Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 174: The State of the Team - Where We Stand

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

This episode speaks further on the team's frustratingly slow start, the state of the rebuild, expectations, and more. 

Welcome back. Everybody, you listen to another episode of Drive into the Basket. I'm Mike. I hope you all are doing a great deal better today than the Pistons have been doing of late. Not going to mince words, we're really in the pits at this point. I mean, this is reaching like kind of 76ers process level. Actually, my buddy Jack Kelly pointed out a couple of days back that the record of the Pistons versus the process sixers who were trying to be as bad as humanly possible as not all that different. except for in year four, which is where the Sixers started to actually make substantive progress, whereas the Pistons don't really seem to be at that point. And yes, the Sixers did take advantage of lottery rules that gave the highest odds by a significant margin to the worst team in the league. It was about 25% or actually 25% I believe back then versus the 14% it is now. Nonetheless, I mean, it has been a long rebuild at this point. As I mentioned in the last episode, It has been almost four calendar years since this began. And of course, that does include that incredibly long 2020 off season,

COVID off season where we didn't see the distance play between March and December. Nonetheless, it has been a long time. And I know that there's a certain tendency to want to find somebody to blame. It's a Troy Weaver. Buck stops, of course, at Troy Weaver. And here's, I mean, I talked about Troy Weaver at length last week, but I want to talk a little bit more about it. since ultimately in a rebuild, sometimes you just have bad luck.

I don't think that's been the case with Weaver. The buck does stop at the general manager. And here's my philosophy on GMing in general, but certainly through a rebuild. It's not okay to basically, like if you want to build a contender, you have to be a genuinely good general manager. I think I said this last week. You have to actually make the good moves, the moves that other general managers don't, whether that's in the draft or elsewhere. And like you have to make butter, you know, I guess you can deem the S tier moves. I just realize that I don't actually know what the S and S tier stands for.

But it's about eighth year, basically the highest tier, kind of a gaming term. And you look at how many S tier moves has Troy Weaver really made. Signing Jeremy Grant with nothing to cap space. That was a good move. Nobody thought that that was a good salary for Jeremy Grant. It turned out to be a good player, trade him for Jalen Dern. You know, that is an absolutely S-tier series of events. You sign a guy with nothing but cap space and you get your prospect of center of the future,

who's, I think, at a very bright future in the NBA. Beyond that, what is Troy, we were really done that is going to really help in the future? That was a move that another GM met him, not a made a really adroit move where he got something out of very little or found like an excellent untapped talent or found somebody late in the draft who's going to turn out to be a real star player, something like that. Often it isn't enough just to get these high picks. They can be very, very helpful. But it's often just not going to be enough on its own unless you have the benefit of being like a high caliber free agent destination where you can just sign somebody with CapSpace who's going to come to your team.

And as we've seen free agency, of course, it's getting weaker and weaker and weaker. It's kind of distressing the Pistons are in a situation. Excuse me, pistons are in need of a power forward of the future. And let's say we look at free agency next season. outside of OG and Unobi, who's going to be highly sought after, because he's one of the best players in the market. Three and D doesn't really describe it. He can't shoot threes. He is an excellent defender. He can also do other things beyond just shooting threes. So if we go past him, probably the best power for it on the market is Tori and Prince, which is a really sad thing to say. And that's basically what free agency is these days. You know, your good players take extensions.

So if you look at Troy, I mean, Cade was the obvious pick. And I'll never fault him for that, even if Cade, doesn't work out. You'll look at Ivy. Ivy or Mathrinar and a sharp were really the only obvious picks there. And we'll see which one of those turns out well. But if Ivy turns out well, again, I mean, I think all three of those guys have a good shot of turning out well. Maybe Ivy is the best of the three. I hope so. I don't think that, I think that Asar after the information on Cam Whitmore came out about a combination of his poor workouts in which, you know, presumably, I don't know if they got this far, but there were major questions about his basketball IQ and villain. Nova, I've got to think that those were confirmed. His team certainly would have been testing for that.

Also, that he was disengaged. There were medical concerns, and he dropped out of the lottery. I think once that happened, DeSar was really the only realistic pick. Taylor Hendrix, I think, just the ceiling wasn't there. And this team wasn't going to pick based on floor. As much as he might have just been a good fit with the team's other principles, and this team was still going to pick on ceiling. And that made perfect sense. You know, beyond that, whom were the pistons going to pick? Anthony Black wasn't getting drafted it onto a team with Cade and with Ivy already. So it came down probably to Jaris Walker versus Asara,

and Asara is just more desirable than Jarus Walker in every way beyond being a bad three-point shooter, whereas Jarus Walker is merely really shaky. As far as a versatile wing as opposed to a big. He is more athletic in every way. He is probably a better passer. He does not have Jaris Walker's severe aversion of contact. and basically also Walker was, you know, his calling card was supposedly defense, yet he's weak on switch defense against guards. That's a pretty darned big gap.

So I think Qassar was really the only plausible pick at number five for this team. Basically what I'm saying is that how much credit you really give to Troy for making the picks that he has picked in the top five. You know, beyond that, he's had second round picks, you know, he hasn't really showed too much regard for second round picks, both in trades. and in the draft itself. You know, who knows, maybe Sasser will end up being a good player, but I think even their kind of complimentary player. And like I said, in last episode, the 2020 draft is, I never thought I would start to feel that way about the 2020 draft.

And rather, I just never considered it. The 2020 draft may turn out to be one that really, really, really, really hurts because Weaver had access to some real good talent there, some real good talents that, I mean nobody, until maybe last year, or maybe this year even, seeing how well Tyrese is doing last year

as the emergence of Jaden McDonald's. He's not a foundational guy, but one of the elite three-ndee players in the league. But now you've got Halliburton, who's arguably a top five point guard. Maxi, who's arguably a top five point card.

