Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 175: What’s Gone Wrong? An In-Depth Analysis of the Rebuild

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

This feature-length episode takes a close look at the organization's poorly planned rebuild strategy and how it led the team to where it stands today. 

Welcome back, everybody. You listen to another episode of Drive into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all staying sane, despite the difficulties the Pistons are going through. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, though. I hope I don't have the reputation of sugar-coding anything at all. This is a very dark time for Pistons fans. Year 4 of the rebuild, and the last time this team started this poorly, Josh Smith, Greg Monroe, and Andre Drummond were all on the roster,

though, fortunately in this particular season, they weren't playing on the floor together in the starting lineup. that was a season before. Stan Van Gundy was in his first year as coach. He had in his first offseason made the baffling decision to not trade Josh Smith to Sacramento when he had the chance and instead field the three bigs. And he had also made the completely baffling decision to make Josh Smith the center of his offense.

And the team, I believe, started 3 and 24, which is about the pace. This team is on at the moment. Do I think it's going to stay that bad? No. That's a far cry. of course from my belief that if everything it cut right, obviously things aren't cutting right. This team could challenge for the plan.

I think that ship is definitively sailed. There are teams in the past that have made remarkable turnarounds. Like, for example, the heat in 2016, 2017, who started 10 and 31 and then finished the season on a 31 and 10 record and barely missed the playoffs. That was a team full of veterans for the most part. I don't really see that happening here. But I think it just has to improve

because I find it very hard to believe that an NBA team will, continue to be this bad. But things are at a very bad juncture. And I know I've spoken about management in the last couple episodes. I've done a lot more thinking about it. And I want to take a deeper dive into how we got to where we are today. So it boils down to a few components. You know, one is, you know, one is just, of course, issues with the roster from mechanical standpoint. And, you know, there have been some development struggles that were still early on in that case. And, you know, there are some issues with coaching, I think, and just players underperforming. But what I want to talk about first, and this ties, of course, into a lot of those factors,

is what I see as just some very, very poor long-term strategy by this front office. And one thing that I want to clarify, unfortunately, we don't exactly know how much of the influence going into decision-making is, Weaver versus Arntellum versus Ed Stefanski. The idea I think we've been given is that it's primarily Weaver, at least outside of the draft. But, you know, I just, I guess thinking back, don't necessarily want to make assumptions. I'd like to think the general manager is exerting the most influence, especially because Weaver was brought in to do this. It's not like Malik Rose, who was brought in in 2018, 2019 when Ed Stefanski was, I think, very clearly the primary decision maker there. So for the purposes this episode, let's just refer to the front office.

So I think certain things like the James Wiseman trade from Weaver, who had had him first overall in his draftboard in 2020, were most likely spearheaded by Troy Weaver. So let's talk the strategy I'm referring to. Now, I don't know how many of you guys remember this, but there's this pretty well-known speech that Steve Balmer, who's now the owner of the Clippers, gave to a group. of software developers back in, I think it was the late 90s, the early 2000s. And Steve Balmer was his usual exuberant self, like really hyped up. He was running around the stage and shouting, and his shirt was just soaked through with sweat. He had these giant pit stains. And at one point, during the speech or during the presentation, he just stopped and started

churning developers, developers, developers, and of course, referring to software developers. And if we had to have that same chant for this front office, it would be. be development, development, development, or maybe replace development with just talent, talent, talents. I think to sum it up, you want a balanced approach in your rebuild. It's not just, you know, we can accumulate as much raw talent as we possibly can. You also want to look to building a functional team and building a foundation and setting your young players up to succeed, like setting up your principal players. Now, don't get me wrong, there has been a certain element of bad luck in the rebuild so far, you know, Cade's injury, for example.

But I think it primarily comes down to really a combination of failure to succeed and unfortunately a certain element of strategic incompetence as well. And this essentially boils down to an incredibly imbalanced approach that's completely discarded building a functional roster, having functional role players, building, you know, just building fundamentals and building the team up, you know, along with accumulating talent, even just by, you know, even if you're just fielding temporary role players, you know, who are able to give this team, give any team, basically, the ability to play functional basketball. And unfortunately, I think this front office really just went with the strategy of completely blobbing together as much talent as they possibly could with absolutely, with way too little thought given to those other factors.

And not only do I think they did that, like basically, I think that they consciously, I mean, not thinking about it this way, basically chose to fail in pursuing that balanced approach by just trying to accumulate as much talent as they possibly could with no recourse to anything else. And if you'd asked me, I don't know, back in 2020, you can go back and listen to, you know, an episode, you know, myself and my former co-hosts recorded on that right at the beginning of the rebuild when they had signed Mason Plumley, they had signed, Jeremy Grant and we're like, what are they doing? You know, just sign a bunch of young players and just be really bad. This be as bad as you can and see who turns out. And like I admit, excuse me, I've admitted before. I mean, that was the first time I really sat to a rebuild for any team. And it was a pretty naive viewpoint.

And about a year later, I knew significantly better than that. And so basically the consequences of this boil down to, you know, obviously, yeah, looking back, that's just not a lot. strategy I would, you know, I would pursue. I think I think it's certainly no better than that now. But again, it didn't take me these, whatever, it didn't take me until 2020, and the 2023 to realize that. In any case, it's, you know, there are other elements of the rebuild strategy that, you know, that failed. It really almost is a result of this or as part of it. Like one that I mentioned, I think twice now, maybe the last couple of episodes, is just failure to really find any talent

at all on the periphery outside of the high draft picks that the front office was getting as a result of being really bad. I think Jalen Duren was basically or remains basically the only long-term impact move that this front office has made outside of the top five. And they're, you know, they haven't even secured so much as solid role players in the free agent market or elsewhere, you know, to give to give a longer term impact to the team. I mean, if you want to have a successful rebuild, especially when you're starting without extra assets. Though, I mean, certainly teams have gone through successful rebuilds without, you know, starting with extra assets.

