Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 184: 2024 NBA Trade Deadline Recap

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

This episode recaps a very surprising trade deadline for the Pistons.

Welcome back, everybody. It was into another episode of Driving to the Baskets. I hope you folks have been doing well since listening to me Rambl a couple days ago in a trade deadline preview that turned out to be completely incorrect. In any case, we're going to talk here what actually happened. I have the pleasure today to be joined by my first guest for a while. You guys know I'm from quite a few past episodes. This is Price.

Good to have you back in the show, buddy. Thanks for having me once again, Mike. So it turned out to be an extremely active trade. deadline. I figured a few, even as recently as a couple of days ago, we were looking at a situation in which the front office was a little bit too fixated upon its way of doing things, and just we don't want to trade in and weigh in these guys, maybe one of them, but not the other two, certainly not all three, because we want to see what we have going on the offseason. And basically everybody got traded. We got Morris was sent out,

and Boyana Burke's were sent out. That was the surprise of the day, that they were, you know, that they were both on both outbound. A few other pieces of news. Joe Harris has gone. Joe Harris, who I think Price, you and I and the rest of Pistons fandom can agree was a big mistake. $20 million for two second round picks when the team had pressing needs. Killiam was waived. That was coming.

And very recently, actually, about a half hour ago, Daniel Gallinari was waived. I don't like that at all. but any thoughts about Joe Harris before we get started. Ah, man, I'm just, I'm so beat up, you know, he had such a beautiful homecoming to the Brooklyn Nuts when he came back. We had those big losses there against them. Man, it's going to be awful not having Joe Harris on this team. Yeah. I'm being completely sarcastic.

by the way. Of course. There is no loss to Joe Harris being gone. Yeah, it was a terrible trade in retrospect. I mean, even at the time, it's like that the front office just had some sort of irrational confidence in this roster so much that despite the fact that the roster lacked a lot of essentials, they decided to just trade away $20 million in cap space and didn't kick the can down the road to the next season for the sake of getting two second round

draft picks. And from all the information I've been able to glean, they actually. didn't expect him to contribute, which means that they did their research because he's completely washed up. Yeah. You and I probably have a higher running vertical than Joe Harris at this point. Probably so. And I just want to add, it's like, when you look at the totality of a lot of these moves from this front office, you'll see that the dots don't connect. Often, very often what I've come to realize is that the moves Troy Weaver makes are going to be great in isolation.

or at least understandable in isolation, but that when we start connecting the dots and start putting the picture together, we see that they don't have a clear idea of what they're really doing. And this move exemplifies that to a T because we need it, at the very least, some amount of NBA spacing

that could have contributed with that $20 million, even if it's just a plug off the street practically would have been better than Joe Harris. Joe Harris was a titanic waste of roster space or cap space, if you will. Oh, enormous. And just the opportunity cost with the Joe Harris move. And in hindsight is just cannot be understated how that is such a huge reason for this season being what it's been. Yeah.

Yeah, $20 million in cap space for two second round picks for a guy who's not going to be able to contribute. I mean, I disagree about the spacing. I just think that, I mean, you had needs of power forward. You had nobody behind Isaiah Stewart if he, despite not having the assets to play power forward, didn't do well or if he got injured. But, yeah, it's just you really could have used that $20 million. And I think the team had fine spacing. The issue with Harris is that he's too slow to really get away from anybody and do anything at all beyond Stansell spot up three is on offense. And he's just completely unable to play defense.

Kalyan has gone too. I think that was expected. I think his tenure clearly reached an end. He got to start yesterday against the Kings and to help the Pistons blow a lead in the third quarter because Monty Williams, who cannot be trusted with Killian, decided that he should just get to run endless pick and rules. Last hurrah, so to speak,

the organization was done with him. He wanted to move on to get another chance of the season, wherever that is, and he's gone. And I hate to put it this way, but it's like, I'm glad we don't have to watch him again because it was miserable. And I'm glad he's away from Monty Williams, who can't be trusted with Killian Hayes.

Yeah, it's a pretty sad state of affairs when your $78 million coach can't be trusted to not play one of the worst NBA players in the league 30 plus minutes a night. Yeah, it's not ideal. It was really just a travesty. Monty Williams, but from all we know was the guy who asked for Killian to stay

when the front office was ready to move on from him after they had drafted Marcus Sasser, who it seems at this point that they were, you know, wanting to play point guard going forward and he'll get that chance. And it's like, okay, if you want to give him one last chance, I think a lot of it was just Moni likes that he's tall and safe with the ball and plays decent defense. I give him a short time and limited minutes, which didn't happen, to say the least. So I'm relieved that he's gone. I think we can agree, even irrespective, exclusive of Monty Williams.

He's been absolutely miserable to watch for his entire career with the pistons. And I'm still kind of salty. That was finally confirmed that the guy was being strongly encouraged to do what everybody else does, attack the basket off the drive aggressively rather than pulling out for bad shots by this coaching staff and by Dwayne Casey and refused. That's not okay. And then finally, Gallo, and I feel like that's a loss. I think they did it because they wanted to give him the opportunity to go to a contender,

but the second unit spacing has been important, particularly for a SAR. And I don't like losing any of that. Yeah, giving up on Gallo is baffling to me. Among all of the other just random players that we've accumulated the last few days or that they've accumulated the last few days, Gallo was definitely not the problem. And I'm a bit miffed that they're doing the right thing where it's like, could we have,

could you have done this a season ago with Bowion and traded boeon to a contender and done right by him then? Why are we doing it right now with Gallo? Anyways. Well, Boyam wanted to stay. And they thought, which is funny in retrospect, that they were keeping him, because they were going to win more games this season.

