Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 169: Early Preseason Takeaways

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

This episode discusses very early preseason takeaways, insofar as any strong takeaways thus far exist. 

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Drive into the Basket. I am Mike, and I hope you're all doing super, super well today. We are three days past the first game of 2023, 2024 preseason, a day before the second game, and man, the preseason schedule is a little bit brutal in terms of just really wanting to watch some Pistons basketball and the game is being very far apart. So today we're just going to talk some takeaways from the first preseason game and some current events.

So when it comes to preseason, takeaway number one, and this I would say is Westpending, in fact, is that this is preseason. Shouldn't take too much away from it. The game isn't being played like it would be in the regular season. I mean, you're just trying more things out. A lot of players are just still getting back up to speed. It's one of the points of preseason.

And my advice to people is always to try not to take away too much from preseason. Leave that for the regular season. And it's more just fun to watch, really. That's, for me, the primary utility of it, though we, I believe, can take some positive takeaways from it. And maybe there are some negative ones, very specific negative ones that we can take away as well. But for the rest, I would say reserve judgment.

So let's get rolling. Number one, let's talk Jaden Ivy, who's, and I'm not talking, him coming off the bench, to talk about that in a bit. I'm talking, number one, his shot form. Now, his shot for him, both at Purdue and for the vast majority of last season, was pretty wonky. He just had a bit of a hitch in it that made it less than consistent. You know, it's just his form, simply put, was not great.

He worked on it across the course of last season, and by the end, I mean, he was taking some shots off the catch, which his form was pretty good. The first time I noticed him do it was in the final game of the season against the Bulls. So he reported in to, well, presumably to training camp, but he hit the floor for, preseason and his form looks very good. Not much to say about that beyond, well, number one, good job putting in the effort, Jaden, though it should surprise nobody because by all accounts, the guy isn't extremely hard worker and very, very bent on improving his game continually. But not all guys can do it. Not all guys can make those necessary changes to their form. But in any case, should be good toward the end of better consistency. Also on the subject of Jaden Ivey's

shooting, we saw more actions, or just one in particular really, in which, which he did what I was really hoping to see from him as a perimeter shooter, which is take more shots off the move. You know, reposition. And even if they're not, like, outright motion threes like some guys take, you know, some guys who can genuinely take the ball and very quickly rotate and shoot it, don't think we'll see that from Jaden. But the ability to reposition, plant, shoot, and hit shots,

really without taking much time to do so. And, of course, that's potentially very, very valuable asset for the likes of Jaden Ivy, who is very, very explosive as an off-ball mover and very willing and tenacious as an off-ball mover as well. Not a lot of guys, or I'll put it this way, not everybody in the NBA is an aggressive off-ball mover. I mean, some guys are, but they're just not that fast. Other guys are fast, but they just don't really pursue it all that aggressively. That's, I think, more of a character quality than one might think. In any case, Jaden is not lacking at all for intention or athletic ability. So both of those.

those were good to see. Also from Ivy, just some early, very positive returns in terms of handling the ball on the drive. So last season, Jaden struggled quite a bit on the drive. He was just a very, very straight line driver. And that doesn't really work too well. If you're, well, I mean, if you're just attacking through open lanes, it's one thing. But if you're a handler who's attacking from the perimeter, just straight line driving is unlikely to get you very far in today's NBA. defenders are just too good at staying in front of guys like that. So Ivy would just find himself just slamming into a defender and not being able to get past the guy and having to give the ball up.

And it was clear that he needed to work on being a little bit shifterier, planning his roots more effectively. And we didn't see a ton of attacking from him, but what we did, he's really improved himself in the way of just being shifterer on drives. Saw him make some stutter steps, used his lateral mobility more on the drive, and using moves to penetrate.

rather than just straight line driving. And that's great to see, of course, because Jaden has the potential to be very, very good at penetrating into the basket. Can't do it on athleticism alone in the NBA, but it seems like he's making some refinements, and that's fantastic to see. So way to go, Jaden in terms of your off-season work

seems to be, you know, clearly put in the work, and it seems to be paying dividends. And finally, his defense, again, just one game, but it was good to see Jaden playing just absolutely hounding defense on the guys he was in. assigned to. Really, he's preseason and the guy was going all out, really just not allowing even an

inch of space. We'll need more time to see how he is improved, if at all, hopefully he has, in terms of making decisions. You know, this, again, this is preseason. Not really seeing, you know, regular season environment and seeing how he's going to react to that, how he's going to operate in that. But, you know, his defense was such a major issue last season, not for lack of effort. That is just good to see him come in and, you know, show some positives on defense. So I think a lot to like from Ivy after his first off season. A lot of guys make a lot of progress in their first off season. And yeah, returns there are promising.