Those are nice to have. They're not essential. Whatever, I'd say even independent of this team, not starting with guys that they could trade away for extra assets. This has gone very poorly. But if you want to be successful, often, you know, almost invariably, you're going to have to find guys on the periphery with later draft picks, you know, whether that be later in the first rounds or even in the second round.

around with trading for guys, underappreciated guys who end up being better with just signing them in the free agent market, you know, whatever you're going to do. And don't get me wrong, this front office has tried to do that, at least in the way of reclamation projects. Unfortunately, they have, like, unless you consider a bad way to be a success, I don't think that's really likely to be the case. At the very least, I don't think it'll be an impact player, talk about him a bit later, or your high, I'm Wiseman. Basically, all of the reclamation projects have failed. I think there have been eight of them now. Some of them were signed in pre-agency. Some of them required trading assets. One of them, Wiseman, was pretty expensive, all things

considered. And, you know, this ties into the next point, which is, like I mentioned, just blabbing together as much talent as you can. And not even giving your young players an environment in which you're setting them up the most to succeed. And we can, just one, final point I want to make. I mean, it's not, I mean, there was, just to go back real quick and just to go back, like one chance that one golden opportunity the front office had to find some talent on the periphery. And certainly to kickstart this rebuild was the 2020 draft. Like I've said, I mean, you had the front office going in there. They ended up with three picks, expended a certain number of assets, not just the number seven pick. But Blue Kinnard, who still had value back then and four second round picks to get number 19. accepting a cap dump, which was fine. And also a future first round pick that is currently tying up this team's ability to trade future first round picks for what it's worth until 2029 and will convey, ultimately, unless the pistons are so bad, despite gradually lessening protections that it hasn't conveyed by 2027 and it becomes two second round drafts instead. And they came in, you know, they came out of that draft ultimately. one city bay was traded with a bust at number seven, a reclamation project center at number 19,

and a bench big and Isaiah Stewart at number 16. And they even went into that draft with a very safe choice approach. I remember finding it remarkable that they had had three first round picks and come out of it with three sort of what appeared to be safe pick players at the time, two of them outright safe pick role players who were below out. average NBA athletes and had dubious ceilings. Even Killian Hayes was judged to be a relatively safe pick. And, I mean, I was in favor of drafting him, but I thought he'd just be, you know, a piece. And, you know, maybe if everything cut right in the bottom half, you know, maybe the eighth best

point card in the league, which would still be a success. But not the guy who's going to carry your friend, you know, your franchise to the next level. So not only did they miss out on a bunch of talent, but even the strategy was extremely suspect. I know that it was a certain focus on character with Stewart and Bay, though, I guess based on what Weaver did ultimately, I guess you could say that maybe he felt like he was mistaken with the culture aspect where Sadiq Bay was concerned. Stewart, of course, a great culture guy. But for the most part, that draft was a big opportunity to get things started, or at the very least, find some good talents. And the pistons came away from it with a decent number of assets expended, significant when it comes to pick seven, and a whole lot of missed opportunity.

So that was, I would say, a major failure. I mean, that definitely hasn't helped. But let's go back to the strategy. So I think we can best illustrate this over emphasis. And again, a certain decision to fail at building functional teams by looking at how the team conducted itself from the 2021 draft onward. And, you know, I'll give them some credit when it certainly Weaver deserves credit and the front office deserves credit for targeting Jeremy Grant and giving him what, was considered to be a kind of a silly contract. And ultimately, I mean, he was an athletic, you know, just a good two-way player,

a pretty decent creator who was a good stabilizing presence, a good contributor to this team for two seasons. But let's just get down to 2021. Now, when your team gets the first overall pick or whatever, and you think that you have got your franchise player, the guy who is going to be a superstar and bring your franchise back to relevance is going to be the centerpiece of the team almost invariably. That team is one of the immediate priorities is to build a functional roster. You know, it doesn't need to be good players. I'm not talking about

going, you know, like hardcore and free agency and, you know, making some win now trades and in order to, you know, make a mad rush back to the playoffs. But I'm talking about just building, you know, just at least giving this player a functional roster. It doesn't need to be a winning one. But a functional roster. For example, when Luca Dantuch came into the league, and it's like I'm not comparing K to Luca here, Luca's pretty incomparable, in general, incomparable in general, there's nobody else in the league like him. And so when he came and hit the floor for the very first time, and ever since, he was surrounded

by shooters, you know, there were shooters on the floor with him, you know, generally three of them at all times. He was put into a position, you know, in a functional roster that was not good, but at least gave him the conditions in which he would be able to operate, you know, at a functional level and a functional offense. I mean, this is just a very core foundational thing to do. You know, put your players, especially your key players, into a position to be on a reasonable roster, a reasonable roster which has the necessary accoutrements for NBA success, you know, based on whatever that player's strengths are, but also just, you know, in the first place, just having enough shooting

on the floor. Like, we are long past the point at which everybody knows that fielding a single non-shooting perimeter shooter is going to have seriously negative impact on your, on your offense, and no team should do it unless you're surrounding Janus with shooters. Unless you've got just the superstar where it's going to work that way. So let's look at the 2021 offseason, which I think is the most perfectly emblematic of this approach. Oh, pardon the sniffles. So you got the first overall pick. Kate Cunningham seems like a slam dunk prospect. And, and, you know, can potentially be your superstar creator and, uh, creator, a creator, lead, leader, and just, just lead creator, lead handler in general,

uh, whom you're going to build everything around. So logically, you want to put him, you know, you want to, you know, at least give him that functional roster. But let's look at what the front office decided to do instead. And this was not kind of like a halfway approach. This was them choosing to do something completely different. So we've got Cade, who, You know, as all the, you know, all of the makings of a solid creator for others, you know, can create his own offense and create for others.

He really operates very heavily in the pick and roll. So logically, you want to give him the shooters and you want to give him a strong pick and roll center. And you already have a strong pick and roll big on the roster who can also help with playmaking, some interior playmaking. That is Mason Plumley. Is he a good starting center? No, but he had been a solid choice with Cade. I mean, he was that pick and roll center. So what does the front office do?

literally on draft day, knowing that they're going to draft Cade. They trade down on the second round to dump Mason Plumley so that they can start Isaiah Stewart instead. Isaiah Stewart, who is pretty much a pick and clog center, who is awful on the pick and roll, because he can't vertically space the four. He's very groundbound. It's tough to get him on the ball. He doesn't have very good hands. He scores from below the basket.

As we saw, they didn't even plan on developing him as a shooter that year. So there was absolutely nothing he could do but get in Cade's way. And you've got to think they did that because, oh, hey, we're a good. we are happy with that Isaiah did last season. We want to develop him too. You know, we want to get him to the starting role and develop him and, you know, who cares that this is, that this is a, you know, a bad option for Kate. And who cares that we could continue to bring Isaiah off the bench and give him 20-something minutes a game? If we want to follow the center route there, you would think, okay, well, at least we could, you know, pull up a second stringer, you know, your backup center,

who's an athletic big. So Kate can at least play some minutes with a strong athletic big, the guy who's going to be strong in a pick and roll. Again, Kate operates very strong, very heavily in the pick and roll. Well, we don't feel like doing that. We're going to sign Kelly Olinick so we can have greater spacing. Never mind that Kelly Olinick is, you know, has some strong years from three, but more often is just more mediocre. But we're just going to completely ignore the necessity for a good pick and roll big for Cade. And again, for more spacing, Isaiah Stewart can't space the floor at that point, obviously. And, you know, in fact, we're just not going to have an athletic big on the roster altogether, which is pretty rare for an NBA team and is,

you know, again, this pick and roll heavy franchise player of yours, that is a ridiculous oversight that we were ultimately acknowledged at the end of the season because, well, let's look to the third string center. Maybe at least we'll have an athletic center there. You know, we can either sign a guy like, I think it's Damien Jones, who is an awful defender, but a super, you know, an excellent pick and roll guy or whoever, drive Jericho Sims, who is, you know, available in the 50s and it's unlikely to be a good NBA player, but, you know, whatever, this is the bare minimum. You know, we're not really looking for big things here. You know, at least Tiken is a super athletic big.

