Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 172: Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, and the Pitfalls of Early-Season Conclusions (Plus the Return of Kevin Knox)

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

This episode discusses the performance of Cade Cunningham and the Jaden Ivey situation in the context of the young 2023-2024 season, opines on Marcus Sasser and Killian Hayes, and overviews the return of Kevin Knox and what it might mean (or not mean) about the injury situation.

Welcome back. I've already listened to another episode of Drive into the Basket. This is Mike. I've had already way too much coffee today. Posting this one a little bit late in the morning, or at least wait in the morning my time due to some kind of poor time management. Last night I usually record on Tuesday nights and post really early. So sorry about that. So let's launch right into it. And we've actually got a latest news item, which is that the Pistons have brought back Kevin Knox, who was in the team last season, with the 15th roster. which was open until today. So I actually like Kevin Knox, sort of,

like not as an actual guy who's really going to contribute to your team, but as a decent depth guy who is, who for the Pistons last season at least, was a pretty decent three and transition guy and, you know, finish some plays off of cuts, you know, just a solid play finisher. And of course was completely dispensable. He was sent out as part of the Sidique Bay, James Weisman trade. So I think he's a decent warm body, so to speak, for the pistons who are currently missing a lot of guys, does make me a little bit concerned about the injury outlook

at forward. Right now you've got Alec Berks who can play up to small forward, a boyon, of course, and Isaiah Liver's all injured. And the fact that they would bring on Knox using the remaining roster spot, maybe it's just against the possibility of, you know, hey, we've started the season with a lot of injuries and we just want a guy who we feel like can just fill in in some minutes, you know, under current circumstances and maybe in the future and we've got the roster spot open. So, you know, why not? He's somebody we know. We liked him last year.

There's also the possibility that that is true as well as one or more, probably more, of the current injuries, the forward core, particularly livers and boyon, is, I would guess, if this is the case, then they're looking at a couple of those being worth. than expected and they want somebody to be around to play those minutes if necessary because the peasants are pretty thinned forward right now. Knox can conceivably play minutes at power forward. He's about 6-7-2-10, which makes him a little bit undersized, but not terribly so. So, yeah, that's the part of the signing that concerns me a little bit. It could be absolutely nothing. It could just be, hey, we really don't like what's happened

so far as far as injuries, and we just want to make sure we've got somebody to pick up the slack if this happens again. So in any case, welcome back Kevin Knox for there's you who didn't really watch him as much last season. I pretty much just already said all there is to say about him. He was actually a fairly strong perimeter shooter for the Pistons. After a really slow start, he shot around 42-ish percent from three on decent volume, I think around three and a half attempts per game for the remainder of his time with the Pistons. He is long, he's athletic, he runs the floor very well in transition. He can finish lobs. He can finish cuts. Now you might be wondering why that sort of player went on signs. And the answer is, number one, he's not the greatest on defense. He's

not terrible, but below average, the IQ on that end just isn't really all there. And on offense, he's highly situational. But the biggest thing is that he has yet to put together a significant stretch of play as anything like a significant stretch of play outside of the Pistons, which really wasn't many games on a really bad team. It's just for the vast majority of his career, he has been bad, and his perimeter shot, which, I mean, the guy is, well, he's a 34% shooter now, but but very, very inconsistent. And he's just kind of a replaceable rotation player. Like, the Pissons aren't bringing in a guy here whom you can expect to be really good on the court. He's just kind of decent for a pretty poor team that needs to fill minutes. So, like I said,

I feel kind of like a little bit silly because the profile of the player I just told you about sounds way better than he actually is. But, you know, if he can make those shots, run in transition, whatever, the guy is really going to have to impress in order to keep a roster spot when, you know, the Pistons, currently injured players come back. But in the meantime, I think it's a solid signing. There's literally no cost signing all aside for the money. And in the cap space, I don't even know if it's fully guaranteed.