Bain, again, is averaging, I think, 25 points per game, or at least he was last I checked. Even quickly is becoming one of the league's stronger bench players. But the Weaver had access to some elite talent,

particularly those two point guards. And it's very, very, very, nice, you know, basically completely blowing a draft is not a good thing at the beginning of a rebuild, especially when you sort of expend some significant assets on it. Conard did not fit the timeline. It was good to trade the guy. They traded four second round picks along with him because of concerns over his health. That's a fairly significant haul, especially because I believe three of them came from the pistons

and, you know, we're likely to be, you know, fairly good second round picks. And you traded that future first for Stewart, which is going to, which is right now tying up the picks and is going to either convey and maybe at a bad time, you know, because the protections gradually go down or you have the situation in which it doesn't convey, which is that the pistons are so bad until 2027 that it just, you know, it turns into two second round picks instead. So Stewart, I really like. He is a relatively low-ceiling role player, however, a bench big. Bay, you know, even in the moment, these guys were both safe picks. Bay, it's kind of painful right now.

when you look at James Wiseman and how horrible he is at NBA basketball. You know, I was speaking with somebody today who brought up that he might just be one of those, one of these guys who had a lot of natural talent at basketball, you know, who had, you know, an ideal body for basketball and basically decided to play the sport. Darko was actually this way. He said that he didn't really want to play basketball. He was just good at it. He had another guy in hockey, this very hotly anticipated guy named Alexander Degg.

I think I'm mispronouncing his first name a little. bit, but he was kind of touted as the next one, so to speak. He was picked ahead of, you know, one pick ahead of Chris Pronger. And he also made this quip on draft day saying, I'm glad I got picked first because nobody remembers number two. All right, well, it turned out the dig, despite having a lot of talent, never really actually was too interested in hockey. He didn't turn out to be good. Chris Bronger, one of the best defensemen of his generation. So is Wiseman, that kind guy who just, you know, played because he was good at it, but doesn't really want to put the work in. He certainly doesn't want to put the work, it doesn't look like he wants to put the work in on the

court and either he has just a real fixation on doing what he wants to do and is not playing winning basketball or he just doesn't have the mind for it right now it's looking really bad cidic had his issues i'm not sure exactly what made the the trade necessary you know to go on that quickly but basically we ever took an already unimpressive draft and downgraded i'm one of the players in it that's great and then killian hayes of course is really as says for the entirety of his rookie contract so far and granted he missed a lot of his rookie year but the last two seasons he's gotten big minutes this season he's gotten big minutes and he is still one of the worst players in the league so i don't mean for this to be a rant it's just basically like we got this open weather of the fans

from weaver last season you know last off season asking for patience you know saying that he knows the fans are waiting and it's true the fans are waiting we've now started another you know a fourth season that's really this season has gone absolutely horribly so far the pistons are laughing stuck and so like yeah we are missing players you know not having boy on hurts not having you know missing alec burkes for a little while hurts Isaiah livers who knows but monta morrison we found out today that he's probably going to be out in additional six to eight weeks that one hurts because it would have really nice to have his steady ball handling in the rotation that was my first my first reaction upon seeing that news my second reaction and i hate that this is the case was goodness we're just going to

continue to be subjected to Killian Hayes, who, I mean, two seasons ago, it made sense that he was playing big minutes like he started because they wanted for the first half of the season, because they wanted to see if he and K could play together. You know, their number one overall pick and their, you know, number seven pick the year before who would miss most of the season. Okay, fine. I didn't think that had even the slightest possibility of succeeding because they both play on the ball and they would be the least athletic starting front back court in the league. And that matters. They gave to a shot. Killian, I mean, the fit with Kaye wasn't the issue. The issue was that he was absolutely terrible. So he went to the bench and he continued to be absolutely terrible, though it was against lesser opposition.

Then he was going to be a bench player last season. Kaye got injured. So Killian took on a major role again. And aside from a six-week span in which, you know, he was a lot better, albeit very, very inconsistent. And even then, he was terrible again. He started this season and he's kind of noticeably better in some ways. But he was starting for such a little point that he's still a terrible NBA player. And I mean, we've hit that point of the rebuild, or at least I have, in which it's like you get it the first season. It's funny. You're rooting for losses. Embrace the tank.

Awesome. Cool. You know, we're finally doing what, you know, what's, you know, the team is finally doing what's good for it. And, all right, you get the number one overall pick. That was an awesome moment to get to the second season. You're expecting things to go a little bit better. They don't. The team's bad again.

Okay, that's fine. At least they give us a stretch of good. good basketball after the trade deadline, after the All-Star Break, rather. And you go in, you get another pretty high pick and, you know, show you trade Grant for Duren, and that's a bit of a downgrade in the starting lineup in the starting lineup he has played with to date, has been himself, Corey Joseph, the best players in the starting lineup he's played with to date are Corey Joseph, Jeremy Grant, Sadiq Bay, and Isaiah Stewart. In terms of spacing and overall effective basketball, that is the best lineup he's played with to date, best starting lineup, excuse me, which is a

problem. Though last season, he would have played with a better lineup if he'd been healthy. Well, to a degree. Whatever the case, it's kind of irrelevant because he's starting this season. They're not absolutely hideous lineup at largely the hands of his head coach, deliberately self-inflicting this wound for reasons that he hasn't really gone over. I'll cover that. I'll talk about that a bit later. But anyway, you get to year three. Kate Cunningham goes down. He's out for almost the entire season. The team is terrible again. I mean, you get to that third season. It's like, okay, whatever is going to happen, there should be some measurable progress in this season. Ends up being a 17-win season.

Again, like the last three seasons, the Pistons are really tanking down the stretch, and that's part of it. But last season was the worst product, the Pistons, in season three of the rebuild, well, season three and a half, if you want to count the second half of the truncated COVID season, where the Pistons went full tank from, you know, they started at the end of December, beginning of January, and then really went full, full tank.

starting maybe from the trade deadline really where they traded away a certain player I don't like to talk about so yeah you get to year three and you have an absolutely horrific season terrible season like I think you win four games in the second half of the season and it's like okay um all right well this is highly unfortunate business get another high pick unfortunately they get terrible luck in the lottery you know you come away with the sar and a sarah's great but you really would have wanted to be number one on that watery for obvious reasons. So that's a punch to the gut. And then you get to season four and it's like, okay, Cade's back, you know, Ivy's going into a second season. And Duren's going to a second season. You know, presumably you got players who are going to make steps.