You know, just give Kate something. No, instead, we're going to go with Luca Garza. We want to see if he has NBA upside, even though he has virtually no chance of ever making it the NBA because he's incredibly unathletic. And you know what? We're not only going to do that, but we have him under a two-way contract. We are going to pointlessly elevate him onto the main roster

instead of finding somebody else there. Why would you do that? Well, presumably, like I said, they want to see, well, what can we get out of Luca Garza? and who cares, I guess, about, you know, about, you know, putting together not only a functional team, but, but building a little bit around our franchise player here and giving him, you know, putting him in position to succeed. Let's look at the rest of the roster. So they start with Killian Hayes playing next to Cade. It makes sense.

They want to see if, you know, their two recent high draft picks can play together. I think the chances, and I've got to think that they realize this, of the two of them actually working together, were extremely low. So they both operate heavily on the ball. They, um, now they're one of them is particularly athletic, which is kind of an issue if you want to have the, I mean, that's, that's the lesser concern.

But if you want to have the least athletic back court in the league, you know, by a wide margin with Killian being well below average and Cade being average at best. In any case, you kick Killian off the ball, you know, ostensibly back then, we still thought that he had potential as a lead handler. And he's not going to have that in the starting lineup. Okay. And of course, you don't know if you can shoot. because he certainly hadn't done it in his very truncated rookie season,

hadn't really done it in Euro Cup either. But he had good indicators, at least. You know, in his final Euro Cup tournaments, he shot well from three in a limited sample size. He had very high free throw percentage. He looked like he had solid form. But that's a question mark. And ultimately, your contingency,

if that doesn't work out, is Corey Joseph. And work out it did not. Killian was awful and a horrible spacing liability, who just made life a lot more difficult for Caden. And you turn to Corey Joseph, who is still a reasonably decent backup point guard, and you get lucky because Corey Joseph has just kind of abruptly developed into a guy who can space the floor at a fairly high level.

It's around 40% on a relatively low volume. And, you know, so basically, you know, Kate's partner in the back court is maybe a slightly below-average shooting guard. Excuse me, below-average point guard, Corey Joseph's like six foot two, you know. But I've always said, Coach, I've got a bad rep. You know, he did exactly what the team asked of him. He was a great locker room guy. and next to Cade at least he provided a guy who can handle the ball a little bit and could space the four.

Now, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but this 2021, 2021, 2022 lineup was still the best by far of any consistent lineup that Cade has played with. So also you've got Sadiq Bay, who, you know, is a high percentage shooter. You've got Jeremy Grant, who I described earlier, solid veteran, not particularly well coached by Dwayne Casey, but just a solid veteran creator, you know, who's just this very stabilizing presence on the team. and then you've got pick and clogs center Isaiah Stewart. Why was it the best? Because at least Cade had the shooters around him. And for the record, I think there's this kind of, what I think is just almost kind of like a myth that Cade was really bad in his rookie season.

Cade did have his struggles in the first quarter of his rookie season. I'd say probably a large part because he missed almost all training camp. He missed almost he missed all preseason. He came in cold. He had to get in the game shape in his first NBA games. They brought him along slowly. It took him some time to speed, you know, to get up the speed. took him about a quarter of the season, though he missed some of that with injury.

And he really came online in late November. And from then on, like for a span until he had some, you know, some stingers at the very end of the season for I think was 47 games. He averaged about 18 and 7, or it was maybe 19 and 7. Not great efficiency, but, you know, I think 52-ish percent true shooting, which is not bad for, you know, a rookie who comes in, and especially with Jeremy Grant's injury, is playing, you know, the majority of his season. as the lead handler and lead creator for a bad team and one without grant that had bad spacing

in the starting lineup and had bad spacing overall because again the front office didn't really do its job in this situation or focus too much on blobbing talent you know no athletic bigs until marvin bagley so kate was not bad as a rookie and i mean he he showed a lot of potential in that season but yeah this this was his best starting lineup now let's look further than that okay well do we have depth you know in terms of shooters off the bench. Do we have depth there or do we have any depth in the case that, say, one of the forwards, Bay or Grant gets injured? And, you know, his Grant did get injured. Well, the answer is no. I mean, Isaiah Livers is on the roster, but he's injured. They have no idea when he's going to be back.

So who do you have in terms of forward depth? Well, you've got Josh Jackson, a reclamation project who could be a good player if he could shoot, but he can't shoot. You know, he's one of those guys who could be really good if he can just get a shot together. It could be a strong 3-indie-4, but he can't shoot. I couldn't shoot last. season, can't shoot now. Who else do you got? Well, you got Hamadu Diallo. Hmm, what's his situation? Well, he could be a strong player if he could shoot, but he can't shoot. And he's never been able to shoot. So these are guys where it's like, well, we're going to keep them on the roster and not put any debt behind them because, well, we just, we want to see if they can develop. And if they

can't, I guess, well, whatever. And who else do you have in terms of forward depth? You got Trey Liles, a guy who, in alternating seasons, is good and then terrible, and then terrible as a shooter and is just completely unreliable. And that's it. In the back court beyond Corey Joseph and ultimately Killian Hayes, who spent that entire season, is a terrible shooter and basically is one of the worst offensive players in the league and one of the worst big minute players in the league, which is a distinction he would earn again the next season. You have Frank Jackson, who has had one good shooting season and two bad ones. You've got Rodney McGrooter who can shoot, but he can't do anything else. You're hoping, you know, he's just a locker room guy.

You got Savenly, who's a third string point guard, who, well, I mean, you guessed it, can't shoot. And, you know, then you've got Olinick who would ultimately get injured, but you signed him, you know, for his shooting. So you've got, at least that going for you at the cost of giving K to pick and roll big. So this was a roster on which no emphasis, aside from signing a winnick at the cost of a more valuable commodity, was given to actually surrounding K with a functional roster. Instead, we had a bunch of development guys who couldn't shoot. You know, even Killian Hayes was an unknown quantity, and it turned out he was bad. And so, and Kate had to play with a nonspacer in the starting lineup for most of the season. Jeremy Grant was out for, around about half the season, Jeremy Grant was out for, I believe, 40 games.

And nonetheless, this was the best roster Kate has played with because at least he had three shooters in the starting lineup. No athletic bigs until Bagley, who was himself a reclamation project. So you're starting pretty bad there. This is just, I think, a perfect encapsulation on just how completely and horribly imbalanced the strategy of the front office was for building this roster. It is just accumulation of raw talent at all costs with no reference to anything else for the most part. All right. So what happens next? Oh, yeah.