But, you know, it's, you use your 15th roster spot. which loses you a little bit of flexibility, but not much. You can always waive a guy too if you really want to. If you've got to move somebody out and trade, you can always send out Kevin Knox in a trade if you want to, though it's three months until he can be traded, which is very close to the deadline. Anyway, I'm getting way ahead of myself.

So a decent player to bring him with a lot of injuries, just concern about what this might mean for injuries, the current injuries, but it could be nothing. So all that said, let's move on to recent development. So just something I want to cover is that the start of the NBA season is wonky, like really wonky across the board for almost every team. I mean, you see some extremes as far as players overperforming, underperforming, teams overperforming, underperforming.

And it just takes, at the beginning of the season, it just takes time for things to settle out and for anybody to, you know, really get, in my opinion, a solid grip on where things are really going and where things really stand. You can see some guys come out and really strong. You can see some teams with decent talent come out and really struggle. It's just my opinion is always to, you know, give it until the 20 game mark before you're really going to, in my opinion, have a good ability to kind of project what things are going to look like for the rest of the season. Some guys come in and are themselves right away.

Some teams come in and are themselves right away and you just continue to get what you've already seen. But a lot of the time, things can develop, things can change, guys can get back into the rhythm of things. things guys can stop shooting like 50 plus percent from three. You know, some guys post absurd numbers at the beginning of the season before settling closer to the mean. All I'm saying is, you know, reserve judgment a bit, in my opinion. And that applies to all the players for the pistons. And also to, you know, situations with the pistons. I feel like that there are some conclusions being prematurely drawn on, I'm just going to go over a couple in particular. or prematurely in the sense of just insufficient data and maybe being a little bit overly alarmist,

in my opinion. That's just my take on things. But let's go over two of those, which I think, I think we're being a little bit premature. Or put it this way, on which I think it may be easy to be a little bit prematurely worried. I mean, it's perfectly reasonable to be worried about things. I'm not saying that anybody should be, should not be worried about, you know, whatever they want to worry about or, you know, should not level, you know, levy any whatever criticisms that feel like I'm just saying, in my opinion, best to give it some time. So one, we can talk about his Cade. And I'll say this about Cade. Cade has, does not look like himself right now. We didn't get to see him much last season. We did get a full year out of him, well, most of a year, about three quarters of three quarters plus change of a year. And the first, the early stages of the, the early stages of the, his rookie season were not good by any measure. I mean, of course, he was coming off, coming into the NBA cold as a rookie, having missed all of training camp for the most, almost all of training

camp and in all of preseason and not really being in game shape. It's not an easy situation. It really took him until kind of late November to fully come online. But after that, I feel like we got a good idea and we get a good picture of that, of the player Kate can be a promising picture of Kate as a rookie. And Kate as a rookie had his issues. He, You know, was not particularly efficient, though if you look at how he really looked after that first difficult stretch, he wasn't, you know, the horribly inefficient player. He kind of looked like. His true shooting from that point on was, I believe, in the low 50s, around 52%, which isn't ideal, but for a guy who's coming in and being the unequivocal primary option and primary handler as a rookie for a bad team,

that wasn't bad. He was a pretty strong passer. still a little bit turnover prone, nowhere near as much as he is right now, and could skip in and make the right reads and make the right passes. And that was the case in his very truncated season last year. And it's worth noting, I think, that this is just the fact that I appreciate is that Cade has only just played his 80-second game in the NBA. In other words, his rookie season, he played last season a very short time on a leg that would ultimately require season-ending surgery.

I think that made it kind of harder to get a decent sample size. There was not a decent sample size last year. So, Kay, this season as a passer has looked really bad. I believe at the time I'm recording this, he's leading the league in turnovers and is nowhere near to leading the league in assists. He, I don't know what's up. I mean, maybe it's just a very long time away from the game. But he is not acting as the really cerebral, really smart, really think several steps ahead sort of player that we've seen in the last season plus 10%. he's just making a lot of really bad passes.

