Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 182: The Killian Hayes News, Cade + Ivey, and More Trade Deadline Talk

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

This episode discusses the recent news about Killian Hayes, analyzes the fit between Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey, and speaks about more about the fast-approaching trade deadline.

Welcome back, folks. You're listening to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. I'm Mike back after a, I guess, two-week hiatus here. Sorry about no episode last week. Just to give a bit of an explanation, what happened is I came down with what appears to have been a short bow to the flu that happened on Monday night. I had the typical experience that I'm sure we've all had, but the flu of alternating between being cold to the point of shivering uncontrollably and then burning up and then being cold again and I'm burning up and ultimately spent about four hours, I think, of that night

bundled under a heavy blanket with a heavy winter coat on and three other warm layers and two pairs of warm pants and still being super cold until at around 3 a.m. I started burning up again. Anyway, it just left me feeling very physically and mentally exhausted. And as I typically do, if I don't feel like I'm going to be able to put out good content, I just tend to procrastinate and it was like okay maybe I'll put some out on Thursday night or maybe on Friday morning and then it's like okay we're getting into the weekend and we're close to when I'm going to record another episode that this ended up being on Thursday because I typically just don't like to record release an episode on Wednesday morning if the Pistons are going to be playing that day and then

after games which the Pistons just blow like last night's game I I kind of find it hard to sit down and not feel super bummed out while I'm recording so any case probably should just said something on Twitter, but I allowed myself to get a little embarrassed and just not say anything at all, which I sometimes do. But in any event, as I've said many times, I like to be consistent with you folks. I really appreciate that you listen to the show and that, you know, a lot of you've been so supportive. And I just like to be consistent in just sticking with my typical schedule in general. So any event, all that said, let's talk Pistons Basketball. So the first thing I'd like to talk about is today's big news about Killian Hayes and about how the front office was ready to

move on from in the offseason, but Monty Williams asked to keep him. Of course, we know what's happened with Killian this season. Just for the record, this isn't actually new news. This comes from James Edwards of The Athletic, and he had actually mentioned it in, I believe, mid-December when he appeared on a podcast, that he believed Monty Williams was the primary reason that the Killian stayed on the team in the offseason. And I just want to show you. I just want to show you. share my thoughts about that. Now, all of you have listened to this show for any significant period of time, know how I feel about Killian. That not only, of course, was he a massive disappointment with the seventh overall pick, but that it's just been miserable watching him play. He's kind of like

the draft bust that just keeps on punishing because we've just been subjected to Killian, big Killian minutes for around the third season now. He's been one of the worst players in the league in every season, and that includes his truncated rookie season. And, And it's like those last two seasons, okay, fine. You want to definitively see what you might have. But the fact that we got subjected to another Killian this Killian season this time around, especially with how he was used, is pretty outrageous. One thing I'll get to before we talk about the front office's conduct here

and just the Killian situation in general. Another thing James did, and he did this on one of his podcast that he does with Vince Goodwill, did mention that both this current coaching staff and Dwayne Casey had really put effort into trying to get Killian to more aggressively attack the rim than Killian. I mean, throughout his entire NBA career, avoids contact. He just will not attack into contact. He pulls up for floaters. He pulls up for mid-range jumpers. He just will not attack into contact.

And it turns out, though I don't think this comes as much of a surprise, it's more of just a confirmation that the last two coaching staffs have tried to get him to do. differently, but he just won't do it, which is, in my opinion, just inexcusable. I mean, this is a basic thing that just about every single player in the league does as a matter of course, just attacking into contact being physical. And the fact that Killian just refuses to do it, even though it's just a basic thing that players have to do, even though it's something that all of his teammates do, as a matter of course. And despite the fact that it's related to the detriment of his team, because he's incredibly predictable. Defenses don't take him seriously on the drive, you know, even if he's if he can beat somebody, which he's not really great at, because his handle with his right hand

certainly sucks. Opponents know he's going to go to his left, and he just doesn't have much in the way of burst or ability to beat guys off the dribble. They know he's not going to try. I mean, generally, they'll just have the rim protector advance out to the top of the restricted area. They know he's going to take a pull-up. So, yeah, that's just, I mean, in addition to him just really struggling as a shooter, I mean, that's just beyond excuse that he was not. not willing to do that. I don't blame the front office for not seeing that coming. I mean,

that's a very, very unusual thing. I think Wanzo Ball did the same, but Wanzo, of course, developed other skills that made him viable. Anyway, even then, it's like, you know, you could Wanzo be more effective as a playmaker off the dribble? You're a very talented passer, but he just wouldn't do it, which is, I think, just a reason for pretty harsh criticism. But again, managed to make himself an effective player nonetheless, which obviously Killian has not done. So the Wans are just a better defender and obviously a much, much better shooter. And just, yeah, Killian has just been consistently one of the worst players in the league. Because while he is a very talented passer, he is just so bad on offense that he sees a massive

negative. And I've been into Killian plenty, I think, on previous episodes. So, yeah, when it came to the draft, yeah, I just don't think that's something you necessarily foresee coming, Killian in the Euro Cup. He just had a much easier time of getting to the basket because he was much more athletic than the average player he was going up against. He did resorts to pull-ups and floaters quite a bit when he was contested, though. In any case, I've just talked about killing for a while. Let's talk about the front office.

So allegedly what happened, and again, I think we can put, I don't need to say allegedly, the front office was ready to move on from killing. The word trade was mentioned, and Monty Williams interceded to ask the front office to keep killing him because he liked killing and wanted to see if he could make a good NBA player out of him, and they said yes. So I don't blame the front office for the situation. I think what they did was largely reasonable. Number one, I think that the word trade shouldn't, is maybe being a little bit overemphasized. I think the return for Killian Hayes, who again had been one of the worst players in the league throughout his first two and a quarter seasons. And I mean, arguably the worst big minute

player in the NBA in those two full seasons he played aside from a very short stint in like December into early January of his third season which was sandwiched between a horrendous start of the season and a really bad end of the season. It had just been I'd be shocked if the guy really had significant trade value again talented passer decent defender I think his defense has borne a little bit out of proportion in terms of its effectiveness you know a strong player when this place slows down, not really good at defending guards in flight and terrible at navigating screens. So I'd be shocked if there was actually a significant return. It may have just been a lesser salary load, another failed prospect, whatever else. But I don't think they passed up a

significant return there by any means. Their shiny new $13 million coach asked for it. It was reasonable, if still kind of a little bit probably eyebrow raising to say, I want to see what I can get out of Killian, who again had just been so bad to that point. But at the front office, can hardly point fingers anybody else on that count. I mean, they've, you know, wanting to see what they have with the reclamation project, you know, at the cost of actually fielding solid role players and functional rosters is, you know, as is really characterized their tenure. It's been a very, very bad thing.