And again, just not really putting together a good development environment at the same time. It's like we're just going to mash together talents about development. No, let's not worry about that. you know, that's less important. So you move on to 2022 and things get actually, you know, arguably worse. So one thing is that you, you know, you do trade Jeremy Grant for Jalen Duren and sell a trade. I mean, Duren is presumably your center of the future. You do lose out with Jeremy Grant because, again, he's that stabilizing veteran presence, a guy who can create, a guy who can play defense, just a good guy to have in your starting lineup with your, you know, with these young

players. And you don't really replace him. Let's look at what happens in that offseason. You draft Jaden Ivy, who's a relatively raw player. He's probably going to be in the starting lineup. And you draft Jalen Duren, who's relatively raw player. I mean, he'll ultimately be in the starting lineup. You trade for Berks. That's a good move. You get some shooting. You trade for Blyon. That's a good move. You get some shooting. But ultimately, you are fielding. Oh, yeah, and you signed Marvin Bagu. We'd be three. year deal and I don't really like that. I think that was, uh, I liked the trade. It was a low-cost flyer. It should be noted that Trey Liles kind of reinvented himself in Sacramento by losing 20 pounds and rediscovering how to shoot with the pistons. He was forced into playing center and just a, you know,

bad defender there, couldn't shoot threes, et cetera, et cetera. So of course, Baguiz still can't shoot, which is kind of an issue. Reclamation project. Again, like basically, you've added shooting to the team just by, I mean, Boyon and Grant is kind of a wash the boy on. can't really create the same way on the ball that Grant can. And you add Birx. Okay, that's nice. Let's look at the starting lineup that Cade had in season two. So in season two, Cade started, you know, and he didn't play many games, but he started alongside

the complete abomination of a front court that was Sadiq Bay, Boyant Bogdanovich, and Isaiah Stewart, which is probably the least athletic, most undersized front court. I have a starting front court I have ever seen in the NBA. The front court could shoot, but spacing is not all about. just shooting in the NBA. You know, Bay could shoot Boyon could shoot Stewart after a really slow five games from the three-point line ultimately got his act together and over the next like 38, 37 games actually shot pretty well from the three-point line. Unfortunately, you also need what, you know, I like to refer to as athletic space and the ability to beat your defenders off the ball.

Boyan could get himself open because he's very smart, but he wasn't going to be beating anybody with athleticism. Bay could sort of do it just by being smart, but he definitely wasn't going to be beating anybody by the way of athleticism. Isaiah Stewart, of course, is not beating anybody off the ball, period. That remains the case.

So, and also, the three of them were a complete disaster on defense because they were just really too slow as a trio to do much of anything. So Cade in this situation, sure, he's still got shooters, though Ivy starts off pretty raw from the three-point line. Okay. And nonetheless, his actual spacing is crap

and the starting lineup is kind of a disaster. So this was actually a functional downgrade, which is far from ideal. And you look at the bench in that season. You've still got Hamadu who can't shoot. You've got Marvin Bagley who can't shoot. You've got Jalen Duren, who, of course, is not going to shoot. You've got Killian Hayes who can't shoot. You've got liver's back and he can shoot, but he's not really healthy, you know,

throughout much of the season. You ultimately put liver, excuse me, ultimately send Sidig Bay to the bench to bring an Isaiah Stewart to play what I maintain continues to be out of position at power forward and I'll opine more about that later. But basically, you know, you've reduced stability on the team further. You have arguably even less shooting than you had the season before. And it's like, well, we just want to mash all this talent together again. You know, we want to give DeL a minute. Darn can't shoot, which is fine, but Bagley can't shoot. Killian A's can't shoot.

And we're going to have to play Cojoin minutes again, ultimately, you know, after Kate ultimately gets injured, but it's yet another team that is not a functional roster. You know, the Pistons. Add some guys, you know, they replace Grant with Boyon. You know, you add Bairks, but it is still not really a functional team. And then it's arguably takes an even further dive in season three. You know, like, I don't have any issue with the ASR pick. You know, I think it was the, it was the rational pick and really the most reasonable pick to make at the time. He's got high offensive upside, excuse me, high defensive upside, without a doubt, like great defensive upside. He's a strong rebounder. He is a good connected passer. He's an incredibly hard worker, smart player. I really like a SAR.

He is, however, probably in like the 0th percentile as a half-court score. And, you know, what did the front office do this season to kind of account for that? And it's like, there are only so many guys who can really develop at the same time. You can ameliorate this by playing a SAR in lesser minutes. So what does the front office do? It's like, well, you have two tasks this summer. last summer. You could ideally sign some solid role players who are actually going to be with this team on the longer term and can provide, you know, that would be great in general, even if that means trading boy on, which I've gone on record. And I think he's going to be valuable

to the team this year. But you can sign, he's not going to be with the team in the long term. You can sign some longer term guys, you know, even if they're just peripheral role players, you can at least accumulate some depth so that we can be sure of fielding a functional team. And however, that was apparently a little bit too much to ask. You know, if you, if you, you look at Forward. Sure, you've got Boyan, you've got Isaiah Stewart, who if we want to talk at, you know, a functional roster is, in my opinion, more or less dead weight at Power Forward. And I really resent Troy Weavers or whoever it is, their apparent obsession with playing him at Power Forward, despite him having shortcomings on the athletic side of things that are

major problems and are completely insurmountable. You know, most notably him being incredibly slow for the position, such that he's never going to beat his man off the ball. He's only open if the if the defense decides to leave him wide open, otherwise they don't really need to have to worry about him moving, let alone beating somebody off the dribble in a way that's extremely helpful, you know, to do it at least a basic level in order to, you know, get the defense moving and give yourself more options for wrong footing it. Like basically, even if he's hitting his threes, I'd say he's pretty much deadweight or a minus either way, you know, unless he's got like an incredibly advantageous matchup and can just bully somebody physically. though even then he's got such a poor handle that he's likely to face issues with losing the ball when he tries to back his way to the basket. So, you know, if you want to just look at the starting lineup, you're starting with Isaiah Stewart there.

So I wouldn't necessarily call him forward depth because I don't think he should be playing forward. I think he's a bench center. Now, Boyana's injured. Nobody sees that coming. Liver's gets injured. Maybe you want to see that coming a little bit. But do you want to sign a depth forward? I mean, you've acquired, you've blown a lot of your caps space in the off season by acquiring Joe Harris.

along with some very modest draft compensation, half of which you send over to Washington to trade from Montemoris, which I think was a good trade, though I'll get another that very, very shortly. Joe Harris is not your forward depth. Joe Harris, you should know if you're the front office from watching him the previous season from previously in his career, that he used to be an elite shooter. Even then, he was not the fastest by any means. He just had two ankle surgeries. You look at his performance in the season before.