You got a coach who is, you know, ostensibly going to be significantly better than Dwayne Casey. And you come in and the Pistons win two out of, I think they're two and 13 now. And it's tiring. Like it's it's tiring I mean I don't want to speak for other people It seems that a lot of people are tired of it The losses get fatiguing And more than the losses It's the pistons not only losing

But losing and I mean not all the games Have been blowouts but they've won two games So far this season And those were both against Bealey just opponents who were messes at the time So you're in year four here And they're starting out playing terrible basketball And for my part I'm finally getting tired

Of watching bad basketball I mean, it was, you know, the Pistons losing basketball games in this event, just also continuing in many cases to play terrible basketball in the process. And that's when it comes down to Killian Hayes. I mean, he was just kind of like a necessary evil the last two years, like the second season. You know, his second season and the NBA, you're going to get him those minutes period. And it was ugly. The last season, he was also super ugly. And then this season, he's still super ugly.

And it starts to, it started to wear on me because it's bad basketball. and you're in season four here, and it's bad basketball. And I know I've said that this team will be significantly better. I think when the veterans return, though, Monti Morris is not going to be back for another two months. If that, I mean, a player, not a physical therapist, but you look back, a player getting PRP is not a good sign. But, I mean, I could be completely wrong about that, but it's going to be a couple months until he's back. I mean, Troy Weaver, that was a good move for Morris, in my opinion.

I mean, who knows, maybe they just didn't give the guy a physical. I have no idea. And, you know, there's a certain amount of angst at, at, at, the team's medical staff at this point. And I have no idea if that's justified or not, but I get that the anger toward them is growing because things just don't seem to go too well for the Pistons and the injury front.

But again, I'm not behind the scenes there. I don't know what's happening. Though certainly the decision to play Duren, who was very good those first three games and then fell off a cliff after he hurt his ankle and played a lot worse until they finally shut him down again to give him time to heal.

That really didn't seem like an ideal situation. But again, I'm not behind the scenes with the medical team. But it is worth noting that in the offseason, Troy Weaver, his first move was to take on Joe Harris, who was washed. I mean, Joe Harris, you could see it last season, was never the quickest player, had moved up ultimately from shooting guard to power forward. And then had, I believe, multiple ankle surgeries that you could see it last year had destroyed what was already not great mobility. And he's just he can't play in the NBA anymore. We've seen it. I'd be shocked if he got back to a point where he had the mobility to be a non-enormous minus in the floor.

He just can't be that slow on the perimeter. He can barely be that slow as a center and still play in the NBA. So his first move was to eat up $20 million in cap space by taking on Joe Harris. Could have waited, for example, and taken on the likes of Chetty Osman, who's right now shooting for another awful team. But he's younger and he can shoot the ball. and he's mobile and he can shoot the ball. And Joe Harris can shoot the ball too, but it's not mobile. And Chedi O'sman came with a significantly lesser cap.

And who knows what else you could have used that cap space on. But, and again, Monti Morris, I think, unless they were just completely negligent of looking at where his health was at the time, I think he was a good movie. He was one of the better backup point cards in the league. And the cost wasn't really substantial. But, I mean, at this point, it looks like it kind of hurts that the Pistons took on Joe Harris and his $20 million for two first round, two second round picks. I think only one of which was actually a respectable one.

Though don't quote me on that, whatever the case. It's hurting right now, certainly, just in terms of the depth of this team. So I suppose it's where you find the balance between, you know, what does Troy Weaver, you know, has he done a job that was reasonable given the circumstances and things, certain things just haven't worked out in his favor? Has he kind of done a so-so job, which I think is the case, his middling? and in the end of things, you know, in the larger picture, do you just look at the GM and say it's your job to deliver success to this team? And you haven't, and we're in year four, and we're being subjected to an absolutely terrible product.

I mean, I think that's the question, and I don't blame anybody at all for beginning to grow extremely impatient with this GM who was hired to provide results and has not done so, while a bunch of other teams in the league, not all of whom were the thunder and started with amazing assets, have done significantly better. And that moves us on Amani Williams. Now, this I will say about Troy Weaver, by all accounts and all indications, the coaching

search basically Tom Gores, who has always been willing to spend on this team and has always wanted the team to win. And as at times, you know, was for many years an enormous detriment to this team's success by his habit of meddling in areas that were, that he really should have left to the professionals, though he also should have hired better professionals. I think he didn't. I mean, he inherited Dumars, but he let Dumas. but he let Dumar as a limp along as the worst GM in the league for several years before he fired him.

And then he brought on, Heho shall not be named, who was woefully unfit for the job. And he got that guy by offering him personnel control. And that's one of the big what-ifs, excuse me, of the NBA over the last decade, because otherwise he would have been the coach for the Golden State Warriors instead. So whatever the case, it took him until, I mean, Ed Stefanski was the, real first, excuse me, the first real, honest to goodness, basketball professional he had employed at Stefanski also was incredibly mediocre. He had just like, like, you can't possibly get more mediocre than this guy in terms of his

management history. And also, it was one of these hilarious, it was a hilarious situation because Stefanski was hired as a consultant to help find a new GM and a new coach and ended up getting himself hired above the GM. you know, that's pretty successful, you know, successful finessing there, coming in as a consultant to help find a new GM and getting himself hired for, you know, to oversee the GM more or less. But I think he finally got through to Goras about the fact that we can't continue making win now moves. You know, this is not going to work.

