Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 160: Mailbag (sort of)

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

This episode diverts briefly from the season review series to answer some listener-submitted questions. Apologies for posting a couple of days late this week! 

Welcome back. Everybody, you'll listen to another episode of Drive into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all doing very, very well today. You're noticing I'm sure that I'm posting this on Friday morning rather than the typical Wednesday. It just turned into, you know, there's nothing wrong per se. Just turned into a pretty exhausting week. Tuesday night came, which is when I typically record. And it was just that and a combination of pretty poor time management on my part. So I apologize for that. And, you know, just along, for the same reasons, rather, this is going to be a little bit of a different episode than what I typically record. I just haven't had the space to do this sort of preparation I would usually do for, well, this was going to be really the first of the season preview episodes, unless you consider Killian to be the first. But, I mean, that one was more just about his possible future with the Pistons and so on and so forth. Anyway, I digress. So I'll be getting rolling on the first of those episodes to be posted next Wednesday. And for this episode, I'm just going to listen, excuse me, answer some questions that listeners were kind enough to submit, most of them on Pistons Discord. And if you're a Discord user and you want to hang out

in the biggest and best Pistons Discord server on the interwebs, let's check out Discord.G. slash Pistons. We've got a pretty great community over there. In any event, I'm going to start really quick, just something I've seen some questions about. That is Buddy Beheim, who was signed to an Exhibit 10 contract. Buddy Beheim, I've been over him. not an NBA player by any means. Well, I'll get to that part later. I just want to explain what an Exhibit 10 contract is. Exhibit 10 contract is a one-year contract at the minimum. They are almost invariably non-guaranteed. You see teams sign a fair number of these every off-season, and Exhibit 10 players almost always end up getting waived before the season begins.

You know, non-guaranteed salary means that their salary, if they're waived before a certain date, salary will not count against the cap. That there are some players who go into seasons and are continually non-guaranteed. It could be waived during the season, but those are pretty rare. In any event, Exhibit 10 largely just means that it can be converted to a two-way deal, and otherwise, it can only go the other way. You can only convert a two-way deal to a standard MBA contract and not vice versa, but if you are on an Exhibit 10 contract, the team has the right to do that. So I'm not 100% sure why he even got that deal, not just because Buddy has really, really no NBA upside. Yeah, he's a good shooter. But shooting in the NBA is, it's not a skill that it on its own is going to make you a viable

NBA player. It's just the skill that without it is a perimeter player, you're in a great deal of trouble because the NBA is incredibly punitive to the perimeter players who can't shoot. So Buddy is an unathetic, short-armed player who, we're talking unathetic. This guy would be like the very, very depths of the NBA in terms of his athleticism. A short-wing span, awful defender, just can't defend at the NBA level and can't create for himself or for others, just due to his athleticism is even going to have trouble getting open off the ball. He's just, he's a player with no NBA upside. I remain unclear as to why he even was on a two-way contract last year. Two-way deals aren't useless for a team like the Pistons.

They're an opportunity to just take some really low probability risks on upside, hopefully get a rotation player out of it. It's rare. Like typically two-way players fail. You know, they don't make it to the NBA. And you can wave a two-way player at any time. But it's, it's does happen. Like, you know, Alex Caruso, Lou Dortz, the Heat have three of them, had three of them on the, on that championship, excuse me, that NBA finals roster last year, Duncan Robinson, Max Struz, and Gabe Vincent. So, uh, did I mention Lou Dortz? I think so. Anyway, yeah, so it was just kind of a waste that they, that they spent, you know, they tied up a two-way slot last year on the likes of Buddy Beheim for the entire year. The only plausible explanation that's been,

you know, that I can come up with is just, just, doing a favor of some sorts to Jim Beaheim, with whom Weaver worked when Beaheim was the coach at Syracuse. Weaver was one of his assistants. So, yeah, it just didn't really make any sense at all. But in any case, yep, Exhibit 10 contracts, very, very unlikely to be on the team next season. I just wanted to explain what Exhibit 10 was. And this is a minor point, but they do count against the standard NBA contract women because they are technically standard NBA contracts. However, the Pistons, well, the Pistons in the first place, so it would only be there 15, but more importantly, teams can hold 20 standard NBA contracts in the offseason.