So you can say, well, they shouldn't have done it again, and that'd be reasonable. But I don't think the front office could ever have foreseen the outrageous way that Monty Williams went about utilizing Killian, like completely outrageous. If it's just I want to see what I can get out of this guy, and maybe he'll see some minutes if he plays well. And if he doesn't play well, then probably not going to see minutes anymore. But, you know, we'll start him off with a small role and just see where he can go, which is your typical way of doing things with the Reclamation project. I mean, that's a different story. That obviously didn't happen.

He got to start from day one. Jade and Ivy got shoved behind him. And Killian got 41 games, almost all of them bad. And the last one, Moni even resorted to playing him as an off-ball guard alongside Assar Thompson. and having those two on the floor throughout the season, has throughout the season been a death sentence for the offense. For obvious reasons, neither of them can shoot. Neither them can really attack the basket too well.

But he did it anyway in a three-guard lineup alongside a Tsar, and that was against the Wizards, and that lineup lost the pistons, like I think it was like a 20-5 run or an 18-5 run when the pistons were up, and that was the difference in the game. He got DMPed for the first time last night against the Cavaliers. Should have happened far earlier. should never have gotten the run that he did.

He has been almost always terrible this season. So that's been really insane, just really, really insane. His Monty's attachment to Killian and his favoritism per Killian have been completely ridiculous, and I don't think that the front office could have foreseen that, could have foreseen both his favoritism and the fact that he really dislikes Jaden Ivy that played a part into the way things went as well. And ultimately the front office had to step in, which is similarly ridiculous to say you have to play this highly promising player,

and you can't just keep playing Killian Hayes, who's terrible. I mean, it was just such a ridiculous situation, and Monty has just been such a disaster for this team. I think Killian checked a lot of comfort boxes for him, particularly in terms of plays decent defense and takes care of the ball. And I think Monty demonstrated that he was certainly willing to take a comfort, you know, guy who checked the boxes, even if that player was really bad.

And certainly over Ivy, whom again I think he has just proven that he dislikes. And I think that that Monty has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt, that his talk of accountability in earning your minutes was completely false, like almost everything he said to the media this season. And that he is very, very willing to let his penchant for favoritism and outright pettiness override being a good coach, override making good coaching decisions.

It has been completely. beyond excuse. Sasser got shoved behind Killian as well. You know, if Sasser would basically get in there if there were injuries. I mean, Monty Morris, you know, that created some being out, created some space for it, but Sasser had inconsistent minutes and got DMPed a fair amount, shoved behind Killian, not excusable. So the benefit ultimately of dumping Killian in the offseason, again, I think the return would have been very small, would have been largely just to get his dead weight off the team and replace him with a half-de-season. and third string point guard and free agency, unless they really felt that Sasser could play that

role. Again, I don't think that, in retrospect, preventing what happened would have made it worthwhile and made it extremely worthwhile. But again, I don't think they could possibly have seen what happened with him, what would happen with Monty and Killian. Same thing with Livers and Gillian. I mean, it is, Monty has just been a complete and utter coaching nightmare. It is just complete, it's just remarkable. I mean, there's like, it's just been unbelievable. You know, there was also, like, you know, I guess maybe they look at him and say, okay, well, there's your reputation as a developer from, you know, from your days in Phoenix or whatever.

I think that was pretty much, I think it was very overstated. I think that, you know, with Bridges and Booker and Aden who did improve. And in Cam Johnson, I think that was, you could easily make the case that it was much more, it was a case of correlation correlation not meaning causation with guys who just improved as they got older whatever the case again so just basically my summary i think it made sense with the front i think it was reasonable what the front office did you know reasonable good idea maybe those things aren't the same but reasonable unfortunately it turned out to be a complete disaster the situations in which i would blame them number one if the return was somehow solid i don't believe that that's realistic given how bad chalien was and he was was really bad in this first three seasons, really bad. I would blame them if they knew what Monty planned. I'd like to think that they did not. And it put some blame in that they didn't just nail down a solid third string as a result or do it anyway because, man, depending upon

Killian to come in and be an actual decent point guard and did not suck the life out of the offense. And again, strong passer. No, he couldn't break down defenses, in part because he was unwilling to drive into defenses. But, I mean, his struggles as a score are just so pervasive and so consistent that he was just a massive minus on offense. So unless they were really confident of SAS are playing that role, and I think they should have brought in that third string point guard. Though, again, you would have had to have Monty willing to play that third string point guard in the event that Killian was clearly failing, and he was not, took 41 games of Killian. So, yeah, I placed this largely on Monty.

It's not Killian's fault that he was getting all these minutes. It's the fault of a coach who was doing something purely on the basis of favoritism that made ultimately absolutely no sense. It made absolutely no sense from the very beginning. Let's move on to talking about games over the past week. We'll talk a bit about the trade deadline. So, Wizards game pathetic. The bench, excuse me, the starting lineup actually did pretty darn well.

The bench was terrible. All bench lineup strikes again. you got to love how Money Williams said again and again, I'm not going to use these bench lineups, kept doing it, and then just drop the pretense that he was going to stop. Occasionally, the all bench lineups have done okay. Like against the Cavaliers, they did fairly well, against the Thunder, they did pretty well.

But against the Cavaliers, they actually, well, there was some staggering, but against the Cavaliers, they did well. However, when your all bench lineups are doing well in one out of five games and really badly and all the rest, I mean, I don't know what's so hard for this coach to just, do the obvious and logical thing and not play all bench lineups. But in any case, yeah, that all bench lineup with Sasser, excuse me, with Morris, Berks, and Killian alongside of Sarah Thompson,

and I think it was Muscola, was just insanity. But I've talked about that already. That was ultimately, I believe, the difference in the game. It was just a pathetic game. The Pistons finally fully healthy, though, with Cade coming back after a layover. And after a long time out and Morris only in his second game back. but still against a really bad wizard's team and just a pathetic loss. Now move on to the Thunder.

