad decisions. So I give James Wiseman a D, you know, good on him for playing the right way in the first game in the game against Orlando. But not so much in the second game in which he went and played in exactly the wrong way, the same way that he had played with the Pistons in a way that made him, but in his time with the Pistons, in my opinion, one of the worst players in the league. Just hijack the offense, constantly make bad decisions,

constantly attempt to low efficiency offense from the, not constantly, but a lot of low efficiency offense for him. and on defense, I don't want to call him a traffic cone because he wasn't standing still. He was always moving around, but he just couldn't process the game. I was hoping to see him come in and just play in a different way, and he did that half the time, but his reversion to just outright stupidity in game two was not something I barely felt to be particularly excusable, because he's never going to be able to play like that in the NBA. And again, post offense, he was constantly posting up.

Not many guys can make it efficient. Weisman thus far has not exhibited anything like the necessary touch. And again, last season, amongst all the players who attempted, and I believe it's two and a half field goals or more per game in the post. Wiseman was by far not even close, the least efficient. So, sorry, Wiseman. Sorry, James. You get a D.

Wiseman, I think we'll get half the season next season to prove that it's not just lack of seasoning. It's, you know, to prove that it is lack of seasoning. Just to make a lot of progress as a decision maker. or I think they pulled a plug if they just deduced that he's actually just not particularly smart. They're not going to, no team deals, and certainly Weaver does not deal with sunk costs. He does not put sunk costs into his decision-making. So if Weisman hasn't gotten together halfway through the season, and we've heard that Weisman was solely acquired as a trial,

I suppose we knew that that doesn't really require a leap in logic. And yeah, after half the season, if he's still bad, I think that Stewart moves to backup center. Probably. Anyway, I'd have to decide who's coming into the starting lineup. Of course, if Asara is doing well, that becomes a very easy decision. So let's talk Marcus Sasser. Had a tough first three games, or first four games, actually, before really exploding in game five. Sorry, I'm dealing with pretty awful congestion today. Well, I'd rate it an 8 out of 10.

So, yeah, Sasser just really lit up the Pacers, and he did it largely on the strength of attacking the basket. I don't mean to be a buzzkill here, but this is, this is, this is. was very much a summer league game and certainly a summer league game against the team that was sitting everybody just like the pistons where sasser was the only player under standard NBA contract to be playing for the pistons during an ivy of course had already been shut down and wiseman as well had been shut down and assar played his last game in game four i was happy that he even played that many games so sasser by game five yeah he did have a good game he finally got to operate on the ball and yeah but you know he had a great game of course 40 points uh the

greatest amount of points score by anybody in Summer League this year. But it's worth contextualizing the fact that, again, it was Summer League, which is glorified pickup basketball against bad opposition compared to the NBA. Sasser is he struggled to get to the rim in the NCAA. And then when he got there, he wasn't a particularly good scorer. He doesn't really have much in the way of burst. I mean, he has a solid handle by all means, but not really like the killer handle you would want to compensate for really not having much burst. And he's six one and a quarter. you know, 6-2 again. That's 6-2 in NBA parlance where everybody rounds up, though some guys are rounding up from a further distance than others. But that's an inherent disadvantage when you are

trying to score at the room. Some guys can do it, but it's an inherent disadvantage. It's not really helped again that he doesn't have the burst. He's also not a good jumper. You know, being a good weeper is very, very nice to have as is anybody who's driving, but certainly if he's short. So it was pretty much just a bunch of below the rim scoring off the drive, and it's like, great, you know, let him end Summer League on a high note, you know, sweet, that's awesome. But it's the kind of game that he's going to really struggle to play at the NBA level, unless he's really got another gear that we haven't seen from him at the age of what will be 23 at the start of the season, which I think is unlikely. And he did struggle to score at Summer League. I don't really care. We

already know he's a really good score. Oh, excuse me, struggle with a shoot. We already know he's a really good shooter. So the question comes up of the fit again because you really want to play Sasser next to a lead handler because he is not that. However, he ideally want the lead handler to be significantly taller than him so that he can defend the opposing point guard. And he did all right on offense. Excuse me, on defense at Summer League. You could see that he's not really super fast on the rotations. And, you know, that and the lack of, you know, the 6'7 wing span is nice to have, but him being not particularly athletic and not super long, it did cause troubles for him. NBA is very much a game of inches.