This is not, in my opinion, have anything, excuse me, this does not, in my opinion, have anything to do with teams having caught on. He's just making a lot of really, really ill-advised, easily interceptable passes. Even when he's off the bounce, I mean, his passes are not hitting the mark. He's just throwing inaccurate passes,

even when his teammates catch them. They're not catching them in shooting position, driving position. And right now, he just, He does not look like himself mentally. Physically, I'm going to give it some time. I mean, he's looking a little bit slower, but he had surgery on his leg. He's not in game shape yet.

I think that much, in my opinion, is pretty clear, especially with how gassed he is in fourth quarters. But mentally speaking, he just, he doesn't look like the player that he has been so far in the NBA and the player he was in the NCAA, of course. So I'm not sure what's up with that. I mean, you've got to think that that's going to gravitate back toward the mean because Kate is a very smart player. and right now, I don't know if he's in his head or what, but he's making just a lot of bad decisions,

bad decisions that we didn't see him make as a rookie in the NBA. Well, I mean, he made some of them, but it's far worse right now. Kate, even as a rookie, would make passes into lanes that would have remained open in the NCAA, but do not in the NBA. Those lanes close very, very quickly, and so passes into those lanes that are quickly closing are going to get intercepted. So it hasn't been good so far. The spacing, of course, should be brought in.

that is a factor, I think, in some of the struggles he's had. The spacing on this team is not merely poor, but is actually comically bad. I'm not going to talk about the starting lineup again, in part because you've heard enough about it. I have no doubt, in part because it agitates me. But this is spacing the likes of which no coach who is actually trying to win games would throw out there in the starting lineup. It's that bad. Even the coach who's really trying to win games.

It's not even going to throw one shaky or one kind of non-shooter from the perimeter. And ASAR is basically a spacing liability at this stage. let alone, you know, two with Killian, who's had a good game against the, you know, I'll talk about Kaelian later, but I did a good game against the Warriors, and that was a fun game to watch overall, but on the season is still pretty poor and is in general pretty unreliable. And K, very rarely is playing in a lineup with four shooters. So that's an issue. I feel like it's so ubiquitous when he drives in that he's getting swamped, that it can at times

almost be difficult to see what's happening, because. it's just it's the norm rather than the exception. So that's not helping things. That's not helping his ability to get to the rim. That's not helping his ability to score efficiently. It's not helping anything. At the same time, Cade needs to be smarter about the turnovers. And he's such a smart player that I think he'll get, I think he'll get back to where he was before and hopefully even better. But right now he's having issues, though not issues that worry me because we already know how smart he is. His injury was to his leg, not to his head. So I think we'll be fine there. I do encourage people to, I mean, it's just like last year, for example, or the last several years,

where it's like, okay, the Pistons, but it came to Dwayne Casey, for example, who I had a pretty low opinion of as a coach, and I promise I'm not going to talk any further about that. But it's like he also had a bad team. You know, both of these things were true simultaneously. He was a poor on-court coach who was coaching a poor team. It wasn't just, oh, Casey has a bad team or O. Casey is a poor coach, though, I think that existed independently of his yeah those those factors existed independently of each other and i think it's the same thing with kade here uh that the spacing sucks and he's got to get a decision making under control

i think both of those things are true and both of those things are factors so uh i think additionally a third factor is just you know wait and see wait until we're at game 20 and the guy is coming back from a lengthy absence it'll help when he has better shooters around him as the pistons are missing a great deal of shooting on the bench. And Marcus Sasser has definitely been a pleasant surprise. I'll talk about him as well. I don't know, that's just my philosophy on this. It's just, you know, wait a bit and we'll see.

And I feel like getting concerned at this stage is a little bit premature. And yeah, just wait until we have a greater sample size and things settle down. Number two would be Jaden Ivy. I know this is a very controversial subject amongst Pistons fandom. Ivy, who is kind of getting some tough love from Monty Williams. And again, very early, I think the guy has played five games. And is he probably happy about seeing his minutes and his usage? Well, maybe not his usage when he's on the court, but his minutes in his role pretty drastically reduced from last season.

