Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 190: Evaluating Positives

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

This episode takes a break from the nightmarish tone of the season to examine positive takeaways. 

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. I'm Mike, and as always hope you're all doing super, super well today. It feels like it's been a lot longer than a week since I released the last episode, and it's kind of realizing right now that that's because, probably for all of us, every hour of Pistons basketball we watch is a lot like a week has passed in real time in terms of the toll it takes upon us. Reminds me of this old YouTuber who stopped making videos a decade ago. This guy named Fitz Thistelwitz, was doing a review of one of the civilization games, and those of you who played those games will know what I'm talking about here. And he says, you know, the game is term-based, but it's meant

to feel as if it's being played in real time. An hour-spending game will feel like you've wasted a thousand years in real life or something like that. You know, we're in the final stretch of a season that has been nightmarish beyond anything any of us could have anticipated, and which, you know, I mean, the fans of the Pistons have experienced a low, literally never experienced by any other NBA, fans of any other NBA team. It's that 28 game losing streak. Almost everything has gone wrong. And I'm sure we're all feeling exhausted.

But I don't want that to be the tone of the rest of the episodes for this season. It's been done to death. I mean, well, not just done to death. I mean, we've all lived through it. We all know where things stand right now. We've got, as of tonight, and recording this right. after the game against the Timberwolves. We've got, I believe, nine games remaining in the season.

I haven't looked at the schedule. I don't know how many weeks that is, but for the remainder of the season, I'm going to try to stick to just listeners submitted questions. Again, really, as always, really, really appreciate those of you who get into contact with those with me, you know, with subjects who'd like to discuss. Always super helpful for me to know what you guys want or would like me to talk about, you know. Well, I'm honored in the first place. that you like listening to me talk at all.

That's, uh, thank you. You know, I'm glad that's in knowing that, uh, knowing that you guys, the listeners, you know, enjoy the content I put out really means the world to me and it's why I do it. And it might get a little tough to come up with content, uh, to fill the time between, uh, the end of the season and the draft water eve, though, be realistically, probably this season. I'll just do the player reviews during that time rather than after the, excuse me, rather than after the draft as I usually do them.

And then after the lottery, get into draft content. And just in the interest of 100% honesty, I mean, this season's been so wearing that I haven't even gotten started with draft research yet. But fortunately, you know, there's plenty of time at this point. Well, who knows if that's fortunately. I guess there are those of us who hoped at the pissence might make the plans or maybe even the playoffs this season. Obviously, that hasn't happened, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't need to get into that. So I'll do something a little bit radical today.

And not actually. I'm kind of being facetious or exaggerating for effect. but I'd like to at least at the start and I'll see how far this takes me in terms of in terms of how long it takes me rather to look at what positives there have been this season and probably expand on the season as a whole in a season review episode. I'm not sure I'm honestly going to have the heart to do a season review episode but maybe I'll find somebody who's interested in doing that episode with me and then we'll see where that goes but for now I guess for my sake would just be like to talk about what the positives are. Granted, there are many fewer positive takeaways to this season than any of us would have

liked, or probably than any of us would have thought there would be, but there are positive takeaways. Future of the franchise looks bleak, but there are positive takeaways. And I think those should be acknowledged as well. And maybe they'll make me feel a little bit better going over them, and hopefully you too. So I'm going to start, I'm just going to order this by Jersey number, because, uh, I don't know. I've pulled up the list on basketball reference, just so I can remember everybody and gives you the opportunity. It gives you the ability to sort by any number of factors,

and Jersey number seems like as good as one as any. So that starts us off with number zero, Jalen Duren. And the positive for me this season about Duren has been his progress on offense. Last season, I mean, I was very confident about his offense last season, excuse me, about his defense last season. And I thought that his only realistic first season, excuse me. And I thought that his only realistic failure route in the NBA, is his only realistic roots of failure, rather, was if he was just not able to get it together as a finisher, because he really struggled on layups last season. I mean, the guy could dunk most things, but if he was forced to weigh the ball up through any sort of coverage, he was genuinely missing it more than half the time.