It's going to hurt, probably hurt more there, though there have been smaller guys who have been very good as defenders, like Kyle Lowry, for example. So it's not a death sentence. It's just the disadvantage. So, yeah, you're going to want to play him in situations in which he's playing next to a lead guard who is taller than he is. You know, put him next to K. Cool.

Have him a big guy off the bench. I don't think he's necessarily to come off the bench this year if Alec Berks is there because Berks is just a very solid NBA bench player, like a very, very solid NBA bench player. And the Pistons want guys on the floor who can, you know, who really, the guy who can contribute to winning more this season is going to play. And also, you know, a solid spacer around the team's young players. So as far as Sasser's performance at Summer League, I'd give him like a C-plus, the plus for that last game.

It didn't help that he wasn't really able to be much on the ball until, I don't know, games three through five, sort of, but really only in game five. So, you know, you could rule this an incomplete. He did kind of struggle as a shooter. Again, I don't care. He was just not really much of a factor throughout the vast majority of the tournament, though. Wasn't having actions run for him, and having actions run for him is the way to, you know, getting him open threes, getting him even motion threes is the way to go. So he'll have more of those opportunities in the NBA.

But basically, yeah, I hope he's more than an undersized shooting specialist, you know, who can maybe slot in as a bench player. And we'll see. for the record, I kind of would have preferred Lennar Miller. I don't think sad. I don't think it's like a disaster of a pick, obviously. But I kind of preferred Lennar Miller. I do understand that the team didn't necessarily want to add another young forward, particularly another young player, particularly a project player.

But I just think that it would have been worth the swing. Whereas Sasser doesn't necessarily, I mean, I think he's got a limit. He's got major weaknesses at the NBA level. I'll put it that way. And I think, again, Weaver may have dipped a little bit too deeply in a culture side of things. Culture is all well and good. and they built a great culture with this team, even through a lot of losing.

But, you know, sort of go a little bit too far in that capacity, maybe, further than is necessary. So moving on to the two-way guys. None of them played very well. Kasselan picked it up later in the tournaments, but he still ended up shooting extremely and efficiently. Considerably worse than he had in France, where I think he was, I don't know, like 35, 36 percent shooter.

But, you know, it's an interesting look. It's a two-way contract. don't know about two-way contracts. Each team gets three of them. You can waive these guys at any time with no cap implications at all. They have no cap implications at all. And so if you're a good team and you're drastically into the, you know, drastically over the cap, you might take guys with two-way contracts whom you believe will be able to step in as maybe kind of fringe role players, though they can't play in the postseason. If you're a team like the Pistons, I feel like you kind of want guys who are there for upside purposes. And, you know, Kazan might be able to,

have that. There have been some good role players to come out of the G-League. Max, yeah, Max Drews is one of them. Duncan Robinson was one of them. Gabe Vincent. Uh, Lou Dort, Adam Caruso. Yeah, so there have been some good players to come out of there, for the most part, these guys amount to nothing, but you're just taking a chance on them. Rodin, yeah, and just nothing really all that special. Not a particularly athletic guy, not a particularly great shooter. just very, very, like, worse than mediocre. And I don't know, I just, I'm just not impressed with him. There's Buddy Beheim.

Nobody knows why he was on the team last season. He had an entire season despite a noticeable lack of NBA upside. He is a good shooter. There's no doubting that. And he was a very good shooter at the Summer League. However, he's very unathletic, cannot play defense at the NBA level, and Oliver is nothing but shooting. And shooting is important, but if you cannot do anything else,

like Rodney Magruder, for example, then you are not a solid NBA role player. Tosan, I'm sorry, I don't want to butcher this guy's last name. Nothing special. He's on an Exhibit 10 contract, which basically means that the Pistons can choose to upgrade him. And if not, then I think he gets like a something bonus of like 25 or 50,000. But it just didn't really show anything particularly, you know, particularly impressive. and yeah, that is it for the Pistons players. I'm not really going to rank the two-way guys.

I'm not really going to grade them because I just don't really... I wasn't really watching them nearly as closely as I was watching the roster players. But, you know, ultimately, if you can get even a role player of any stripe out of these two-way contracts, you've come out ahead.

That's not to say they don't matter. Nothing in the NBA doesn't matter. I mean, you're fighting for any advantage you can possibly get. but, you know, the Pistons would just be fortunate if anybody in a two-way deal really comes out and establishes themselves in the rotation. So I'm going to then answer a couple more questions. Number one, why has Hamadu Diyalo not signed with another team? Hamadu, who's for agent rights were renounced by the Pistons, is still without a team.