They just have to be down to 15 by opening day. And the Pistons, of course, a lot could change between now and the regular season. I don't think a lot, but some stuff could change or only at 14 right now. You don't have to sign 15 players. You can stick with 14. That's the minimum. All right. So moving on, first of the questions.

What kind of offense can we expect to be run through Monty versus what we saw? all with Casey, and the same can be said on the defensive side. So I am not really an expert on Monty Williams' offenses. I mean, I've watched a decent amount of Suns games, but not enough to consider myself really an expert in any way. I'm Monty Williams, not at this stage. He, as far as his schemes go, I know that they have been very personnel dependent at times. Certainly after the trade that brought Kevin Durant to Phoenix, things changed quite a bit.

And part of that, again, is just that the personnel were different. You no longer had Mikulbright. Bridges, excuse me, Mikkel Bridges, who turned out to be, you know, much more than just the three-indee guy he was being used as. You didn't have him or Cam Johnson instead. You had another player, in addition to Booker and CB3 in Durant, who was just a creator, just a shock creator off the dribble. I wasn't a huge fan of how Monty worked with that. Basically, in the playoffs, it was here, Chris Paul, here, Devin Booker, here, Kevin Durant, just take the ball and please just create some jumper in the mid-range with it. Didn't really make any effort to attack Yokic, for example. And, yeah, it was, it was. He didn't do too great in the postseason, in my opinion, which was maybe a little bit of a wrinkle. He's not a bad postseason coach.

It was a really strange situation. It was kind of frustrating for me to watch. But in any event, just my point is that his, just like, well, just like any other coach who is agile enough to do something like this, his offenses can change based on personnel. We have had a lot of Pistons coaches in the past who are not able to do that. But what I can say about Monty is, though he wasn't my first choice, I wanted the Pistons to just take a shot on upside. He's, I pretty firmly believe, going to be the best coach the Pistons have had in a long time. He's not perfect. He has his flaws.

Pretty much every coach has their flaws. You know, he can be a little bit rigid, especially during the postseason, isn't the greatest at making. He's not hopeless in this capacity by any means, but he's not maybe the greatest at making adjustments in the postseason. But overall, he's a good coach. He's a solid coach, without a doubt. Wouldn't call him great, but certainly a genuinely good coach. And I'm looking forward to the Pistons having a genuinely good coach. And we have lived through a lot of bad coaches since, I guess it depends on whom you ask,

whether it was Larry Brown or Flip Saunders. I know Flip was a little bit divisive in some ways. But, and I'm not an expert on the Pistons from back then. I wasn't, you know, I was a fan, but not nearly as into the NBA as I am today. And then after flip, we had that whole carousel. And I don't know, maybe one of those coaches was decent, but we wouldn't have known it because they all had a horrible rosters. Mocheeks managed to go, you know, I think like four games below 500 with that absolutely, just absolute abomination of a roster, the 2013-2014 roster with the three big front court.

It was, yeah, awful. That was Smith and Monroe Drummond, so three non-shooters in the four. He had a rookie KCP who wasn't a very good shooter, and Brandon Jennings could shoot threes. but nothing else. One of the very least efficient by true shooting percentage starting lineups of the past decade. And yeah, so I guess who knows, maybe he was decent at his job. He got fired most of the way through the season for whatever reason. But this is random.

But I mean, the last 2K game, the NBA 2K game I played a lot of was 2K 13. I played a lot of franchise mode. And in the wild in that game, just purely on the power of the AI, I came across when I was playing as another team. I can remember which one. A, you know, an AI managed Pistons team that had a starting lineup of Rondo, Stucky, Smith, Monroe, and Drummond. So an even worse shooting lineup. In any case.

And then we got on to Stan Van Gundy who was kind of like mediocre in his first season, kind of okay in his first season, kind of more flawed in his second and then absolutely and utterly horrible in his next two. And then we got to Dwayne Casey, who y'all know my feelings about Casey. So I'll be brief about these. I'm pretty sure that Tom Gores saw, you know, coach of the year in the 2018 offseason and said, we just, hell yeah, we're going to get this guy coach of the year, you know, we're going to make the playoffs. Everything's going to be great. And Tom Gores at that point, and this would continue to be the case for about another year and a half.

