Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 188: Duren, Wiseman, Fontecchio, Cade + Ivey, etc.

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

This episode discusses James Wiseman's recent improvements, Jalen Duren's outlook, Fontecchio's probable contract future, how Cade and Ivey can play productively together, and more.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. My name is Mike, and I hope you all are doing super, super well today. So, Pistons, three or four, three wins in their last four for the first time in several years. Of course, playing not so great teams, but good at least to see the youth get some wins and this season on a not-so-horrible note. I don't doubt that it was extremely difficult. I mean, it would be extremely difficult for anybody, but particularly young players and particularly young players who are trying to trying to win to sit or not sit to play through and be part of that incredible losing streak, which is not only 28 straight, but I think the 36 to 37 losses. I mean, it's one thing

if you're on the, like the process sixers and you know that you're probably going to be losing games and that's the idea. Even that would be difficult. But I can't imagine what this was like. So good to see a little bit of success, even if the pistons at this point still out of their nine wins, excuse me, out of their 12 wins, one of them was genuinely, against a good team. That was against the thunder back in January, wait January. And that was an honest to goodness, good win against a very good team. Aside from that, for the Pistons, it has been beating teams that range from mediocre to mostly bad, but I don't know why I got on that tangent. However, we are down to the last month of the season, recording this on the 14th of March,

the season finale is on the 14th of April. The season has gone, at least for me, very fast in some ways and very slow in others. Slow being, of course, that, well, slow, yeah, mostly just the part of the season in which the pistons were constantly losing, and that was slow, and watching Monty Williams coach and just be arguably the worst coach of like the last several decades in the NBA.

Stuff like that made it seem slow. At the same time, that period in which the pistons, it was just that nightmarish period, I'll put it that way, that just absolutely nightmarish period, kind of like congeals into one. It makes it seem like the season has gone kind of fast. In any event, it should be interesting to see what happens in the next 17 or, I think 17 games left because draft position should be a consideration. This business is going on the stretch. I think it's very, very unlikely that they'll finish last now, given that they've got some,

they get a couple of games against Memphis. They got one against Washington. And it's possible you have a team like Dallas, who's their second or last game. Sitting players, anticipation of the playoffs of seating isn't a factor anymore. Oh, who knows. It'll be interesting to see what the organization chooses to do in the name of draft position, because this season, you don't really have that sort of thing where it's like, okay, well, we'll sit our vets, we'll sit our Jeremy Grants and Boy on Bogdanovich's and so on, and it's just play to lose. You don't really have that this season. Team's oldest, you know, really the only real veteran in the rotation is Evan Fornier, who by rights should not be in the rotation, because he sucks.

I'd rather have Troy Brown Jr. getting those minutes, because, who knows, maybe he'll be here next season. It's been nice for him to get an audition rather than Fornier, who, unfortunately, uses a little bit too much of a play finisher for my liking and can't play defense. In any case, your second oldest player in the rotation is Fontechio, who is 28. Yeah, it's 28 in the second season in the NBA, so you don't really have much in the way of veterans. I'm thinking it through. Yeah, I think the guy with the second most seniority in the rotation right now, two of them actually, no, it's Wiseman and Stewart. it'll be interesting. I wouldn't put it past the front office to just say in the last few games.

If it's looking like it'll make a difference in draft lottery odds, that they'll sit a couple guys. Here's the funny thing about the Pistons. You just said Kate Gunningham or Sid Jaden Ivy or said Jalen Duren. I mean, you're likely to lose games even against bad teams, which is a fact, which is a very, very large part is played in that. rather, by the fact that the piss and still have a horrible coach. Even like the last four games, he hasn't been quite as damaging.

He's still not running his idiot all bench line. He's not running his idiot all bench line. It's excuse me, in these last four games. That's helpful. He still sucks. His team is still a complete mess under him in a way that it shouldn't be. He's still a horrible coach. He's just less horrible.

Like against the Raptors, for example. Oh, yep, no, let's just let them come out in the second quarter and completely stomp us. I'm not going to do anything about it. Why should I bother? Still running a super, super clunky offense, really unimaginings. still not using K-Navi together. I'll talk more about that later. Defense still looks headless. Team overall still looks headless in a way that it did not last season.

You know, even, well, down the stretch, sure. And it did have a couple more veterans, but even when the Pistons had veterans this season, they were still playing headless. So yeah, I mean, I don't think Monty Williams not doing things that are outrageously insane and just incredibly destructive should be necessarily looked at as him coaching okay. He's still just really bad. He's just doing less things. that are overtly suicidal from a basketball standpoint. So anyway, let's move on. We've got a wide variety of topics to cover today.

Many of these submitted by listeners. Really appreciate that always. Thank you. Let's start out really quickly with Fontechio. So Fontecio yesterday in starting against the Raptors hit what's called start of criteria. I've mentioned this before, which means that his restricted free agent qualifying offer will go up. It's going up less than I thought, and I really don't understand this. I'm just going to have to trust Bobby Marks and Keith Smith on this one.

But it's only going up to about $5.2 million instead of $6.3 million. I mean, it's hard to see the downside in it. I just don't exactly know how that math works, but those two, Bobby Marks in particular, really, at least on social media and in the media, and the NBA media is the salary cap expert, so I suspect that he's right. Basically, just what this means, oh, goodness,

do I really want him to get into what this means? It gets into a lot of minutiae about the salary cap. The NBA collective bargaining agreement, which is what governs the salary cap and all that sort of stuff, makes the NHLs look like a children's novel. It's incredibly lebarantine and complicated with a lot of little clauses to it. And even just talking about the exceptions, like bird rights, for example, can become kind of a long thing. So basically, yeah, I'll get into this another episode. but it's one and a half million dollars in cap space.