But, yeah, Gallo also, he can't really contribute to a contender. He is an enormous switch liability in the playoffs. He's a guy you bring on when it's like we're running a play and we want a guy at center who can shoot. That's about all he's good for it. But yeah, I really, really don't like that. So all that said, let's move on to the trades. Of course, there was Bagley and the corpse of Isaiah Livers

sent to the Wizards that was a couple weeks ago in exchange for the dearly. departed Danila Gellani and Mike, Mike Muscala, of course, which has been a positive trade for the pistons. So let's go on chronological order here. Trade number one, and this was yesterday the piston sent out. Kevin Knox, who probably now leads the pistons all time and a number of times he's been traded. No, maybe they've traded a guy twice in the past, too. Who knows? That's a fun fact. Yeah. What did you say? That's going to be a fun trivia fact. Which guy has been traded more times than one year by a piston.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think, yeah, he was traded in consecutive seasons. In this actually less than one year, I think. Yeah, I don't think that a lot of guys have gone through that. But in any case, so Knox was sent out as salary fodder. Knox who had some good games with the Pistons, but ultimately he's not going to stick in the NBA until he becomes a reliable shooter. Hard worker stays in his lane.

Not very smart and can't shoot threes. And on top of that, the draft rights to Gabriel Prasita, who's a draft in stash taken 36 by the Pistons in 2022. And a 2024 second round pick via Washington, which is the most favorable of the Wizards or the Grizzly second round pick. So that'll be in the top four of the second round. So how'd you feel about this one? Yeah, I mean, the more that I sit on it, the more that I think we might, we may have fallen into a track. because Fontecchio has produced pretty well this season. But the context in which he's playing in is in a much favorable setting in Utah,

at least compared to what he's going to be getting in Detroit. And we gave up a top four second round pick, which is just a really, really, really good second. It's like the best second you can have in a given draft right at that cusp cutoff point between the first and second round and the fact that we gave up on it for a guy who's my age 28 second year player coming from a favorable setting in Utah to try to bolster our very, very weak forward core, it's, I just, it's something smells. That's, that's where I'm all with it. Something smells with this move where it's like we, we jumped ahead too, too quickly. Okay. First, actually,

I probably should have web with this. Let me just give a quick player profile about Mr. Simone. So six foot seven, about 210 pounds, like Price mentioned, about 28 years old, second season in the NBA after 10 in Europe. Started 34 games to the Jazz. This season will be restricted creation at season's end. Season averages nine points per game on 45% from the field, 39% from 3. I'd say 80% from the three-throw line,

but he very, very rarely gets there. Three and a half rebounds, one and a half assists. So a solid perimeter shooter off the catch, can reposition and shoot off the move. Very primarily a catch-and-chew perimeter play finisher, not really a passer or a creator. Quick enough to attempt. close out to drive through open lanes.

Kind of an average NBA athlete, sneaky quick, when he can catch the ball and attack very quickly, but wax burst, not much of a leaper. But active, smart off-ball mover, serviceable defender, not particularly good, but not bad either. So solid enough. Overall, a pretty high-energy player and a hard worker. Best suited a lineup at small forward.

So like I mentioned, will be restricted free agent at season's end. So the pistons have right of first refusal in practice extremely unlikely to the guy like Fonte. I don't know, it's Fon Tiki or Fon Tetsio. I'm sorry from mispronouncing his name, but very unlikely that the player like him gets an offer sheet. And he has a small cap hold of only $4 million. So the Pistons could spend up, it's only going to occupy $4 million of cap space.

So I liked it because, number one, I think that pick was going to be traded period. With this team's emphasis on improving next season, I don't think that they were ever going to draft a, you know, draft somebody with that pick. I think it was going to be traded, period. I don't think they wanted a second round pick on the team, especially given the emphasis on what they want to do right now. And the other option would be to wait. And I feel like Fontechio is a, again, sorry if I'm mispronouncing, it is a solid role player who can reliably shoot threes, play reliable defense. I mean, there's currently, with the addition to Quentin Grimes, and if you want to include Marcus Sasser in this list, the Pistons now have four guys who can play.

defense and shoot threes. And this team has been desperately short on just capable, fundamentalists, like just decent role players like this. How do you feel about losing Proceda? I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, other than maybe a little bit upset that a 37th overall pick turned into effectively just a contract filler,

is a bit upsetting from the value standpoint or I guess the perspective of having missed out once again on on these freebie assets that we seem to really struggle with hitting on yeah but i about the player he he's improved progita has improved a good bit but man I don't feel hardly anything. The likelihood of him becoming even Fonccio is very, very, very small. Yeah. He shot, I mean, Pritchita, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to any Italian listeners who are probably wanting to punch me in the face right now from mispronouncing these names. But he profiled as an athletic shooter. We shot 26% in the EuroLeague in the season after he was drafted. He's at 30% right now in the late stages of the EuroLeague tournament.

