Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 183: Pre-Trade Deadline Mini-Episode

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

This mini-episode examines trade deadline scenarios.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. I'm Mike. Hope you folks are all doing super well today. We're less than 48 hours away from the NBA trade deadline just Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern time. And this is just going to be a sort of short final pre-debline episode, just some of my typical insane musings. Or not really, I'm just kind of the season starting to make me feel a little bit crazy, put it that way. As is, the possibility that this team, which, well, let me put it this way. I don't like talking about this team as a six-win team or contextualizing it that way, because I don't think, as I've said many times, I don't think that this team would be

anywhere near this bad if it didn't have a colossal unmitigated nightmare of a coach, particularly in the late game. I'm not sure if I said this in a previous episode, but the Pistons, if we're looking at games that were within five minutes with three, excuse me, five points, but three minutes left to go. Bessons are not two and 18 in those games. And the only team that has been comparably bad in the last decade was the 2015-2016 Philadelphia 76ers who won eight games were built and coached absolutely to lose as many games as they possibly could. This was peak process 76ers. And near the end of the season, I mean,

they tanked so blatantly that Sam Hinkie, who had been the GM throughout the early stages of the process, was forced out by the NBA. So the only team that has been comparably bad to the Pistons in close games was literally tanking so hard that its general manager got forced out because the leak said you're just doing this too blatantly and we can't we can't what it happened anymore. This is a bad roster. This roster, I think probably under a competent coach should be like maybe a 14 win team at this point, which still be very, very disappointing. But a lot better than the incredible nightmare that this season has been. Say it before, I'll say it again. I don't think this team even comes remotely close to sniffing.

at 28 losses in a row, not even close. Monty Williams has been a force of nature. The worst basketball coach, the business have had, worse than Stan Van Gundy. Since I started watching again about a decade ago, Stan Van, it should be noted, was okay in his first two seasons, was just a colossal disaster in his final two. So, man, I know you guys, you folks have heard me

talk more than enough about Monty Williams, but basically just contextualizing this by saying that I don't want to, I just don't want to contextualize, I don't like hearing it contextualized as this is a six-win team. Who cares? Because I don't think that's accurate. I think this is a bad team. I think that under a competent coach, I think this would be a 20-win team probably, maybe a little bit better. And that I feel like would still be a massive disappointment in the season four of a rebuild when the Pistons are actually trying to win games and you really wanted to see them take the next step. It is, however, the difference between

very disappointing and a complete catastrophe, which is what the Pistons have been so far. Whatever of the case. We are nonetheless staring down the barrel of a potential situation in which this team, which has a lot of problems, even under a good coach, this would be a roster with a lot of problems that had a lot of needs. And we're staring down the barrel of a situation, you know, a potential situation in which the front office does absolutely nothing aside from maybe if they can trade away Killian Hayes for like the worst second round pick in existence and in some dead salary. So it's, I just wanted to talk a little bit more about that. And, I've been kind of vacillating back and forth in terms of getting rid of the veterans or trading way the veterans for value, we'll put it that way.

And I'm just kind of on to, well, here are my thoughts. I would like Monty Morris to be traded away. He's got value. He's known to be a solid backup point guard, even though he hasn't played all that much this season, to say the least, and that'll depress his value a little bit. He has enough of a history that a team looking for solid secondary handling in the playoffs will probably, I mean, we've heard that there's interest, you know, from the timber walls for. example. Maybe you find the Knicks there as well, though probably not with how McBride has been playing in any events. Why do you move on to? Well, number one, you're not like losing out on shooting like you would be with Birx-a-boy-on. I'll talk about them in a moment. And who knows if we'll be on

the team next season, whatever. I mean, a good opportunity to recoup some assets for a guy you really don't need for the rest of this broken season in any capacity. Number two, I think Number one, I think he's the likelihood is to be traded of the three. We have heard that Burks is very unlikely to be moved unless they get a great offer. We've heard that Blaine is very unlikely to be moved unless they get a great offer. So it's really Montaigneur north of nothing when it comes to Marcus Sasser, who has impressed me a little bit as a handler. I'd like to see what he can do as a handler for the rest of the season, actually getting consistent minutes because it's just going to be important for the Pistons to know what he can do. I think as

Marcus Sasser, six foot one, and it's not, and without, the benefit of like great vertical athleticism or bulk, for example, like Marcus Smart, who's about the same height, is going to struggle on defense against larger shooting guards. I mean, you put Sasser up against a six-foot-six shooting guard, that guy's just going to shoot over him. You can do whatever he wants, but the guy's just too tall. I mean, and this league is all about finding mismatches wherever, you know, wherever possible this week has just gotten more and more athletic, taller and taller.