And it had been the case since he bought the team in, I believe, April of 2011, was operating under the delusion that all the Pistons needed to do to be a successful team was just win and build a quote-unquote winning culture. I've never really held much to that. I mean, the way you win is to have the talent and in the right got to run things, but mostly the talent and a team that is built properly that has everything it needs from a mechanical standpoint. But Tom at that point, believe that all the Pistons had to do was win and make it to the playoffs and build that winning culture and then build on that.

and they would just continue getting better just because they, you know, they had won a certain amount, which needless to say doesn't hold in the NBA. You need to have the talent, and the Pistons never did. But at that point, he was still stuck on that. They just made that really, really not great trade for Blake Griffin. And at that point, I think Gores was also just still under the dire misconception that you were going to do well just because you had a superstar caliber player, which also, of course, did not turn out to be the case. Dwayne Casey at that point was already a very flawed coach.

He was a guy who was rigid, unimaginative, not very good on offense, and also had the horrific flaw of being incredibly unable to make necessary adjustments in the postseason, which had bit the Raptors many times. I remember watching Game 4 between the Raptors and the Wizards back in 2015, and the third-seated Raptors got swept and stomped in Game 4 and thinking, you know, Casey came in and he was a good floor razor for them, but they got to replace the guy. Whatever the case, Casey had issues, those certainly existed during his time with the Pistons. Ironically, he was hired to win, but ended up being much more fit for the role that he ultimately played when the Pistons in 2020 pivoted to a rebuild. And Casey's a solid developmental guy. He's a decent, you know, he did a good job, I think, with that. You know, his players liked him. I feel like the youth, you know, he did a solid job.

We used to be here behind the scenes and developing the youth. He ran a good locker room through three really, really tough seasons, a lot of losing. and I wish him well in the front office. As far as his actual on-court coaching, a bottom 10 coach in the NBA during his time at the Pistons. Feel pretty strongly about that. Just all of his issues were just there,

all the same issues he'd always had in case he was fossilized. He was never going to improve on them. And he helps the Pistons. A flaw I should mention is that he was absolutely an utterly terrible at coaching in late-game situations down the stretch. He would just completely lose control of the offense

or just fall back and do his. personal favorite, which is here, you know, in certain name a veteran creator in this spot, please take the ball and just do something with it. And that was frustrating to watch, but great for the Pistons draft odds because they lost a lot of close games under Casey. So I guess I'm just contextualizing the fact that the Pistons haven't had a good coach in a long time. And for the most part, they've had pretty poor coaches or outright bad coaches. So I'm looking forward to Monty. I don't anticipate watching him and having my socks blown off. But I think he's going to be the best coach the pistons have had in almost 20 years. So I'm looking forward to that. As far as answering the

question, I wish I had more to offer. I can just say that Monty's, yeah, I think is going to be solid and I'm looking forward to it. Next one, what can we expect out of this offseason in terms of how big a step Kate and Ivy will take and, you know, how big of an impact the Sarr will make in his rookie season. So I'll go over these more, more closer to the season when I do season previews. So I'll just summarize. So I expect Cade will take a big step. Cade, I'm very, very bullish on. I think he has a superstar ceiling.

I think he's going to be very, very good NBA player. And I think that I've never thought that there was any real capacity, any real possibility. And I continue to think that the probability is very, very low that he will not get it together as a shooter. I think he has the touch. And he was also, I mean, he was a strong shooter at Oklahoma State on a difficult shot diet. And this is an A side for. sure. But if anybody points to how he did at Oklahoma State in terms of his shooting within the arc, you just point them to the fact that he was basically like the BB guy on a team that had

horribly any spacing and he was swamped by two or three defenders every time he drove into the win. He was impressive in his rookie season. Some of a lot of what he had to offer was still upside. And I continue to think that he has that upside. I think that he'll get it together as a shooter, both on catch and shoots and as a pull-up guy. And once he's a pull-up guy, you have a three-level score because he's also a strong mid-range guy. I talk a lot about how it's very, very difficult to make mid-range pull-ups efficient in the NBA and that there was a very, very small number of players every year who attempt mid-range pull-ups on any sort of notable volume and manage to hit the efficiency threshold on those, which is about 48% these days. So last season,

that number included all-stars, all-MBA, excuse me, all NBA players, future Hall of Famers, Cade and Gijante Murray. I mean, I know it was a small sample size for Cade, but Cade's got it. He's got it as a mid-range shooter. Pretty confident in that. And also, he's gotten quite a bit stronger. I think that'll help him quite a bit in going up the middle and get into the basket. He doesn't really rely on explosiveness at all to get to the rim.