I'm just thinking for the guys who don't make progress in their first off season, it's definitely cause for concern. But not a concern in this case. Speaking of shot mechanics, Kate Cunningham's shot looks quite a bit better. I was happy to see it. I mean, I really don't have much doubt that Kate is going to be a good shooter in the NBA. he was just too good in the NCAA, and this was not like a fluke performance. This was a guy who was relied upon to create pretty much all of Oklahoma State's offense,

and he shot about 40% from three on substantial volume and a very difficult shot diet, including a lot of three is taken in isolation. So I think he's just got the capacity to be both a good catch-and-shoot and pull-up guy at the NBA level. If we want to talk Kate a little bit in terms of his performance last game, did settle a little bit too much for mid-range jumpers off the dribble. We'd like to see him, of course, attack the basket more. You know, look for that high-efficiency offense, because even for a guy like Cade, you know,

you're fantastic if you can shoot like 52% on pull-up mid-range jumpers. You're going to get much higher percentage than that attacking the rim, both scoring there and drawing free-throw opportunities. Did he have a good game? No. Is that really anything to think about, in my opinion? Also, no. This is his first NBA action of any sort in almost a year.

and once again, it's preseason. Jalen Duren. So Duren, still the youngest member of the team. And I think that Duren's going to be put in a lot more of a position to make some plays from the center position, whether it's just bounce passes after getting the ball on a handoff or whatever else from the top to three point line or, you know, or bounce passes from the interior or whatever else. Also, I mean, continues to show a certain. amount of capacity that not all bigs have to at least handle the ball a bit off the drive.

Now, do I think we're going to see him attack the basket and weigh the ball up? Not necessarily, but just the ability to at least put the ball on the floor is something. It's just an additional something that the defense needs to take seriously. Not all bigs, including, you know, some pretty talented bigs, are just able to put the ball on the floor without, you know, really risking losing it just as a result of a poor handled. Duren seems to have a relatively decent handle at the very least. And if you leave him open, it seems like he'll be able to get to the basket. Not something I expect to be a major facet of his game, but very good to have. Now, Duren, of course, left the game before, I think slightly before halftime. When it comes to if, he'll play in game

two two things to think about. Number one, in preseason, a team will remove any significant rotation player from the game for really any even slight injury because it's just not worth risking it. So it's possible that it was a very, very small injury and that they just kept him out of the game as a precaution and that he'll be fine to return for tomorrow's game. Or he suffered some sort of very minor injury that's lingering a bit, in which case they will without, you know, say there's not any equivocation hold him out of the game because it's not worth exacerbating any sort of injury in preseason. So we'll, of course, see that once the injury report comes out tomorrow. We learned about Marvin Bagley, who had a big game, that he made really, it was a big statement game from him, the statement being that he can stomp all over other teams provided that they're fielding end of bench players, and he's going up on offense against a very, very weak defender

like bowl, and at times no center at all. Like, it's cool that Marvin came out and did well, but the competition was kind of a joke. couldn't really speak to the defense because very little defense was being played at that stage of the game and again preseason but you know Marvin's got he's just got such a long way to go in the NBA as a defender and certainly as an interior defender and I have my doubts as if he'll realistically ever get there after his defense being so utterly gruesomely horrible from his days at duke onward and him having made such a limited amount of progress like there was talk that you know great you know bagley's really paying attention on defense and, you know, Marvin is calling out assignments and whatnot.