And, well, not taller and taller, but, you know, you see guys certainly at point. point guard were much taller than they used to be, and it's just sizes exploited in a way that it never did, that it wasn't five years ago, and certainly wasn't 10 years ago. So you want to see if Marcus Sasser does have maybe more in the tank. I have certainly gone on record just saying that, you know, he was a four-year player at Houston, and he wasn't a very good point guard even there, and it's going to be a lot harder for him against the much more difficult opposition of the NBA. He's impressed me a little bit lately, and I don't think that he's going to be better than Michael William's caliber scorer, no, excuse me, Lou Williams caliber passer, and I kind of see some of the

Lou Williams comp there with Sasser. But, you know, maybe that's enough for him to play backup point card. That's just the fact that hopefully he will be a threat to score off the dribble from pretty much anywhere as a shooter. It can open up some, can open up space for easy passes to teammates. Whatever the case, I think you really want to see if he can play that role, because that's going to potentially inform what you do in the offseason, is if you see, oh, you know, we really feel like Marcus impressed us down the stretch of this season, you know, when he got the chance to handle the ball a lot, then, you know, it's been hit or miss with him as a handler. I think he's done considerably better in the last four weeks or so. It was a period

when he really wasn't getting significant minutes. And he was also prior to to that time. That was the bagley, excuse me, the bagley trade. And Bagley-Lam livers was sent out from Muskella and Gallinari, who can actually space the floor on Wisemen was out of the lineup. bench has been doing better since then and sasser as well now that he's got more spacing and now that he doesn't have to deal with livers and assar thompson is being used as is a role man instead of just standing in the corner and so on and so forth he's done i think pretty well versus prior to that just playing in completely nightmarish bench lineups with wiseman and livers and in assar just standing still in the corner and so on and so forth but i think he's just also

improved over the course of the season so gives you the opportunity to you know to see what he can do you go in into the summer again and it's like well he's really impressed us we think that that he can take on this backup point guard role and i've got to think that when they drafted him they were looking for that and that's i believe everything we've heard is to is toward that effect though that would be a little bit puzzling toward to me looking back but you know at the time given given what he had been able to do at houston or in houston rather but you know who knows maybe there was something there but you're not going to know this season unless you actually give him that chance and on an extended basis and a half-dee some bench lineup.

And the bench is better now than it was. So, yeah, if you find that he can do it, then cool. You go into the off-season and you know that you're just looking for a backup shooting guard. Or you find out that, okay, we've given this guy very significant run as a backup handler. Maybe when Kate is injured, he steps in the starting lineup. And, you know, we've just found that he doesn't really, we don't feel like at the age of 23, he really has what it takes. we don't think he's likely to get there, but we still think he's a valuable player.

Now, what do you have to do in that situation if you don't feel like Marcus Sasser is a valuable point guard? His fit becomes significantly more situational because you have to play, because you're playing him at shooting guard and you have to play him next to a larger handler who is able to handle defending shooting guards because Marcus Sasser is just going to get hardcore exploited by whichever team can do so if he's lining up at shooting guard and doesn't have, and he's not playing with like Kate Cunningham or even, you know, Jaden Ivy, who's, you know, he's at least got decent size. He's bigger than Sasserer, who put it that way, who's about 6-1 and a quarter with a 6-7 wing span.

So, and these inches matter in the NBA. I know there's a sex joke to be made there, but inches definitely do matter in the NBA. It is absolutely a game of inches. And you see guys score into an area around the basket that's, you know, just past the outstretched fingertips of a defender or a pass gets past the outstretched fingertips of a defender. a game of inches, those, so that size matters, ha-ha. Don't really know how to talk about that without making numerous, unintended, any windows. So it's an important thing to know about Sasser.