And again, I've seen it asked, you know, wouldn't he be more valuable on a postseason team playing next to, I don't know, for example, example, Yokic, because his weaknesses won't matter as much there. And I've seen it asked as well about Killian, you know, what if he's playing in a team with, you know, he's on the floor with four good shooters. And postseason teams will be the least interested. And contenders in particular will be the least interested in a player like Hamidu Dialla. Because, because of the fact that he can't shoot, which again is a huge weakness, he's unplayable in the postseason. And he is horrific, like horrifically ill-suited to be a complimentary player, a supporting cast player to a superstar. because he just, he can't provide any value off the ball.

You know, aside from cuts, cuts, as I've said before, are a very, very low-volume source of offense in the NBA. D'Allo is an example of a player for whom shooting was a huge swing skill. He's also an example of the fact that not everybody improves. Who knows how hard he worked. Who knows how much of it was just a simple lack of touch. I mean, he genuinely got worse as a three-point shooter. In the two seasons, there's two calendar years, really, he was with the Pistons.

well, two plus seasons, put it that way. So, you know, playoff teams don't want these guys that they're going to say, oh, well, we're going to have to compensate for them, but we're good enough, I guess, to compensate for them. These are not the kind of players of postseason team looks for. They look for complete players. They look at the very least for players who can play a good supporting role and don't have glaring weaknesses.

Like even next to Yokic, I mean, you want spacing around Yokic, you want shooters around Yokic. You know, what are you going to do just putting a non-shooter there? Just hope that he can hit Diello on cuts 10 times a game or even five. five times a game. Meanwhile, the offense for everybody else gets more difficult. You have one last guy to you for, you know, the greatest passing, big man of all time to feed on the perimeter. Offenses don't have to respect him so they can go help on Yokic, even though he'll just pass out of it. I mean, they can go help elsewhere. And in the postseason, nobody is going to feel the player

like that because it's just not worthwhile. And what are you really getting out of it? You know, even if you have a guy who's a great defender in the playoffs, again, the offense is more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season, but offense, of course, is still where wins are made in the most, you know, for the most parts. And, you know, you just don't, you don't want to play a guy like that. It hurts too much. And again, teams will pay extra attention to punishing any weakness in the postseason. And it is a huge weakness. And you could say the same thing about Killian. No, it doesn't matter if he's surrounded by four shooters. He's still a negative value player if he can't at least shoot the ball. And beyond that,

you know, the fact that he can't drive also is super harmful to him bringing his playmaking to bear, breaking down defenses, et cetera. I'll talk about Killian, my season review series later in the offseason, probably starting next week. And then the next one, you know, the Pistons are paying Joe Harris $20 million. Doesn't that mean that they will really just kind of feel like they should play him just to get some value out of him? The answer is no. The Pistons took him on as a salary dump to reach the cap, and also to reach the CAF4. And, you know, you could say, okay, wait a little bit later in the postseason. You could have gotten better value on this.

Joe Harris at this point is just not really, I don't think it's entirely possible, put it this way that he's just not all that valuable. He used to be, and still is a very good three-point shooter, but back then he could at least played decent defense, even if it was probably a little bit below average. Two ankle surgeries later, he's less mobile than he was back then. This is a guy who may really struggle to defend, and on offense, also he's a slow mover, slower than he used to be. And that's far from ideal.

You have to, you know, you want to be able to get to the right spots. three-point shooter. So teams are about winning. I haven't heard of a play, you know, an owner intervening and saying, this guy is going to lessen your chances of winning. There's a better guy you can play over him. But, you know, by golly, I'm paying him a lot of money, so you better put him on the court. That's just, I mean, I don't, we know from experience that some owners are idiots. You know, the Pistons, you know, Tom Gores, he came along. You know, he came along, he came around. It took him a long time. I mean, he was meddling in a destructive way with the Pistons for nine seasons, you know, or eight and a half.

in any case, you know, he was a destructive medal or so. These owners care about who wins. The Pistons are, they have said they're going to do, they're going to play in the way and play the players to give them the greatest chance of winning. So if just the Pistons don't go with like a 10-man rotation, and I mean, that's a pretty big rotation, and particularly if Isaiah Livers, who will probably be struggling to five minutes in the first place, is performing well, and they say, you know, this guy is 25,

he's seven years younger than Joe Harris. If he can be a high percentage three-point shooter and he's a solid defender and he's a good culture guy, then he's going to play over Harris. He's going to appeal pretty strongly he's going to get that chance as soon as the season. And if that's the case, he's just, you know, there's more upside there. There's a guy you think you'll have on the team long term. He's a lot younger. And, you know, if livers can shoot 40%, just a better play overall, they're going to play the better player.