Of course, you have the pistons playing in the second out of a back-to-back without Kate Cunningham and against the top team in the West. They did exactly what you would expect, which is win. Of course, I'm being facetious. First game, a first win, excuse me, against a team above 500 in 26 tries. Just everything went well. The Thunder, I don't need to lead out. You know, I don't need to start with this, the Thunder were a little bit close.

and shooting really badly from three. But, you know, those are the breaks. You take advantage of them. So what went right? Well, a great deal on the pistons. And number one was taking care of the ball. They only turn the ball over nine times. Two of those were in garbage time. You know, seven turn the over is about half their season average. Obviously, you don't turn the ball over the ball as much. You get more possessions for yourself. You get less fast break points for the opposition. And the fact that the pistons also shot pretty darned well. I mean, that helps limit. That's in a way, you know, way of taking good care of ball because if it's not clanking off the rim, then the opposition is getting less transition opportunities as well. Ball movement was better. Ivy actually got to cook. He

didn't have the most efficient game, but just Ivy is a threat. Ivy blazing in breaks down opposing defenses. Ivy moving off the ball breaks down opposing defenses. Even if Ivy gets in and misses, if he gets to the rim, you got a solid chance of cleaning up the rebound and scoring. And Duren, of course, is Jalen Dern, of course, is very good at that. Dern did very well on the boards and on offense in general, largely just finishing and playing garbage man, but he's also, he's really evolved. I mean, his, his, his, his improvement in his touch from his first year to his second on layups in particular, but also around the basket, you know, his spin moves and pump fakes and whatnot is just really remarkable. He was very bad at layups

last season, and he's a lot better this season. Not so good on defense, but we'll talk about that later. Strong bench play overall. Again, the all bench units are good significantly less often than they are bad, but they did well overall. Stuart, we saw a little bit of him moving more off the ball rather than standing stationary at the three-point line. Never going to beat somebody, never going to beat his man off the ball if his man is actually paying attention to him. But, I mean, Monty Williams has just had him obligingly standing at the three-point line and

not moving the entire season so that whereas he might get open, he's only open. Of course, well, he's only going to be open, period, if the defense leaves him. But not quite as obligingly just going to have him standing there and doing nothing and having defenses know that, oh, he's going to be in the same place as we left him. And also, again, just not taking advantage of open lanes. Stu got six points out of being much more active moving off the ball, which is good. Again, this is very basic stuff. And it's scheme.

It's not Isaiah Stewart, unless he's being told to stand still. I mean, he's one of the hardest workers in the league. It's not just going to be standing there. This is scheme. This is a very basic thing, and this should have been happening already. So overall, just a good game. A lot went right for the piston's best win of the season. Now, if we're talking ball moves,

movement and ball movement being better without Cade in the lineup. I agree with that. I don't think it's Cade's fault at all. So maintain that he's the best player on the team, at least certainly on offense. And unfortunately, Monty Williams, when he has Cade in the lineup, just defaults back to Kade attacking the pick and roll and just create shots much, you know, largely while your teammates stand still, which he has done all season. It's, it's, for those of you, I don't know how many of you, well, probably a lot who were watching in whatever, I don't even know why speculated him. I will just put it in this way. If you were watching in the 2016-2017 season, you remember this, with Stan Van Gundy. He had run a very pick and roll-centric offense around Reggie Jackson the season before,

which wouldn't have gotten the Pistons of the playoffs on its own. Marcus Morris really turned it on late in the season. Tobias Harris was the biggest factor coming on. The Pistons were 14 and 7 down the stretch of that season with Reggie not doing really very well at all. whatever the case, he got, yeah, and then they had that competitive four-game sweep, that competitive sweep against the Cavaliers, which was really the peak. I mean, this is the pinnacle of what the business have accomplished over the last 15 years. Of course, everything went wrong in the next season. One of those things was Reggie Jackson getting injured in the off-season.

His tendonitis, which had been an issue for a while, going back to his days at Boston College, flared up, and he missed the first 20 games of the season. This meant that Stan Van Gundy could not just rely on running. Roger Jackson on a zillion pick and rolls in the slope-based offense, and he was forced to turn to more of a motion offense. Started off a bit rough, but by the time Jackson was set to return after 20 games, it had really made a lot of progress and was actually doing pretty well. Now, when Roger Jackson returned, he had one game coming off the bench, and then he started,

and Van Gundy immediately discarded that motion offense and just moved right back to these predictable, this predictable, stale and unquestionably inferior. offense that just revolved around Reggie Jackson running pick and rolls, and it was just nowhere near as good. It didn't help that Jackson was still injured and it was just as a result of his injury and his bad attitude and Stan Van Gundy emphasizing him as the primary option for like 50 games, even though it was completely unfit for that. I mean, that that really probably played the biggest role in my opinion and is blowing that season, a season in which the Pistons could conceivably made the playoffs and ended up in the high lot, you know, the lottery, the

worst place to be, and then Van Gundy drafted Luke Kinnard over Donovan Mitchell. Of course, that will go down in Pistons in for me. But in any event, if this sounds familiar, this happening, it's because it's exactly what happens with Monty Williams when he has Kade. The ball movement dies because he just wants to go back to this offense that he likes. And whereas with Van Gundy, it was just hard-headedness and rigidity and him just being out of his, completely out of his depth as an NBA coach in his final two seasons. With Monty Williams, I think it's just laziness, disinterest, and also some pettiness toward Jaden Ivy. And again, I think we have seen, he has made very evident that he just dislikes Ivy, and then he is willing to let that, that dislike

override making good coaching decisions. So it's not a zero-sum game between Cade and Ivy. The two can be used synergistically. And the idea is that you want to force the defense to have as many things to defend as possible. You want to wrong foot defenses in whatever capacity you can, unfortunately, when Cade's in the floor, it is generally just Ivy go stand in the corner and, you know, we'll see how you're involved in the play, which is not normal. Monty is just really, really bad, and Casey was bad in that capacity as well, both bad encore coaches. But I think, I mean, Monty didn't do this in Phoenix.

And again, I think it's just laziness with a dose of pettiness. But you can use the two synergistically. And Ivy has made clear actually into his own accord. He doesn't consider himself a league guard. So what do you do? Number one, move the ball. Number two, have Ivy move off of the ball. There are far too many possessions and one is too many of Ivy just standing in the corner.

Like these, think back to Rip Hamilton, for example, though this is just incredibly basic coaching. Have your guys moving off the ball, have as many threats as you can. Ivy is an elite off ball mover. He's going to beat his defender off the ball. And then from there, you get him the ball on the perimeter. And if he can take the ball and catch it in stride, especially if, for example, Kate Cunningham has already broken down the defense off the pick. and roll, then he's very likely to get a lane to the basket.