We're just fighting for the seventh of the eighth seed every year and it's just not going to work. We don't have a future doing what we're doing. I think the other part of that was the Pistons making a trade for a star player. was Blake Griffin. You remember, I'm sure a lot of you remember that Blake's first game and Tom Gora is going out like completely and utterly blitzed, like absolutely hammered and incredibly happy after the Pistons won that first game against the G-League Grizzlies team. And I think that seeing that trade completely fall flat in his face and realizing that even

Blake when he was at his best in that 2018-2019 season was not enough to make the Pistons a good team. I think that was part of it too. Whatever the case, he decided to insert himself into the coaching search. There were three candidates from the Pistons were reportedly looking at Charles Lee, Kevin Ali, and, oh, goodness, Jaron Collins, I believe. And suddenly we heard that Monty Williams was on the table, and Tom Gores was offering him progressively larger amounts of money to become the coach of the Pistons. Will that turn out to have been the right move?

We will see. but that's not Troy Weaver's fault. If it doesn't work out, that's not Troy Weaver's fault. That is an owner deciding that he should get back in and start meddling again, and owners should not meddle in that capacity. I don't think that there's a single owner in the league over the last decade who has actually done his team good by meddling. I mean, we'll see if Matt Isbigh, see success from it.

Mark Cuban, I mean, he had his role, sure, and the Mavericks putting together a contending roster, and then he spent the next several years screwing it up, you know, deciding to break up that roster for the sake of cap flexibility to do what and basically waste the last, the last few years of Dirk Novitsky's career, the last few years of Dirk Novitsky's prime, rather. So moving on to Mani Williams, I mean, it's been a tough situation. So as I've said before, I think that Mani is a solid coach, can even be a good coach when

he has a lot of talent on his team. So far, he's been incredibly frustrating for me. I've spoken about this again. I'm just very conscious of trying not to repeat myself, because I just, I just, don't think that's enjoyable to listen to. But he's just, I mean, chiefly in his starting lineups, but also in what seems to have been kind of like a pointless, whatever it is with Jaden Ivy and whatever.

It's the lineups he's running in particular, complete self-inflicted boons like this, I will repeat myself on. NBA teams try not to have a single non-shooting perimeter player in the entire rotation because they do such bad things in spacing. Monty Williams, okay, you probably, to be in the season with the injuries, you have to run at least one of these guys in the starting lineup.

And it's a Sarr Thompson, ultimately. We hear that it would have been boy on starting otherwise, which begs the question. If Monty Morris was healthy, maybe you have him in a starting lineup, and that's a starting lineup with good spacing. So you have to start one of these guys. And so, okay, so we're fine. You know, you play another shooter, Alec Burke's from day one.

That's the obvious choice. You know, you're still, you're going to have issues with spacing from this one guy. And I mean, I'm sure you can all just, you know, have a look at what other two with the, teams the pistons are playing against who are playing five spacers, the amount of space they are able to generate compared to the pistons. And also the number of perimeter opportunities they're able to generate and not just generate actually hit versus the pistons, especially in that starting lineup. So start Alec Berks. Fine. Go for it. Great. Awesome. You know, it's not ideal. But

at least Alec Berks is a really strong catch-and-shoe guy, as a motion shooter. He can actually do some creation of his own as well. But instead, you decide to take that, you know, non-shooter in the starting lineup, who is a problem for any team, and double that number, which does not mean double the problems. It probably means triple the problems. You know, why are you doing that? What sort of point are you trying to make? Why are you putting together a starting lineup and fielding it for minute one? There's guaranteed to fail. Not only guaranteed to fail, also you have your franchise player and it's going to make his life a measurably more difficult. Why you're doing that? Well, here's the thing with Monty Williams. We don't know why

he did that. He's not an idiot. I'm sure he knew what was going to happen. But Monty is not only doing things, has not only done things that are completely self-inflicted boons, he is incredibly obtuse with the media. So he's doing these things that make no sense and contribute to losing, and he basically speaks to the media of the fans in a way that is just incredibly disingenuous and more or less intelligence insulting, saying, oh man, well, Kay's just getting swarmed on his way into the interior. It's like, okay, great. You're playing him with two non-shooters in the starting line of what do you think is going to happen? Oh, okay, well, We need to get Cade more spacing.

You know, play some lineups with more spacing. And it's like, okay, well, you move Stewart to center. That's in part, I have to imagine, because Marvin Bagley is ill. You know, Marvin would play significantly less minutes in that game, and then leave partway through the fourth quarter. Oh, who knows? Maybe that wouldn't have been a plan either way. And then you still start two non-shooters next to Kate.

Cool. That is the opposite of emphasizing spacing. That is literal self-destruction in terms of spacing. I don't care that you're not playing them many minutes together. I don't care that you're, that you're, you know, going to try to play Kate in other lineups that have more spacing. Why are you doing that? It doesn't make any sense. It's going to help you lose games. It is a starting lineup that is pretty much 100% guaranteed to fall flat in its face. Again, I explained that in the last episode. Not going to get into that.

But it's super frustrating. It's super frustrating for Pistons, especially for Pistons fans who have seen a great deal of frustration already over the last three seasons. It's like now we have this new coach who is, you know, supposed to be significantly better and he's doing stupid stuff that's helping them lose games, and there's absolutely no explanation as to why it's happening. And then we have other things about his coaching. Like, for example, and this really struck me last night. I've spoken a lot about one of the things I really didn't like about Dwayne Casey was how he chronically allowed the offense to slip out of his hands down the stretch of close games

and just devolve into garbage. Well, Monty Williams has done that now multiple times in the season against the Nuggets, and this was the Nuggets team without Jamal Murray and without Nikola Yokic, that is almost certainly a non-playoff team. I mean, Yokic was out in the first half, pisses, and said the second half to make things work. They didn't win. I mean, say what you will, about if it even should have been in a close game. But it came down to the end and what happened. I mean, it was just Kate attacking, Kate attacking, Kate attacking, and it worked in some situations.