I mean, it's something. Clearly, the front office decided it was not big enough of a deal to keep Fontechio from starting. And it's entirely possible also that we've been given, in light of this, that the fact that Fontecchio has not been starting instead of Stewart is just Monty Williams being a doofus, like a complete dunce like usual, because the lineups with, you just you take Sarr, Ivy, K, Duren, and you put Fontecchio there, they're drastically better than the line. lineups with steward of power forward. I've been overpower at steward of power forward ad nauseum. I mean, he's just bad at the position. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, he's ignored on offense chiefly.

Sometimes he can make them pay, but he doesn't space the floor because opponents know that, okay, well, we'll leave you. You're not necessarily that reliable from three. But we know that's because you're really slow and you can't move off the ball very well at all on the perimeter. You're likely to be exactly where we left you if we need to close out on you again. makes things very easy for defenses. And then, of course, on defense, you know, he's situationally strong, like when his partner in the front corps, whether that's Wiseman or Jayland Duren gets switched out to the perimeter, and Stewart can defend the interior then because he's a strong interior defender. But make him cover ground on the interior and make him go over screens. It's not going to go well for you.

I just hope the front office has decided at this point that the Stewart, at power forward, experiments is bust. I remain dumbfounded that a genuine honest to goodness NBA front office could have looked at Stewart and said, we think this guy's a power forward. We think he may be good enough to be a starting power forward and not only strongly believed in that, but set up absolutely nothing in a way of a backup plan in case it didn't work. So in any event, unless the front office just kind of made this decision on a dime yesterday, just abruptly and had been holding out Fontecchio from starting because they had wanted to, you know, keep from potentially losing that cap space because it's only going to be, the increased capital is only going to matter if he

takes what's called an early bird. Goodness, I'm just getting a, it's a start getting a little complicated. Basically, if the pistons can use early bird rights to sign him, then they've lost themselves about, you know, one and a half million in cap space because then they can just spend all the way up to the cap, or rather spend the cap space that they have and then re-sign. him. If they don't, then it doesn't matter. Anyway, I feel like I just kind of made a confusing hash of that. But if you guys want me to explain more about Sauer Cap implications and about the CBA in general,

happy to do that. Just let me know. It can just get sort of complicated and long-winded. Now, one thing I do want to address, I've seen some confusion on the notion that the pistons are limited and what they can offer, Fonecchio in general. If the pistons can sign him to whatever they would like with Capspace, there's no limitation of that. that beyond the fact they can only offer him four years, and they can only offer him, and obviously he's not going to come anywhere near this, up to the maximum, which would be 25% of the cap for a player with his years of experience. And where the confusion it's coming from is something called the arenas provision.

Those of you who were watching the Pistons back after they won their last championship, remember Memo Okour being nabbed away by the Utah Jazz. That was a real shame. And that was because back then, you got a player with only two years of experience. you only have what's called early bird rights on him rather than full bird rights. So if you didn't have the cab space and a team came in, they could genuinely, with an offer sheet, just outbid you and there was nothing you could do about it. Same thing happened to Gilbert Arenas.

Later on, it was a much higher profile thing. The NBA put into the next CBA, something called the Arenas provision, which basically means that teams who submit an offer sheet to a restricted free agent, but only two years of a seniority, excuse me, two years on an NBA, two years in the NBA. So a team can only have early bird rights rather than full bird rights. Early bird rights means, in goodness, I'm getting into this minutiae now, that there's a limited amount you can offer them. Basically, you wouldn't be able to match necessarily. So the arena's provision just means that you can't offer, the first year can't be at more than the mid-level

exception, non-tax payer mid-level exception. So that only limits other teams who are submitting offer sheets to restricted free agents with only two years of experience. The Pistons are not in that situation. They won't be signing them to an offer sheet. You know, they, assuming, or once they submit his qualifying offer, they own his restricted free agent rights. So they are not limited in that capacity. I'm sorry. I could talk about the salary cap for just the CBA mechanics for a long time.

It's something that I actually find very interesting. And it's something that I've spent a lot of time learning over the last, I don't know, five years. And every so often I still come across something where it's like, well, I didn't know that. My goodness. but yeah so any questions you have about sour cat mechanics just let me know feel free to ask on Twitter wherever else we have any answer those for you I'd rate my understanding of the CBA at like an A not an A plus I'll occasionally get something wrong but I think the vast majority of the time I'm know what I'm talking about you know for what that's worth all right moving on the big story of the last

like week and a half is James Wiseman who's been playing a lot better and I think this needs to be properly contextualized that James Wiseman was for the vast majority of of the season and for basically the entirety of his tenure with the Pistons prior to this short period, which is lasted about four games now, I think, was one of the worst players in the league. Now, he's been noticeably better. For the most part, I would say, is playing, like, at the level of, like, on average, like a solid third string center, which is not a backhanded compliment. That's a massive improvement for him, like massive, massive, and it's hard to know exactly

where that came from. Is it just Taj Gibson coming out and giving him attention? Because Wiseman, well, a couple things have changed. Number one, he's making a great deal less in the way of incredibly boneheaded mistakes. I mean, you guys have all been watching Wiseman as much as I have since he came on. He has just been one of the dumbest, if he was not the dumbest player in the NBA in terms of his ability to make on-court decisions, then he was certainly strongly in the running for that very dubious distinction. And lately, he's, you know, for these last four or so games, he's not playing that stupidly.

Couldn't tell you why. You know, suddenly he's tracking the game a lot better. His effort level has gone up a great deal. That one's a little concerning because it's like dude, I'd like you to be playing at a high level of effort at all times. The guy's playing physically. He's moving well. He's setting hard screens.