I think he finished last season like 43% on layups, and also it was a bad free throw shooter. So I was thinking those combination of things, like if you just can't be a solid finisher, and when he's fouled, he just can't make his free throws with the efficiency that he'll need, then that could be his route out of the NBA. Of course, his defense hasn't been quite as good this season, but, and that's a topic for another time. But his improvement on offense has been remarkable, not just in terms of his finishing, which has improved drastically. I mean, not outside of, you know, still just as capable of dunking everything as he was last season,

but just in terms of his touch around the basket, his poise, his patience, his footwork, I mean, all of these things have improved tremendously, like to a degree that we don't often see just between, you know, rookie and sophomore seasons. He's also able to do some attacking off the dribble. He's able to, you know, just the ability to put the ball on the floor is one that, you know, a vast majority of traditional centers don't have. He, you know, just is able to do some creation in other ways as well, especially. against mismatches. He's got this pretty good flick floater, that a high arcing, that he can use to get

over tall rim defenders. He is just in general proven pretty capable of scoring against strong room protectors. And, I mean, any questions I had about his offense have been put to rest and then some, you know, in terms of the realm of scoring at least, and it's worth noting on also that in the realm with free throws. He's at close to 80% this season, which is huge. So that's been a major positive this season. His passing, I mean, we continue to see flashes. He can be a little careless at times, but we continue to see flashes of him as a decent connective passer. I don't think he's a guy you're going to be throwing the ball to and expect him to draw a double team and dish out of that to an open guy, but that he's a willing passer who's often looking for the pass if it exists.

And we've just gotten to see more of that this season than we did in his rookie season. season. So on offense, I mean, for anybody who is concerned about parallels to Drummond, it should be comforting at least that Duren at the age of 20 is already tremendously better as a score than Drummond has ever been at the age of 30. So those are Duren's positives. Number two, Kate Cunningham. There's a lot to talk about to break down Cade's game. And he always, he hasn't really been the most consistent this season. But I think, think the biggest thing with Cade is I think that he has shown, I think he's demonstrated pretty strongly that he does have the potential to be a takeover player, to be a superstar player,

to be a guy who is just a very intelligent, a big handler, who can make the right reads, can make the right passes, can general an offense, and can score at all three levels. There's not a ton more to be said about that, in my opinion. I mean, I think that's a pretty big thing for me at least. it's a pretty big thing on its own. Like I said, the issue has been consistency, just in terms of playing at that high level, and also, you know, needing to ideally be able to reach the baskets

and shoot threes across the same stretches. He's done alternately one really well and the other not well, or vice versa. But if he had gotten through this whole season, which was really a second season, without showing flashes of that real takeover potential, then it would be concerning because at this point, I mean, the pistons really still are depending upon Cade to be their franchise player. And I think this season he showed that he does have that capability, which for me is very reassuring.

But there's a lot more that can be said about Cade, and I'll get to that. And my player review would probably be the first one I do or the last one. I'm not sure. Anyway, moving on. So number five, the Detroit Red Wings had Nicholas Widstrom. The Detroit Pistons have Chamezi Metu. I'm just messing around. The guy's a 10-day player.

There's another example of a dude who, if he could just shoot, could have a career in the NBA, but he can't. Number seven, Troy Brown Jr. Not worth talking about. It was weird to me that he got very, very little playing time, you know, under the likes of Tosan, who's, I'm so sorry, I still can't pronounce his last name. I keep hearing it, but I haven't actually locked it down in my head.

But he wasn't getting minutes over players who, arguably he deserved it more then, you know, at least in the context of, let's see if there's a decent rotation player we should keep on a $4 million team option next season. But he's begun getting minutes again, and he's been pretty bad. He's an enigma of a player, who on paper should be able to be a solid NBA role player, but isn't. Number eight is Rodin, two-way player, no point talking about him. Number nine brings us on to a pretty important one as a Sarr Thompson. So a lot of pluses for a Sarr this year.

You know, some of these we knew already. which is that he's incredibly hardworking. He's smart. He's coachable. He will do exactly what has asked of him. He is constantly team first, never takes a playoff. And, yeah, just really a model teammates and model sportsman. On the defensive side of things, again, we knew he was coming out of overtime elite as a pretty strong defender, but he has been a remarkably strong wing defender at the NBA level.

It's really in every respect aside. Maybe you could argue that he follows a little bit too much, but that's not unusual for a rookie who's a very physical defender. Just in terms of his ability to stay with guys, his ability to navigate screens, to provide weak side rim protection to play ball denial. Just his defensive IQ, his decision-making, he rarely makes mistakes. He has a skill which is unusual in today's NBA,

with its focus on getting advantageous matchups through on-ball and out-ball screens. He has the ability to stay with opponents, which is not as easy as it sounds, the ability to be a lockdown one-on-one defender is not easy anymore, but Asar has the speed and the smarts to do it. We saw it wait in the season in particular, a game against Mikhail Bridges, who hasn't been quite as good as the Nets would have hoped after his explosive end of the season last year, but it's still pretty darn good. Asar just made his life generally miserable.