And if Morris is here, we're just probably, unless, but for injuries, you know, except in case of injuries, it seems like we to just be a case in which showcase Sasser you get 10 minutes a game, like when Morris just isn't on the floor, which is what's been happening lately except for that game against the clippers in which you got more minutes and scored 19 points i think that two of them were in garbage time so i also think there's more significant overlap between morris and sasser but most of all i think that oh morris is expiring you don't know if he's going to be here the next the season that you know the rest this is excuse me next season you don't know if you know if say if you feel really good about sasser you definitely are not going to want to have him

but he's he's going to get in the way of sasser getting those minutes and in my opinion but again He's going to be a free agent. He may or may not stay regardless of what the pistons do. And if you're keeping him, you know, when there's potential value to be had, if you're just keeping him for the rest of a loss season, just because you're being this front office and you want to follow your plan of apparently just getting as much data as you can because you want to do things your way, even though you should have been fired already.

That's just, that's really something else. It's like, let's keep this guy, even though we could get value. We are where we are. We want to get more minutes from a guy whom we've been using as a handler and has done pretty well over the last four weeks in better circumstances than he had been in. But, you know, we're just going to keep more. We can get assets. We could clear space for Sasser, see what we've got. But we're going to keep him because he's safe with the ball and we just want to see, you know, we just don't want to make any decisions right now.

Needless to say, that would be not ideal. I'm going to talk about. I don't know why I feel necessary to leave with what I'm going to talk about later, but I'll talk about the. front office as a whole. Now, when it comes to Berks and Boyan, what we've heard is that Berks is probably the least likely, less likely of the two to be traded, just because go figure Monty Williams really likes him. And even though he's an expiring, kind of an expiring contract, and is about 32 years old, and has his struggles on defense and whatever. And again, there's a guy who could just jet next season. And even though Tobias Harris is on the board and the Pistons will

probably end up signing some talent. It's well into, well under their 30s, like Tobias or Buddy Heald or whatever else. No healed is, I think, just turned 30. It's, age is still a factor. Age is still a factor in the NBA, no matter what. Maybe the Pistons will keep Berks. Who knows? But he's very well liked in the now. And Boyan, it's like, I understand you keep one of the two. Because as we know, the front office loaded way too much of its shooting into Boyan Bogdanovich and Alec Berks. In a league in which shooting is worth its weight in gold. The only reliable, high percentage proven NBA shooters were Boyan and Burks, Joe, you know, the corpse of Joe Harris, whom I've got to think the front office knew was actually not actually going to contribute much. And beyond that,

nobody. I mean, Monty Morris is, Monty Morris is a high percentage three-point shooter, just doesn't really shoot a ton of them. And maybe they thought Isaiah Livers was in that group, but he hadn't really proven it at the NBA level. And any front office, as this one, clearly did, which relied upon Isaiah livers to even be healthy. That was incredibly foolish. I mean, a guy who had sustained a major injury in his junior year at Michigan, had sustained a major injury in his senior year at Michigan that kept him out for almost a year, and then missed another 20 games in his sophomore season with the Pistons. So, that was basically 20 games straight. So basically the upshot of all this, you know, the result of all

this is that if you remove Blyon and Bairkes, this team has basically no. shooting unless you're somehow getting some back. And if you're moving these guys to, you know, the playoff teams, obviously, they're going to be the ones who want them. Presumably, you're not going to be getting back useful players. Playoff teams don't want to have, I mean, they want to have the greatest net inlay of, you know, present impact players they can use in the postseason. They're not going to want to be sending talent the other way that they could use in the postseason. So I would want one of the two of them to be moved. And if I, if I to pick between the two would be Boyan, even though he is, in my opinion, I mean, he's, I think