He was against Dallas. He set two screens that just knocked guys down. I mean, he's fairly strong. He's rebounding better. He's not just getting into the interior and waving his arms around and not boxing guys out or finding himself to a position. He's taking less dumb shots, like those floaters that he really likes that he's bad at.

He hadn't been posting up for a while anyway, but we've seen less of that. a little bit more in the game against the Raptors than I would like. James Wiseman posting up should not be a thing. He is not good enough to make that worthwhile. So he's been playing decently well on defense. He's rotating well. He's playing drivers well.

He's defending, well, I would say he's rotating well. He's playing drivers recently well enough. He's defending the rim decently well enough. He's using his NBA body. I mean, he's great, got a great NBA body. You know, he's got, he's about seven feet tall. He's about a true seven footer. He's got a 7-foot-6 wingspan.

He's got really good vertical athleticism. He's got good mobility overall. I mean, what's been missing was the mind. And yeah, so, you know, credit to James. He's definitely playing better weight weight. Small sample size. I would just love to be a fly in the wall there and know exactly what happened. It's like what switch flip that he's suddenly not making idiot decisions

and being somewhat lazy on the court, like he's actually putting in the effort now. Now, of course, this is a small. sample size, and the fact that the switch has flipped one way means that it can easily flip back in the other way. And certainly the fact that he's only now after more than a year on the team, like genuinely putting in the effort is a little concerning, because that can easily just go back in the other direction. But, yeah, small sample size. Now, this raises the question, like, you know, if you can improve a little bit more, maybe you've got, like, a decent backup center there at some point. Now, that raises the question, you know, if he does pretty well for the rest of the

season or if he just continues playing at this level over the rest of the season. Again, this level, Mike at his best here has been backup, like, just genuine decent backup point guard. Backup point card. That would be interesting to see. Like at his peak here, decent backup center on a decent team. So, like what we've been seeing from Wiseman again, I'd caution against, I'd caution, look at this, is his play in the absolute sense, rather than the relative sense, because it is a great deal better than the complete catastrophe. He had been all season otherwise, but in the absolute sense, he has still not really been great. He's been kind of okay.

But still, yeah, he's just been better. He's been a lot better, but still not necessarily good. So it brings up the question of what the front office does if he plays well for the rest of the season. So one thing to note about James Wiseman is that he will have a large cap old. So the Pistons will have to decide, I mean, before they really want to get to spending money, I mean, they will, just like they did with Bagley a couple seasons ago, decide exactly what they want to be done with him. Now, spoke about Isaiah Stewart earlier.

I've got to think at this point, especially because Weaver is presumably no longer playing with house money in the context of having leeway and making decisions that are very risky, like Isaiah Stewart a power forward, for example. Or, you know, another one was Wiseman and Bagley backing up Jalen Duren, which still remains to me a completely mystifying decision. Like two project centers backing up a second-year player who still had a lot of, who was still very raw.

So I don't think we're going to see Isaiah Stewart primarily as a power forward next season. I think that we're likely as to see him go back to starting center, which is not starting center, excuse me, backup center, which is argue, I would say, I would argue strongly, argue, you all know this, is his best position. That's where he is best suited to contribute and maybe some spot minutes at power forward in very niche situations, though. I doubt any of us are counting on Monty Williams to be that agile. detail-oriented in managing this rotation or managing the offense, or managing the defense, or doing anything in a situational basis. There are cases in which it makes sense to put Isaiah Stewart at power forward, but only niche cases. Like if he's defending Janus, cool, he's really genuinely good at defending Janus, one of the best in the league. So in that

situation, yeah, you eat what he can't do on offense for the sake of having him slow down a player who was very difficult to slow down. But again, that takes like a coach managing rotations in the proper way and presumably actually caring. So if you had Stewart at backup center, that kind of, you know, where is Wiseman in that situation? So either you're keeping Stewart a power forward in some capacity, which I think would be a mistake, or you're trading stewards in the hopes that James Wiseman is going to continue playing reasonably well as a backup center and seeing what you can get on the trade market for Stewart, which is probably going to be less than the value he offers the pistons.

So I think it's, I should note again that it's like this is a very small sample size. I'm just talking in the situation, you know, in the scenario that James Wiseman keeps this up, maybe even improves a bit. So if Wiseman stays with the pistons, it's like, okay, if he sustains this for the rest of the season and you want to give him like $6 million a year for the next three years, it's a risk because that's cap space, but the pistons are presumably going to be spending up to the cap. I mean, this is like the last year. I think we see Kay get his max and max extension in the offseason that eats up a lot of space going into the following season.

So, you know, you're a little bit better positioned at this point to, you know, throw some money to a guy that he may not entirely deserve. It's less the case than it was with Bagley, who's the cap space he was occupying this summer was actually going to be like significant in a, in a mathematical sense, in a proportional sense. Whereas if you have James Wiseman making like eight million a year. year like two or three seasons from now. I mean, the Pistons are going to be operating almost certainly as an over-the-cap team, especially if you hope that Duren does well and you hope that Ivy does well. And you have to sign these guys to contracts to, you know, the Pistons. If you're competing, if you're trying to compete, well, the Pistons are going to be over the cap for a while, I would imagine, after this off-season, unless something goes drastically

wrong. So if you're really feeling like you want to make a bet on James Wiseman, even I'll offer him like $8 million a year, or this may sound crazy, even $10 million a year. which I think would be pushing it. Let's say you offer them like $24 million over the next three years. That's risky, I suppose. But, you know, if he plays the rest of the season, you think, like, the idea, you can take risks on people. You take risk on players if you think that these are going to be bargain contracts down the line,

which point they're useful on your team itself. They're useful as trade bates, like, because you've got a decent player on a very affordable contract. I mean, that's a valuable thing. So you consider taking that risk. But I would not sign the guy for anything to be anything more than the, third string center at this point, even if he plays this way for the rest of the season, maybe if he improves the rest of the season, because switch can easily flip in the other direction

and it's such a small sample size. Whatever the case, good for you, James. I didn't think this guy had any capacity to stop being a complete dunce on the courts, and he's doing a better job of it. So I've said that it's very, very, very unusual for a player who has this full basketball IQ to improve and play better basketball. He's kind of giving lie to that, or it's not giving a lie, but he's one of those very, very unusual players, I suspect, in that regard. So good for him. I would certainly like to see James Wiseman succeed. He's placed for the Pistons.