He's a very, very smart player, very extremely under control on the drive, and just very, very crafty. I think that strength will help him get to the free throw line as well. You know, when you take contact, you're much, much likely to get the kind whistle. K during his rookie season was the recipients of a shockingly unkind whistle. Rarely got to the free throw line despite, I think he should have gotten to the line a lot more by rights. So I think he'll be better at scoring at the rim as well. You know, we'll see if that lower leg was hobbling him in terms of his mobility, which is a possibility.

In any case, three-level scorer like him, you couple that with his extremely high basketball IQ and his talent is a passer. and I think he'll improve upon the turnover proneness. I think that has been largely an adjustment. It should be noted, however, that there are some very good pastors in the NBA who are quite turnover prone. Take Luca, for example. Turns the vote over a lot. Not necessarily saying Cade is Luca.

Only Luca is Luca. But I think the, I think that, like, I get it. Cabe was supposed to come in and be the franchise savior. And he was exciting in his rookie season. He didn't come in him, you know, really take the league by storm per se. Like he wasn't amazing, but I think he was very, very solid as a guy who came in as a rookie and had to be the primary handler, like undisputed primary handler. The second best hammer on the team was Cory Joseph. And the primary option as well. And really the period

primary option during about half the season when Jeremy Grant was out. And then he came in into his sophomore season and he was still having trouble shooting and then he missed the vast majority of it. And yeah, so we're still really waiting for Cade to show us what we hope to see from him. But I would just, I would suggest just bearing in mind that, you know, we saw him in his rookie year. and then we saw barely anything of him, and this is his sophomore year, and what we did see from him, he was playing in a tibial stress fracture. That's not an easy injury to play on. You know, you can play, but it is a very, very nagging thing. I mean, I can only speak to somebody who had some awful issues with shin splints as a runner in high school, and I was not playing NBA basketball,

and the tibial stress fracture often will, I believe his resulted, and this can often result. If you have really bad shin problems and you continue exercising on those, continue doing impact activities on this. I haven't had a stress fracture, but just definitely those lower leg issues suck, and I wasn't competing against the best athletes in the world and having to do that, whatever. Again, I digress, a bit of an a bit of an A side there, but I would reserve judgment, and I think we're going to see really good things for Cade next season.

I think if things cut right, he could end up, you know, around, you know, in the top 30, like the very, you know, the low end of the top 30. Not expecting an all-star performance, excuse me, an all-star appearance, but I wouldn't say it's out of the question either. Also, it's something I feel like goes very understated about Cade is his intangibles. He is very, very much a leader. He is very, very much, by all accounts, has been just wise and mature beyond his years. Troy Weaver, I think, put it well and called him when he was called him a human connector. By everything we heard, he was very active with the team last season, despite, you know, in really a coaching and leadership capacity, despite only playing 12 games,

I think, yeah, 12 games, 16. I don't know, I'm not looking at it right now. I know he's played a total of 84 NBA games in his career. So don't undersell the benefits of having, you know, hopefully your best player also be a natural leader, you know, leader of the team and a guy who's always going to play for his team and look out for his teammates and be a leader not only on the floor but off of it. I think that's something that's undersold.

Not only is not only the benefits of that, but also the absence of the drawbacks of, a certain number of other NBA players who have kind of qualities on the other side of the spectrum and those can be hindrances. I'm not talking like, I'm not, well, obviously you look like on the other extreme of it you have guys like Ben Simmons and whoever else, but I'll just go with the benefits here. Yeah, it's the intangibles matter. You can't see the direct impact of those in the court, but they exist. So yeah, Cade, leader, high character guy. If you can be a three-level scorer who can take advantage of his strong passing and exceptional