And it's, I mean, it's not out of the question by any means for a second round pick taken in the 30s. I mean, you have a, you stand a decent shot of getting an NBA role player. They're not a favorable shot, but a decent shot. But drafting stashes taken in the second round rarely make their way over to the NBA. And Gabrielle, so I can avoid mispronouncing his name again. Yeah, it was a case of the tail wagging the dog. You know, it's like, oh, we don't want to take on another guaranteed NBA deal and have another young player. And we're just going to take a guy who has a foreign passport.

Pretty much. Yeah, I mean, I would have taken a look at Jaden Hardy, who hasn't been great. But I just don't think it was a wise pick. So, yeah, we disagree. I mean, I'd give this trade a solid B plus. I mean, in an ideal world, the pistons would have used that second for, in a trade of some kind. But the pistons are not in an ideal world. And I think, yeah, so I think the cost was very reasonable.

I think this pick was going to be traded either way. And thank goodness the Pistons got another player who can shoot threes and play defense. Yeah, I think from a player profile standpoint, I really liked it. But once I started thinking about, is that going to translate onto the Pistons? I'm beginning to get a little more dubious. So I'll give it a solid C-plus. Okay. It's the right player profile to target, which I definitely approve of.

but I'm just very dubious that you're going to get what you see in Utah here. And how would you revise your grade if that translates to the pistons and moves on into the future? B plus, yeah. I would jump at a whole letter because I don't see him ever becoming the type of real difference maker that is going to massively impact the course of the franchise. But... Really? Well, I mean...

I mean, you're trading away the second round pick here and a draft and stash prospect. I mean, I feel like you should really be getting a difference maker. Sorry, that's not being facetious. I don't think that was the idea with this trade. No. But, you know, you know he has a long history as a good shooter in EuroLeague. He does.

So, yes, he has the pedigree. I do buy it, but I don't know. We'll see how all the rest comes together. Yeah. Okay, let's move on to Monta Morris. And with Monta Morris being traded, the organization's second Morris-Harris duo of the last decade, you know, Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris,

which, who were at basically the entirety of free agency, Thanks to Joe Harris being unable to play NBA minutes and Monty Morris being injured, the vast majority of the season so far, they played a total of like, I think, 230 minutes, which is simultaneously funny and very, very sad. So Morris had only played six games for the Pistons. He was traded away to the Minnesota Timberwolves, one of the best teams in the West, looking for a depended handler. They had pretty much nothing behind Mike Conway.

He was straighted away for 20-30 Minnesota second. and for salary matching purposes, Sheikh Milton and Troy Brown Jr., both of whom the Pistons will keep. So I'll go first on this one. I like this trade. I think they needed to trade Monti Morris. I think you want to give those minutes to Sasser. The Pistons, I think, really need to figure out.

They need to see if Marcus Sasser can play point card. Because if you cannot, you basically need to play him next to a larger handler at all times, because at 6th, the defense will get eaten alive if you feel two defenders, like two undersized defenders. And he was never going to get these minutes with Monty Morris on the team. I don't think they were going to keep Morris.

And so I was happy for this return. I mean, I think it was something rather than nothing. And not addition by subtraction, but Sasser gets the minutes. I know you like Sasser. I love Sasser, and this was a great move. I mean, this is one of those things where it's like very marginal, but you spent a second to acquire him. You got a second back for basically,

six games and obviously whatever else he's going to do for the rest of the season for the Timberwolves. That's what they're giving the second four. And yeah, I mean, we'll see what if shake Milton or Troy Brown are getting any rotation minutes to help bolster our team for the rest of the season. So great. We get to take a look at what Sasser can provide. Yeah, Troy Brown Jr. has always been an enigma to me. because on paper, I mean, he's not the most athletic guy, but he's got solid size. He can shoot threes. You can occasionally create a little bit of offense.

He's pretty weird on defense. I mean, he's a guy, I feel like should have been a decent role player, but instead is bounced from team to team. And he just, there was just no space for him in the rotation for the Timberwolves. And, I mean, he gave the Lakers some somewhat decent minutes in the regular season last year. so I think he'll get some run, especially with Isaiah Stewart injured. I think he'll be ahead of Evan Fornier, who's been a complete, another disaster for the last couple of seasons. So, well, yeah, I think you'll see Fantecchio, Fontecio, whatever. Again, I'm so sorry to those of you who are getting probably understandably upset at my mispronunciation.

So I think he'll see some minutes as Foncetio, whatever. as long as Stuart is out, I think he'll be playing minutes at Power Forward, and I think that'll open up some minutes at Small Forward for Troy Brown Jr. And if the Pistons like him, he has a player option, excuse me, a team option for next season at an affordable price, only $4 million. So it'll be an audition. Shake Milton, hit or miss. I don't think the Pistons are very concerned with him, especially because he's another shooting guard.

You see either of them potentially staying on the team? I guess we're going to wait and see, but do you think Shake Milton's going to get any minutes at all? I don't think Shake Milton's going to be in line for anything other than Monty Morris's strict adherence to a 10-man rotation. And if there's only... Monty Morris? I wish Monty Morris for coaching this team. That would be much better than we are right now. I slipped up, I promise.