Goes to another team, I'll be less interested in seeing him succeed. All right, so let's move on to... Oh, actually, real quick first, let's rotate back to see him on Fontecchio. So seeing a lot of discussion about what is this guy going to get on the open market. He has been good for the Pistons, no doubt about that. He was a solid role player for the Jazz, but he's certainly been kind of. good for the pistons and a small sample size. So here's what Fontecchio is. He's, I mean, you've watched him out on the court. He's decent defender. I wouldn't say he's good. I'd say he's

solid. Solid is good enough. Well, I mean, solid is solid. I don't really know where I'm going with that. Maybe a little bit above average, though. Depends. Depends on the team you're playing against. He's a strong shooter, albeit not really a guy who's creating shots for himself. And you can do some attacking off the dribble against, you know, in some situations. He's been surprisingly good against that. Excuse me, surprisingly good at that, you know, in my opinion. He's also a guy who just turned 28 and has one solid season as an NBA role player to his credit. So I wouldn't focus too much. Like in terms of thinking about what a guy, what kind of contract offer guy is going to get for a 28-year-old who just had a relatively short span of playing like genuinely good

basketball, I don't think you're going to look, you're going to be looking at really a very large salary. You consider it from the Pistons viewpoint and you consider it from Fontechio's viewpoint. Now what the Pistons could do, like I mentioned, you can give him, he has just early bird rights. You can give him the early bird maximum, which is what Austin Reeves and Herb Jones took last season, or last summer, rather, which I think was 54 million last summer. It would probably be 56, 57, maybe a little bit, maybe 56. I've done the math on that. In the, in the, in in, excuse me, this summer. I don't know why I completely lost my line of speech there.

I've had a little bit too much coffee today. So you look at that from the Pistons viewpoint. This is a guy who's 28, and he doesn't really have a large body of work. So you're dedicating, you know, about 8% of the cap to him at this point. I mean, you're taking a small risk that this guy who has one season, you're giving him four seasons at, like, I don't know. I don't know why my math is failing me here about 14 million a season on average. I guess it would be.

man what is going on with my head right now you know that's a it's a big but i mean that's a significant but not big commitment but it's a risk you know it's four years for a guy with a small body of work and you know but it's it's a risk i think you take at this point and as fantakio you came into the NBA last season you are now after your second season being handed you know assuming no player excuse me assuming no uh no team option and team options are but the not really all that common unless a team has all the leverage, but let's just assume that there's no option, no team option on this. Then you're Fontechio, you came over to the United States to play in the NBA. You're in the midst of your first good season. You're 28 years old. This is

your time to cash in. And you're offered like mid-50s millions, you know, million dollars. That's a lot of money. You know, that's really generational wealth in its own right. And at the age of 28, with one good season behind you, do you really choose to bet on yourself? I think it's unlikely. Now, the benefit. for the Pistons of him taking early bird, like I said, you know, taking that, that again, I think around $56 million over four years, is that the Pistons can then spend up to the cap, you know, and the cap will include Fontechio's cap hold, but they can spend up to that and then resign him using early bird rights. So that's, I think, the ideal situation for the Pistons as opposed to just

signing him with cap space. Now, Fontecchio, like I said, I've been impressed with him this season. I think the pistons have found themselves a good long-term role player going forward. I don't think he's necessarily ideal to start, and he's a guy if you want to play him, it's really ideally at small forward in most situations because he doesn't have much lift, and he's only south of 6-7. You know, 6-7 in the NBA is almost invariably less than 6-7. You take rounding up is almost invariably happens. So I think he's best suited to be first forward off the bench.

And of course, that his size, his size, is going to be fine and power forward into some matchups, but not into others. But yeah, solid first forward off the bench guy who can play in the postseason and so on and so forth. But I think his value should be looked at in, just like Wiseman, in the absolute sense, rather than the contextual slash relative sense, where with the pistons he's a big deal because the number of guys they have who are actually solid shooters and can play defense at this point, if you're not including Stewart, who's been a little inconsistent.

So a guy who can consistently shoot from the perimeter and play solid defense, there's one person of that description on the Pistons and that is Fontechio. So he has kind of like disproportionate value to this season's team in terms of, you know, what he's able to offer on the court. But it's in the larger sense that will determine, you know, the value he provides in the larger sense, not just to this team, this season's team in particular is what's going to, you know, determine his market value. Another team could swoop in and sign him to an offer sheet.