But Jade and Ivy, who had been having a good night, get completely frozen out of the offense. We had the abomination of, like, in a critical possession or an important possession when the game is very close down the stretch of having a Sarr Thompson post up. You know, no offense to a Sarr. That is not offense. You should be attempting in a critical situation. I mean, that is a very low percent at shot. And then you get to the final play, and again, it's like, oh, well, why should we bother calling a timeout in a critical possession? I know that there are some schools of thoughts where it's like, okay, you don't want the defense to get set. But I think it's the third time it's happened now. Or maybe the, I remember maybe one or two other times he just called a really terrible play out of

timeout in the final play, also reminiscent of Casey. So that's just, I mean, I don't think that any conclusion should be drawn about Monty at this point, but it's slightly scary stuff. That's also are just incredibly frustrating. And again, frustrating is frustrating, but Pistons fans have had a surfeit of frustration. We've had far too much frustration over the last four seasons. And, you know, if you're watching, you know, before the rebuild began, you know, you got to be frustrated for many seasons before that as well. But one thing that is true about Monty is that I wish he had not come about as the coach of this team because the owner who has a history of incredibly damaging meddling with the operations of the team decided to step in again. You know, that's, that does,

give me pause just in terms of making me feel a certain amount of on ease. So yeah this is what it comes back to. I mean, there's been a lot that has gone on early in this season that has not really been, I mean, it's two things. Number one, it's just more losing for a fan base, or at least for me. I'm just, it's very, I'm sure for all of us, it's extremely tiring, you know, for those of us who are fans of this team and, you know, are very dedicated fans of this team. And it's very, very difficult to be dedicated fans of this team and it's in year four and this team is starting out two and 13 and just the coach is doing dumb stuff and the injuries are there but you know what do you want to say that's that even with the injuries this should not be a two and 13 team it's it's tough

it's just real tough so that's some a little bit of another pulpery of uh of topics and you know I hope that you found that enjoyable segments maybe maybe it resonates with you a little bit at least. You know, like I said last episode, it's, it's fine to be frustrated. I mean, don't feel, don't feel bad about being frustrated. I mean, nobody should feel bad about feeling frustrated about sports, period. I mean, sports are what you make of them as a fan. But this has been tough.

This has been tough. And whatever reasons, you know, whatever reasons, there are, whatever extenuating circumstances in there are some, you know, are those extenuating circumstances enough to justify us receiving this product in year four of a rebuild. or by the end of the season, you know, whatever happens, the Pistons fans have been watching a rebuild for four and a half years. So anyway, back to what I was saying, other stuff. So Cade Cunningham had a pretty darn good game last night.

His first, I would say, like outright indisputable good game on offense. I was hitting more of a shot, but also in a fun development, he was actually getting into the free throw line. How I think he was getting to the free throw line is that instead of driving to the side, where it's a lot harder to get your foul calls when you're trying to score from one side or the other of the basket. You saw, and obviously I'm not making a close comparison between Cade and these players,

but you see some very, very good scores like MVP era Derek Rose or Kyrie Irving, who despite being, whatever you want to think about, Kyrie Irving, is one of the greatest ball handlers in the sense of his dribble moves and just his ability to get past people, one of the best, maybe the best in the history of the NBA. These guys don't really get too many free throws because generally, you know, in the case of Derek Rose and Kyrie, they're just not really defenders near them or they're not trying to, when they're scoring the MVP error rose because he was incredibly explosive and then Kyrie for, you know, being incredibly shifty. In Kade's case, I mean, obviously he doesn't have those assets, but, you know, he's generally trying to score from the side from a couple feet away from the basket, not fading, but running parallel to the basket.

and that's harder to get your calls there, like significantly harder to get your calls there. And last night, Cabe was doing something different. He was going right up the gut. And it's a lot easier to get your calls there. You know, especially if the defense is throwing multiple defenders at you and you're running into them, that's a call that the refs will give you a lot more.

And that was one of the things I was excited about for Cade in terms of putting on more muscle and more strength was just the ability to go up the middle and to take some hits and still be able to continue on to the basket, continue on, you know, just into the midst of the defense. and that makes it a ton easier to get calls. So Cade last night was either going up the middle or becoming imperable out of the basket, but then curbing in and slowing down. And if you slow down and you're driving into a defender and then elevating, again, you're going to get a lot more in the way

it calls. So that was great. And that's something that he needs to continue doing. But that's going to be real big for his efficiency and he already draws a ton of gravity. Hopefully he'll draw a little bit less gravity when people actually have to pay attention to his teammates. But, you know, if Cade's on his weight of the basket, he's going to, you know, even just for the threat of his mid-range, which is still quite good when, I mean, he struggled at times this season, of course, but, you know, he's going to draw multiple coverage on the way in. And if he can draw those foul is awesome. You know, that's really important.

It's going to be, you know, great in a whole variety of ways. You know, his efficiency is one of those. Just a considerably lower turnover game yesterday, too. You know, it was making the sort of kind of cross-courts and just, you know, really high vision, some of the high vision passes that we saw from in his rookie year. Like I mentioned, like the Cabe we've seen so far this season as a passer and as a decision maker is not who he was as a rookie. That's something I think we could reasonably expect to not last.

His injury was to his lower leg, not to his head. Even a head injury, of course, unless it's, you know, bad enough to knock you out of basketball isn't going to take away your acuity as a playmaker, obviously. So basically just really good to see. We also got to see Cade and Ivy finally play significant minutes. together in the starting lineup. And that was fun too. Cade and Ivy are, you know, to, and I didn't come up with a storm, but I like it, uh, the kind of fire and ice thing where Kate is the, is the slower operator. And another thing about Kate, he's been doing more of

what he did in his rookie year, which is coming, you know, out of the high pick and roll and kind of slowing down and that hunched over movement while he surveys the field, which he is very, very good at doing and either, you know, makes a good decision. Again, I'm not sure why it's taking him some time to get back to this, though being off for almost an entire season, can have helped. But Kate's kind of a slow operator who's going to really approach the game from a very cerebral place and be very methodical. And meanwhile, Ivy is the guy who is just going to operate at the speed of his elite athleticism and just kind of be more of a slasher and a fast mover. And that's a dynamic that I think could play off very well. And it was some good chemistry