this is incontestable that he's significantly superior as a score between the two. He can create more of his own offense. He's pretty much a three-level score who can create at all three levels, really, and in transition, and it's just a real good score. At the same time, I mean, you can spread that usage out to other players, I think, particularly to Ivy, who, and this is actually a factor for me. Ivy often gets shoved behind Boyon, not necessarily for, for no other reason than that Monty Williams loves his Cade Boyon sets. Probably a little bit too much. We certainly saw too much when the game against the magic in which two of his, his last two calls were both predictable Cade Boyon sets with basically nobody else moving. Yeah, he just, this is just another

situation where it's like with livers, you know, you take him away from Monty Williams because Williams likes him too much. With Hayes, he runs out of excuses to play him, which is good because he likes Hayes too much. They both suck. Wiseman, again, I think he ran out of excuses there. They also traded, well, they traded for guys who were better. Who knows what happened in that situation. Whatever, all three of those guys are bottom 10 players in the NBA this season in terms of guys who have actually gotten rotation minutes. And I hate to say it, but it's like, sure, you can find Jaden Ivy some more usage and notably less situations in which he just stands in a corner, which are still way too many. And Boyan hardly ever stands in a

corner because Moni really likes him and actually uses him in basically every set. Though, granted, he's a better shooter. There are things he certainly does better than Jaden Ivy. But, and it would be a hit to the offense to lose him. There's no doubt about that. But you open up, I don't know, I don't want to say you open up more opportunities for the likes of the Sard Thompson. And the fact is, there aren't really a ton of guys behind him in the lineup.

But I think there's some merit to moving boy on, especially because, yeah, he is 34. Years do matter. I think he will age well. And I know I'm going back a little bit on what I said. and what I've said in the past. It does, a concern that is a reason for me is that though he's been very healthy, you know, one significant lower body injury can wash out boy on for good, because there's, I mean, there's just the difference between not relying on athleticism

and too slow to play in the NBA. So if there is a good offer to be had for him, then in this situation, I think you take it. I don't think the pistons can look forward quite the same way to next season. and say, well, we want to keep him because we want to win more games. I just don't think that's, I just don't think that's an ideal strategy at this point. So in terms of players, I think, would be likeliest to be moved. I would say Morris is the likeliest. I would say Boyan is the second likeliest.

And I would say Berks is the third likliest. I think that my gut tells me, though perhaps I'm, you know, informing this prediction with more common sense than the front office really deserves to have attributed to it. I think that Morris will be moved. I am sad to say, however, that there certainly is a timeline. This is not prophetic. I mean, anybody knows this, that there is a timeline in which all three of them are kept, which would be insane and would just be characteristic of a front office which has just had its own idea of how to do things. You know, it's certainly gone off the beaten path from the very beginning, and I'm not saying that team shouldn't innovate. By all

innovates, don't just stick with what has been done before, look for better ways to do things, ways to change the rules. At the same time, there are reasons why teams generally don't do certain things, because the consequences of those things are much more likely to be bad than good. Now, I had quite a bit more to say about the front office, but I decided it would kind of make more sense to keep that particular criticism or the event, which hopefully will never come, that they end up keeping all three of these players. So let's talk scenarios, or rather, let's talk cap implications. So first is Boyan Bogdanovich.

The Pistons have him under contract next year with only $2 million guaranteed. It's a $20 million salary. So if the Pistons choose to waive that non-guaranteed salary, it goes away, and they're just on the books for $2 million of dead cap next season, after which they could re-sign him if they so desired and if he were interested. The Pistons could not wait into free agency before they make. that decision. The guarantee date is before free agency begins. So that's a call they have to make before free agency starts before they can, under the rules of the CBA, at least, start to talk to

free agents. Of course, we all know that a certain amount of tampering happens. Now, when it comes to Burks and Morris, they are both unrestricted free agents, which means that they get to go where they please. I mean, the pistons have no contractual hold over them whatsoever. In terms of whether or not keeping them until the end of the season, rather than trading them would make it more. easy for them to be reassigned, assuming the pistons do want to re-sign them. You know, that's hard to say, but aside from kind of personal considerations, like, oh, you kept me and makes me more interested in resigning here versus you traded me and now I don't want to come back.