I think that's incredible, that would be incredibly unusual for a player of FonTech. Yos caliber, and again, they would be limited by the arena's provision to offering him like, you know, around $13 million in the first season of the contract. The Pistons would have no trouble matching. That's where it gets a little bit more complicated because years three and four in an arena's provision contract can be larger, but again, the chances that FonTecchio gets offer sheeted are, I would say, very low. You just don't get many offer sheets in general, and it's extremely rare for a decent player. Well, it's very, rare for just a decent player. That's the thing to get an offer sheet, just sign an offer sheet in the

first place. But it is just exceptionally rare for solid restricted free agents to change hands and restricted free agency. It's just a very, very rare thing. Okay, so let's move on to some topics submitted by listeners. Once again, thank you. Number one, can Kay and Avi play together? Yes. Thank you for the question. Appreciate it. Just kidding. I think yes, with a caveat, not under this coach. Going into this season, I thought it was going to be importance that and Ivy had a coach who was imaginative, was creative enough, dynamic enough to play them together on offense to their strengths. And needless to say, the Pistons did not get such a coach. And at this point, it's the same thing as it would have been, in my opinion, under Dwayne Casey, which is

who, again, great guy in the locker room. You know, players loved him. Solid defensive coach. Like, not good, but solid. Very, very uncreative, on imaginative, the opposite of dynamic in terms of coaching offense. And that wasn't a new thing. That was the thing with the Raptors as well as the NBA became more scientific and you got to run a good offense. And for him it was still just ISO City until the Saiuziri finally said, okay, well, and this was in Casey's coach of the year's season. Well, you don't get to run the offense anymore. We're running. It's basically we're moving to a new offense and Nick Nurse is going to be planning it. So it's just like it was, it would have been under Casey who, of course, only coached the two of them together for, I think, 12 games

before K get injured in Casey's final season in 2022, 2023, that it's basically, well, you get the ball, and then you get the ball, and then you get the ball, and then you get the ball, and there's very little in terms of actually making them play together and working them and using them together to their, you know, synergistically to their respective strengths. It's generally either one of them is handling the ball

and the other one is hanging out the three-point line or vice versa, which I think is a big waste. So, yeah, I think they can play together under a solid, you know, or a coach who's actually competent enough to make it work. And I think that a competent coach could make them work together quite well. Of course, Kate and Ivy both have to hit their threes. I mean, that's just a requirement in today's NBA period. You know, that's a set of very rare exceptions.

And I don't know, you can look at a guy like, I know, John Morant comes to mind just because, probably because just he and Ivy are both guys who spend most of their time attacking off the drive and are both very explosive and whatever else. Even John Morant. I mean, you see that the Grizzlies, you know, for, the last two seasons before this one were they were only somewhat worse on offense without him his morant can't really play off the ball which is a bit of a weakness needless to say

if john morant ever became a good pull-up three-point shooter it's like my goodness the guy would become basically unstoppable and for a short time i think two seasons ago he was actually looking pretty good at it and on catching shoes i think he was decent too that could be wrong of course that again is just off the drive stuff but even if job became like a solid off the ball or a solid catch and shoot guy that would be huge for the mavericks for the grizzly side of luca on the mine there so that useless tangent aside they have to be able to hit their threes that includes ivy who's been very shaky lately and i think his form still needs work i think he's spent a lot of this season kind of off kilter because of the monte williams factor just in terms of first being buried and then

his role really varying you know between okay you actually get to handle the ball a certain amounts and oh, you're just going to hang out in the periphery the offense in the corner or just shoot threes or whatever. I think it goes without saying that Monty has not been good for Ivy and probably has been bad for Ivy and has been a barrier to his development. So it just kind of comes back to Monty. I don't think you're ever going to see he at Kate and Ivy used well together under Monty Williams unless, yeah, I mean, from what we've seen this season, I just don't think that's going to happen unless things really change next season in a way that kind of leaves it like why you,

are you once again a competent coach when last season you were one of the worst coaches seen in the NBA in a very long time. So how to use Cade and Ivy together? You use them to their respective strengths. I mean, Cade is a guy who operates fairly slowly in the pick and roll. He's, you know, become a solid free level scorer. I mean, he tends to either be doing much better at the rim and not as well from three or vice versa. But I think he'll get that together. He's a very smart player.

I mean, you have to really pay a lot of attention to Cade when you're. he's in the pick and roll. So suddenly you've got a double team. You know, a double team on Kate. He's been trapped a lot in the pick and roll lately and he's doing a much better job at passing out of those double teams. So Kate is now destabilized the defense. Okay, well, if you can put Ivy in position, you want Ivy moving off the ball a lot because he's an elite off ball mover and you always got to track him because you give Ivy a small lane. He's going to jet through it. You can't just leave the guy alone and really get him, what I'm getting a running start. You go on him get a running start and catch the ball in flight, then, you know, he's, he's likely to get to the rim,

or you're going to have to send some help at him, and he's going to, you know, you're going to either follow him or he's going to be able to pass to another open man. So just have Ivy moving off the ball. Once Kay breaks down the defense, you get the ball to Ivy, and then he's jetting in. And again, he's either attracting help, the help is often not going to get there fast enough, but if it does, then you can pass to another open man. And then you're just in a position to just drive and kick and kick it around the perimeter and drive and whatever, and you've got the defense very wrong footed there. Again, Ivy, defenses know you give him space.

He's so explosive, he's going to use that space to get into the interior and probably get to the rim. So even it's like what you'd call a threat in being, just the fact that it's there is a thing. If he's moving off the ball, defenses really need to take that in as a factor. Unfortunately, I guess $13 million a year is not enough to really care about actually, you know, doing that on offense, using your players to their strengths. like basically just Cade and Ivy play at very different paces. I think they can be used together well. You know, both guys who can handle the ball, though Ivy still needs to work in his handle, of course.

But, I mean, you can basically just hunt different things with them. You know, with Cade, you're hunting in the pick and roll. And you can use what he can do to break down defenses and create lanes for Ivy. And you want offenses to, and then Ivy comes back in, and if he has to kick the ball back to Cade, then Cade has a, a destabilized defense then to work with. And I mean, they both offer things. They can work together.

I think they could work together well. Again, they both have to get their perimeter shots. But yeah, so I don't think there's really anything standing in the way of them working as a duo aside from them being used in a way that maximizes their strengths. And so in a vacuum, can they play together? Say, absolutely. Of course, defense has to improve, too, because they're both bad on defense right now. So in a vacuum, yes, who will be coaching the Pistons next season?