last night. I mean, the whole idea for me of the cooperation between Cade and Ivy was something along the lines of, you know, Kade goes into the high pick and roll and draws his, you know, as usual two defenders, you know, helps to, you know, break down the defense that way. And then you can pass to Ivy who will jet into the interior through open lanes through, you know, take advantage of some of the coverage that Kate has drawn. That is unhinged the defense a bit and either score at the basket or just unhinged the defense, more and create that cascade effect that every defense tries to create where the just, excuse me, every offense tries to create where just the defense sort of falls apart and you kick it out to an open shooter and maybe he'll kick it out to another open shooter who might drive in and kick it out to another open shooter. And you ultimately get yourself a high percentage opportunity for one of your,

you know, for one of your best shooters or at the basket. And, you know, we saw some glimpses of their ability to work off of each other. And Ivy has just brought, you know, since he's been back, has just brought such a different, you know, such an additional dimension of the team. I mean, part of it is that this team was just utterly lacking any sort of elite driver, or really in the rotation in general, any sort of elite athlete. And Ivy, though, he's not the greatest leaper. You know, he's more of just kind of like an above-average leaper. And he doesn't really operate super vertically, like, you know, the likes of John Morant or whoever else.

is still in terms of his ability to accelerate one of the, you know, one of the most explosive players in the league. He just adds such a dimension to the Bistons offense that they don't have otherwise. So then also is fun to watch, of course. And, you know, he's looked considerably better. Well, Toronto, I didn't mention the Toronto game. That was just, I think, a low point for everybody. That was just terrible. But in the game against Denver, he's looked a lot better.

The game before that against Cleveland, you know, also had some good place. And it's just been good to have him back. I'll put it that way. Just tracking more about Asar Thompson. Asar is just kind of like a joy to watch on defense. He's got, you know, far higher. I mean, I knew he was going to come in as a strong defender who just needed a good three-point shot in order to be a strong starter for any team. But some of the things that he can do on defense are just really remarkable. It's not just his athleticism. And I mean, this guy can recover and close out in a player from like eight feet away before the guy has the opportunity to, to attempt to shut or just come flying out of nowhere from the weak side or go up against guys. And I think Qasara has plenty of space to add strength onto his frame, but can still go up against guys like Siakum

and do a pretty good job. Guys significantly stronger than he is. Just his versatility. This is a combination of very high defensive IQ, remarkable body control, high athleticism, and work ethic are just, I mean, it's really something else. And, you know, as a passer, you know, also pretty gifted as a score. right now. I mean, Osar was coming into the league as such a raw half-coat scorer. And it saddens me to say this, but I mean, it doesn't surprise me and it's

fine. The guy's a rookie and, you know, he's got a lot of developing to do as a scorer, but, you know, he's still pretty significant negative for the pistons, just because his offense is so rough. And, you know, your skill on offense is going to manifest significantly stronger than skill on defense, unfortunately, just

because of how the game is played and how the rules are right now. I kind of liken it to you know, giving a car, a full tank of guess and then saying well let's see what kind of mileage you get you know i want you to drive as far as you can and uh you know on whichever course you know we're just looking for you to get the most mileage and you know one of one of the courses is on a highway the other one is offroading through the hills obviously going to get more mileage on uh on the highway and kind of see like the highway is offense and uh and the rocky you know the the the hilly off road is defense it's just

the same amount of juice it's going to get you further on offense it's going to hurt more it's going to help more, we put it this way, if you're elite on offense versus if you're a lead on defense. But a lead on defense is still quite helpful. You still have to have a strong defense. Just my point is that at this point, as well as Asaura's playing outside of scoring, he's still pretty significant, negative on the court in general. But again, it's fine. He's young. You know, there's a lot to be excited about. You just have a very, very long way to go in terms of, you know, developing a reliable jump shot. And I think that's unlikely to happen until, you know, hopefully the offseason. I mean, not in the sense that I hope it takes until then, but it's just, it's very unusual for a rookie to

make that much progress on his shot in the midst of his first season. You know, we certainly know that he's putting in the work right now and we'll put in all the work that he can, you know, everything we've heard about Asara is that he has a fantastic work ethic. And let's see, what else? I think I've gotten to most of what I want to get to. There's been some discussion about, you know, should the pistons try to make a big splash right now, Zach Levine for, you know, for example. And there's what I'll say about Zach Levine, though. I don't think it's likely at all that the organization will make a trade just to improve this team non-meaningfully in the moment. When I mean by non-meaningfully, it's not like Zach Levine is going to take this team to the next

level. You know, you make a, in my opinion, don't make a win now trade for a team that's really struggling. You know, that's pretty low in the standings. That's just, in my opinion, not a good time. I mean, you get a better product, but what is that really getting you? You know, if you're a bad team, then, you know, if you're a truly bad team, then you belong high in the lottery and you get that pick, you don't, you get that high pick, you don't give up future assets. It might be better used at a better time, but basically you're just elevating yourself from, from pretty poor to maybe mediocre, which was certainly the case with the Blake Griffin trade, which was almost five years ago, which feels a little bit crazy. Or wait, it was almost six years ago. That happened

I believe on the 30th of January in 2018. Yikes. So I don't think the organization should do that, nor should they. About Zach Levine himself, I think that as a score, you know, assuming that what's going on this season is just a blip because he started off very slow. He's everything really the pistons, you know, could look for. He's not as strong at attacking the rim as he used to be, but he's still fully capable of doing that.

He's just an excellent three-point shooter from, you know, from, you know, standing position. and as a motion shooter. He is a vertical spacer, and, you know, he's a decent passer. He didn't pass it all in the, you know, the 50-point game he put up against the business, but he's a guy you can depend on to average, you know, maybe about five assists per game. Unfortunately, he is also a player who is quite poor on defense, who is, you know, in his late 20s, which is not so much of an issue, but he has an injury history.