It'll be the last time. Monty Williams. It's been a long day. No, but Monty Williams has a strict 10-man rotation, and if there's only nine other healthy players, Jake Milton's going in no matter what else. But other than that, I don't think shake's going to really factor in for us. Meanwhile, I agree completely. Troy Brown has always been this guy that's just lurked kind of at the edge of being like,

could he be something, kind of not something? Maybe he catches on. It'd be great. you could use all of the help at the forward position, all of it. Yeah. And, you know, he's generally been a decent shooter. I mean, he's shooting very low volume this season. But last season on about four threes per game, 38%.

About 35% season before. Yeah, I guess he's not all that reliable from there. But last season was good. So let's see what he can do. For $4 million for a depth player is really not a bad deal. So, all right. Yeah, I think I would grade this trade. I mean, I feel like you can't grade a trade that's this small, like in the A range.

You know, I'd give this trade a solid B. You get some assets out of a player who you really just want to move out of Marcus Sasser's way. And, yeah, you get something out of it. I think that's a solid return. Who knows how good the timber wolves would be in 2030. Maybe use that as another trade ship. How would you rate it? How would you grade this extremely not groundbreaking move?

A fantastic B, because the opportunity cost to miss out on was not very high. Yeah, I see nothing but upside here. And though Morris is one of the better point cards, backup point cards, excuse me, in the league, the guy at the time he was traded had played six games in 10 months, and he's an expiring deal. this is probably just the market rate. All right, so let's move on to the next one, the penultimate trade of the day. This was the Sixers dumping salary into the Marvin Bagley trade exception to get beneath the luxury tax line. So Daniel House, MBA bubble superstar, or rather the guy

got kicked out of the bubble for letting an employee into his room so he could cheat in his wife and thus breaking, you know, thus breaking, uh, very much breaking procedure. Not the cheating on his wife part. That, that wasn't the problem. It was basically risking letting COVID on the team. And the piston sent out a heavily protected, protecting 35, protected 31 to 55 second round pick in 2028. Um, I'm not exactly sure what, oh, right, because you have to send out, the reason is you have to send out something. It has to be either a draft pick, draft right. draft swap or money. I guess the Pistons didn't feel like sending out money. Anyway, the Pistons got New York's 2024 seconds on a bargain and you know, you're using a trade exception to get some assets.

All you have to do is pay the rest of a salary. And that's it. You know, good move. Solid enough. House is gone. He's already been waived. So I'd grade this a not applicable. This is just something you do. even the pistons can't screw this up it's a three second round pick for for a trade exception that wasn't going to be used anyways it's great it's what you do maybe you could have used it but in practice most trade exceptions don't get used and this was a small one exactly yeah so maybe you can say that there is an opportunity cost for you know it's saving it for the future but I feel like you just use it in this case to get an asset instead of hanging on to it and hoping you can make use of it later. All right, on the big one.

And this one has been kind of controversial. At first, we just thought it was just Alec Berks for Quentin Grimes, and there would have had to be somebody else in there for salary matching purposes. It couldn't have been Malachi Flynn because he wasn't eligible to be aggregated with salaries until the beginning of March, which of course would have been too late. So we thought it was Quentin Grimes and two second round picks. It turned out that Boyan Bogdanovich was in that deal as well, which made it Boyan and Burks for Grimes and a bunch of guys who were extremely unlikely to stay in.

Well, actually, we know that one of them is gone already. Ryan Arcidi Akona, who I believe went 20 games in a row without scoring a point. Evan Fornier, who used to be a great shooter, but it's very washed up now and has been out of the rotation for a while. Malachi Flynn, who's just a bad third string point guard. and two second round picks from New York, the Pistons got three future seconds all together from New York, one of them via Philadelphia. And so they left the day with 2024, 2024, 2022, and 2029. A lot of seconds have passed between Detroit and the Knicks when you take into account the 2023 draft,

a 22 draft, excuse me. So this was a surprise. This is a major change. How do you feel? Actually, I know how you feel. You made reference to being sick to your stomach earlier before, you know, we were talking before the episode, but let's hear it again. Yeah, I'm going to try to not vomit all over my computer.

Just everything about this move stinks, to me, at least. And I'm fully willing to admit, I'll start this off as positive as possible. There's a chance Quentin Grimes is a real, really good NBA player. The potential with him is quite a. high. He's well liked around the league, well liked around media, fan circles. Dude works super hard. Just a ultra competitor and can shoot at a pretty pretty reasonable level. So are we talking boy on here? No, I'm talking about Quinn Grimes. Quentin Grimes. Yeah, I'm starting as positive as possible. Okay. The upside is that you got, you bought low on a

really important defensive and a combo guard who can also stretch the floor. Oh, yeah. Let me break in here because I forgot again to just give a quick profile on Grimes. I'll do that. This will take 30 seconds. He's an NBA 65. He's realistically a hair over 6'4 in terms of how he was measured at the combine and they round up. 6-8 wingspan, very much a shooting guard, not a small forward, not too beefy.

average athlete, nothing special, quick enough, not explosive, not a good weeper, strong defender by any measure. He's a three-and-d man's three-and-d man. He rarely does anything but shoot threes and play strong defense. He's having a down year, but was quite strong last season as a starter, 47% from the field, upwards of 38% from 3, 11 points per game. He fell out of the rotation this year because, I don't know, it seems like Tibado really didn't like him all that much, but he He was a good shooter as a rookie, too. Also, a teammate of Marcus Sasser was from back when they made the final four. So I'm sure that Sasser had some cost from celebration, but obviously you can't come out and say it.