Probably Monty Williams, though I hope not. And with him at the helm, I don't think we're ever going to see the two of them used well as a duo. And if you're just spending, if you just have Ivy spending most of his time off the ball or just kind of attacking into impromptu sets into bad spacing or just the two of them not being schemed well together, I mean, you're really wasting Ivy in that situation and his defense is poor enough that, I mean, he's not getting good value at him. Like, even when Ivy does get to handle, it's generally not into sets that actually. actually maximize them. Kate, of course, is mostly just attacking into pick and rolls in this

painfully, painfully simplistic offense that doesn't, that is very, very lazy. And again, puts virtually no emphasis on making life difficult for the defense or on maximizing player strengths. The idea of any offense is to just present the defense with as many bad options as you possibly can. And maybe someday the Pistons will have a coach who's actually going to do that. The drum and comparison for Duren is the next one here. I don't like it. I'm going to talk. I know I've promised I won't talk about Drummond.

I've said that, of course, in the vein of just not going on rant about Drummond, I'll talk about him very briefly here in terms of, just for comparison sake with Duren, I know why this is being brought up, because Duren has occasionally questions about his level of engagement on defense and maybe just kind of the rawness factor they both came into the league very raw. So I would say that on offense, J-Wind Duren, at the age of 20, is our drastically better than Andre Drummond has ever been. His touch is just, I mean, Drummond's, unfortunately, his touch was just very, very, very, very poor. You know, as a garbage man, if he used his body well

and just carved out position for putbacks and finishes, then he could do it. You know, but it was simple stuff. You didn't want him taking any dribbles. You did not want him using any footwork because he didn't have any. You did not want him taking, you know, attempting difficult finishes around the basket. He was allergic to pump fakes. apparently like a pump fake, like punched him in the face or something earlier in his life because he never did it. Possibly he just, you know, wanted that sweet, sweet bucket so much that he wasn't going to wait. I mean, Duran is, you know, Duran can do good things. And he's got surprisingly, I mean, this has been a big surprise for me.

I mean, his touch, which was pretty poor last season and his footwork, which was not good last season. And his ability to attack off the dribble into certain matchups, which was non-existent last season. I mean, it's been impressive. He's able to do that. He's a solid score around the basket. He can attack mismatches. I don't think you really want him trying to create offense on a regular basis. Not because I think it'd be necessarily bad at it,

but you just want all of your offense to be worthwhile, and they're probably going to be better options than posting up J. Win Duren against anything but a mismatch. But just his touch is already drastically better than Drummond ever was. I mean, Drummond, unfortunately, for the Pistons, had pretty below average touch. On defense, I mean, Drummond can. came in pretty raw, Durin came in raw. I think Durin, so here's the thing about Drummond. I think that the guy had borderline all defense upside with the pistons after a point when he,

when he still had his athleticism. And he started going to athletic decline around 25 and got to 26, 27. That really started accelerating. But when he was genuinely locked in on defense, the guy could be very good, like genuinely pretty darn good. And the question about Durran, there are multiple questions about Duren. Number one is level of efforts. And I get a note about Drummond's that, you know, his level of effort, like genuinely locked in on defense level of effort was, it was unfortunately sad with the business fans.

And for him, a pretty small amount of the time. Now, Duren, you can see, in my opinion, he's very, he's not always locked in on defense. He doesn't always move on defense and work on defense like he does on offense. And he almost always works hard on offense. And that's a concern. and he's acknowledged that he has to be better, which is encouraging, but of course, words are cheap, that acknowledgement has to come with actual effort

and, you know, meaningful work put into doing better, which we haven't really seen since then. Now, when he's really locked in and playing, you know, hard on defense, I feel like he approaches even on defense. And really, if you're a traditional big, you really want to be better than Dern still a traditional big, like in the sense of not being able to face the floor and being pretty limited in terms of being able to create offense. I mean, when you're not providing that value elsewhere,

you know, when your ability to contribute on offense, you know, outside of right near the basket, is pretty low. It becomes proportionally more important for you to be a good defender. And so you want just better than decent from Durham, but decent would be a big improvement on what he's been this season. Because it's not only a matter of efforts. I mean, he makes a lot of mistakes, like a lot of mistakes more than he did as a rookie.

and we just we haven't seen the same like playing with high effort of course is also just a very important thing for anybody but if you're a traditional big you got to be a high effort guy so he moves laterally very strange like he doesn't really so much get in a low stance he tends to move pretty slow laterally tends to be laid on challenging shots he fouls a lot so that that's the concern like if durin can become like an above average defender then you've got a top 10 center there and you're feeling really good about things, though it was really his defensive potential that was, in my opinion, the big thing when he was coming in when he was coming to the league last season. And my confidence has been sort of shaken in terms of does he have the IQ to be that, the defensive IQ? And of course,

the effort just has to be there. Does he have the defensive IQ to be that strong defender? Because I think if he does, then you'll see him make some All-Star games. But just getting back to the initial question. It's basically, it's too early to tell in terms of, you know, what's Ronis and what is like actual, just a lack of acumen. I know we just talked about James Wiseman, too. So I'm not drawing any conclusions. He just hasn't done as well as I would like in his sophomore season. And we're kind of left possibly with more questions than we had after his rookie season. Now, with the drumming comparison on defense, it's like, I think that the question was asked just in the context of a pretty, you know, a traditional center who's highly athletic. Maybe doesn't have,

maybe has some issues in the effort side. But yeah, I, like how Duren plays right now does not bother me anything like how Drummond played. Because I think that Duren, even as he's not necessarily playing as hard as he could on defense, I mean, just the level of effort is still far more consistent. He's nowhere even remotely close to his selfish as Derman was. Duren will sometimes take some bad shots, but doesn't happen all that often. He's not dedicated to getting his, like unfortunately Drummond was a lot of the time. So, yep, you know, both highly athletic, both traditional bigs. But I think that's kind of an effort, sort of an issue for Duren, a big issue for Drumans.