Mechanically speaking, it doesn't make a difference. Yes, the pistons have their bird rights. Bird rights means that you can exceed the cap to resign those players. But because the pistons will be under the cap, those players will levy what are called cap holds. Cap holds are basically placeholder cap hits that essentially just prevent a team from spending all of its cap space and then using bird rights to resign their players, which would kind of create problems. So in order for the pistons to use that cap space, that the cap holds are occupying, they would have to renounce those cap holds. Or of course, those cap holds would go away if Morris and

or Burks were to sign with another team. So from a salary cap mechanic's standpoint, there's really no benefit to keeping them until the end of the season. So, of course, there's also the consideration that these players could simply leave at the end of the season regardless of what the Pistons want. And the Pistons do still have time to come to an extension agreement with either of those players. They have until the end of the regular season to do so. The rookie extension window is different.

Rookie extensions can only be signed in the off season before the fourth season of the rookie contract. That's not the case with veterans. Veterans can be signed anytime so long as the player is not. not a pending free agent, and they become a pending free agent for those purposes once the regular season ends, even for playoff teams. And though this isn't really salience at all to the points, the trade deadline actually, the trade restriction, the time during which teams cannot make trades less until the season ends for any given team. And for non-playoff teams, the season ends

on the last year of the regular season. For playoff teams, the season ends when they're eliminated. So teams can actually start to make trades after that point with other teams. which are eligible to trade as well. But that's completely irrelevant to this point because you can't trade a player who is right on the verge of free agency. So in any case, as far as other potential trades the Pistons could make,

I know we've heard about Killian Hayes, it will be a huge win if the Pistons get anything at all in terms of value from Killian. It depends upon having a suitor, of course. A suitor who's willing to give up anything. Even a player, you know, a similarly disappointing player, whom the Pistons could just have a look at for the rest of the season, though I know we're really all tired of that, especially because it hasn't worked once. But, you know, it's the rest of a

lost season. So I think that's just the chance you take, assuming that the player is just on an expiring deal. I don't think this front office is going to take on significant salary for next season, as we've seen from the fact that they chose to dump Marvin Bagley's $12.5 million, using two second-round picks to do so. So I don't think they're going to take on any salary that's for multiple years. you know, unless the player is really enticing. And I think it's extremely doubtful that you'll get to genuinely enticing player in exchange for Killian Hayes, who is in his fourth season of being one of the worst players in the league and is a pending free agent for what that's worth. Danila Gallinari might generate some trade interest.

I'd say that the interest will be pretty marginal simply because though Gallinari can still score, in particular can still shoot, and is just still a savvy score, a smart score. He can't play defense anymore. like he is too slow to play it in the perimeter so he plays center for the most part and he is a big switch liability and teams will absolutely exploit any defensive vulnerability in the playoffs galenari will get constantly attacked on switches and he'll very very quickly become a negative contributor so if there's another team that's interested in him for depth purposes i mean it would surprise me but like this is one situation in which it's like okay, well, we're going to give you like a top 50 protected second round pick, I would say no.

If the return's actually going to be bad, it's going to be very, very marginal, then I'd say maybe you just keep him for the utility he has to the bench unit because he does have, I mean, he's particularly important for Assar Thompson, and put it that way, because he allows the pistons to field four shooters around Asar. And again, that that's just damage control because Asar needs to be able to shoot. It does allow him to participate in the offense a great deal more, particularly as a wrong. man, which is good. You want him to be getting participation in the offense. It's important for confidence-building purposes. It's very good to do. So Gallinari has that value. And the Scala,

I don't think, is really going to get any interest at all. Again, I'd be surprised if Galanari actually got any significant interest because he's virtually unplayable in the postseason. So I think those two are almost certainly sticking around. They are not good NBA players anymore. These are both below-average NBA players. Galanari's value in the postseason, I think, would be limited to just very situational. We want a guy who can shoot at center for an offensive possession, you know, that sort of thing. And Muscala can technically do that as well. Maybe the pistons just want to keep them both for the sake of depth.