It's like, he's got to at least act sad that the Birx and Blyan are gone. Yeah, so that's Quentin Grimes. Now the fourth player on the team who can shoot threes and play defense, though none of them are athletic. Anyway, all right, I'm sorry for interrupting. Move on. So Quentin Grimes, how you feel about him? Look, the upside is there that you have. something there with Quentin Grimes. However, I am kind of getting concerned that we're

getting a little heavy in the guards already. We wanted to see what Sasser can do. And not that Quentin Grimes is a one-to-one overlap with Sasser by any means, but that there's already going to be some significant minutes that that quen grimes is going to need to prove that he can be be who new york nick fans thought he would be and i'm i'm starting to think where's where these minutes going to come from this is a really young back court rotation of k to ivy sasser grimes and that's a lot of development that has to go on and where's your stabilizing veteran guard who can come in like corey Joseph and just play solid NBA guard minutes. And right now that isn't there. I'm,

I don't know. That's a bit of a concern that I have with team fit and or roster construction that kind of marinated my mind as I percolated on this trade. And then if I if I can pivot to what I don't like, which is... Let's talk upsides real quick first. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I really honestly hadn't thought about the implications of not having a veteran guard there, and that is an issue where I think you'd have to find minutes. Well, obviously in case of injuries, you hope that none of those happen.

I think you're going to see other grimes, hopefully not too much because he's undersized for the position. Orcade. Play minutes of small forward, situationally speaking, because I agree, you're having Cade and Avi he played at least low 30s in terms of minutes. And Sasser's getting those backup point card minutes, presumably. And Grime's going to line up as backup shooting guard. So I agree that minutes are going to be a consideration.

And like you've said, that the front office doesn't really necessarily always think these things through too much. But, you know, he has a strong 3-indie guard. You want to call him a 3-&D wing. I guess he's, you know, he's long enough and moves well enough and whatnot. to probably guard some small forwards. And, yeah, so the fit isn't perfect. I agree.

But he's another player who provides the essentials and has high defensive upside, and goodness knows this team needs help on defense. So that's what I'd view is the upside. I also want to note that I don't feel terrible about the loss of Blyon for one reason. It's not just his defense. And the Pistons really did upgrade by losing,

on defense, by losing the two of them. It's another situation of you get something away from Monty Williams that is bad. Monty Williams loves his boy on Cade sets, and those are sets that very often lead to Jaden Ivy standing in the corner. So there's that. And moving Berks opens up more shots for Sasser, and presumably for Ivy as well. So how do you feel about that? I mean, do you agree that there's any benefit at all to the offense?

Maybe not a net positive, but those benefits at least. Is Monty Williams, I should say, is he a, a toddler or is he an NBA coach? Because sometimes it looks like you can't really view him as an NBA coach because he's so hung up on playing his toys. Yep. So in that essence, I can see it where it's like we have to kind of bet against our coach a little bit and take away his usual devices that kind of lead to the very stagnant offense that we have seen far too much of this season and has made an already bad team play even below their capabilities, which is the most mind-boggling thing about the season to me thus far.

Yes, this is a bad team, a young team. A lot of these dudes barely can drink. I mean, among all these other things, maturity-wise, all that going into it. Sure, we weren't going to be good this year, fine. But we're playing below that expectation. And that, I think, is huge indictment on Monty Williams's coaching and the front offices roster construction and how they are utilizing, like, analytics, film study,

the whole nine yards. It feels incredibly wasteful on our part. as a franchise, as fans, to watch us just burn. It's awful. 40-50 games of development on Killian Hayes, or however many it's been this year. It feels like an eternity. It's way too many. 42, I think.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, Monty Williams has been an absolute nightmare, like a nightmare that nobody could have seen coming. Just an incredible nightmare. Yeah, I completely agree. I think I mentioned this in the last episode. The Pistons are not 2 and 18 in close game. The only comparably bad team over the last 10 years was the 2015-2016 peak process Sixers who won eight, I think 10 games, and we're three in 27 in close games.

And they were built to lose and coached to lose to such a blatant extent that the NBA stepped in and forced out the Sixers GM for tanking too blatantly. That's how bad it is. So yeah, Monty Williams has been an incredible nightmare, just an absolute catastrophe. this is not something you see in sports very often. I think he's a scumbag. I think he's an absolute scumbag who just doesn't really care. This is the only way I see that he could have devolved from competent to completely incompetent, arbitrary,

allowing pettiness and favoritism to override good judgment. Yeah, it's been bad. But yeah, in this situation, you kind of force his hand, did it with livers. I've always wondered if that was a factor. So in any case, I mean, yeah, what benefits do you see from them being out? of the rotation or off the team or other Blyanenbergs. Yeah, I can also see the fact that it's like we just have to do some spring cleaning

as an organization. It's just got to happen. And it's not to say that those two players are bad, but that we needed to move on from them. I'm just personally very upset at how it all went down. You know what I mean? I'm really upset at how it went down. I feel like what we missed out on by not trading Bowion last off or sorry last trade deadline.