And he's so fast, remarkably fast, that he's likely to get there, going to get there before help arrives. And if help does arrive, then somebody else is open. And boom, you break broken down the defense more and more. You get it to an open shooter. You get it to, you know, your center underneath the basket. Whatever. I mean, you just, Kade gives the ball to Ivy in stride in another way.

And, like Ivy showed some upside as a motion shooter, actually, last season. that really hasn't been utilized this season, this season either. But simply, just the mere act of Ivy moving off the ball is infinitely more valuable than just shoving him in a corner, which is incredibly lazy and is a gift, an actual honest to good and is a gift to the defense. It's like, oh, we have this incredibly explosive player who could be moving. You'd have to, you know, you'd have to count for him. If he runs around an off ball screen, you're probably going to lose him and you've got to send

another defender at him, you know, even just that alone, instead of, oh, well, we're just going to plop them in the corner. You don't have to pay any attention to him, really. You can even sag off of him and, you know, you can get back probably when the past goes cross-court to him. You're probably going to have time to get back to him. But we're not only going to just waste what he can offer. We're actually going to make things easier on you. This is horrible coaching.

Like absolutely horrible coaching. This is just basic stuff. You want to maximize your players. And instead, Monty Williams just minimizes Jaden Ivy. It is beyond excuse. And this is not normal. This is, I mean, we've seen the last two coaches do stupid things like this too, Stan Van Gundy and Dwayne Casey were both bad offensive coaches.

I don't think that Monty Williams is genuinely a bad offensive coach. I think he is just, again, disinterested, lazy, and doesn't like Jaden Ivy. But it's inexcusable in any case. So this should never happen. And again, it's not a zero-sum game. It's not either Kate has to have the ball and be attacking or Ivy has to have the ball and be attacking. These guys can work together on the idea is to give defenses as many things that they

have to pay attention to as possible. You ultimately want to give defenses just the only bad options. that's how you're going to get the best scoring opportunities. So, yes. I mean, think back to those. Think back, for example, to Rip Hamilton. And Rip, of course, very athletic, arguably the best condition player in the league.

And it did play at a different time. And I think Rip, if you played in today's league, would still be effective, probably taking a lot more threes. And a lot less mid-range, though. That's still a weapon if you can get it. But you're not really going to run the screen actions in the interior. To get them mid-range shots, those just aren't the most efficient shots you can get.

And they also clog up the interior rather than spacing it, but I think it'd still be a valuable player. Again, probably just less mid-range and more shots at the rim and more threes probably would run around screens and take motion threes from the perimeter. But think about if Larry Brown and Flip Saunders and Rick Carlisle had just said, well, we're going to run Chauncey. He's just going to run the pick and roll. And you're going to stand still. Why would you do that? It's like, you know, think about if that had been Rip Hamilton's role in the offense rather than constantly moving off the ball. Like, why? Why? Why would you ever do such a thing with anybody, whether that's Rip Hamilton or Jade and Ivy,

you know, guys who are very good off-ball movers who are going to have an easy time getting open? Like, why would you ever do that? And the answer is that there is no good reason to do that. Only a bad coach doing stupid things will do that. So it should just never happen. So we'll bring that on to, you know, excuse me, transition that on into the Cavs game. And one thing with the Cavs game, of course, turnover's hurt a lot. The Pistons were just not going to take care of the ball.

And at the beginning of the season, it's like, okay, well, you still got some young players dealing with it. It still has his turnover issues. But at what point do you weigh this again on the coaching? I mean, that's, well, obviously, that's up to how you're looking at it. But actually, a significantly better ball movement in the first quarter and ball sharing between Kate and Ivy. And again, this is basic stuff. This is not rocket science. This is stuff that should have been happening for a long time already.

Monty Williams is coaching at a far sub-addequate level. as the game went on it ultimately devolved more and more into Cade handling the ball and predictable sets without much ball movement and ivy getting shoved into the corner which it was the case throughout basically the entirety of the fourth quarter talk about that a little bit more and we talk about the close of the game danilla galanari delilo galanari show that he still had some stuff left in the tank and you know a solid solid guy in offense still again his percentages from three in washington him are so low because he was attempting a lot of pull-ups and doing very badly on those rather

than catch-and-shoots. But they played Gallinari as part of a far-out offense with Assar Thompson, who really helped to, Gellonari is a weak rebounder. And Asar really, at least helped in that capacity to be the interior threats, setting screens, running pig and rolls and grabbing rebounds on both ends. I mean, it's just amazing with Gellonari and Muscolla, who are not really all that good, how much of an improvement upon James Wiseman they have been just in being NBA caliber players who can space the four.

But Gallinari came away with 20 points in that game. Asara had a good game. He just plays much better into spacing in these four-out lineups, so they're really just damaged control. It just allows him to do more, but he's got to be a shooter. But getting more run in a pick-and-roll, especially with Sasser, they've developed some solid chemistry there, and basically playing center on offense

with four shooters in the four. rather than just hanging out in the corner and gifting possessions the defense and giving zero value. And it's like, oh, well, just go stand in the corner, Asar, and you can't shoot. And your defender is absolutely free to just run into the interior when anybody drives. And if you get the ball, the defense is rooting for you to shoot because you're still a very, very bad shooter. Again, inexcusable. What he's doing now is not really much of an innovation. It's just he should have been being used in the same, you know, in the way that would actually give him value.

Like you look at Bruce Brown, for example, is nowhere near as athletic. or, you know, strong in the picking row, how he was used by Steve Nash and in his first season in Brooklyn, and he still couldn't shoot. Like, okay, we'll use them on the short roll. We've got, of course, they had elite creators who could, you know, who could do their thing. Of course, you're Brooklyn in that situation. You can really, you know, when you have multiple Hall of Fame caliber creators, you can get away with having non-shooters in the four. But this is just basic stuff. Make best use of the players, of the assets of the players you have in the four. With the SAR, you can't shoot. You've got to use them in other ways.

which you absolutely don't want to do is use him in a way that makes him just an incredible liability who provides a new value. So it's just a step up, certainly, from the outright waziness with which he was being used. Really good game on defense. Strong game overall. Not so much as a passer. But, I mean, he just provides so much out of the scoring column. Though, again, he's going to have to be a shooter. I mean, that's not negotiable.