The effort is good. And, you know, if he's really trying there, then great. Is the decision making there? Can that be improved to a point at which he's at least, like, at worst, below average? I don't think so. If he can do that, then being a below average defender, can he provide that value on offense? We'll see. Has to be able to shoot, has to be able to do some attacking off the dribble. It was good to see him come out and see some success. Of course, you know, regardless of the competition, you know, it's always fun to watch Blair go off, period. and clearly he was really into the game, which, you know, which is always good to see in preseason as well. Should it be considered an actual statement game? I would say no. I mean, he was playing against a bunch of guys who are really unlikely to see, aside from Watanabe, who are very unlikely to see a significant role on the team for the Sons. Even Watanabe, it's like, well, I guess Keda Bates Diop was there. These are depth players, we put it that way.

So, of course, we know that this is going to, I mean, he didn't see the floor until the fourth quarter, basically. But of course, we know this is going to be the battle for the best. backup center spot between Bagley and Wiseman. Speaking of Wiseman, I don't want to judge things too early. We'll see as more games go on. But I think I would be perfectly fine if James Wiseman would never seal up on anybody. Just don't seal up and ask for the ball when your back is to the basket. Unless you are very close to the basket, and it's an excellent matchup. Because, you know, he tried a couple times with predictable results.

His feet are terrible when he has the ball. So basically seal up and then try to do a drop step and lose the ball immediately. that happened twice. I don't care who the coach is. I don't care what the situation is. James Wiseman should not be getting the ball that far away from the basket, but is back to the basket. So we'll see more, of course, as time goes on. But it's just, that was a little bit frustrating to see. And yeah, it's preseason, but hope that doesn't really bode anything as far as, as far as this decision making on offense goes. Hopefully that's just a quirk of preseason, whether that's the whole preseason or preseason game number one. but really what this season is all about for James Wiseman is can you through seasoning become a solid

decision maker at the NBA level? And if he can, then cool. I think he'll be able to at the very least play average defense. He's got a great body for it. And, you know, just be a role man on offense and, you know, in a strong finisher. But that decision making really has to drastically improve. And we're going to find out this season if that's a possibility or not. If that's just that lack of seasoning or if James Wiseman just does not have the basketball IQ to play in this week. And also, you know, if Troy Weaver was immensely mistaken about Wiseman and, you know, leading up to his first draft of the Bistons, because we have heard that Wiseman was number one on his board. And if you're going to pick a center, you know, especially a center like Wiseman number one, you know, in terms of a

guy who isn't somehow a lead on offense. If you're going to pick a center number one, that guy had better be extremely special. And if we find out that Weaver was actually, you know, would have drafted guy at number one who turned out to be like a complete numskull in the NBA. It's just not to be not a good look. I mean, in the events, he basically surrendered the chance at five second round picks for which were unprotected to pick up James Wiseman with Baguinary already on the roster. But the mere fact that he was considering picking Wiseman at number one is a little bit disturbing given where the pistons were and given the availability of somebody like Anthony Edwards. But I digress. So let's move on. Isaiah Stewart did have his struggles just shooting the ball from

perimeter one game. I don't expect this to continue. It's worth noting that for a span of, I think, 32 games last season between just the slow start in the first four or five games and him busting up his shoulder in a way that completely ruined his offense for the rest of the season. Stuart's shot, I believe around 38% from three, close to 40% on wide open threes. And I just think he has the touch since he came into the league, though he didn't shoot a lot in his rookie season. he was given license more as the season went on. And some guys just have the mechanics and have the touch. And it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be great shooters,

but they can beat solid shooters. And I think Isaiah will get there. Now, do I think that that's enough to make him an effective power forward? No, because it's basically all he can do. And he can only do it from a standstill position. And he can't really beat anybody off the ball or attack off the dribble or basically even, you know, attack closeouts. But at the very least, you know, he's got to be able to do that.

you know, basically he's got to be able to shoot threes in general if he wants to be a contributor of any sort on the offensive end. If he can't shoot, then he's going to be a perpetual negative. I don't think that's going to happen. It does concern me a bit, you know, given that we've traded for two centers, that the idea is just to shoehorn Isaiah Stewart in a power forward that does make me feel a little bit concerned, but who knows? Maybe it's, we want to see if these guys will work out, but they're their lottery tickets. And the night. Isaiah is probably going to end up at backup center. At least I hope that's the thinking there because I just, as I've said before,

I don't think his athletic limitations are really going to permit him to be anything but a very meh power forward and certainly not a starter quality. Can't just translate his defense from center to power forward. It doesn't translate that way. Killian Hayes came in and had a pretty good game stat-wise. We still haven't seen what he can do as a shooter. And then his offense pretty much boiled down to dribbling the ball a ton in the interior. I'm looking for a contested long two.