basketball IQ to create off the dribble when he attacks doubles. And you can't leave him open. You can't give many spaces at the three-point line because he can shoot pull-up threes. You can't leave him open in the end area because he can shoot mid-range pull-ups and he can find his way to the baskets. I mean, again, I think this is a player with a very, very high ceiling who could be very good next season. Ivy is kind of a, that's a longer topic. I'll talk about his last season in the episode that's dedicated to him. There's plenty to say about it. And I was very satisfied with this progress. I'd say there are three areas to look at number one as defense, of course. He was quite bad last season, you know, a fact about which he was very open. He is fully aware

of it and was less than pleased with himself. His consistency as a three-point shooter and his ability to attack the rim. And I'll speak more at length on that. I know I just talked for a while about Cade. I don't really have much of a season review to do on Cade just because he really didn't play much and when he did play again he was playing injured that whole time so might talk about him a bit more but i'm not going to dedicate a whole episode or even half of an episode to him because there's just really not a ton to say ivy there's a lot to say about so i'll talk uh i'll talk at length about my thoughts about his season and then and later in the off season when he gets the previews what i think i'll see you know we'll see from him next season and assar um all is going to boil down to a

you know, if he's like a reliable, you know, like 37% average, league average three-point shooter, like a reliable catch-and-chute guy when he's left open, then he can start and probably make an all-rokey team. If he can't shoot, he's going to be playing bench minutes and he's not going to be able to play in certain situations like late-game situations. I don't want to make any predictions. I would say I'm technically cautious about these things just because there's quite a bit of work that still needs to be done in a shot. and he did struggle in the OTE. The things were said about his playoffs, whether he showed very well in the playoffs,

and that's true. However, those playoffs were four games, and he hit about half of his threes for the entire season in those four games, qualifies as a blip by any measure. I think he'll get there as a shooter. It's just like what it was with the Ivy last season, the mere fact that the Pistons drafted him

makes me confident that they feel confident that he's going to get together as a shooter because there's no way they would have drafted him otherwise. But, yeah, there's work that needs to be done in a shot. Who knows, maybe he gets it done to the golf season. it's also possible that that shot doesn't really, and this isn't unusual with rookies by any means, that he doesn't really have a reliable shot until year two. But, you know, if he reports to training camp, and he's in the preseason,

and, you know, he could fight his probably not. He could fight his way into the starting lineup at the beginning of the season, if not then maybe in case of injuries or whatever else. That would be very exciting if you were a reliable shooter, because that would be a very, very, very fun rookie to watch. It would also bode very well for the future. So I would call myself optimistic for the long term in terms of a shooting, more kind of cautiously hoping for next season.

And I think we'll see him impact the game quite a bit on defense. And on offense, if he can't shoot, you know, he'll be still a solid passer and connective guy. It's just tough to be a positive offensive presence as a bad shooter, as a perimeter player, especially ASAR also has some work to do in terms of his off-to-dribble game. game. And yeah, I know I've said this many times in the past, but even if he can just get that shot together, he could be a very solid starter for any team, even a championship team, Masar, who can shoot. I mean, that's a very, very strong player. And even if he never gets that off the dribble game together, and if he does, and he gets that in a shot together, then you

have a player with all-star upside. But it's his rookie season. He is coming into the league with some flaws. And sometimes young players just need time to work on those. So our next question pertains to how Duren will fit into Monty's offense in comparison or in the context of his previous starting centers. So I'm hesitant to, excuse me, hesitant to contextualize it because, well, there are a couple factors. And number one, Monty's old Hornets, Pelicans rosters were in a very different era, the NBA. And those centers were also, I mean, MoMA Zama, Zama, Zameka, For, whom, in terms. strong defensive guy. I don't know too much about him. I never watched much of Okafore. The other one was Anthony Davis, and Anthony Davis is Anthony Davis. I mean, I think he's become a little

bit underrated these days just because he's injured a lot, but he is an absolute titan on the basketball court. And I think, if I recall correctly, he was used pretty well by Monty. This was back when Davis was still willing to play center, after which, you know, he wanted to be power forward and then went back to playing center again. I think started full time at that. in this last season or the season before, I can't remember. But he was just an incredibly remarkable player during his time with the Pelicans, during his later time of the Pelicans in particular, as good as he has been with the Lakers.