Sass or sad we didn't get to play much. He's been good lately to talk about that a bit later. Duren really just had a bad game. and he has been astonishingly bad on defense lately. Like we are talking, honest to goodness, terrible. If any of you remember those James Harden highlight videos from his early time in Houston, that's really what Duren's been about,

whether it's blown coverage, just falling asleep, positioning himself completely wrong, reacting, late, closing out too slowly, though against the Cavaliers. Monty Williams, who just likes to run Duren and hardcore drop, where it's like, okay, guard gets around the pick and roll, and he's just going to retreat back into the paint. In this situation, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, who are both pull up threats from both the interior and the perimeter. I'm just going to do it anyway, and guys, you're good at this, but take your shots, we don't care.

Stupid. You know, you drop in certain situation, if you want to drop against Russell Westbrook, it's like sweet. If you want to drop against John Morant, solid idea. The drop has a time and a place, and the Pistons gave up a fair number of points. I think if I counted correctly, eight points, I believe, and they could have given up a lot more. but Garland and Mitchell missed some shots. There was no upside to that drop defense at all. And that, I don't blame on Duran.

But just in general, he just makes a ton of mistakes. And sometimes he looks outright disinterested. And there were some plays against the Cavaliers where it's like, what on earth are you possibly thinking? There's other plays in which he quit, which is happening lately. You don't see the same level of effort that he had in his rookie season where he still made mistakes and still didn't really parlay his length into the sort of disruption you would expect

and had a little bit of difficulty positioning himself properly to defend against drives. But worked hard and had that, you know, both arms up jumping contest when he was closing out on somebody. He never really seen any of that this season. He has just been straight bad and it's been even worse in the last month or so. He has been a self-replacement level defender, genuinely terrible. And it's worrying. Nobody wants to make comparisons between him and the player who wore that same number throughout most of the 20-10s for the Pistons. I'll do it anyway. I'm not going to, as always, I'm going to hold to my pledge to not talk much about Drummond.

There are definitely differences between them. Like, Duren has infinitely better touch around the basket than Drummond, who is just terrible around the basket. He doesn't have the obsession with being an offensive superstar. There was shot selection at times lately has been in some games bad enough that, that I think by rights he should have been pulled to punish him for that. But he doesn't have that obsession, you know, by all indications or the tendency to sulk, and he does seem to play for his team for the the most part. Man, his effort on defense sucks and just his overall performance on defense really detracts from his value.

Hopefully it's just youthful issues. I'm not going to worry about it until his third season, but it looks bad. It's worth noting about Drummond that back before he went into athletic decline, which happened at the age of 27, he was actually a pretty darn strong defender when he was trying hard. Unfortunately, that was like 5 to 10% of the time. But as much as I rag on Drummond and I rag on Drummond because his level of effort, I think, and just overall mentality were disgusting, and he really just was his own worst enemy.

I think he could have been on the border of all defense if he had really consistently tried hard. So his issue was not bad awareness or bad decision-making. It was just all that he didn't care. So it's been concerning with Duren, and he was just absolutely terrible against the cavaliers. He's been terrible in a lot of games lately. And so that brings me to closing, which there are a lot of issues. Durham was one of them, in my opinion, should never have been out there. I mean, he was just so bad all game.

He was not good on offense either. He was not particularly good on the boards against Alan and Mowgli. He was terrible on defense. Now, what you ultimately have is Daron out there and providing very, very little value. You had Assar Thompson, who had been doing a good job on Donovan Mitchell and just had a pretty good game overall. Being taken off the floor so you could put Jade and Ivy out there and stick him in the corner so he could do nothing and provide very little value on offense at the same time as being a below average defender, whereas Assar is a very strong to. defender already as a rookie. What you do in that situation? You have Gowanari out there, who's at least going to, you know, is going to give you additional spacing. You operate Asar in the same

way as you, as you have been typically. He can be Cade's role man. You have him defending Mitchell and Galanari had had the hot hand, and Asar had been good. But instead we got Ivy, who, I'm not dissing. He had a good night on offense, you know, and he only got to take nine, it only got nine opportunities, which is only one more than he got against Washington, which was absurd, but he had 14 points in those nine opportunities. But if you're not going to use him in the offense, just going to plop him in the corner and not doing anything with him at all, then he's going to be a minus because he's not a good defender. You keep a SAR out there, you put Gellonari out there, and you close with the players to make sense. Unfortunately,

the coaching was very, very rigid, coaching, which has been consistently horrible throughout the season in late game situations. The pistons are not two and 17 in close games. The offense devolved into the typical guys you stand still while Cade goes on predictable sets. We're not going to actually try to run a good offense. It's just going to be endless sets with Cade and Boyant. There was that instance in which Ivy actually got the ball on his hands at the perimeter with the floor spaced out, going up against Donovan Mitchell, who should be a good defender, but definitely isn't. And Monty Williams just burst up to the ref and called a timeout immediately and then just called a predictable set with Alecson, which you could have taken a shot, made an extra dribble and ended up turning it

over on shot clock. But that was completely absurd. Again, the guy really dislikes that. Ivy. But the closing has just been awful. Yes, you know, Boyon and Burks could have hit some more shots. The one of Boyon shots was like a three from four feet behind the line. Run a dynamic offense. Run an offense that's going to get you the best possible opportunities it can. Don't just run a stale, easily predictable offense where you're just giving gifts to the defense, like keeping Ivy in the corner. So, yeah, rigid coaching. I'm willing to be adaptive. If it reminds you something, that makes sense. Dwayne Casey was very bad in the late game. And Stan Van Gundy was even worse, just really, really rigid and made the same mistakes over and over again. And I think,

again, with Monty Williams, I don't think he's incompetent. I think he's just incredibly lazy. So really frustrating. And the Pistons lost another winnable game. I think this roster is bad. I'll say it again. The roster has major issues. The roster went into the season with major issues. I don't think that it would have been anywhere near this bad in terms of performance. If you had a competent coach, I think the Pistons, still, you can have a disappointing season in year four when the Pistons want to run in and want to come in and win more games. And you won 17 games last season. And I don't think with a competent coach, the Pissons, we would be many many more than that? Would they have had a 28-game losing streak? Would everything have gone wrong?