No. Do I think that five games or even 10 games or even 20 or 40 games of this, of him still having a significant role, just not what he had last season and playing still from the bench is going to leave him incredibly disgruntled. and, you know, ruin his relationship with the coach and the team. No, and I think the notion that he's, that it's already having a very negative effect is sort of far-fetched. I mean, for Ivy, even after 20 games to become incredibly upset about this, would give him Alan Iverson levels of entitlement.

I mean, this would be kind of an extreme. The guy's a second-year player who still has things to work on, really by all accounts. He's very much a team-first guy who just wants to work. card and improving and was fully cognizant of his flaws on defense last season. But I mean, if the guy cannot hand, and everything we've heard is that Monty Williams, you know, the focus is on defense right now. It's not because that's the way he thinks is best to win games. He knows that fielding really weak offensive lineups. I mean, not that the starting lineup as a whole has been strong on defense, which is just not the case. But he knows that fielding defense first lineups with two little

shooting is not going to win you games. you just can't punt on offense in today's league defense is still important. You absolutely, absolutely cannot punt on offense to feel the better defense. And that's what the past tense have been pretty much doing. So the focus is on defense, I think for the sake of making a point and just improving or whatever you want to say. I never like to use the words building a culture because I think that's kind of trite and not necessarily entirely applicable. The winning culture is the one I dislike the most because, you know, Any team that's winning is, wouldn't you say by default, building a winning culture and the team with, you know,

it isn't a team that's winning more, have a better winning culture or something? Or, you know, you put two teams or do you, does it end after a points? I mean, do you reach maximum winning culture? And at that point, I mean, the team with the more talent wins. Of course, also Tom Gores was obsessed with, you know, the winning culture thing and for a long time tried to run the team as a venture capital project. You know, let's just get the right attitude in here. you know, let's get the right culture in here, and then we're just going to start winning games, even, you know, if you don't have anywhere near the talent to actually do so, which was the case for a long time

before he finally stepped back and wet the, you know, some professionals run the team, some honesty goodness professionals. Though he still makes a lot of reference to culture, I think it's just his thing. But fortunately, he's not impressing his vision upon people and forcing them to operate in a certain way anymore. Whatever the case, I digress. So, yeah, the focus is on defense right now. The money has come out and said that there are some non-negotiable mistakes on defense. And, yeah, there are apparently flaws on offense that are much more negotiable. And, you know, that is what it is.

I mean, I don't think, I think that Ivy at this point really struggles a lot on defense. I mean, last season, he was possibly the worst defender on a team that had a fair amount of really bad defenders between he, James Wiseman, Marvin Bagley, and Boyan, Boyan, who I would say was the fourth worst defender. Isn't the disaster. I think he's played out as I think he's decent enough and a solid, you know, when he's surrounded by somewhat decent defenders. And even when he's not, it's just as long as the defense around him isn't terrible. But, yeah, Ivy was definitely part of that bottom of the barrel trio with Bagley and Wiseman. So he's got stuff to work on. But it's like if he is willing to detonate mentally, after 10 games of having to deal with this,

then he is not a player the Pistons want. That's not on him. Excuse me, that's not on Monty. That would be on Ivy and for an on Troy Weaver for horrendously misjudging his character. I don't think that's the case. And, you know, Ivy's a big boy. He can handle it.

So I wouldn't, I mean, I'd encourage, whatever, I don't want to encourage people to think in a particular way. In my opinion, best to, things are going to be fine. And I'm not, going to worry about it right now. I don't think we're anywhere near the point at which it's time to start worrying about Jaden Ivy's relationship with the team. You know, if he is,

who we say he is and he's a reasonable NBA player, then, I mean, this is not an established dude who has brought him with the, you know, with the huge role and is now not being given what he had been promised. This is a second year player who has a lot to improve upon, you know, and if he's got the attitude we think he does, I mean, he can handle it. Vast, vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of young NBA players are just going to take this in stride, they won't be happy, and that's fine. And I know we heard from Brian Windhorst yesterday that I don't think Ivy is happy on the bench and whether or not that's actually, you know, there's actually anything to it or just speculation

because Winhorst comes up with a lot of juicy locker room tidbits, you know, tidbits and in quotation marks because a lot of them, they're just never referred to again and can't really be confirmed or denied. And nobody else reports on them. and Windhorst just in general. I just don't think it's, I think he's kind of like a controversy hound. And even sometimes his reporting on transactions is accurate.