What do you think we missed out on? At least a first round pick, like a pretty good one. Oh, really? Who do you think was, I mean, what do you define as good? Because I feel like any pick, or maybe who wanted to trade for him would have been in the 20s at the highest. Yeah, I think that there would be the opportunity to maybe too low first round picks. for a desperate team. I know that that came out, but that was from Mike Scato, who's very unreliable.

Of course. Of course. I'm not taking Mike Scato's word for anything. Yeah. But that the potential there for a meaningful pick return would have probably felt better than Quentin Grimes or two seconds for eloquence. for Alec Berks effectively. I kind of view that each thing that we got back,

we got two seconds for Berks, which was probably his price. And a first round level guy or pick, that was probably what it came down to. It's like, well, we have Quentin Grimes, who has upside, who is further along than almost anybody you're likely to draft in whatever range. of pick we give you.

And he's cheap next season. And yeah, yeah, he's cost control, which is an upside. But I don't know. It's one of those things where I'm just kind of kicking myself. I'm like, man, we might have really, really missed out on, and maybe not. I can't speak with authority, but it just feels like we held on for too long and kind of got caught with her pants down. And we have to accept Quentin Grimes or else.

it's going to be a end of the first round, like 30th overall pick that we have to settle for. Yeah, do you think, I mean, the talk was that they were very happy to keep him, and they were happy to keep Berks, and a lot changed. I wonder how much Tom Gora is just slamming his foot down on the gas pedal and saying, I want things to change accounted for the abrupt change in strategy, because, I mean, the opportunity cost here. Like, sure, you could have traded him last season. I think it does come down so we don't know what was offered.

And it was a late first, and the Pistons were looking to still be a good team, or to be a better team, rather, and to field some spacing and the release fell of another creator alongside Ivy and Kade. Then I thought it makes sense. The opportunity cost at this point is that you could have looked to move him at the draft with something. So if you've taken away the opportunity to potentially trade him because he's still under contract, though, to have very well guaranteed amount.

next season, though the guaranteed aid is, I think, is just before free agency. So, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to know. We don't know what the Pistons offered, but I didn't feel bad about that because how are you realistically going to replace that in free agency if you still wanted to be a good team? Not a good team. If you still wanted to feel what they were hoping to be a respectable team rather than just kicking the can down the road again. So you don't think they gained anything by, well, obviously they didn't gain anything, but you don't think at the time it made any sense. Yeah, that's the other thing that I'm wondering if we couldn't have gotten a more

realistic projection of what picks we could have like a more tangible pick offer at the draft. I didn't even think about that because he does have the team option, there's no rush to trade him. We didn't have to. So I guess it's kind of the thing where it's like, I mean, Quinn Gramps probably would have still been available at the draft too. And maybe. They may have traded him to somebody else, the dead mine.

They trade him today to somebody else. They may have. I mean, he was pretty much out of the rotation. Yeah, they wanted it. They would have wanted to upgrade on him. So who knows? Maybe they thought he was not going to be available. And they thought it was time to move on, which I think is reasonable.

I think we agree on that. And they just thought that a better opportunity might not present itself. maybe you know i i guess i i can fault probably for not trading earlier but it probably would still be bad to trade later because then you're you're losing out on this playoff run for these teams and then you're just basically getting like one year of the bow on minutes maybe an injury happens the whole everything and yeah that was it could it could definitely have gone worse for bo-yong and i'll i'll be willing to admit that much but i still think that we we missed out on not trading him earlier because yeah sure we we would have um excuse me we would have

lost out on like a solid creator option, secondary creator option next to Caden Ivy this season. But, and maybe this is too much of a retrospective 20-20 hindsight thinking ended up not really mattering that that he does provide that because he was hurt

and because we're coached bad and we're so talent poor. We can't really get a lot out of anybody hardly. Yeah. I mean, I did have a major concern that grew. I mean, to be honest, somebody brought this up, and I just hadn't thought about it because Blayon, I feel like, is going to age well in any case. But there's a difference between not being relying on your athleticism and becoming genuinely slow. And just one significant injury to the wrong part of his body could really slow him down to the point where he can't play defense anymore. He's already very bad on defense. There was this hilarious clip from a couple of games ago in which he left. I think Gary Harris is open against the magic to fade back and help onto an area of the floor where there was nobody. He genuinely backed off to go cover somebody who wasn't there. You know, his defensive instincts are very poor, and I think it is worth noting that he and Burks, they provided a lot of points, cost a lot on defense.

So I think you can make the case there. But, I mean, how do you feel about in a vacuum, regardless of anything else, the return that they got for Boyan and for Burks? regardless of what other considerations there would have been. And Burke's, you know, conceivably, if the Pistons wanted to, they clearly won't at this point. They could have gone back for him in the offseason. He was expiring other way. But how do you feel about the return if it's just entirely in a vacuum?