I mean, he was amazing in those last, in 2014, 2015, I think it was Monty's last season coaching the Pelicans. And, yeah, AD was fantastic. But this is all just to say that it's kind of tough to compare when it comes to Anthony Davis. So you have those two. And then you have Aiden and with the sun. of course, and I imagine that this is chiefly directed, chiefly in that direction. So I want to reiterate when it comes to Aiton that's, I don't blame Manny for that at all.

I think Aten is exactly the sort of professional athlete I dislike, petulant, entitled, much more interested in his own petty grievances than in being a team player. Yeah, and also doesn't seem to be the hardest worker on the court, and I don't believe a very hard worker off of it either. There are flaws in this game that's, you know, shooting for one. I mean, the guy's meant to be really meant to make his money on offense primarily. He's not a bad defender, but he's not a great one and still can't shoot. So, yeah, I don't like Aiden.

And I've seen no indication that Manny was unfair or really did anything on toward Aiden. just seems like kind of a baby. So darn an Aten, very different players, needless to say. Aitin is overall a pretty strong score. Well, outside of the fact that he can't space the floor, a decent mid-range guy. You know, decent creator on the post. He's a strong finisher. There's no doubt about that. I mean, he's a very talented finisher. But on defense, he's more of just kind of like, you know, average trending toward pretty good rather than actually strong.

Duren, I don't think has that sort of offensive upside. I think he has more defensive upside. So I think it would just play a very different role. I mean, what I see is Duren's ceiling on offense is his ideal role on offense, to put it this way, is hopefully a strong finish. He's got to work in those layups, but hopefully a strong finisher, strong on the roll, vertical spacer, who can hopefully do some passing in the interior, maybe some passing out of the short roll. And, you know, he flashed some upside at Memphis as, you know, with some kind of short pull-up jumpers off the pick and roll. And if you can get those great, that's just another tool in his toolkit. As far as him shooting threes, you know, who knows? And that's a summer league thing. I think he attempted two of them. And I don't think the pistons in anything but isolation

situations, even if he could shoot threes, would want him out in the perimeter anyway, because his strengths are really around the basket. I'd be very, very pleasantly surprised if Duren ends up being a creator in his own right. And in terms of postplay, not many guys who can, you know, who can effectively create offense in the post on volume, or to whom it is worthwhile giving that opportunity. Against mismatches, cool, that's a different story. So I anticipate them playing very, very different roles. I mean, Duren as a very complimentary player, is to finish her. He's probably not going to try to have him create much.

When it comes to creating, when it comes to giving a guy a ball and, excuse me, giving a guy the ball and asking him to create offense, it's not just about how good he is. It's about the opportunity cost of not giving it to somebody else who might be a lot better or just running, you know, an offensive scheme that's going to produce a better result. So I don't anticipate during being used in that role, whether, who knows if he's, if he's ever going to be an effective creator, basically. I really encourage people when it comes to any of the Pistons prospects to keep in minds that the vast majority,

vast, vast majority of the NBA is made up of role players. And these role players can be quite valuable. Not everybody needs to be a star. I think not everybody is a star, of course. Hardly anybody is a star. Duren, I think, can easily be a top ten center. All he needs to do, I think the only requirement for that is for him to get his, to improve in terms of his decision, not necessarily even his decision-making, basically to work out some of that rawness on offense.

And unlike with Wiseman or Bagley, I'm quite confident that Duren's going to get that together. Now, being a top 10 center is very, very different from being a top five center. There are very few centers who are like these kind of Titanic difference-making players. You've got Embed, of course. You've got Yokic, of course. First guy is going to come to mind. You've got Bam out of Bio, I think would fall into that category. Maybe Sabanis on the outside.