And sometimes it's the same thing. It's like, oh, he's the only one who has it that, you know, that the team is thinking about this. And nobody else ever reports on it and nothing has ever heard about it again. Whatever the case, you know, he may be right. Ivy may not be happy, you know, playing from the bench. And that would make sense if he's not happy about playing for the bench and having a much smaller role in much less minutes.

At the same time, it's okay for players to be unhappy about things. You know, you can be, just like in real life, you can be unhappy about things, you know, without, like in your workplace. Like, I don't like what I'm doing without going completely off the handle and blowing things up. And this is professional basketball. So, Ivy, no things to be happy about this play. He's been a lot better at attacking the rim. His three-point shot has been good.

He's shown, you know, some real aptitude to build on. him last season's ability to shoot threes off the dribble. And would I like to see him play more? Yes, because I enjoy watching him play on offense. And I think he'll get there. I don't think the state of affairs is going to last for good. And no, and I sure hope I'm not wrong about this. I don't think that he's being held out of games under the pretense of sickness.

Sometimes you get sick and it takes you a while to recover. So just another thing on which I think that judgment should be reserved until a little bit later. Moving on to Killian, and this is going to be, as you just note, a little bit shorter of an episode than usual, though I often say that, and it ends up being quite a bit longer than I anticipated. I digress. All right. Moving on to Killian, who did definitely have a strong game against the Warriors, and that was just a fun game to watch, which the Pistons in, you know, who were just incredibly undermanned at this point, are missing a lot of firepower, played against the genuinely good team on the second night of a back-to-back. The Warriors were on the second

I'd have a back to back as well. But the Pistons, you know, with a not strong roster, you know, played a scrappy game and made it close. And part of that was that the Pistons shot incredibly well. And the Warriors did not shoot well at all. They shot under 30 percent overall. Clay Thompson couldn't shoot Curry got cold in the middle of the game, though there was a part of the game, like in the late third, where the camera zoomed in on Curry. And he was smiling. And I think it was George Blaha said, I don't trust that smile.

And so, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Curry is just amazing. I mean, I think the guy probably has more responsibility than anybody for the NBA's evolution into the current era. And it's just his ability as a shooter is just really something else. His conditioning off the ball is incredible. I mean, he's a very good shooter on the ball as well. But you could say he's arguably the greatest off ball, off ball scorer, off ball perimeter

of all time. I think that I would say that without any equivocation. Just the guys are bad. ability to get open and shoot an accurate shot in an incredibly short amount of time with very little space. His release takes 0.6 seconds. They've timed it. That is insane. His accuracy is absurd. And a funny thing, I mean, his younger brother, of course, is the drastically lesser of the two and still is one of, I think, the highest, still the highest percentage three-point shooter of, like, the last significant number of seasons. A lot of talent in that family. So, yeah, Curry,

is a cheat code. I also just love the guy. I think. there's nothing not to love about the guy. He does like to, uh, you know, rub it in a bit when his team is ahead, uh, like the whole, you know, sleeping gesture and the stink eye and whatnot. But I'm not going to begrudge him that. I think, you know, by all accounts, he's just a super good dude and, uh, and a great sportsman and just an amazing talent. So, uh, whatever the case, you know, regardless of how well guys in the Warriors did and how well guys in the pistons did. It was, it was fun to watch regardless of the loss. And Killian came in and did well. He, he, he shot well from three.

That's all he needs to do to be a solid NBA player, you know, to be a long-term rotation player, be a reliable, like, high 30s percent three-point shooter when you're left wide open. All right, you can do that. Guys have to guard you. You can finish plays from the perimeter, and you can add that to your ability to play fairly solid defense.