I think that it's incredibly unlikely if they had not just, if they had not hired a coach who has been, I'll just reiterate this once more because I think it's just been unbelievable how bad he has been. He has been a complete catastrophe. I don't, I can think of very, very little that he's done well and an incredible amount that he think that he has done wrong. And I think it's just largely because he's doing things the way he wants to do things and he just doesn't care all that much and what are they going to do, fire him. It's like, oh, well, so sorry, Monty,

you don't have a job anymore. You're just going to need to go and be very sad with the $70 million we're giving you. Or is it $70? Sorry, $80 million. What a mess. Some general subjects. Sasser is doing surprisingly well at point guard.

I thought really that Sasser was just going to be an undersized shooting specialist, which made it, for me, the pick a little bit weird. because it's like he's a shooting specialist. You can't really handle the ball. You just have to have him on the floor with a larger handler at all times. But he's really been making improvements as a handler. And they kind of see maybe the possibility for Budget Lou Williams there with better defense,

a guy who can take a lot of shots off the dribble, both in the interior and on the perimeter. Sasser has been a surprisingly high percentage pull-up shooter from the interior that he's been very inconsistent. Of course, up until recently, really those were sort of bloated by those big games. His stats are a little bit bloated by those big games. yet early in the season. But if he can hit those pull-ups and he can hit his pull-up threes and he's real fast and he works super hard, then his sort of not great playmaking is less of an issue because he's going to get guys open by default and just score a lot. And that's, I don't think he's really got a ton of talent as a playmaker. He wasn't even good at it against NCAA defense as a fourth-year

player. But if he can just create a lot of offense off the dribble and attract the tension and and just make basic passes to guys. I mean, he's still going to be short and at some disadvantage on defense just because some guys can score over him. Being like 6'1, 6-2 is actually a significant weakness in today's league in a way that it really wasn't five years ago. But, yeah, he's impressed me and has made some solid passes in the pick and roll against some chemistry with the Sart Thompson.

Makes you think about Monty Morris a little bit, and we'll talk to trade deadline in a little bit. But, yes, Sasser has showed some stuff as an on-ball player that I didn't expect. And of course, he can play very well as an off-ball player as a shooter. And needs to take that three, that pull-up three more often. It really makes him a lot more of a threat and lets him score more. Again, I saw Thompson lately. You can really see what he can offer. Really very good in just about every other way except for shooting. If he learns to shoot, watch out one of the best role players in the week, super good attitude, really hard worker and has done well lately. I hate to bring it back to coaching again. But this comes back to his coach. Now they no longer has access to Isaiah Livers,

one of the worst players in the league whom he was playing over Assar Thompson. You know, does what Asar has done wait a way, does that happen if Isaiah Livers still on the team? Given how much of a run Killian got, I gotta say probably not. I think Livers was just another comfort player for Monty Williams. But, you know, it turns out that number one, actually giving your recent fit overall pick, you know, weaknesses are not, actual significant run and a decent role is just a good thing in general. It's also good for his confidence that he's just not being given minor inconsistent minutes and on offense just being shoved in the corner and saying, well, you get to provide no value

and just fail and all that's fun. So he's been good lately. It's been good to see, of course, that shooting has to come along. You know, even if you're as powerful on offense as Janus, you know, not being able to shoot a still weakness that has to be built around. And, of course, it hardly needs to be said is nowhere near Janus's equal in terms of attacking off the dribble and very few players in NBA history have been, have bundled that ability to attack with Janus's size and athleticism and pretty good acuity as a passer. I just want to underline again

also. Muscoe and Gallin are not very good NBA players, but just how much more they have provided than Wiseman, not just because of the shooting, but just being guys who can make basic NBA decisions. It really just underlines how bad Wiseman is and how bad the trade was. I mean, it didn't even make sense to give Wiseman more reps on an incredibly bad team. The idea I think was that, okay, actually I feel very certain that this was the idea, was that he hasn't had much in the way of seasoning. He's got really good physical assets, and hopefully you give him more time, and it's just a matter of learning, and he makes better decisions.

It turns out that he's just got, by all appearances, incredibly bad basketball IQ, like incredibly bad, like zeroth percentile defensive basketball IQ that, I mean, maybe you'll be given another chance in the offseason, but, man, if I were another team and looking at him. I wonder if I would even see him as a worthy reclamation project. Even his kind of inconsistent effort aside, it's like it is remarkable how bad he isn't making just making decisions on both ends. So finally, trade deadline, which is almost exactly a week away when I'm recording the time I'm recording this episode. Pistons are in a top position, a top position where they have very little on the way of solid tradable assets, with which they

are willing to part. I understand they don't want to get rid of any of the big four. that makes perfect sense to me. And outside of that, I mean, you've got Isaiah Stewart. Do you really want to get rid of him? What are you going to get? Some future draft assets. Do you really want to kick the can down the road? He's a solid player when used effectively, or when used properly.

I mean, your guys who are going to ostensibly provide you the most value, though the value may not be great, are our boy on Bogdanovich and Alec Berks, who after a brutal slump is really, to say the least, turned it on as a shooter. And some as a creator as well. over the past, I think it's been about a month. I mean, the Pistons, the games they have won have largely, aside in the Thunder game, it pretty much been because Berks went nuclear. So here's the problem, is that outrageously bad front office strategy meant, they're led to the Pistons, led the Pistons to a point at which basically all their shooting

was loaded into veterans. Boyan, Berks, Monti-Morris, who doesn't really shoot all that much, but is a high-percented shooter, and Joe Harris, whom, you know, was he ever really expected? to provide value. I don't, I get the, if the front office thought that he could, then they had done no research, because he was clearly washed last season. Basically, unless you count Isaiah livers who had shot 36 percent in his only non-20 game season, so his second season where he played 60 games, it shot only 36 percent, and it was never going to be reliable from an injury standpoint in any case. So if you take those players, if you're not counting those players, just all veterans

and a second-year player who, excuse me, a third-year player who had not proven himself at the NBA level anyways as a shooter. Your list of reliable shooters is nobody. Again, this front office did a remarkably bad job of building this team. A great deal of shooting was built, you know, was a great deal of the team's shooting. Basically, it's only elite perimeter shooting unless you're counting assessor. I think the role he was going to have this season was going to be a, unclear. And again, strong shooter in college doesn't necessarily mean strong shooter in the NBA,

you know, until that player proves it. So just an enormous amount of the team's shooting was loaded into Alec Berks and Boyan Bogdanovich. And it's helpful for those guys to be around, both because it gives the pistons the chance to win more games. And they really, again, really needed those players to do well to win two of the three games that they've won after that 28-game losing streak or even to be respectable. and that makes them valuable. You know, more wins, be able to play a functional offense. You know, this could all be important for confidence in going into next season,

not being, oh, well, we were just, for the players, for it to be a less grueling and less deflating season. And so it's like you would think that a terrible, with a terrible team, the terrible team is whose front office had not done such a terrible job. You'd say, okay, it's acceptable we can lose these guys. We've got younger shooters. We've got enough shooting on the team. But instead, the Pistons are in a situation in which the season, of course, is, I mean,