He is completely and utterly washed at the NBA level because he is now far too slow to play NBA basketball in today's league, maybe a decade ago. but not today. Now, could you just go out and find like a decent depth forward? No, apparently that's too much to ask. You look, for example, if we want to talk about fielding a functional roster. Oh, well, real quick, you know. Obviously, the big issue here is that this creates the condition, conditions necessary for Assar Thompson to have to play big minutes. We know from Monty Williams that he was not going to start, you know, originally, if Boyan had been healthy, which I think makes perfect sense.

because, like I said, Asar, great contributions on defense, you know, great contributions on the boards, super hard work are great in transition, you know, and this, the idea, and I mean, if he can improve upon this, you know, basically his half-court scoring is absolutely and utterly terrible. And the front office knew this coming in. This is not a knock on Asar. He's just very, very bad in terms of half-court offense. He can't shoot. He's coming in from overtime elite where it is against much, much easier opposition. He was effectively a zero-level creator and very, very efficient. efficient in the half court. So, you know, despite his contributions elsewhere, you know, everywhere else but scoring, he is a gaping hole on offense in the half courts and he is an

enormous drain. And a player like that, again, you don't want to just mash all these guys together and just say, well, we want to develop him too, even though, you know, didn't play him in big minutes. I know that was a necessity, but the conditions for him to even be playing there should never have existed in the first place. You know, just to repeat myself again, you want to have balance here. You want to be able to produce a, you know, a coherent roster that can play coherent NBA basketball with the needs of today's MBA. And you want to have stabilizing presences, like enough solid role players that you can really keep a roster together. And again, you just got what you need. And you also have the ideal development environment for your players.

Now, because the front office chose not to get that forward depth, Asar ended up forced at a big minutes. Asar, who is playing alongside Isaiah Stewart, who is probably, you know, who in terms of big minutes starting power forwards is the worst in the league right now. Again, Isaiah, I think is being done dirty, basically, or at the very least, I don't think it's his fault. He's just, he's not fit to play big minutes of power forward and anything but mismatches, even then spot minutes of power forward. So, I mean, Asar, you're not worrying about putting in a position to succeed because he's just got a long way to go on offense. And if you can get there as a shooter, then, like I've said, he's got very, very high upside and just in terms of his ability to contribute and

can start on a championship team. And if he can get his off the dribble offense together and prove his handle, he's, you know, potential all-star upside. But he's not there yet. He's coming in incredibly raw. So you want to talk about Cade, for example? Now you're absolutely not putting him in a position to succeed because you are starting him with just a like a power forward who can shoot but not really spaced before.

A small forward who is one of the worst in the league at half-court offense. I should mention Sart Thompson, you look at his stats of all players. who have attempted 30 or more threes. He is the worst in the league in terms of percentage by 7%. He's shooting, I think, 13% from three right now, and is just happily left open for obvious reasons, and cuts are nowhere near enough to compensate for that. He's good at that, but that's something that NBA defense is very good to defending. His man being sagged off makes it that much easier, et cetera, et cetera. It's a will volume source of offense. I've talked about this before. Sorry, I digress. And, I mean, we can get a little bit in the lineup decisions here.

Monti Morris, who probably would have started while Monty was doing his thing, whatever it was, with Dway, excuse me, not with Dwayne Casey, with Jaden Ivy, who I think, you know, who knows, maybe Monty's tough love helped him. Maybe this is just correlation does not equal causation. And Ivy, who was very kind of excoriated his own defense in the offseason, said he was terrible, was just seeing some of the improvement you might just want to see and expect out of a second-year player. Whatever the case. So Monty Morris got injured.

and this was a coaching decision, but this brings me back to the next unequivocal failure of this front office in the offseason. Killian Hayes has been terrible the last two seasons. You almost saw the front office being very ready to move on from him just by signing a guy, trading for a guy Montemoris who was going to take his job. But they made no efforts whatsoever to find a third string point guard. And that created the conditions for a single injury to make Killian go into big minutes again when he is just completely and utterly unreliable to take on those minutes. And though he has improved from his previous two seasons,

but starting at such an incredibly low point that he's still terrible. Still can't, and he's certainly completely incapable of being a lead guard because the guy can't penetrate at all. You know, he's also a spacing liability to treat it like a joke by defenses everywhere. So, of course, you have Monty Williams who chooses to compound the issue by making the mind-boggling decision to play Killian Hayes in the starting lineup. And thereby, I mean, fielding one-nine. shooter on the perimeter of the starting lineup. I'm going to say this again is a big problem

for your offense. Fielding two of them is a completely insane, just completely insane sin in the modern day NBA that is incredible. It's incredible that that even happens. And, you know, you want to talk about putting Cade, for example, and not in a position to succeed. And Cade has had his own issues. I'll talk about those. That was just awful when Killian Hay should never been in a position to have to play big minutes. But again, I don't doubt that the front office was looking at him and saying, oh, well, you know, maybe he'll show us something this season. You know, let him be third string. We'll give him another chance.

And, uh, but no, we're just not going to actually have a contingency plan in the event that he fails. So I've been going on and on about this. And I hope I haven't rambled. But it's just, it's just this runaway focus on development. Well, you know, just accumulating talent rather. Well, you know, actually at the same time not putting it into, into position really to succeed. It's just, you know, let's just blob this all together.

and a more balanced approach is necessary. And if we want to talk about like the keystone on this and this obsession with accumulating talent, we can look at James Wiseman. This team already had Marvin Bagley as a project center. They had traded for him, you know, excuse me, they had traded for him a year earlier. They had signed him to a three-year deal seven months earlier. You had drafted your prospective center of the future and Jayland Duren seven months earlier. And then suddenly this team is trading away Sadiq Bay very quickly,

Bay, who had his issues but was a rotational shooting. forward for an extremely, a very sub-rotational center who's going to be your second project center and may not even find minutes in the roster and is nowhere near ready to play NBA basketball. And this one, I would say pretty conclusively, was Troy Weaver, who, this is a little bit frightening, had Weissman at the top of his 2020 draft board, which means, like, goodness, does that mean if the Pistons had picked number one, that Wiseman would have been the choice over Anthony Edwards over even O'Mella Ball? I mean, that's scary. And I think that Bay was traded, that it happened so suddenly.

because Weaver had an opportunity to acquire Wiseman, and it's like, well, you know, he's a potential talent, let's go out and get him. And this trade was more costly. Again, trading away Sadiek Bay. You could have kept him. He may have wanted an extension and, you know, in the high teens per year, but he was not a free agent this last summer. Atlanta kept him. They didn't extend him. So it's just gone way too far. And again, I think that the front office almost willingly failed to pursue a balanced approach. Stabilizers on this team right now. I mean, it's a bunch of young talent without anything in the way of balance in the roster in terms of stabilizers and guys you can rely upon. And I'm sorry, I'm just repeating myself now. So let's talk about just the current roster,

which, and I've covered a lot of its issues. Again, too little shooting. And, oh yeah, Monti Morris, here's one thing. I really hope that the team wasn't aware of his medical issues when they traded for him, which is a possibility, this is complete speculation about Monti Morris, who is one of the best backup point guards in the league, a very steady contributor. This is the kind of guy that is actually, who is actually quite useful to a rebuilding team, just a steady handler who is smart and safe with the ball and makes good decisions. Yet the wizards let go of him for one second round pick. I got to think that contenders would have been willing to trade for the guy.