It's not a way you can play. I mean, Killian has to be able to break down defenses. He did attack the basket once, but he did it from the outside. You know, basically opportunistically, of course, still good to see him do that, given, you know, for a player who is chronically avoided contact throughout his NBA career so far. But he's a handler, he has to be able to penetrate. Can't just be holding onto the ball for eight to ten seconds looking for an inefficient shot. And it's very, I would say, very, very unlikely that Killian Hayes is going to become an elite mid-range shooter.

And he's got to be able to step back and hit his threes. Can't just be a constantly on-ball guy who looks for inefficient offense. and really can't break down defenses. He's got to be able to hit his threes in any case. So when he came in and did, it's like, you know, cool. You were able to score efficiently on inefficient shots, but you got to be able to participate in the offense off the ball and hit your threes. That's his primary thing for this season.

You got to hit your threes if you want to be in the lineup. He got his minutes because Monte Morris was out, that we probably would have gotten some in the fourth quarter, even if that happened in the case. And Asar Thompson. So we saw from Asarra is pretty much what I expected, which is that he is good at everything that does not involve scoring. Works hard on defense, very capable.

You know, very capable on that end, a solid passer. Just high IQ, knows where to be, knows what to do, moves very well off the ball. You know, it's clearly wise beyond his years from both. And just a basketball smarts, and it seems like a leadership perspective. But the scoring is kind of rough. Sure, I think that he'll be pretty good at scoring from within the flow of an offense. but his shot form does not really seem to have appreciably changed over the summer, and his form was pretty busted coming in.

I don't doubt that he's been working on it, but his form is an issue. It's almost kind of Stanley Johnson-esque. It's not as bad as his brothers, but basically I will be very pleasantly surprised if he turns out to be a solid shooter for the pistons this season. Not only does his shot look ugly, but he was kind of passing up shots when he had those opportunities,

when he was left open on the perimeter. struggled from the free throw line, which also was the case in OTE. He's got to improve there. Of course, I'm not done even remember if he actually attacked the basket maybe a couple times, still has his issues there. It's not okay. It's not enough by any means to just score within the flow of the offense. If a SAR can't shoot, we all know what happens. I mean, not only is a guy he, a guy who, even this season, not only is he a guy who can't finish open shots from the perimeter and so much, so, so, so much of the focus of offenses today in the NBA. And when I talk about it being a focus of offenses,

it also means you have to be able to do this in order to keep up on offense is creating open threes for guys on the perimeter and those guys hitting them at a decent or ideally good percentage. And of course, there's the whole sag off thing, you know, if you can't shoot. And if a Fassar is a, you know,

32% three-point shooter, that's leave him open territory. It means he's probably highly inconsistent. And if he's having a good game, maybe you cover him. But you're happy to leave the country. guy open in general. And then we get to the hot topic, which is the starting lineup. And most especially, well, two parts of it. Number one is Jade and Ivy coming off the bench, which was a little

bit unexpected. Again, there's no way of telling what will actually happen in the regular season. If this will be the case moving forward, you know, when the regular season begins, or if it was just this way to get maximum reps for Ivy or whatever, you know, on the ball or just as the primary handle in the second unit because Monti Morris was out. So will Jade and Ivy be coming off the bench in the regular season? Really, how would I feel about that? I don't think it's ideal. You can say, yeah, he'll still get the, you know, the same number of minutes overall and the same number of reps overall. I'd really rather have him building chemistry with Kate Cunningham. And also not have Cade be out there as the primary, or really the only, excuse me, not the primary,

because he'd be the primary handle or anyway, but the only guy who can really handle the ball in the starting lineup and the only guy who can achieve penetration in the starting lineup. But really, also, you want these guys generating chemistry with each other. So, but I like Jaden Ivy coming off the bench. I know I'm just repeating myself. No, I absolutely hope he doesn't come off the bench. However, this is secondary. This is kind of a secondary issue that would still be, in my opinion, is a significant issue

and then just a bad decision. The other issue is the possibility that Assar Thompson, again, this just assumes that he's still really struggling as a shooter. And again, I'd be very, very pleasantly surprised if that's not the case. But we're operating under the assumption, which I think is a very reasonable assumption that he's not going to come in and be a reliable shooter at the NBA level in his first season because it's just really hard to make that degree of progress in the offseason. And again, his shot still doesn't look very good.