In that game, we saw it against Wuka Danchich in what was an abbreviated performance before. Asar left the game. What was that? I think he left in the second quarter, maybe for the last time this season. I can't remember. But prior to his departure from the game, he was just causing Luca huge problems, which hardly anybody can do. And then after he left, Luca completely popped off and got, what was it, his 10th 30-point triple-double in a row. Whatever, Luca's an amazing player, obviously. So, yeah, I saw his defense very, very worthy of note. His, on offense,

and other shootings an issue, of course. We saw that he can explode, but again, talking positives, we saw that he can explode into open. Waynes very effectively, you know, he's a solid cutter. He can vertically space the floor. He's very strong in transition. And, you know, decent passer, willing passer, of course, sees the floor well. Just an intelligent player.

We all know, I think, what Asar is, which is a guy who has the capability to be an elite role player in the league if he can just shoot the ball. And there were definitely some positive, takeaways this season. The shooting for him, as with anybody else, remains a must. And I'll say what I've said before. I'm, for whatever reason, confidentness are. I mean, the odds in terms of historical data are against him. But I think he has it in him to become like a 36% three-point shooter. Moving on to number 13, Lucky 13, James Wiseman. Very much all the positives for Wiseman have

come in the last three weeks. Up until about three weeks ago, he was a walking disaster. one of the worst players in the league. And I don't know if it was Taj Gibson or what, but he has been a significantly different player from, I can't remember what game it was onward. Was it Dallas? Dallas was probably his best game. But now we have a James Wiseman who at the very least tries,

gives 100% effort on every play, who gives you some reasonably decent rim protection, who, you know, plays much more of a team first game on offense, less dumb shots. and, you know, it shows you maybe some small flashes of what the Warriors hoped he could be when they drafted him. Hopefully not too little too late. Who knows what things will be next season, whether he'll be back as the third string or what. But it's definitely, at the very least, been a positive development.

Just to see him, just to see his attitude change so much. I mean, as though he continues to have his struggle, certainly, against good teams. I mean, at this point, nobody tries, I mean, some guys try as hard as he does, but nobody, nobody plays harder than Wiseman ever since this little transformation of his. So that's a positive at least, and we'll see where it goes. Number 14, Malachi Flynn. Don't, you know, why? I just hope he's not the third string point guard next season.

Stanley Amouda, you didn't get to know you too well. Now, I want to go over this. It's really easy to poo-poo two-way players or guys in rest of season contracts. guys like Stanley and Mouda. I think it deserves to be kept in mind that is incredibly difficult to get to the NBA. You know, the vast majority of professional basketball players, all of whom start out with the goal of being the best

and making it to the best league and being the best player and the best player. It is extremely rare that a player gets the opportunity to play a minute in the NBA. It is the top of the mountain, in my opinion, the most competitive team sports league in the world. Or all men that I don't really know anything outside. of the major sports, but we'll say out of the four major sports in the United States or North America, well, you know what I mean, hockey, basketball, football, and baseball.

I think the NBA just on the basis of how few players are in the league and the extent of talent manifestation, I think it's the most competitive league out of them all. So even just to get in the NBA is tough. And as a fringe player, when you get an opportunity like Amude was set to get, as it's, you know, if you get to the NBA through any means but the draft, it's even harder to break in. You know, when you get an opportunity like he was set to get, which is to play significant minutes for the rest of the season, even for a really bad team, I mean, if you're a fringe player and you get in to play for any NBA team, I mean, getting a two-way contract for a player like a Moodei,

for a player like Rodin is a huge deal. I mean, think about this. You've been trying to break into the NBA and suddenly, yeah, you're not on a guaranteed deal, but suddenly you've got like the possibility of a pathway into the best league in the world, something you've dreamed of your entire life. I mean, that's a big deal. So a player like a Moodei who, oh yeah, you don't care which team it is, by the way, in that situation.

You don't care if it's, you know, a team that's in the midst of its worst season ever and lost 28 games in a row of the season. You don't care about that. If you're Stanley Amouda, if you're Jared Roden, whoever it is, you are blessed to have any sort of place in the NBA. I mean, I've got to think that that's what any of these guys are thinking.

I think is, again, NBA, absolute top of the mountain. So now you're a moody, and for the last like 12 games of the season, your set to play significant minutes probably starting. Now is your opportunity to maybe show some teams what you can do, maybe stick with the pistons next season, and then you fracture your ankle. I mean, poor guy. That is just, he might not ever get this sort of opportunity again. Would he necessarily have made something of it? I'm not so sure. I don't, I think that he has major struggles and decision-making on both ends. But who knows? But about a moody, I mean, did come in and shoot the ball well. So good for him. It's always a skill that'll be in demand.