So I would just keep those guys around if the return sucks just for the sake of the Sarsar Thompson. And for the sake of the bench lineup as a whole, actually, because if you play James Wiseman out there, not only is it just going to suck because James Wisen is terrible, but you can't, you don't want to have a Sarr out there with another non-shooter. So in the case of these guys, it's really all about a Sarr. and I think that's valid enough of a reason to keep them unless the return is very surprisingly decent, which again, I just really doubt is going to be the case. Beyond that, there's not really much to look at Joe Harris.

If he weren't completely washed up, could maybe, you know, be a half-decent debline pickup, but that's irrelevant for two reasons. Number one, he is completely washed up, and he's way too slow to play defense in the playoffs now. Number two, he's paid $20 million. That makes salary matching kind of tough for a playoff team, particularly a contender. They tend to be very top-heavy in terms of salary. So unless they had too bad contract or two to send out in the other direction that was expiring this season, that just, you know, it would never happen. Obviously, Kevin Knox is not going to generate any interest. Isaiah Stewart probably

would from a contender. I think the Pistons have almost certainly got an interest than Isaiah Stewart from a contender. My guess is that they just consider him to be more valuable than the return that they would get. Isaiah Stewart could be a valuable postseason player. He can shoot threes. We've seen it. and he's the perfect guy to play in a small ball scheme in the postseason, especially against a team that is playing a switch-heavy offense, because switching a guard onto Isaiah Stewart is a complete fool's errand. He is excellent at defending from the perimeter on and against guards or against forwards, for that matter. So, yeah, against he's very versatile in that way against a team that's running a switch scheme or is basically just rotating between switch and, and just regular offense.

He's going to do well either way. He struggles a little bit again with those dollar centers, but he's just, he's a very versatile defender and in a floor spacer who, if your team just wants to play five out against the likes of, say, Rudy Gobert, where you just want to draw a very strong rim protector out of the paint. He can do that.

You know, I think Isaiah has more potential as a shooter than, you know, go figure has not been fully utilized by the current coaching staff. And not only can he just spot up, but I mean, you can run him and pick and pop actions and so on and so forth. So a guy who can very much participate in a spread out offense where your team is just hunting switches. Or again, you just have a strong rim protector and you want to pull him out of the paint. And it's like, okay, you can come out of the paint or, you know, Isaiah is just going to be able to shoot open threes. And I think he's proven that he can make those as a good clip. But, I mean, let's say you're offered like a late first round pick for him.

and I don't think Isaiah would really draw it a significant package in terms of draft equity. What's the point? I mean, Isaiah has his limitations, but he also has his value on the courts in addition to his presence in the locker room. And whom does that leave? It leaves James Wiseman. Just like with Killian, you might get just another really disappointing young player in return, though his $12 million salary makes that a little bit more difficult. Wiseman, I'm interested to see what happens to him next season because

Wiseman, you would think, oh, we'll give this guy another shot because he's got a lot of raw talent and, you know, why not? He has been so bad that a team, I mean, I guess he might get like a minimum contract. It's like, sure, we have the guy in the team, but it's for good reason that he's not getting minutes on the least winningest team in the league, which is that before, you know, when the Pistons traded for him, which was a very questionable trade, a very, very questionable trade. And like the idea presumably was, like, we just want to see, like, maybe this guy, I think it was mostly just that Troy Weaver really liked him. But the idea, I would imagine even then was we want to see if this guy's, this guy who has a lot

of raw talents, or I would guess that they probably believed in it that, you know, we think that this guy with more seasoning can get it together as an NBA decision maker. I think he has proven quite conclusively that the answer to that is no. Weissman, it's just, it's hard to properly underline, or it's, I don't think it's hard to properly underline this at all, actually, because we've all watched him all season. It's just amazing how bad he is at making decisions. It's just incredible. The guy just doesn't, it just doesn't have it.

It looks like, who knows, maybe he'll find that other gear later. That seems as possible. To me, it seems unlikely. the guy is just like a zero with percentile decision maker on the court on both ends. So that rounds out the roster and will be the end of this mini episode. Hope you all enjoyed it. Be back on Thursday night after the deadline to talk about it. So as always, folks, hope you're all doing well.

Thank you for listening. Catch you in the next episode.