I still would have preferred just getting our first back. They were not going to trade that first. I think that was made clear. I know. And I wouldn't have either. that could end up being a pick within the lottery. At the very least, I mean, the Knicks are stocking up to make a major trade. Oh, yeah, they're circling the Donovan Mitchell situation very, very, obviously, to put it mildly.

So I would have helped ground and maybe looked elsewhere on the Knicks and be like, okay. Anywho, I, yeah, I feel that I, I, I am more concerned about the fit than I was initially. So that's going to lower my feeling. Are we ready to give grades? Or do you have anything else you want to discuss about this trade? I mean, I would say that it does make the team significantly younger. It does take two guys off the team who were taking a lot of shots.

Burks, who knows if he would have been back. It is a lot of scoring gun. And other guys are going to have to step up. But it also provides opportunities. And it takes away one of Monty Williams is very unfortunate. many unfortunate ways of doing things. Like against Orlando, he blew his 18th close game, in part because he ran two really bad Kate I.

Excuse me, Kate Blayonsets wait in the game with everybody else standing still. Like you said, it sucks that you have to take this away from your coach. And I hope that Tom Gores is aware that things are, wow, I'm just about to make, I really don't like theater, and I almost just made a Hamlet reference that something is rotten into the state of Denmark. I don't know, maybe say that he realizes that the emperor has no clothes to use another literary

reference. I hope he's aware that money sucks, put it that way. So I do see some benefits. I mean, Grimes hopefully can be something you get a year to see in a cost-controlled contract. You get a stronger defender. You get minutes and in time for young guys and for whichever free agents they bring in. And you improve your defense significantly overall. but also it's just you're moving on you want your veterans ideally like this who are just shooters

and not defenders I mean you want them to be it's just not ideal and you want them to be secondary and the pistons did get some shooting back so it wasn't the case it wasn't the case which i was afraid of that they were just going to trade boy on in burks and have horrible spacing for the rest of the season that hasn't been the case so all right so what's your grade c minus oh dear I would give this one just because I feel like the return wasn't great for the both of them. I like the way that you did it, just looking at each one in isolation. I agree that two second round picks was probably just the market for Burke's period. And then boy on for Grimes, a significantly younger player who's caused control for next season.

And was a genuinely good starting shooting guard last year and be back up for the pistons. But who knows, he plays well, you extend him, and then he's a trade ship. I mean, that's something to think about, I think. So I'm going to give it a B-minus. I think your questions about fit and where you're going to find the minutes are reasonable. But I just do feel good, much better than I thought I would, about Blyon and Borks moving on in this team

being able to do things a little bit differently. I think it would have been much more of a slam dunk if the Pistons had gotten like a good power forward of the bargain, but I think that was a lot to start a caliber power forward, but I think that's a lot to ask for. you're not going to get that out of a playoff team that wants to improve. You know, it's not like we're going to trade these. We're going to trade a guy with value away right before, you know, before the playoffs.

It's not going to happen. I guess you could have gotten assets and flipped it, you know, and flipped into another team. But again, it might come out that somebody, something was available in the Pissons passed on better. But I think until we hear about that, which I think could make the trade better or worse, I think that's where I stand. So, all right, quick wrap up. Let's just talk outlook for the rest of the same. season. And yeah, I mean, how do you feel? How do you think? I mean, we got about 30 games left this

season has unfortunately been extremely very difficult and is well over half over. Only about two months left of basketball. So how do you think things are going to look for the rest of the season with Morris gone, with Burke's gone, with Boyan gone, and with Grimes and Fontecchio and the, sorry, in the rotation. Fontecchio, whatever. Anywho. yes fetichinini alfredo now all the all of the Italians are wait can you

did you watch the sopranos have you seen that show okay well we could just sit here and make soprano's right I wish I'd known that we could have no maybe this maybe that would have been a little bit insensitive to make soprano's references two on the nose anyways it's water over the dam oh my goodness

okay all right is that an ice truck that's pulling out, are we about to get disappeared? Anyways, okay. So, I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, because you're right, it's going to finally clear the air for just raw, we're playing the young guys and seeing what happens.

This team is incredibly, incredibly young at this point. We've got rid of the two oldest players, three oldest players on the team are gone. Wait, is the guy we got from the, whose name I want to mispronounce from the jazz? Is he not the oldest player on the team? No, aside from Muscala. Muscala. Is he the oldest player? Yeah, I forgot Muscala.

So we got three of the four oldest players on the team are gone. Gallo obviously is gone as well, which is also a bit miffing. But anyways, okay, so moving forward here, I want to see more run through Ivy than we have been doing so far. In general, although I do agree that Cade is a good player and is probably going to even be a great player, to some extent, we don't know yet. However, in general, I have found that when Ivy is on and the offense is flowing through him for stretches, that is when this team is most fun and most watchable.

just the level of athletic mismatch he produces is one of the best assets we have on the team because his is actually functional to some extent in a half-court offensive setting, which is kind of the thing we're missing out on Asar right now is that yes, Asar is also a very different level athlete and Duren is too, but he's not a creator like that. And the thing that we need right now is just difference, makers. We need more Ivy to really show, okay, my first step is so elite that it doesn't really matter who's guarding me. Oh, yeah. Top five in terms of first step and top speed.