I don't think he's an elite defender. And, you know, be a smart offensive player who's not turnover prone at all, makes the right pass, talented passer. though, you know, there are a list of butts with Killian, of course. You know, even in that situation, he's a guy. One of the reasons he's not turnover prone, I mean, part of it is just that he's a very smart passer. I don't think that Killian could ever be accused of being anything but a high IQ player on offense

as far as his passing is concerned, at least. But one of the reasons he's so turnover prone is he never passes from a dangerous position. That sounds good on paper. But the reason for it is actually pretty negative. The reason is that he doesn't actually attack and break down defenses. is not the sort of player who is going to penetrate into, you know, multiple coverage and make a pass out from that situation. That's, you know, what your best playmakers do.

That's what your lead guards do. Killian only passes around the perimeter and off the short drive. He is not at all respected by defenses on the drive because they know he's not going to get anywhere close to the rim. You know, they know he's not even likely to try. And I think he is attempted in a half court, I believe, well under his. 10, maybe less than five shots in the restricted area. That's just in the half court, not if you include transition where he's had a couple of buckets

in the restricted area. So, you know, useful as a secondary passer, but yeah, just doesn't break down defenses at all. And right now remains really weak from two point range, like really, really weak from two point range. That pull-up jumper he has is something that he managed to make like baseline, baseline, baseline half-court efficient last year for that, I don't know, five-week, six-week stretch. which he was playing well. The baseline, we're talking about like 48%.

So far on the season, it's been 40%. And defenders will guard him, but this is not a very dangerous shot. Whatever the case, that's a bunch of butts. If he can at least shoot threes well, then he has probably a long-term role on this team. The question with killing his consistency, he has been one of the worst big-minute players in the NBA. And I'd say, you know, bottom three on offense, thanks to his awful scoring throughout his entire time in the NBA. You know, aside from that stretch in which he was, able to just shoot on sort of below average efficiency. Not terribly below average, but not good,

because that pull-up two is still his go-to. For a span of six weeks, the question with Killing is consistency, can you put this together? Can you put a long stretch together? Can you play like this in the long term? Basically, can you hit your threes? Can you hit your threes in the long term so that you can finish those plays on a perimeter? And it's an essential quantity not just, and basically also can you not be a spacing liability? Can you space the floor for your teammates and not actively cause them harm as a floor spacer ends? Because NBA teams, you know, almost every offense prioritizes shooting open threes. And if you can't do that, then that's a problem. So just hit your threes at a reasonable percentage. It's going to take some time for him to prove that he

did that he's able to do that. Does, are the pistons, I've seen this asked, are the pistons just playing him to pump his trade value? I would be shocked if that is the agenda. I think that he is starting because he's just the best defender available at the position. And also, you don't do this to pump a guy's. Pumping a guy's trade value is kind of, I don't think that's ever often a reason for giving a guy big minutes, especially, you know, and if you take killing into account specifically, like the guy, it's going to take him quite some time playing at a decent level in the NBA to establish even like second

round pick trade value. You know, it just kind of adds an edge to that. The fact that he is going to be a restricted free agent at season's end, so it's not like a team can have him and have a look at him for a season and a half. So, you know, in his case, I think it's doubly unlikely just because, you know, it's going to take a while. But, you know, and also, if you have a player who has struggled for a long time and you just want to give him an audition for other teams, though, again, I think that's a very rare thing. You play him off the bench in modest. minutes. You don't say here you're going to start in a starting lineup, which already has one non-shooter on the perimeter and a non-shooting center, one two's offense. Unless you can suddenly shoot,

you are virtually guaranteed to complete the destruction of. And you've never been a good shooter. You've always been a bad shooter. So to me, very implausible. And I think if it was simply a matter of, we want to see what you can be. He would not be starting for that purpose. whatever the case, hoping for consistency, as long as he can shoot, then cool. You know, you'll have a long-term role in the NBA and maybe stick with the pistons, but it's going to take him some time to prove that he can do that. But nonetheless, always good to see a positive. I think that's, you know, a lot of us just preserve judgment about Killian because we've seen some ups and they don't last. So, but I hope that they do.