So a much bigger issue is the possibility that Monty Williams will start Sart Thompson, start a guy in the perimeter who is a spacing liability, who cannot finish shots at a high percentage in the perimeter, et cetera, et cetera. There is a reason why hardly anybody in the NBA does this. You can think of really three teams who do. Milwaukee, Yannis, and the perfect situation. Butler and Miami with Spolstra, who in my opinion is the best coach in the league, and three strong shooters and Bam out of bio.

And again, I think only Spelster could make that work. And Golden State with Draymond Green, and, you know, for obvious reasons. Those are the only three teams to really make it work. Those are teams with superstar exceptions and ideal situations. Bistons don't have anything like that. So why don't you feel the single non-perimeter, excuse me, why don't teams feel the single perimeter non-shooter? Well, as I mentioned, you know, like NBA offense is really heavily, heavily, heavily stress high-efficiency offense from the three-point line. That is basically the goal of any offense is to create as much of that as you possibly can.

If you want to be able to keep up in the NBA on offense, if you want to be able to run an efficient offense, if you want to be able to run a functional offense, and also if you don't want to be completely exploited by defenses, you have to be able to run an efficient offense. you, and also if you don't want to be completely exploited by defenses, you have to run lineups with enough perimeter shooting with guys who can finish those plays at a high percentage. And guys who are active spacing threats rather than spacing liabilities. Spacing liabilities make it very, very, very hard, excuse me, to break down opposing defenses and for your offense to function because it's just very easy for defenses to not pay attention of the guys who can't shoot. They just simply sag off.

So it's something you just don't do. You don't feel the lineup that is weak in shooting. You don't feel the lineup that has spacing liabilities in it. You just don't. The reason is because it doesn't work in the NBA. If you want to run an effective offense, you want to run an offense that can keep up, you don't do that. And a lineup with the Sard Thompson has so many issues, basically. I mean, number one, you don't sacrifice spacing in today's week.

You don't sacrifice the ability to run an effective offense to improve yourself on defense. This league is heavily offense focused. The league has made sure that that is the case. And also the spacing and efficiency error with offense being basically rendered down to a science has just made it even more so. Your contributions on offense versus an equal degree of contribution on defense will result in just a much greater manifestation. You can't win games on defense these days. It just doesn't happen. You have to have that offense.

It's still important to have a good defense, but you can't sacrifice offense for it. that is an unequivocally losing formula. No ifs, no ands, no buts. It's just how it is in the NBA these days. So let's say a lineup of Cade, Asar, Boyan, Stewart, and Duren. I mean, there are just all sorts of things wrong with that lineup. And I mean, yeah, you've got the spacing liability in Asar. And even if you can shoot like 32 or 33%, guys will leave him open.

Again, if he's having a good game, maybe he gets covered. Otherwise, he gets left open. Not only that, but the lineup has just only one genuinely good shooter. that would be buoy on. Stewart, I think, will get there. But you're basically building a lineup with hopefully an average shooter, a good one, and a bad one. And of course, Duren isn't taking shots at all.

In addition to that, you have Kade as the one and only guy in the lineup who can attack off the dribble, who can penetrate and break down defenses. He's got crappy spacing around him. And he doesn't really have guys whom he can take advantage of his penetration and breaking down opposing defenses to really feed who will hit those shots at a reliable percentage. he has one guy, maybe one and a half. And the third one, the third and the fourth, aren't really threats at all. So that lineup is basically courting failure.