You know, he's a little bit brittle. And also, you know, in terms of, I don't know if the word, I never really like the word culture fit, but the guy just doesn't strike me as a good teammate. And from, you know, from what we've heard as well, not really a male content, not really, you know, malignant in the locker room. But, yeah, I just, I wouldn't really want to bring that into the locker room. But I think it's kind of a mood point because it's just not the right time for the business to do anything. You know, though I understand the, you know, the sentiment, like we just want to see a better product.

You know, is it really worth making a, a, trade at a point at which it doesn't really benefit the business to do so just to make this like the 30 win team this season. I think that the answer is no personally. And finally, I'm going to end the episode by covering some listeners submitted topics. Thanks to those of you who put in the ideas. Appreciate it. Number one, how much does this team miss Corey Joseph right now? Asked no doubt because Corey Joseph was a bit of a controversial presence on the team over the last two seasons. And, you know, I always liked Corey. He, you know, did like a half, half decent job when he was asked to step up, even under the starting lineup as, well, I don't know, as a point

guard, whatever you want to say. He did his job. He did nothing more, nothing less than his job. He always worked hard. He was a leader in the locker room. His teammates loved him. He was just very, very much a team first guy. And, you know, does this team miss the Cory Joseph of today? No, I mean, by all indications, Corey Joseph has definitely passed over the hill, so to speak. But the Corey Joseph of two seasons ago, that might not be the worst thing in the world right now. You know, as a guy who, you know, if they really want a handler next decade, you know, handle her of any sort, Corey Joseph was safe with the ball. He could do some passing.

You could do some driving. And he could space the floor at a good percentage. And when you think about it, I mean, with Monti Morris out, like, you know, if Corey Joseph of two years ago was on a team, you know, you've got to, you know, could have started him instead of Killian, you know, in those first, what was it, 12 games, and you maybe would have been significantly better off. So, you know, if we could, you know, use a time machine and pull like, you know, 2021 Corey Joseph out of it, you know, I'd be down for that at this point, we until Monte Morris is back, partly because the team just doesn't really

have any, you know, outside of Cade and, you know, if you want to say Ivy, who I do I think definitely showed some chops as a pastor last season. Even as a rookie, he asked to step into a primary handler role. Aside from those two, who do you really have? And the answer is Killian, who is a largely ineffectual handler. Very safe with the ball. Completely, I mean, I don't want to say kudos, but it's definitely a noticeable difference

that he is willing to actually drive into contact now, but he is still virtually hopeless at reaching the rim. He's virtually hopeless to getting anywhere near the rim. he is no threat at all to break down defenses. You know, he does all of his passing from the perimeter, you know, from a stationary position on the perimeter and off the short drive with no defenders near him. And yeah, it's still helpful to have that passing, but he's not attracting help. He's not breaking down defenses.

Defences leave him open the perimeter. Defenses treat him like a joke on the drive. He's more of just a passer than an actual honest-to-goodness handler. And Corey Joseph, though, he was most certainly backup quality in the times when he was starting is significantly better than, or was significantly better than that. So, hey, you know, if we could just go to that time machine and we had the option to pull Corey Joseph out of it, you know, sign me up. It's definitely better than what we have with Killian right now.

You know, subject to change, but, you know, after a point you really start to doubt that Killian can really make a leap as a handler. I think we're kind of reaching the point in which it's time to stop hoping that he can, you know, for whatever hope is left, that he can randomly become able to, or just really abruptly. and, you know, very shockingly become adequate enough on the drive that he's, like, a real honest, a goodness point. I mean, this is the thing about Kalian.

And I know I've said this that, I know I've said this before, rather, so I'm repeating myself. But on a good team, you know, put the ball in his hands because he's going to do less with it than the average player. He does nothing to wrong foot defenses. And, like, the vast majority of lead handlers out there can do that, like the vast, vast, vast, vast majority. second one how you know talk about how jalen durran contributes to winning or rather the impact jayland durran has on winning

so i'd say that's both relative and absolute relative in the context that he's drastically better as a starting center than anybody else in the team like this team really has four centers when you you know if you're of the opinion and you know i feel pretty strongly about this personally that's that isa stuart is a bench big a batch center in particular and and not really all that good as power forward. I think he is, you know, as I've said aside from Xavier Tillman, who really shouldn't be starting in any team, and Obie Toppin, who is, both of whom, both of these guys Toppin and Tillman are, you know, the starters name only when they come in and they're playing the low 20s. I mean, Isaiah, whatever you want to say, is one of the worst starting point cards.

They're starting point cards, starting power forwards in the league. Definitely not a point guard. Unfortunately, Isaiah isn't the best in handling the ball. So four centers between Bagley, whom I think would still be better off as a power forward but can't shoot and in Wiseman who is Wiseman. I mean, Duren is just such a tremendously better option than two of them. Now, if we can find not this, that would sound kind of grotesque, but it this way. If you put Isaiah Stewart in the body of James Wiseman, then you would have had no needs for Duren period because that's like an all defensive player who can probably shoot, you know, if Isaiah Stewart can probably shoot the ball and vertically spaced the floor and so on.

so forth, and that's a fantastic player. Unfortunately, Isaiah Stewart, is undersized and unathletic. So Jalen Duren, if we're just speaking relatively how he contributes to winning, the impact he has in winning for this team. It would be because he is a drastically, a drastically better option at starting center than any of the other guys. In terms of how he contributes on an absolute level, highway athletic, runs the four well, vertically spaces the four well, moves well around the floor in general. It has great length, you know, uses it to his advantage. you know, he's still really getting there in terms of, you know, just making some adjustments as an interior defender. But he's got very high defensive upside, which is not constrained by

a lack of athleticism or a lack of strength, for example, like Marvin Bagley, for example, who gets pushed around. Or if you think back to Thon Maker, who that would be possibly be a center at least, and needless to say, got pushed around, though he ended up playing a lot more power forward. I think the Bucks played him a backup center a fair amount, if I remember correctly. He's an extreme example. So Duren, also very strong. You know, some guys are going to be able to push them around anyway, like the ambits and the yokeaches of the league, but they can basically push around everybody but each other and maybe Jonas Val and Junis. I'm just thinking back to, I don't know if any of you remember, he was Nikola Peckovich who played for the Timberwolves. I think it was Shaq.