I don't think anybody's looking at this and thinking that the Pistons can make a run for the plan. I mean, that would really be very remarkable, to say the least. I mean, the heat were able to make it to almost the postseason after a terrible start in 2016, 2017. But of course, that was a team full of veterans, and that was almost unprecedented. And, again, I don't think it's a pessimistic outlook to say that the Pistons are very unlikely to be making any sort of significant push this season.

but still you have a really, really bad team, but you still can't really, it's questionable if you can trade away your veterans for assets. So the return would, of course, make a difference. But Alec Berks, I don't think you get more than a couple of seconds, and they may not be very good seconds, because he's kind of streaky, which is not necessarily unusual in his career, and his postseason defense would be an issue. Burke's a pretty bad defender. Boyan, definitely a strong scorer, and definitely.

an elite play finisher. Also very questionable on the defensive end. It would be less of an issue than it was in Utah if you have better defenders in the floor with them, because presence of multiple bad defenders just compounds the impact of them both, or all three of them, or whatever else. But let's say you get some seconds from Berks. You get like a protected first for Boyon, a late protected first. Weight first are not worth really all that much,

first on the border of the second round. And a protected first is not going to free the pistons from the step. Deppian rule, you absolutely have to, like, 100% be guaranteed a first-round pick in order for the Steppingen rule to not apply the Stepping rule, which says that you absolutely have to have a first-round pick. And you cannot be without a guaranteed first-round pick in two consecutive future seasons. And, of course, the Isaiah Stewart pick being tied up. So, though, you know, they actually couldn't really trade those picks anyway, because the Knicks technically own them every season until the lottery. So it wouldn't really even make any difference in that capacity, even if it were a

guaranteed pick. So I'm not sure how I got on that tangent. Sorry, I've been talking for about 45 minutes straight here. Actually, my real issue is that I'm getting very hungry. It's not that I've been talking for a while. The blood sugar is taking a bit of a dive. So is that worth it? Maybe you want to have boy on the team next season. Who knows if that'll provide you a better, and who knows how much that cap space you're realistically going to be able to spend on good players. Is it going to be better to have Boyon, who I think is likely to age well? So beyond that, who else is there? I mean, Monty Morris has been, Monta Morris has been one of the better backup point cards in the league for some time now. He also has played three games since like an eight-month layover. Our team is

really going to want to give up value for him, not knowing if he's going to get back to previous forum. This is not like a good player where it's like, okay, it's just going to take him some time. And if he was a little bit, like a good starter and if he's a little bit worse, then, you know, than he usually is. That's fine. I mean, you take a guy who's a strong backup point card, but still very much a backup point card, and say, well, is he going to be able to get back up to form this season? That's much more questionable.

I mean, if he has, like, a great week, you know, leading up to the deadline, though, you know, the Pistons would literally have three games between now and then. Maybe that changes things a bit. But, again, I think you're very much looking in a second round pitch. pick range and second round picks are good to have and good as trade assets. Do you want to keep Monty in the next season? I think maybe you consider him expendable if you can get a solid return and, you know, if you feel good about Sasser and I think the Piston should feel better about Sasser.

So, and if you keep Morris, then not really much space for Sasser going forward. But again, I don't think that there's much value there. And then when you're trading for postseason teams, they are very unlikely to be trading good players back. You know, solid role players. you're very unlikely to get back when you're trading Boyon, when you're trading Burks, when you're trading Montaumars. These teams want to keep their solid role players for the postseason, unless these solid role players are just at a very expendable position.

Like would New York, for example, say, okay, maybe we'll give you Quentin Grimes who wants out. I don't know for Monta Morris. I mean, if he'd had strong season, maybe. But even then, you're really putting him into a position of, you know, that's fairly deep already. unless you're really plenty in getting rid of Birx. But with the Knicks, spring for that.

Who knows? I mean, maybe if they do, you flip them for a third team. But again, Morris has not been in all season. He's played three games. So tough spot. No sense sending out significant assets, given that the pistons are nowhere near the hump, so to speak. They need reliable veterans who can play decent defense and shoot threes

and are not very stable. But so does everyone. I guess you can take shots on, I get some picks and just guys you're going to take shots on for the rest of the season. but, you know, that's a pretty old, tired story at this point, and is it worth losing the teams, you know, the veterans who have just drastically disproportionate importance to this team because they're the only guys who can really shoot reliably. It's not a good place to be in.

Let's talk about the big news, which was that last week about on the trademark, which is that the Pistons have been speaking to the Bulls about Zach Levine, the fact that they were even speaking to the Bulls about Zach Levine, about a Levine trade is concerning to me because I think that would not be a good idea for the Pistons. Levine is a player who, you know, it's questionable his impact upon winning, even though he's averaged about 25 points per game on good efficiency over the last three seasons and creates a lot of his own offense. The fact that the Bulls just want to get rid of him, I mean, it's not all about his health,

and his health is a concern. He's have repeatable or body injuries. He has already lost a certain amount of what used to be incredible athleticism due to his injuries. He's nearing 30, and as we certainly saw with Blake Griffin, as we've seen with other players. Repeated injuries, the lower body can have a compounding effect. Compounding effect to compounding, excuse me. Repeated injuries to the back as well.

But certainly to the lower body. Levine hasn't had issues with his back. But repeated injuries to the back, you look at Dwight Howard, for example, to the spine. But lower body, yeah, I mean, those can compound in both in all of frequency, severity, and long-term impact. So that's definitely a major factor. Also a factor is that on offense, if he doesn't know, have the ball. He's very listless and disinterested. If he does have the ball, he wants to shoot it.