Of course, he has to be able to make these basic decisions on defense and offense. And even if he's shooting well, I think that's, that may be the point of which you get stuck. But who knows? Tozan, again, don't know how to pronounce his last name. So sorry about that. But just really haven't seen enough of him. I could make jokes about being an Ivy League and used to joke with a friend of mine during the NCAA tournament. This is a while back that the players from Harvard, and they won this particular game back in 2014. They won because they, I think it was 2014, they were able to, in their heads,

determine the precise angle on the amount of force they would have to exert to get the ball in the basket. But, yeah, just haven't necessarily seen enough of him in meaningful. play to know what he's necessarily going to be able to offer here. So I won't get, don't get too deep into that, definitely a recent addition to the team. Fontecio, major positive, I would say, is how he has come to the Pistons and established himself as most likely a guy who's going to be with the team for some time, probably on a relatively affordable deal. This is a reflection on the struggles and roster building for this team,

Also just on how well he played in a small but still significant sample size that he is one of the best role players this team has had in quite some time, just in terms of his ability to space the floor at a high level. His ability, which has been surprising, to attack off the dribble, whether that's catching the ball in flights or whether that's just attacking somebody who has to who plays him closely because you have to play him closely and getting past, you know, a slower defender through, you know, through it. not a great first step, but quick enough, generally just curling around and sometimes using a fairly strong frame to, you know, to keep himself on track and scoring at the rim or passing it. He's a willing passer as well. And his defense, which is solid, he plays with a ton of energy. And yeah, I mean, I think he's been better than, you know, if you expected him, I was going to say better than many of us had expected. I just thought that we'd be getting a just a decent defender and and a good three-point shooter, and he's been much more than that.

Again, small sample size, but he's something to be excited about. The Pistons have not really had reliable, much in the way of reliable role players in a long time. And certainly not since the rebuild began. Unfortunately, this front office's project role players have just really not turned out well. 23. Jaden Ivy, the best player ever to have that number in the history of the NBA. kidding, of course, this being a reference to LeBron and Michael Jordan. So Ivy, excuse me, he, the one thing that he monumentally improved that was his ability to score at the rim. Last season, his finishing started out, like half decent, but not very good, and then got worse as the season went on.

He just had trouble finding lanes and handling the ball rights and moving laterally. and generally he would get stopped well short of the rim, and when he got there, he would just have a lot of trouble scoring through contact and scoring through rim protection. And though he's really struggled lately overall, I mean, just his strides as an attacker off the dribble, just as a slasher have been pretty remarkable.

His percentages, of course, have dropped in recent weeks as he's really been struggling, but up to that point, I mean, he was borderline elite in terms of attacking the basket. He's made some strides on offense as well, which, excuse me, on defense, which is important. He still really has a struggle as there, but any progress is any progress. But, yeah, just as a slasher, you know, he's just made very, very significant strides. And that's important, you know, for obvious reasons.

Quentin Grimes, haven't seen too much of him, not much to be said. Sasser at least looks like, you know, it's been a mixed bag for him as well. but he's a better creator for teammates, really, than I had expected a guy who came out of the NCAA as a four-year player and really was a very indifferent playmaker there. He's found ways to parlay the gravity he attracts as a guy who is always a threat to score off the dribble. It kind of reminds me of Blue Williams in that respect into the ability to create open looks for teammates. He's also been very, very safe with the ball. his assist at turnover rate at this point.

You know, about three assists and one turnover. He's been able to handle the ball on a higher volume as the season has gone on. I wasn't really doing much of that earlier in the season. But just in general, you see the makings of a pretty good shot creator. Consistency just has to be worked on. I just keep coming back to Lou Williams. If he can just be more consistent as a pull-up shooter and his percentages as a pull-up shooter are actually pretty darned.