It was the price so low because he was known to be going into the season with injury issues. And at this point, I mean, the Pissons might not get Montemores back until more than halfway through the season. And who knows, may not get him back for the season in general. And of course, if the front office knew that and still didn't go for a third string point guard, then there are real problems. But, yeah, let's look at the issue and the issues here. And I want to say first that if, like, your team full of youth is so bad at fundamental things like shooting threes and so unstable that you can't have enough shooting or enough stability because you're missing two veterans, then, you're, you're, you're, you know, you're. You have done an exceptionally poor job of building a roster in general. And if you build a team that's starting off this badly, then you, you know, you've,

in a situation where the team's actual performance has gotten worse year over year throughout this rebuild. I mean, so much has gone wrong here. But, you know, let's go over this briefly. So, yeah, you've created the conditions for Killian Hayes and Start to Play Big Minutes. I'm going to do this in no particular order. You have far too few creators. It's basically Cade and Ivy and, you know, Monte Morris, an extent. So the number of guys who can actually give the ball to and ask them to create a bucket

is very few. The number of guys who can actually handle the ball and penetrate is very few. It's the same three guys, Cade and Ivy and Monte Morris, and you're missing even one of them. Then suddenly, at the very least, the bench now, as we saw last game, for example, it has nobody who can penetrate. And I don't think that was reason enough to keep Ivy in the starting, you know, coming off the bench. But right now you've got five guys who can't penetrate. It's a bunch of passing around the perimeter, which is very easy for the defense to stop. So guys who can take the ball and even penetrate, let alone get a bucket, you're very short on that.

You have too many guys who can't shoot. You have players playing out of position, Stuart, for example. You've basically got four centers in the rotation, and that's when, depending on whether Bagley or Wiseman plays, Bagley, to his credit, has actually improved as a rim protector. On offense is still kind of like a glorified traditional big, and still, if you make and make decisions in the pick and roll, for example, he's going to screw up. I think he's still a negative value player.

I mean, I just feel like, you know, inadequate forward debt, inadequate shooting. You know, just just no stability. You know, it comes, and this last offseason, I mean, the team's moves were to take on Joe Harris, a useless NBA player in order for picks, ensure you're reaching the cap floor, which is necessary for you to get luxury tax sharing revenue. But probably could have been done through other means. You could have just signed somebody in free agency. and yeah you haven't added anybody to help stabilize his team you haven't you know added extra shooting because joe harris can shoot but he can't really play the NBA anymore there are just so many problems we move on to coaching and oh yeah i should mention this team on it just does not even if boy

on us in the lineup does not have an honest to goodness power forward period and that's kind of an oversight you look at it last night for example when the team was getting stomped on by kail kuzma because they had nobody who can stop him you know isaiah livers is you know is a best central player. Stuart was not going to defend Kuzma. It's just the team doesn't have an honest-to-goodness power forward. It's a massive gap in the team, and it's in part because I think Troy Weaver has an excessive, you know, excessive fixation on, oh, we want to give Isaiah. Isaiah Stewart can be a power forward. You know, we want to play him and give him a chance because we think he can, you know, we can develop in there,

whether or not he thinks that Isaiah Stewart is the future, that power forward, which I hope he, at the very least, has been disabused of that notion. But let's look at Monty Williams, who at this point, I mean, I thought that the Pistons were getting a genuinely good regular season coach. Unfortunately, at this point, he looks like Dwayne Casey 1.1, but making possibly even worse rotation decisions. And the team seems to be quite a bit less happy. I mean, they weren't happy losing under Casey, but he did a great job at the locker room. So Moni's rotations are terrible. You know, we saw that in the first 10 games of the season when he was fielding a starting lineup that was guaranteed to fail. And I wonder how much more of a leash, Moni Williams is, whatever,

I don't like that word, I wonder how much more latitude he's going to get from the front office to be making decisions that are actively contrary to winning, like, for example, playing Killian and a star together. But for the first 10 games, that starting lineup was actively contributing to losing. He gives Ivy way to a little priority. Ivy only gets to handle the ball if the play breaks down. He rides Cade constantly, like this vaunted half a second possession offense. Obviously, it's not as simple as that. You're always going to have your lead handle or who's going to spend time on the ball. But it's basically, B'Kalbby wants you to initiate on every play. Ivy, who, you know, has done quite well when he's actually gotten to, you know,

gotten to, uh, to handle the ball. Doesn't really get to do it all that much. Um, just like the, the awful bench lineups, the unnecessary platoon swaps. The, I gotta go back to the rotation at the beginning of the season were so bad. The losing control at the end of close games, just like Dwayne Casey did. And basically saying, well, just, okay, just, you know, just take the ball and score with it. And, uh, you know, even though you're exhausted and even though we could actually run plays, just just take the ball and score with it.

I'm not, you know, I don't, you know, I think, just take the ball and score with it. I'm not, you know, timeouts? What are those, you know, in the last second? Just, you know, take the ball and score with it. It's just been bad. Like, even little things like, again, putting Killian and Assar on the floor together. Like very few situations in which you actually have enough spacing, and that's the opposite of enough spacing. And they've been hideously bad because the team can't play. It can barely play offense with Asar on the floor and with killing, the both of them, it's utterly hopeless. And in the defense, I want to mention about Asar's defense, which has been excellent. It is very difficult in today's NBA for an individual, you know, for a perimeter defender to have an enormous impact on defense. Bigs have much more of a capability to do so. And if teams didn't occasionally just get tired of voting for big men, they would just be centers in Dremont, who's primarily an interior defender every year. Occasionally, they just get bored. And you see somebody like Marcus Smart win defensive player the year,

much like back in 2006 voters, I think, were just bored voting for LeBron. And so Derek Rose won the MVP. He was maybe the third best player in the league that year. So his defense is very good. but the actual impact it's going to have is significantly less than what he costs on offense. So, like, this is small stuff. It's like, why are you, like, you know, maybe you need a SAR on the floor to guard Kyle Kuzman when he's going nuclear. While you're putting Stanley and Mudey into guard him.