Speaking of shooting, let's talk Marcus Sasser. So my feelings on Marcus Sasser. So my feelings on Marcus Sasser after the draft were, you know, why did the Pistons pick? Kind of a shooting specialist who's very lineup dependent because you can't really play him next to another small guard. And he's not really a guy who's going to weed your offense. He just doesn't have really a weed guard playmaking talent unless he's really got something extra in the tank as far as upside at age 23. But his shooting and his tenacity and his defense have been great and just his energy

is really up there, super hard worker. So shooting very well so far. He's a guy who is very willing, you know, has never seen a shot that he doesn't like, really. Just in the context of his ability to let it fly, even through pretty close coverage, even off the move that the shooting there has been great. He's a great off-ball mover. He's not super explosive, but he is quick. I can come around screens, go dash back and forth, get a pass and take a shot and have a pretty good possibility of going in.

he's clearly savvy, more of a veteran than the average guy comes in who comes in. And I mean, that makes sense. Your fourth-year players in the NCAA are going to come in in a right-of-your-state. You know, you get concerned if they're not. So he's been able to come in and contribute right away. You know, even just guys who can dash around the perimeter and hit motion threes and also just hit their spot-up threes at a high percentage, those guys are going to be valuable. The defense really needs to get at getting open.

The defense needs to account for them and keep tabs on them. It's easy to get them open. you just set them some off ball screens, and they're a factor that the defense has to account for, and the reliable quantity is perimeter shooters. And again, that's very, very valuable in the NBA. He's done a little bit in the way of attacking the interior, mostly just floaters. Even in the NCAA, he wasn't very good at getting into the rim, because he's not all that explosive, and he is undersized and not a very good weeper.

Again, if these were not the case, then he would have gone higher. Well, the undersized part is just there. But if you were, you know, explosive and a good weeper and good at scoring at the rim, which isn't particularly common in guys his size, but they do exist, then, of course, he would have gone higher, especially for a good playmaker. So there's a reason he was taking at 25, and he doesn't need to be necessarily all those things, just being a very strong shooter who can also play solid defense, which you can, it's a valuable player. So on defense, solidly built, you know, long enough, though, I mean, he did struggle against Josh Kitty, and he will struggle against players who can just

score over him. But it doesn't back down, plays hard, plays smart, is quick, good at navigating screens. He's been fun to watch. Where does he stand when the pistons have a healthy bevy of guards? That's a question. He's going to have to fight for minutes. I think once Ivy has a larger role, which I think is fairly, I think can be said with a high degree of confidence that he will, whatever happens, I think so anyway. So when Berks is back, you know, when Ivy is around, even just having Berks back that you can play him up to small forward a little bit. and if you want to give any minutes to Killian still, there are just a lot of guys fighting for minutes at that position

or competing for minutes at that position. But he's been a bit of a bright spot so far, and that's always good to see. And you really do want these guys who are being brought in after four years in the NCAA to be able to contribute right away, but he's been better able to contribute than I anticipated. Now just some miscellaneous points to finish off the episode, or just some kind of shorter talking points.

Marvin Bagley, I don't know, I hate to strike for something purely negative Of course, I'm never going to not do that in the show. I think it's been worse than his performance would suggest this Bagley. I don't know why Monty is not having him shoot the ball because Bagley really needs that in order to be an effective player. His defense needs to improve as well, of course. I always have my doubts about that. But needs to be stronger on offense.