Gobert used to. Not anymore. Well, I mean, I'll just restart on that list. put it this way. I rate your guys who are like actually true 100% like game changing difference makers at center at Yokic Mbid and Anthony Davis. And then kind of on the border there, you've got the likes of Sabanis, Bamadabio, Jaron Jackson Jr., who actually played most of his minutes at center last season, in part because Stephen Adams was out and, you know, averaged 18 and a half points per game, stretched the floor effectively and played a lead defense. Like your number of like

true, true, like, look at this guy, he's absolutely like 100% difference maker superstar centers is pretty small. So difference between being like the 34th best center and being like the 8 or 9th best center is pretty substantial. You look at a guy like Jared Allen, you know, made an all-star game and is a strong player, but is a complimentary player and that's fine. So, you know, I think that Duren's got a good ceiling. I question his ability as a creator. And again, he doesn't, he doesn't, doesn't need to be a creator to be a, you know, to be a major contributor. And like, you take Duren and, I mean, it's just, it's a lot to ask. It's a lot to ask for a player to be good at everything. So I just anticipate them playing very, very different roles, put it that way. Also, I don't anticipate

Duren getting pissed off by Monty benching him in the midst of a game seven in which the sons are getting, in which the team all, Aiden, the root of his squabble with, with Monty Williams is that Monty benched him in that game seven against the Mavericks, which the sun's got absolutely destroyed in. And apparently, their relationship never recovered. And I don't get the feeling that Jalen Duren's a douchebag, like DeAndre Hayden. So I don't anticipate that being an issue either. Our next question comes from the rabble-rauser Rodd Hard Castle.

And he says, simply this, do a drummond retrospective. I'm dying to hear what you have to say about him. And of course, this is a joke question. I have very, very poor things to say about Andre Drummond. I've promised not to talk about him on this show. I will say only this about him and just in response to some sentiments I've seen about, oh, hey, you know, what about we bring Andre Drummond back to play Backup Center or something like that.

So the Drummond of today, whatever you might think about the Drummond of yesteryear, particularly in his time with the Pistons, is sliding rapidly toward third string status. he is so here's basically what happened well i don't need to go into basically what happened he's lost a tremendous amount of mobility uh drummond used to be very very athletic for his size like an elite athlete for his size and he went started going to athletic decline kind of sneakily with the pistons in his mid-20s maybe 25-ish 26 he just became less explosive and less explosive of an athlete and in his years after he left the team i mean that athletic decline really sped up and he's lost a great deal of his athleticism. And a consequence of that is that he no longer has the mobility

to effectively defend in space, as a result of which he is genuinely unplayable in the postseason, and he's a worse scorer than ever. So he is not a good NBA player anymore. He's, I'd say, not a positive value NBA player anymore. And so, no, I would say, even completely irrespective of my feelings toward Drummond from his stint with the Pistons, I would say this is not a player of the Pistons should have any interest in bringing out of this roster. you know, even if I had no concerns about his attitude either. I'd say just, it's not a player that business have anything to gain by bringing back, you know, weak score, um, flawed defender, you know, strong rebounder.

That's about it. And that's, that's nowhere near enough. And again, can't blame him in the postseason. And, uh, then the final question. Uh, tell us about your favorite class in Mass Effect 2 and how will you build it. Um, yes, I have played Mass Effect 2, well, three full playthroughs and two half playthrus. Uh, so I would say the Vanguard, Mass Effect 2 is one of my favorite games is, and I know this is a question that's not to do with the Pistons, but I love this game so much that I'll do it.

Is the Vanguard, which I think is one of the most enjoyable classes I've played in any game ever. So what you're going to want to do is build him for, you spec him for heavy charge. These are the fully restore your shields. You want to go with Champion for the cool downs. And that's just pretty much going to be your bread and butter. Go with squat and send air ammo for the armor, you know, for the armor shred. Reve to help you take down barriers. And now you're not going to get much use of the shock.

Liverpool. It's going to be a little bit tough for you at first on insanity, on the hardest difficulty level, until you get heavy charge and then you're good to go. Yes, I've played that game quite a bit. And if any of you are gamers, I'm pretty sure my next thing I'm doing after I record and set the schedule of this episode to post is to boot up Balders Gate 3. I'm pretty excited for that. All right, so that'll be it for this episode. And I hope you all enjoyed listening again next week, going to start with the season review series in earnest haven't decided who it's going to be yet. And just on the subject of episodes like this, I always love to hear episode ideas. Like, you know, I always loved your feedback. I always love to hear really pretty much anything. Anybody, any of you get in touch with me, I really always appreciate it and I value that a great deal. So, you know, please, if you ever have any thoughts or just want to talk about the Pistons, hit me up on Twitter, hit me up on Discord or on Reddit. All right, folks. So as always, I want to thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you in the next episode.

Thank you.