Just the offense is very simple-minded. Like, if we go back in this checklist for Casey, simple-minded offense, you know, failure to adapt, losing control of games and late in the game, losing control of the offense, your rotations are poor. Like, it's scary. It's scary. This guy is signed for six years at a high salary. I'm really prevently hoping that we see better. But Monty Williams has contributed actively to losing. Like 100% with his early rotations in that starting lineup, 100% contribute to losing. And I don't doubt that he knew that. And even after that, I mean, his coaching has not been clever. His coaching has been below average. So that is scary. So what do we do from here? How can things improve? Like getting boy on back will help. Monty Morris, who knows when he gets back? we're going to be subjected to minutes for Killian until then. Killian, whom I think is still injured, he's sprained his shooting shoulder and he's barely

been shooting at all since he came back. I think they're playing him injured because there's, you know, there was such a failure in securing enough guard depth that they have to play Killian Hayes injured, just because Monté Morris is out. Killian is really just the draft punishment that keeps on giving. It's not just that he was a complete bust for the number seven pick, not just that he was picked, but he was picked before much better players. it's that Pistons fans just continue to be subjected to watching him play and watching him

and Duke terrible on the court. It's kind of excruciating. But, you know, Boyan coming back will help. I think some guys have to, you know, I don't think we'll see Sasser continue to be terrible from the floor. He's been awful since that last big game against Philadelphia. Burks has been real bad from the field that he's contributed a lot of free throws. Hopefully continue to see Kate improve, see Ivy get more usage, see livers, hopefully shoot better. And, you know, I'd like to see a different start, a very different starting lineup when Boyon is back, assuming Livers can get it together as a shooter and get, you know, we know he's a good shooter. I'd love to see the starting lineup be Cade, Ivy, Livers, Boyon, probably Livers of Power Forward and Duren, just so we can run a functional offense. It's just such an important thing.

Livers is a solid enough defender. Duren's had his issue. I mean, Duren is still pretty raw. But, you know, Ivy's made some strides, but Duren's, you know, Dern's decent. Cade hopefully can get back to being a decent defender. But don't underestimate the impact of having success on one side of the floor. You have success on offense. You know, these guys should always be fully motivated, but that can really get you going on the other end.

But I think things will have to improve just because I don't think the team can continue. I think it's the likelihood of them continuing to play at this terrible level is just inherently low. How much can they improve? Who knows? Is it a trade coming? This team doesn't have many trade assets. And I don't think it really makes sense to, you know, unless it's a move that's really going to help you going of the future. And you're not just going to burn pointless years in the player's contract. And you're not

trading away like a pick and a swap in 2029 and 2030 just to make your team, at least this season, just move from really bad to below average, which is more or less what a, what anything beyond like a spectacular trade that the Pistons really get the better of is going to do. And I don't know how they would do that because they can only, that's all the draft stock they have to offer. And I don't think they're going to trade away any of the team's principal players. So, I mean, I think it'll improve, but this hurts. This season really hurts. And, you know, this is, this is just, this is just pure hope talking. Maybe this team will, will really improve and get it together. I don't want to say it's not going to happen. But you know what, regardless of how very painful

this season has started out, and very discouraging and very deflating this season has started out, we still got plenty of season left. There are more than 60 games remaining, and there's time for this team to make some real progress, particularly the youth, to make some real progress, and for the Pistons to hopefully give us some stretches of decent basketball, maybe even good basketball. Okay, I'm going to finish off the episode, as usual, with some listener submitted topics. And like I've said many times, I really appreciate hearing from you guys, whether it's topic ideas or feedback or really anything. Thanks too much to those of you who contribute these and just those of you who are in touch about how you feel about the show.

So one of these I got was a request that I go over the game against the Wizards a little bit. I'm recording this the night after the unfortunate. And that was a tough game to watch. It was a tough game to watch the Pistons really fall apart against the other worst team in the league of a team that is in year one of a rebuild with a pretty darn bad roster. So I'm just going to go over some positives and negatives I saw from the game. I mean, the Pistons completely falling apart was definitely not a positive. So let's go over the positives first. Assar Thompson has his issues, but it's just a joy to watch the guy in transition.

He just ferociously runs the floor in transition. He's super athletic. He can make some great plays there. And it's just great to watch. And again, all the guy really needs is a shot to become a super strong 3-D forward. We saw a much better effort from Wiseman. And this is almost kind of like a bare minimum thing. And just it's a good thing to see.

But we want this to be the expectation at all times that Wiseman, goes out there, sets hard screens, really plays very physically around the basket, uses his big frame to clear out space before he takes shots. That was good to see, just good to see him playing more engaged. This is one thing about Wiseman. Actually, I got another question about Wiseman. I'll talk a little bit more about him later. Ivy's passing, you know, Ivy made a lot of good passes. He is the guy most capable of jetting into the interior and drawing multiple coverage because, you know, if there's any chance that, there's always a high chance, he's going to get past as defender because his athleticism is really something.

He'll draw coverage going in, and he throws these bullet passes. He did a great. We saw that a lot in the late stages of last season when he was taking on more of a playmaking role at which he did pretty well. And we saw that last night. That was great. Please, Monty, give him more reps on the ball. Livers, so I know he had a tough game, but Livers is, I think, going to be,

he's got to get his three-point shot back, of course, and he's only been back for a brief time after not playing NBA basketball for quite some time. but I think he's going to be a sort of veteran stabilizing presence. Livers, veteran at age 25. He just seems like a really, he's a steady player on the court. I think he's a good voice in the locker room. I think he's one of these stabilizing players you really want to have.

So even though he had a rough game, I was really glad to see him back and just out there playing. What's just, yeah, just the steady, his steady style of play. I don't think, again, I don't think that Livers is going to be more than a bench role player, but, you know, the bench role player who can possibly give you some minutes in postseason. That's a good guy and who is a good presence and who doesn't make many mistakes at all. I mean, that's a good guy to have. Let's move on to the negatives. Monti's rotations, as I said earlier, were quite bad. Ivy just didn't get to handle him. Even though he was arguably the best person on the court, didn't get to handle the ball, except if the play broke down, windups with

zero penetrators that wasted possessions because they were all on the perimeter. Amouda coming in, and just did a weird time. Asar not really getting a chance to defend Kyle Kuzma when he was stomping all over the pistons. That was just weird. Sasser on the floor. you know, while, again, Kuzma was stomping the piss, and Sasser on the floor, who was ice cold and has been ice cold, has made four threes in the last eight games now. And just on the floor for big minutes and the fourth for reasons that kind of elude me. Cade Cunningham. So this is something about Cade. And I've said plenty, I think, about how I think that he's not really being put into a position to succeed. And, yeah, the spacing has been comically bad, for example. And also, he's just being asked to do a ton when you make Cade and Ivy play synergistically. you know, have one of them attack and then get it to the other and full flight, preferably

Kate attack and get it to Ivy in full flight and then Ivy either attacks the rim or draws more coverage or draws coverage and passes it to a shooter, whoever that's going to be in the starting lineup, whether, you know, Cade who has been hot and cold or Stewart if he's left open, or, you know, that guy swings it to somebody else, drives, whether that's on the perimeter or drives in and swings it to somebody else and you just get that drive and kick and kick and swing and you get a good opportunity. But Cade has his own issues that go beyond just hitting his threes and turning the ball over less. I'm just getting really tired of Cade's kind of Mickey Mouse plays, the really contact avoidant, you know, weak scoring opportunities he generates sometimes. You look at the Denver game

when in the second half he got to the free throw line four times, which is, you know, which is good. I mean, eight free throws and a half, that's good. He did so by going up the middle, and he's not a burst player. He's a smart player. He goes around the pick and, you know, around a pick. And like we saw in his rookie year and last year as well. He just, he slows down. He gets the defender on his back while he makes a decision. And his best bet is to do that and just go straight up the middle. You know, if he decides he's going to try to score at the basket, you know, whether it's making a pass out of that position or actually trying to score, go right up the middle, get in the middle of traffic, which is kind of a little more difficult to do with this spacing, but he can do it.