It has been just a little bit too much posting up, which is fine against fairly weak competition. But when he's playing against the better defenses in the league, just the way he's playing right now, which is just kind of take the ball on the on the block and try to attack the rim is it's just not all that valuable he doesn't pass still like he just he doesn't make the right reads and decisions on either end including and you know and that's that's true on offense as well you just if you know if your goal is to just get the guy the ball there constantly and just have him attack that's just as a one trick pony who doesn't really generate any he doesn't really parley that to generate high percentage opportunities for his teammates he's just my

opinion, he's still been pretty unimpressive. On defense, he's been less of a liability than I thought, though that's chiefly against teams that aren't running a scheme that is forcing him to make a lot of decisions. I just feel like Marvin Bagley doesn't have a long-term future in the NBA. James Wiseman, of course, hasn't really gotten much of a shot. When he has been on the floor, he's looked absolutely horrible. That's not very encouraging. It makes me a little sad that the pistons passed up on five second round picks they could have gotten instead of him. That's a not inconsiderable package, you know, just for what it's worth. Second round picks do have value, and four of those were unprotected for a Hawks team, which is mired of mediocrity. Not a team. I wouldn't expect those picks, at least,

you know, at least in short order to be in the, and necessarily in the 30s anywhere, I think they'll make the playoffs, but they're also not picks in like the late 50s. As far as, you know, revisiting the Sadiq Bay trade, I just, I continue to not know what to think. I think we know that James, that, excuse me, that Weaver was very high on James Wiseman in 2020 draft year. We've heard definitively that Wiseman was number one in his draft board, which for me is a little bit frightening, given that the pistons really needed a lead initiator.

And if you're going number one overall as a center, you better be extremely good. And to this point, I mean, Wiseman, I've said it many times that he just hasn't really have much seasoning, but it just doesn't look good. usually guys can come in and contribute, you know, who are high picks, can come in and contribute a lot faster than this, at least be very good at, you know, on some level. And Wiseman just is not, you know, how much of the Bay Trade and Sadiq, we can say this unequivocally, just completely fell apart on defense in season three, went from being serviceable to being horrible. And that's on him. And I don't know what that was about. I just, I can't think that's anything but a poor reflection

on him in some respect. Because he could do it. He could play serviceable defense. He just stopped doing it. And was he going rogue on offense? Who knows if he was doing that? That's on him as well. There is the consideration of, you know, that he was given up on pretty quickly after being

kind of referred to as a pretty integral part of the future, you know, role player, but a guy whom the organization liked quite a bit. How much of them being kind of quick to move him was something really bad going on behind the scenes versus Troy Weaver having an opportunity to trade for James Wiseman. Impossible to say I'm not judging it either way. Does the trade look good right now? No. Hopefully something better comes of it.

I don't know what that's realistically going to be, but who knows? It's hard not to look at it occasionally and think, though, that at least Sadiq Bay of two seasons ago. I mean, that's a useful floor spacer at the very least. Though, again, we don't exactly know what happened behind the scenes and the defense last season was absolutely terrible. And finally, just to kind of bookend the episode, the Pistons so far, I'm just, the Pistons, there are a few factors. Number one, the schedule has been pretty darned easy so far. And number two, well, three factors. Number two, the Pistons are missing a lot of players. And number three, it has not been many games. So these are just basically all combined.

It's been kind of distressing that the Pistons are missing so many players, also that they're playing against so many easy teams. And basically, we're just, we're not, getting a look at what this team actually, what this roster actually is and what it can actually do. And that was going to take time in any respect. But yeah, we just definitely don't have the roster right now. And I personally prefer seeing the Pistons play against good, healthy teams. I think that's the best way for a team to grow. It's also the best way of seeing what, where this team is at the moment, particularly its young players with the roster in general. And, you know, the Pistons haven't really had many opportunities to play against good teams either.

So I know it's been, yeah, for me, it's been sort of a dissatisfying season so far. It would be a lot more satisfying if the Pist, but there's also that Monty has been kind of running lineups for, as I mentioned, for purposes that are not really winning related. I didn't expect the Pistons to come out and, well, actually, I did everything we heard of was the Pistons wanted to come out and focus on winning games. So this was a little bit surprising. But it's early. You know, give it to game 15, game 20 before, before I start really making, I don't want to say making conclusions, but, you know, it's not too long before we see what we can really expect from this roster for the rest of the

season. And with that, that'll round out today's episode. As always, folks, thank you so much for listening. Catch you in next week's episode.