I think that's where the comparison ends. But, yeah, Duren's ability to develop on defense, I mean, is, in my opinion, a big factor for the Pistons. Because if he stays how he is, then, you know, you're going to have to have some pretty darn good forwards with him in the front court to cover for him. Because right now, Duren, this season has been a bad defender for the most part. There are some games when he's been better, but on the whole, he's really struggled on defense. On the next question, is he an athletic Enos Cantor. Interesting. So for those of you didn't know Eamus Cantor back when he was in his quote-unquote prime, which I guess was pretty short, he was a good score. you know, strong score at center, strong rebounder,

and it's pretty darn bad as a defender. So if Duren stays the way he is right now, I'd call him, well, here's something about Nias Cantor, is that at least when I watched him, it was never a question of effort. He was just not a good defensive decision maker by any means. He also didn't have the strength and quite the, again, that strength and athleticism that Duran has, Cantor did not.

Maybe if he had it, it would have been less of an issue, though he still would have been a bad defender. So is that a valid comparison right now? I don't think it's a bad one. Fortunately, Duren's only 20, whereas Enos cancer, I think it's Enis Freedom Cancer now, or something. Sorry, I know there's something, or is it Freedom, Cancer? I just don't know. Irrelevant. I know it relates to Turkey. I'm not in the government situation there. I remember that after I said it was not meaning to besmirch his political opinions, whatever those might be. I don't know anything about it.

I just know that Erdogan really doesn't like him. Whatever the case, that disclaimer aside, yeah, cancer was still like this when he fell out of the NBA, and he fell out of the NBA in part because he just couldn't play defense. So if Daron stays as he is right now, then, yeah, I don't think that's a bad comparison. But fortunately, we're not there yet. Is Simone Fantacchio the Italian LeBron?

Well, there have not been very many good Italian players in the NBA. I think I'm missing one, but let's see, there's Galanari, who's probably the best Italian player ever, and then there is Marco Bellanelli. I'm missing one. I think there have been four counting Fontechio, who still hasn't made himself a length of the NBA career. But is he the Italian LeBron in terms of being a forward, and unless I'm forgetting something, being the most athletic? And, you know, still just having incredible, I mean, the guy plays like he has very few NBA miles on his body. it's a joke because he does have very few NBA miles on his body.

I don't know, we'll see. I mean, if you can keep this up, well, it should be noted. Gallinari was actually a darn good score for a while. So I think you can say that Gallinari is currently, well, in terms of his career. Let's see he's a worst player than Fantagio right now. Galanari has the most distinguished career of an Italian in the NBA so far. Bell and Ellie, I believe, has a championship, which Gallenari does not. But anyway, my answer will be, I hope so. That would be great. Next up, Cade is looking good. He's not there yet. But signs are pointing in the direction of him potentially being a future superstar. What implications that other players do we build her on Cade, even if it means Ivy is traded. If Cade is, again, I think Cade and Ivy can play together. But if Cade's like this near 30 point per game with three-level creator, who's a strong passer, then I don't think that's a height that Ivy is likely to reach, only because, sorry, if heard that sound, that was me dropping the pen I've been playing with.

So I don't think, I mean, I think Ivy has a high ceiling as a scorer. I don't think he's likely to ever be a lead guy. I'm just kind of getting a picture at this point. He's just not refined enough as a passer. And I know he has said he doesn't consider himself a lead guard. I think Ivy could be a strong scorer. I think he's got a lot to all of her. But if you have to pick between one or the other, and again, I mean, sadly, it's possible

Monty Williams sticks around. And who knows what happens with Ivy, but we, but maybe it's two. late when we actually might get a coach who's able to properly use them together. It's just it's so hard to evaluate so many things about this team as I talked about the last episode just under the current circumstances. But yeah, I mean, if you have to choose between the two of them, I think that Kate, if he continues to improve at attacking the basket, if he continues, if he can, you know, manage to be like a 40% three-point shooter and just continues to progress as a playmaker, I still, I think

he still has that superstar upside. And if he's like, yeah, a guy scoring in the high, averaging in the high 20s on good efficiency while dishing a lot of assists, then if you have to pick between the two of them, then, yeah, you pick, you pick Cade. It would just, it would be a shame if, and who knows, maybe Avi makes it to the end of his,

the end of his rookie contract and gets an extension that's at west than the max, and then he really blossoms under a new coach. So, I mean, even if he gets to the end of his rookie contract, and he still really hasn't broken out. Maybe you end up with a bargain contract, and he improves then. But I think ultimately, if you have to pick between one or the other on the basis of sealing, I think you would pick Cade.

What implications does it have for other players? Well, it conceivably makes, it can enhance the contributions of other players, like Jalen Duren, for example, Kate has been doing a great job lately. And then Cade operates in the pick and roll. You get a strong role man, he's going to benefit. That role man is really going to benefit from the attention that Cade is going to attract. So you enhance the contributions of, say, Jalen Duren or guys like Fontechio who are just going to shoot a bunch of open threes or catch the ball and attack closeouts or take advantage of destabilized defenses. Really, a guy like Cade, if he's playing how I think he can ultimately play, is going to make a lot of other players better.