Without a doubt. He is an alien when it comes to his first step. It is ridiculous how fast he explodes off a standstill practically. So point being, I want to see more run through Ivy. I think this not, I mean, not Ivy standing in the corner, that's for sure. Oh, man, this coach, dude. This coach. I'm so upset. Okay. Anyways.

I mean, how about this radical concept, which doesn't seem to have occurred to this coach of using them together on sets? Whoa. Whoa. Easy. Don't hurt yourself, Mike. Mike, easy. I know that. I mean, I know that we, we don't.

There's always the risk of making basketball evolve more quickly than humanity, and it is really safe for humanity. But, I mean, I just, I have to say it. Yeah, obviously, this is not rocket science aside from to a coach who just doesn't care about anything. Yeah, I mean, a coach who had to be forced by the front office to start Ivy and then forced by the front office to give Ivy more of a handling role. Yeah, I mean, that would be the. ideal situation. I think that they can work very well in tandem. Have Cade attacking the pick and

roll, draw coverage. Ivy bolts in, pass the ball to Ivy who draws coverage. Either, you know, either scores in the net or passes to a three point, you know, to a shooter on the perimeter. That guy kicks if necessary. And that guy kicks if necessary or attacks the close out. And it's like this is very, very easy stuff. Or just, yeah, like you said, run more through Ivy. Because it's a real change of pace if you have to try to tailor your defense to guard Cade who's much more methodical and Ivy who's much more explosive. So I agree. I hope we see that. I think Monty Williams, as always, is the confounding factor here. Yep. So that's kind of my hope for the rest of the season is that there's nothing else on this team to do other than to play more through Ivy.

What about Sasser? You want to get Sasser some run? I think you want Sasser moving constantly on the ball, but he ends up in the corner too, even though he should be like a Duncan Robinson type mover off the ball. Yes. Yes. That is the only. way to really, I think, maximize Marcus Sasser's movement shoot. It is as a movement shooter, is what I was trying to say. His difference level is that he has such clean, repeatable form that can be utilized off movement that we need more sets where Sasser is this little buzz, honeybee, just buzzing around the court, getting different looks, you know, just pivoting into the new weak spot in the defense. That's what I would like to see more of as well.

And maybe even running more through Sasser in the minutes where Ivy and K'd aren't on the floor because we need to see if he can be a point guard too. Yeah, it's just, well, we'll see it. But Monty Williams loves as all bench lineups. But we'll see it, which happened better lately now that you have five guys who, four guys who can shoot alongside Asar, but still not really ideal.

But, I mean, again, yeah, it comes down to the coaching if he's willing to do it. As an on-ball player, I've been more impressed with Asser as a passer. I think he's just going to kind of grade out as not an elite passer by any means, just a guy who parlays the attention he draws because he's done very well as a pull-up shooter for the most part into just easy passes to open guys. Do you see any Lou Williams and Marcus Sasser? So I see some Lou Williams and Marcus Sasser Just an off the dribble shooter

Who can just hit open guys I like that Yeah I mean I don't think he's gonna hit 20 points per game Like Lou Williams did But he's gonna be yeah Of Lou Williams' caliber when he was at his zenith Yeah but Will Wu Williams was I mean Sasser is a much better defender than Lou Williams

Oh for sure Night and Day in that regard So yes we lose the athleticism Gained the defense More of a A true 3 point threat than Lou Williams was. But yeah, I could see that sort of archetype for him where he's off the bench comes in,

changes the whole pace of the game kind of around him. And we need that. So I hope we see some signs of life from Sasser. So maybe to tie this all together, this is the next 40 or so games is all about the guards. 30. We only got 30 left. Oh, that's right. The next 30 or so games is for me all about.

about the guards. Well, yeah, that's who you got right now. I mean, you'll have to see Durham make some progress on defense, which has been an issue, though. Yeah, on offense, he's been tremendously improved over last season. You'd like to see a Sard. Well, he's probably just going to keep doing what he's doing, and he's got to work, you know, every minute of every day on his shot in the post,

you know, in the off season, which I think he's a hard worker. He can't take that away from him for sure. I think he'll work hard on it. But I'd say it's almost kind of like the end of an era for the existing team, not just Killian being gone, but moving. on from Bligham and Brooks. And we'll see what can be done with the cap space in the summer. I mean, that's going to be a big swing factor.

Huge. We have tens of millions in cap space. I think it's above 60 million at this point. Yeah. Feels like we have a max slot plus. Yeah. The question is, I mean, yeah, well, that's, that is the question for a different, you know, different discussion for a different episode.

So in any case, yeah, I think we can, we can wrap it up here. any closing words. I think we've probably settled basically everything already. And let's hope the next time we speak we are no longer held hostage by a basketball terrorist. Yeah, the Pistons desperately need to get rid of him. Just desperately. I just don't buy in at all to the let's see what you can do with a better roster. I mean, he has been destructive, and I think a lot of it has been just him not caring.

And there's still the possibility that he just wants to get fired and walk. with his money. Yeah. Anyways, thanks for having me again, Mike. Absolutely, man. Always pleasure to have you on the show. So, folks, as always, thank you all for listening. Hope you enjoyed. Catch you in the next episode.