They're not just going to say, oh, well, we're paying Joe Harris 10 times as much. So who cares about wins? we just want to feel like we're getting some value out of it, even though we're basically lying to ourselves because we're deliberately playing him above another player who's going to contribute more to wins. So the value you're getting out of him is horrible. You know, it just, we just don't see that. So, yeah, I've said it. I hate it when I say this numerous times in one episode.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, that he's a guy, I think, could be on the fringes of the rotation and not playing many minutes next season. And then the final question, see if I see. Any potential similarities between the scenarios of Cameron Payne, who was absolutely terrible in his first three and a half seasons in the NBA, ultimately found himself without a job. And then a little bit later rejuvenated his career under Monty Williams with the Sons. And Killian Hayes, who, of course, as we know, has struggled a great deal in his first, well, two and a quarter seasons because he missed the vast majority of his first season. And there's another point guard who's going to be playing under Monty as well. So I would say not really. I mean, Campaign did, you know, did like Killian come in and really struggle on his

rookie contract. And he played those three and a half years. It was just an absolutely horrendous score and was just not a good player overall, you know, by any stretch. So he found himself without a job at the start of the 2019, 2020 season and then would ultimately join the Sons for that magical almost made the playoffs a bubble run of theirs. The thing with Cameron Payne that makes it. it's, well, I'll just put it, we don't know how much Monty really had to do with that, because he reported to the bubble suddenly able to attack effectively off the drive

and able to shoot threes at a good percentage. And then he carried that into that next season, the season in which the Sons, you know, really, you know, became a big player in the NBA and made the finals and then continued to be not quite as good in the next two seasons. He's been since been traded that happened last week. in his final two seasons with the suns, but still kind of like a decent, decent backup point guard for a team on which he really, my guess, he was asked to do quite a bit and did it with varying

degrees of success. Anyway, I digress. Basically, if Killian were to report the training camp this year and was suddenly able to shoot and attack the basket, then he'll have a career for a very, very long time. I think with Cam, he just got better. I don't think that Monty necessarily had much to do with that. He just, when he got to the bubble, he was just, able to do those things, and then he just continued doing them in the next season. So I get the feeling that player, you know, while Monty may have been good for him as a player, it's entirely possible. You know, a lot of players have said that about him. It was more just that Cam had developed those skills, the skills that Killian really needs to develop. Of course, Killian needs to be able to shoot

because pretty much any perimeter player just needs to be able to shoot. I've talked about this already in this episode. He needs to be able to shoot, and if he wants to be a lead guard, he needs to be able to attack off the dribble as well. He's a much, much better playmaker, you know, as a passer, rather, than campaign is. Cam is, you know, not the greatest as a facilitator. He's able enough, just not anything special, whereas Killian is a genuinely excellent passer. But Killian needs that ability to drive in order to truly break down defenses, which is completely unable to do at this point. Whereas Cam, who can easily get to, I don't say easily, but is very good, well, maybe very good is exaggerating it, but is quite able at getting to the rim, at breaking

down opposing defenses doesn't have that issue. So yeah, I think it was just more of a matter of individual skill development, which I have no doubt Killian will be working on at least as a shooter this year. In order to really become a driver, he needs to be willing to attack into contact, which is not right now. I mean, that's just the necessary first step that willingness if he's going to be attacking the rim at all, you know, whether or not he'd actually prove to be good at scoring at the room as anybody's guess, but whenever going to see it, period, if he's not willing to attack into contact. And at this point, to this point in his MBA career, he's been absolutely unwilling to do so. All right, folks, that'll be for today's episode. As I mentioned, next episode will kick off the season

review series. I'm going to take an in-depth look at the performance last season of every player on the roster. I haven't decided yet, actually, if I'm going to do the players who won't be playing for the business next season. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. In any case, as always, I want to thank all you folks for listening. I'll catch you in the next episode.