I don't think he needs to be a heliocentric player. I think it will help him to have sort of a 1B, the likes of Ivy. The guys who can actually play strong heliocentric basketball are relatively, few. I mean, Luca comes to mind, and that's about it. Trey Young is highly heliocentric, and I just don't think it's good enough to make that worthwhile. I think Cade will be a possession-heavy guy, but it's just, it's so helpful to have things, if you're Luca, then being predictable doesn't matter. But for just about everybody else, it's so helpful to have, like, a change of pace guy elsewhere in the line, you know, elsewhere on the floor who can keep things from getting too predictable.

So like I said, I have faith for, you know, as long as Ivy can shoot, it's like, I think he can be a good partner for Cade. But at this point, like if Duren improves on defense and a Sarr becomes a shooter, it probably makes Ivy the most expendable and for trade purposes. And finally back to Duran, without defense, is he worth passing on Sarr? Well, have you ever become an elite rim protector? Is he Bam or Drummond's? Just the trouble is that you don't know ahead of time. if he's worth passing on Sarr, Sarr, who's in the upcoming class,

and I'm completely blanking on his name. I keep thinking, Olivier, that's his brother. I believe that's his brother, Olivier Sarr, who was, well, not famous for this, but I think it's hilarious. He was waived by the Thunder two seasons ago for playing too well down the stretch. He had some really good games in the Thunder won

when they really wanted to be losing, so they got rid of him. I think he's back with the Thunder and has been on the team all season, but don't quote me on that. So the trouble is, So the incoming SAR, the guy coming to the draft, really profiles as a strong defender.

Here's the thing about center. If you're strong everywhere else, you can afford to kind of punt on center and just run a guy who's solid enough on the role and who's solid enough on the role and plays decent enough defense and just you go from there. You don't necessarily need to be strong at center

as long as you've got a competent center with good players around him, then you're fine. So, of course, will that be the pistons? Will that not be the pistons? I don't think the pistons can realistically. I just don't see it. I mean, the upside is there with Duren.

Will he ever be an elite rim protector? I'd be surprised. Usually, if somebody's going to be an elite rim protector, you know it already at this point. Now, can he be a good rim protector? I think that he can do that. I think that's within his ceiling. Elite, probably not.

And I don't think you draft the two of them together and hope that one of them becomes able to shoot. I just don't think that's wise. So I'd roll the dice on Durn. I actually feel pretty good about it. I don't think, again, I think he can become a good defender. I don't think, and his health is really the thing I'd be more concerned about. Do I think he's necessarily going to be as good as Sarr, who I should note I need to do more research on the draft?

So I probably shouldn't answer that question. I know that Sarr has got high defensive upside, but I'll be honest, I just haven't researched him enough to, you know, to tell you enough about him at this point. to make that comparison, but just thinking in the sense of, you know, that I know they just got high defensive upside. I still think you go with Duren just because the allure there of, you know, if he can just become a solid defender. You know, there's just a lot to offer there. Is he BAM or Drummond?

Again, I feel like I did the drummond comparison earlier. Bam is kind of an unusual player. I mean, strong defender. Not the greatest on offense, but, you know, solid pass. or what kind of the confounding factor there is Eric Spolstra, who I think is by a significant margin the best coach in the league and can make Bam work pretty well in a three-shooter lineup. And it's just incredible at getting the most out of his players.

That makes it, you take Bam and put him on another team. You know, he's still going to be a strong defender. Is he going to have more struggles on offense? Is he going to have less value on offense, I think so? I think in some ways, Duren has already outstripped him as a score. he doesn't have a jumper. The BAM is not all that good at his jumper. I think in terms of just like touch around the basket and footwork around the basket and ability to attack off the treble, which I think he'll continue to develop. In some ways, Duren is already more versatile on offense than Bato Bio is. In other ways, again, Audubio at times can punish you for leaving him open in the interior. As a passer, I think Drummond, excuse me, Drummond, excuse me, I think Duren still has, you know, still can improve and can be solid in that capacity. And again, if you had a coach who could tie all of his player's strengths together, I mean, Duren's potential versatility is just going to be real asset.

So without defense, like if we knew that Duren is just going to be what he is for good, then, you know, then you start worrying. And then you say, should be draft a, you know, a center who's potentially got a high upside. And again, I'm not, I haven't gotten super familiar with the prospects yet. But in that situation, if it's like, yeah, this is what Duren is for good, then he can't be a starting center because he's bad defender. Like straight bad defender of the sort that it's like you're not going to go deep in the playoffs with a guy like this. It was a little terrifying watching him against, I think it was the Nets and watching Dennis Schroeder just obliterate him on switches twice.

Like it was no contest. I mean, Dennis Schroeder who's quick but not explosive just got past him and that was that. That was terrifying. It's like, it's like if that, if you were to tell me that, okay, that's just how it is, he's going to be making mental players on defense, he's going to be a half-second late on a lot of plays and a half-second late is all you need to get scored on on the NBA. And you put him into switches against quick and or explosive guards, he's just going to get shredded. Yeah, that's, uh, that's, that's, uh, that's Enis Cantor level on playable in the playoffs. The Canter had,

you know, that one decent season, decent playoffs back in 2019, but it's all not have to make that comparison, but that's, that's, that's not a playable. It's not a playable starting center in the playoffs. It's a guy who's going to get attacked constantly. It's going to be less of an issue in the regular season, but that's a guy, you know, he's, he's, he's a guy, you might blame his backup. He'd be a solid backup. Well, even then in the postseason, it would be a solid backup.

If he could just get attacked constantly, the answer would be no. You'd have trouble making that value back. So, just to take a question literally, without defense, is he worth passing on Sarr? No. If he's going to be this bad on defense for the rest of his career, then no.

If he's going to be this bad on defense to the rest of his career, then Pistons cannot include him as a major facet in their future plans. Fortunately, that story remains very much yet to be written. All right, folks, That'll be up for this week's episode. As always, I want to thank you all for listening. Hope you're doing super well.

Catch you in next week's episode.