He doesn't really want to pass it very much. He's a guy who wants to get his, which actually significantly lessens his value in an offense overall. It's certainly been addition by subtraction for the Bulls. It definitely helps that, I mean, getting Kobe White out from under, out from behind Levine has been a very positive thing, Kobe White, who's got a strong case for a most improved player. So when, and Levine hasn't had a great season. Granted, though he really started slow and has picked it up. But they've just been a lot better without him. You know, even though he hasn't had the greatest season,

you'd think that a player who's still averaging upwards of 20 points per game on solid efficiency and a player who had been a strong score in the previous three seasons would be a player that the Bulls would want to keep. But they don't. It's partly his health, partly just how he operates in the offense. And other teams are not really biting either. Also, don't underestimate the impact of bringing a guy in who is not a good culture fit.

So I wouldn't give out any value for him. If I were the Pistons, I would not even... Oh, also, he's owed, like, I think, $148 million over the next three seasons, assuming he picks up his option, which I would say at this point, unless he has a major career resurgence or just things really, really improve. I mean, that's nearly $50 million he'd be giving up. You've got to think that he would take that. You got the health concerns, but you also got that he's just not entirely a winning player.

You have that he could not possibly not hurt the development of Jaden Ivy. And Levine, not the most winning of players, in my opinion. And again, health concerns. Ivy could very much be a winning player. So that would be, I think, a significant downside. And he's a bad defender. You really want to bring another bad defender on this team and another thing that takes away from him being a winning player.

I wouldn't even do it for expiring. I'm being honest. I don't know why to say, to be honest. Of course, I'm being honest here. I would just not be interested. I don't think, like, you wonder if at some point it's, like, okay, at a point, when is it better to just get something rather than nothing with cap space? I just don't think even in that situation, Levine is going to be a good return on cap space.

I don't think his attitude is really likely to change at around 29 years old. And again, health problems are just likely to get worse. It'll be a disaster if the pistons walk out empty, but is basically okay, we'll go with a bad option rather than an unknown option, a good option. You know, is that a good idea, rather? Is let's just do something a good option? Like, I understand that I would not blame anybody in the slightest bit. you're just completely tired of watching the Pistons Woo's and just want some form of improvement.

In my opinion, just, you know, let's do something, even if it's far from ideal. You know, if you're the front office, I think that's the road to mediocrity, and I think building a contender should still be the goal. So it concerns me that they're even talking about it, given that I think it would just not be a good trade at all. It makes me wonder if the front office has really been pushed up against the wall. Again, there are two options here with the front office. Either the front office is not in the hot seat, which would be insane, or the front office is

on the hot seat and has been told we want improvement in the short term, or I, rather, because it's Tom Gores, and he's done with this with the last two GMs, I want improvement in the short term, or you're probably fired, which would also be insane because it just creates the potential for panic moves. But the fact that they're even talking with Chicago about Levine, assuming they weren't planning on making this three-team deal and forwarding him to somebody, and I don't know why the bowls would just not deal with that team instead. If some significant, you know, some solid value is going to be going on the other direction, why not just deal directly with them. I doubt that's what we're talking about anyway. It makes me concern that short-term

improvement is really being looked at without considering how actually good that's, you know, how actually wise making the move will be. So just in the trade deadline in general, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing substantive happens, particularly if we're looking at option number one, where the front office is not in the hot seat or at the very least, they're either not being told that you have to improve now and we're going to wait until the off season or they're not being permitted in some respect, whoever might be doing that, to make any big panic moves. But the front office is a tough situation. Again, it's not easy to just say we're going to make improvements. You know, how are we going to get solid role players that other teams want? We're not

really willing to part much in the way of assets. What's really going to improve this team at this point that we can realistically do? That makes sense. The front office really backed itself into a corner, should not still be employed. Add to it that the coach is an unmitigated disaster and that the owner of Tom Gores is very, very much as bad as he has ever been, you know, just solely accepting that he's no longer, you know, that he, did he allow the team a rebuild, which is basically the one good decision he's ever made, and substantially good decision he's ever made after, what was it, eight years or nine seasons, if you count the second, you know, if you count that they went into 2019, 2020 with, you know, halfway through before he finally got the picture,

but it denied a rebuild before that. He's the worst owner in the NBA now that Michael Jordan has gone. I'd say worse than James Dolan. and less of a sleaze bag, there's still a sleaze bag, but if we're talking, you're just purely on the, on the, on the basis of results, I mean, this is, this is an owner who has, and is in his 13th season owning this team. It continues to make all the same mistakes, continues to have learned very little,

and has been, by a wide margin, the least successful owner currently in the week, and even Jordan was more successful than him, even Jordan, who was a very, very bad team owner. And it starts and ends at the top. And I think we're seeing Tom Gores just make a lot of the same mistakes again. You know, we're just going to continue to give this front office chances. We're going to continue to give this coach, you know, has only been in for one year,

but it's been a disaster in whom Tom Gora has hired in the first place, who didn't want the job. And there's a great way to get a good employee, being highly sarcastic. You know, so he doesn't want the job. He doesn't even want to work right now. He probably particularly, maybe he particularly doesn't want to work for you, and I'm just going to give you larger and larger bags of gifily guaranteed cash until you say, okay, it would be dumb for me not to do this. I wonder if, I mean, we don't have an insight into his mind, but I wonder, clearly he didn't

think that was a bad idea, which is a big red flag in the first place, and almost undoubtedly went ahead with it because he wanted to, because he thought that Monty Williams could, could shortcut the rebuild. Tom Gores love shortcuts, but I don't want to go into a diatribe. The point is that, I mean, this stuff starts from the top. I think that Tom Gores has two virtues. Number one, he really wants this team to succeed, clearly. And number two, he is willing. willing to put in money, I think he'd be willing to operate at a loss if he met a successful team. Unfortunately, the case of Monty Williams, he even managed to turn that willingness to spend into a negative. And I think he's just shockingly amateurish, even after this is 13th season

owning the team. And it's a problem. So, yeah, I know that's not the happiest way to end an episode, you know, just talking about the awful coat. The fact that the Pistons currently have an awful coach and a very failed general, it very failed front office. And above them, I had a really, bad owner. But, you know, I've never been intent on, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I was not here to sugarcoat things. That's where we stand. You know, we're pissed and fans. We soldier on. We just saw the lions have some success. It ended up being, you know, very disappointing way to lose. But, and, you know, it's super happy for their fans that they got to, who have been very long-suffering fans and got to see some success. It really was a good story that almost

became a great story. And, you know, hopefully in the not too distant future, we as Pistons fans will be able to experience that same sort of satisfaction. So in any case, folks, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Hope you're all doing super well. I'll catch you in next week's episode.