I think I heard it was either Greg Kelser or George Blah say this, that Shaq said that everybody whose name ended in Vitch was able to shoot the ball that he ever knew. Nicole Opecovich was not able to shoot the ball, but he was one of the strongest. just most giant players in the history of the NBA. Unfortunately, he played for a bad team, and his body was really unable to handle the, you know, the sheer size he was carrying around in the rigors of NBA action. Anyway, so Jalen Dern's super strong as well, has shown touch as a passer.

That's great. Has shown a lot of acuity in the pick and roll, has shown chemistry with Kate Cunningham and his is just a very, very good finisher. So he brings a lot of assets and a pretty high ceiling. I think that, you know, the ceiling for a guy who can't really create for himself all that much offensively gets kind of curtailed at below the real star, real superstar tier of centers. But, you know, that's okay.

I mean, he can still be a very good center, even if he's not able to create for himself. Though he has shown some surprising acuity as a handler. Like, not, he's not really going to be driving on you, you know, driving into players and scoring through contact there. But if you give him the space, he can put the ball on the floor and curl around and score uncontested. So he just does a lot of things pretty well. And I think he could do a significant number of things very well. And that he's got every capability of really being an impact center in the league. Even if he's not at the top tier of centers, still in the very, very good tier of centers.

Moving on, talk about the team's power forwards. Well, that's a loaded question because I think we all know that this team is extremely weak at power forward at the moment. you've got Isaiah Stewart who I've spoken about, you know, at length about how I just don't think he's, he's very fit to play at the position outside of spot minutes into good matchups. And then your other power forward on the roster is Blayom Bogdanovich, who is a very capable scorer, 34 years old, unlikely to really be, you know, maybe the pistons are surprised everybody here in a contending next year. But, you know, unless they're contending soon, he's, I don't think he's going to, you know,

even assuming they, I think they'll keep him next year. But even assuming he sticks around next year, who knows it will be on the team the year after that. And I think that time will hurt him less than it hurts other players, just because he is not anywhere near as dependent upon his athleticism, as many players in the NBA. But nonetheless, I mean, this is, like if we want to tie, you know, go back briefly to Weaver's good moves,

Bliam was, it was a, you know, it was a good get. But he's more of a player for the now to sort of help in the now at a point where the pistons aren't really competing. then he is a guy who is really going to be around to help in the future when hopefully the pistons are competing. And if Boy, I'm, we're five years younger, you know, there's no way he goes for that package. If you're even three years younger, probably no reason no way he goes for that package. And finally, does it make any sense for the pistons to try to move on from Killian Hayes, James Blasman, or Marvin Bagley? So when it comes to Killian, well, number one, it comes to all three guys.

they've all got negative trade value. I mean, you won't have to pay to get off of Wiseman or to get off of Killian because they're expiring deals. You probably would have to pay off to get off of Bagley who, notwithstanding his, you know, which is kind of a surprising degree of improvement on defense. And him, you know, putting up decent counting stats as a score still is a minus defender and still is basically, I don't know if glorified traditional center on offenses. is unfair, but he still can't shoot. You can space the floor to a meaningless degree as a mid-range shooter.

But, you know, that's good in a pinch if he can make it. I haven't checked his stats. But on the whole, it's just still not a very good rotation player. And cap space is cap-space. At $12.5 million is $12.5 million. And I don't think this team is in position to be attaching draft stock to dump guys at this point, you know, unless they're getting somebody good in return. I think the best you could get for any of the three of them is,

is, you know, if you're to attach a second round pick, is another reclamation project of a comparable salary. And I think that this team at this point, you know, being that it is trying to improve and, you know, being that it is trying to give minutes to a number of players this year, you know, an ever larger number of players that have been gotten on the draft. And then, you know, the useful veterans on the team, I don't think this team really is all that,

going to be all that interested in reclamation projects at this stage. You know, even if Troy Weaver weren't zero for six, already. And this is, this ties back into, you know, needing to make one of those, you know, needing to make those high-term moves, needing to find those diamonds in the rough, needing to make those peripheral moves that are really going to improve the team. Troy Weaver between the two Jackson's, Josh and Frank, Dennis Smith Jr., Hamadu DOLO, Marvin Bagley, and James Wiseman, is zero of six, unless you think that Bagley is going to succeed, zero of six in Reclamation project. Two of them you didn't have to pay for, Frank and Josh. Dennis Smith Jr. got traded, if I

recall correctly for a pretty decent second round pick, excuse me, you know, you got traded with a decent second round pick in exchange for Derek Rose, who did have value on the trade market. So whether or not you think that that was a worthwhile package, that's up to interpretation. And then, you know, when you take into account the five second round picks that the pistons could have gotten in exchange for Wiseman, I think three of those. And I checked in, it's, I believe it would be three rather than four of those that would have been unprotected. One of them got unprotected when it went to, the trailblazers when the Warriors rooted, I believe, two of those. Second round picks to Portland and Kevin Knox to get back Gary Payton the second.

Portland, or that, you know, removed protections on that pick as it was going back to Portland. I believe, or maybe it was the Hawks who removed that protection. I can't remember. Whatever the case, if you take all of those picks into account, weaver has traded eight of them for, or he traded eight of them for Bagley, DeLoe and Imweisman, the one of the picks that was traded to, that was traded in the bag we deal was fairly weak. It was the worst, I think in 20203, actually, or maybe 2024, the worst of Cleveland and Golden State, which is, you know, likely to be a little big.

So whatever the event, I just don't think that this team is probably that the front office is feeling too hot about trying to give minutes to a reclamation project. If you want to add in Kevin Knox last season, then it's kind of 0 for seven. Knox was not all bad for the pistons. He had a decent stretch. It's just a three-in-transition guy. But I wouldn't call him a success other. So that will be it, folks, for today's episode.

As always, I want to thank you all for listening. We'll catch you in next week's episode.