Like that is an unambiguous statement, it is courting failure. You can't simply buck that meta in today's MBA, and that's for good reason. I mean, it's you have to have that effective offense, and there are things that are necessary to have that effective offense. And the number one thing is having enough spacing, excuse me, and enough shooting. The lineup doesn't have enough shooting. and Cade his life will be made a great deal more difficult in terms of breaking down opposing defenses by the fact that he doesn't have the spacing. He will not have the spacing in that lineup unless his Sarr can shoot. You know, even then, well, I'm not going to go with an even then because I don't think that's necessarily likely,

but even then he is the only person in that lineup who can achieve meaningful penetration. No, Asar can't do that. Asar has a long way to go in terms of attacking the basket off the dribble, a long way. Even an OTE against pretty bad defenses. I mean, he has a long way to go as a shooter as a scorer in general and attacking off the dribble. I think he was well short of 50% at half-core layups. I mean, the guy was not good even an OTE at attacking into contact off the dribble. Can he get better?

I don't doubt it. And I hope so. And there's certainly time. And he's certainly very young. At this point, not good at that. So basically, even for a rebuilding team, it just doesn't make sense to go out there and almost deliberately run a bad offense. And the fact that this is even a possibility is making me,

a little bit tilted, so to speak, making me a little bit agitated. You guys all know how I felt about Dwayne Casey, who pulled this just same sort of garbage on multiple occasions. Like, oh, hey, I'm just going to play a lineup without enough shooting in the hopes that we can win on defense, even though it's literally impossible in today's NBA, and not even worth trying. So even the mere possibility that the Pistons have a new coach who might try to do that. And again, I'm going to reserve judgment until the regular season begins, because we don't know what the lineup is going to look like, but the mere fact that that's a possibility is making me feel sort of anxious at this point. And I know that there are probably a certain number of Pistons fans, and this is just speculation,

but I don't doubt it. I mean, the Pistons, their history, you know, when they've been successful, they have been very strong defensive teams. And that was fun to watch for those of us who are Pistons fans, like during the going to work era or for Spurs fans during that same era. For everybody else, of course, it really wasn't quite as fun seeing teams score 60, 70 points a night. But, you know, on the low end.

but you're playing against the pistons, playing against the spurs, it was likely to be a very offense, basically scoring was likely to be low, we'll put it that way, you know, particularly in the hand-checking era. But it should be noted, for example, if we're talking about the going-to-work pistons, that, you know, though it took the league about a year to adapt after the removal of hand-checking in 2004, you know, once, we'll put it this way, for the three years after that, the final three years of the going-to-work era. So 2005 to 2008, the Pistons were ranked fifth, sixth, and seventh in the league in offense. They had the fifth. And in that first season, they had the fifth best offense than the sixth, then the seventh.

So even then, it was an absolute necessity to be a strong offensive team. Couldn't just be a strong defensive team. And today's league stresses that a great deal more. So, I mean, my point, I guess, though this is kind of irrelevant, was that even back then when the rule changes happened, I mean, those teams were not winning on defense. They had strong defenses and they had strong offenses. So this is all speculation. Again, we won't know until the regular season begins,

but I really hope that the early days of Monty Williams with the Pistons are not characterized by him making objectively bad, just objectively, just decisions that are actively courting failure, Dwayne Casey-esque decisions like that. And if they do happen, I mean, none of this is going to be by necessity. This team, probably this roster, I think, probably has the most shooting of any roster in Pistons history. assuming that Stewart gets it together from the perimeter, and I think he will.

Assar may well be the only non-shooter on the perimeter on the entire roster, or at least in the entire rotation. So basically any rotation player outside of center. So if this happens, it will be because Monty Williams actively chose to put the starting lineup into this position, by no means because he had to, which was the case with coaches in the past. Though, of course, I wouldn't call Stan Bangundier or Dwayne Casey good coaches regardless.

and in case he certainly did it himself when he didn't have to. So yeah, forgive me if I sound a little bit agitated at the same time as I'm, you know, advising people to not take away too much from preseason. It's just that, you know, we've lived with bad coaching with the business such a long time. I'm looking forward to being significantly better coaching. And even just the fact that this may actually happen is making me feel kind of anxious and a little bit agitated. Anyway, folks, that'll be it for this one. Hope you enjoyed the episode.

As always, want to thank you all for listening. Catch you next week's episode.