You know, use his strength to absorb contact. Um, absorb, I just said absorb. Absorb contact. and that's, I mean, if you are going up and elevating at the basket with like four guys around you, you're going to get a call a lot of the time. Or if you're approaching from the side of the basket, go right at the guy, slow it down so the ref can see it really well and make the right decision. Don't just jump into the guy when he's going straight up and contesting the, you know, contesting the shot in a way that's not going to get you a foul. So what Kade does a lot of the time instead, he curls around to try to put the ball off the backboard, like the outer part of the, you know, from basically fading away from the basket rather than just going straight at the ramp. him. And this is a lower percentage opportunity. It's really, because he's not the most bursty guy defenders can catch up to him. And he also just gets swatted a lot from the front because it's super predictable. These are weak scoring chances. This is Cade willingly taking weak scoring chances

rather than honestly, you know, honest and goodness attack in the basket. That's not enough. He can't do that. He will settle for weak floaters. He will settle for weak turnaround jumpers. He will just settle for jumpers in general. But, you know, if he can hit those at high percentage grade, he's never going to hit them at as high percentage as he will hit shots in a restricted area. He is settling for bad shots in basically, I don't know if it's contact avoidance so much, but he's not putting in the work. You know, he is not going straight at his defender. He is not putting his body on the line.

I don't know what the issue is, but these kind of weak shot attempts have to stop. You know, he's got to show up to play. And sometimes he's not doing that on offense. Also, I mentioned his athleticism. He's slower than he was in his rookie season. Hopefully that doesn't last because Kate couldn't really afford to lose much athleticism. He wasn't the most bursty player in the first place. And if he's going to have trouble getting past anybody, that's a problem.

Hopefully that'll resolve itself. Hopefully it's just, you know, continuing to get back in a full game shape. But I was joking with somebody last night that I wonder if the doctors at Henry Ford health systems operated on his brain by accident because he is just making mistakes that he did not make as a rookie. We are not seeing this cerebral floor general who sees several moves ahead and just, make smart pass is just has very high basketball IQ and, you know, is really smart on both ends. We're seeing a guy who is making all sorts of boneheaded plays on offense and falling asleep on defense. He had like three instances last night in which he just egregiously screwed up

coverage off the ball. So I don't know what the problem is there. And I don't know how is it just going to go away, you know, is it a crisis of confidence? You know, why is that happening? And what can be done about it? Because that's, that's been a big problem. A lot of what is special about Kate is his basketball IQ, and he has not been playing smart this season. And, you know, a few other negatives. Stewart was basically offensive deadweight, couldn't hit his shots, couldn't defend Kuzma, just really, really bad. Berks and Sasser both continue to struggle.

Again, that shooting I can only think is going to improve, but they've both been real bad for the last couple of weeks. So altogether, tough game, rock bottom game, without a doubt. All right, next question. How do I think that Asar should be handled going forward? I think that Asar should be out of the starting lineup when Boyaam returns, or even if Livers shows that he can handle more, that he can hit his shots, is the main thing that he's back in a game shape and can contribute productively.

Just as much as Asar is great on defense, and yeah, I know I said this earlier in the show, as much as he's great on defense, as much as he's been super good on the boards and his super hard worker and so on and so forth, it's just that half-court offense hurts too much. He was never meant, I don't think he was ever meant to be playing this many minutes. again it was i think a failure on the part of the front office uh that he even ended up in that situation and i'd play him off the bench and just play him more strategically and not have him on the floor

you know an extended stretches in which the team really needs buckets how long do you give kate to decide if he is the guy uh so i'll say first of all when it comes to this question i mean what's the alternative if kade if it turns out that kate is not the guy the rebuild is really in trouble i think the pistons really have to hope that obviously that he is the guy uh you know who knows, maybe Ivy can be that superstar player. I think that's a lot to hope for. But maybe Duren, I think he'll be a top 10 center. But if you're a traditional big,

your ability to impact the game is inherently limited. I mean, there are very few centers who can do that. Two of them are two of the best players in the league. That's Embed and Yokic, but those are real special guys. Asar can be a real good player. I think he has All-Star upside if he gets the shooting and the creation off the dribble together. But I think if you're looking at Cade as that superstar creator

and, you know, in the lead handle, or he's kind of the key to all of this. this is his second season he missed basically functionally his second season he missed most of the season last year most of last season with an injury i think you start if he continues to play like this all year you start to get really worried in part because that means his decision making continues to be just severely compromised and that would be bizarre and very scary and then you give him to halfway through next season and if things still aren't going well you start to get real concerned and as far as his extension like again i'll go back to that you start to get really concerned because his level

play right now is severely flawed. You know, regardless of his increase in scoring, I mean, this is particularly in the decision-making. This is not a good situation. I do give him his max extension. If he continued to struggle like this all season, I'd be wary of doing so. Fortunately, I don't think Cade is the sort of baby like DeAndre Aiton, who's going to say, well, you give him my max extension or I'm going to hate you forever. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

But, yeah, halfway through next season. And is Sadiq for Wiseman the worst trait in NBA history? I know this is a joke, but yeah, like I mentioned, it was, I think, a super, super, super bad trade. Unless, you know, either Troy Weaver, who I think, again, was primarily behind this is a genius, or it was just a very, very, very silly trade. Wiseman, you know, a listener brought up a great point, that there are some guys who just have a lot of talent in a particular sport and choose to play that sport because of that and because they can succeed at it and make money rather than because they are actually fully committed to it and, you know, their heart is fully into it.

And the vast majority of professional players, I mean, to have been working their entire life and they love the game and, you know, they want to compete, they want to win a championship. But you have some guys who are just there kind of going through the motions. And it's possible that Wiseman is one of those guys. He was born with, you know, a great body for the NBA. He could stomp guys in high school. You probably would have done, well, who knows, I think if he played in college, you probably would have dropped. If his, you know, because his processing would have, processing issues would have been, I think, very apparent. He only played three games before he, I think it was a recruiting violation.

But I also just wonder, given how even now, even when he's kind of on, you know, on the fringes of the league and his future in the NBA is really in doubt, he is largely, you know, last night was an anomaly in terms of his willingness to actually just put in the basic work of, you know, of working hard on the court. All right. So that will be it, I think, for today's episode. Hope you all enjoyed it. And, you know, hope we see things improve with the pit. I'd say we can only really go upward from here. So as always, folks, want to thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you in next week's episode.