solid and it's just a matter of consistency. But if he can just be a guy who comes off the bench and is able to hit tough shots and, you know, bend the defense just by his ability to make tough shots and use that to create for his teammates, then great. This is just all to say that I think his playmaking has been better than I expected it to be. Coming into the season, I thought he would just be an undersized shooting specialist who, you know, would struggle to really find a, who would have a dubious fit into this roster or any given roster, but particularly this roster. And I think he's shown that he might have some capability as a primary handler. Isaiah Stewart number 28. So Stewart, I mean, one thing that's immediately worthy of note is that

he had, you know, by far his best season is a three-point shooter at upwards of 38%. I'm not by any means saying this as I told you so. But I just, I've always had faith in Isaiah Stewart's shots. I think he's got, he's got the touch. He has the mechanics. Again, consistency is in necessarily ideal, but I think he's showing he can do it. And three-point shooting was always, in my opinion, going to be a mandatory commodity for Isaiah Stewart, who has his struggles out to bra on offense, like at center particularly on the pick and roll. And I won't belabor the issue of Isaiah Stewart, power forward. Aside from that, I think if that's still his primary position next season, then the front office should be drug tested. But,

Yeah, at center, you know, the ability he would give you to play in a five-out offense for pick-and-pop actions. And, you know, in the postseason, certainly as a guy who has very, very little variance in his effectiveness between switch and drop, and, you know, can play into small-ball schemes effectively. Yeah, that three-point shooting is just going to be invaluable, not only invaluable for him, but necessary for him. It would be a positive presence on offense, and I feel like he's demonstrated fairly well this season that he can do it. So that's definitely been a positive development. And that takes us to the last three, all of whom are meaningless. Evan Fornier. Sorry, dude.

Hope you won't be on the team next season. Buddy Beheim, who, well, we've talked about him already there too. And Taj Gibson, who, you know, thanks for being a solid veteran. I kind of feel like this is the kind of end-of-bench guy that this team really could have used earlier in the season. Just a really stabilizing vet who has a real positive impact upon the players around him. we didn't get that unfortunately but you know for whatever positive impact he has had well done thank you and that's it because of course the pistons have i've lost quite a few players i don't think we really need to talk about you know the season positives of killian hayes or alec burkes or isaiah livers bagley knox

um bogdanovitch or any of the the other guys who have played very little for this team so like i said there are there are positives come out of the season It kind of feels a little bit more difficult to maybe to believe in those as meaningful, just in the larger context of where this franchise finds itself, which is at a very precarious point in the rebuild, in terms of how do you write the ship? What do you do this summer? Does the core fit together?

Like, how are we going to find complementary talent around the fringes to fit out this roster? If it's Cade, how do you build around him? You know, how are we going to put together like a complete product? in terms of the roster and this says nothing of the coaching, which I don't even feel like talking about again for a long time. But, you know, there are these positive takeaways. It's just it's going to be either, it's funny to say this, it's going to be either an important offseason or an unimportant off season. And I'm not sure, or put that differently, like an active or an inactive off season, depending on basically, Tom Gores, is he okay with another season of, okay, let's see what we have in terms of development from the Uithina?

We'll put more reliable role players around them. We're not going to do what we did this season, just fielding a bunch of projects when we had really no business whatsoever doing so, given the untested nature of a lot of the other players in the roster and the fact that we actually want to compete. But, you know, are we just going to just add some role players and just hope for development, or are we going to make major changes in an effort to win next season? And the former obviously has its downsides in terms of likely to be, well, who knows? It's hard to see it's not impossible. I never like to say that this isn't going to happen.

But it's hard to see a root to the pistons, like, for example, being like a 41 team next season. But you never know. You know, just the idea of another, well, we're just going to work on development season, is a little bit panicking, just given how this. season is gone and given that we sat through, you know, three years of development slash tanking for draft position before that, about three and a half if you count the latter third of COVID season. But the alternative is maybe a little bit scarier, which is if Tom Gore says we got to hit

the gas here and, you know, make some moves because I want this team to be a lot better next season. I mean, one thing you can do to make the team a lot better next season or significantly better would be to change the, you know, make a coaching change. Of course, again, I don't really want to talk about Monty Williams, but I think that just has to be noted that coaching was a factor this season, a negative factor. And one of the things that scares me the most is that for how many years in a row

would it be that coaching has had a negative impact. And it just sucks to see a team trot out no matter what the roster is, no matter how bad the roster is to have the guy in charge make it worse than it really is rather than better. but if Tom Gores says I really want to see big improvements, that's a dangerous situation where Gores is concerned. So hopefully a middle ground can be found there. But the team at this point remains extremely dependent upon development

from its core, from Cade, from Ivy, from Duren, from Assar Thompson. So some topic suggestions I got focused around free agency. I've already talked a little bit about that, and I kind of want to leave it until after the season. to just talk about that more at length and also about the pre-lottery draft prediction, the best case and worst-case scenario. Again, I still have to do my research. Just kind of planning on talking about just saving talk about free agency until after the season, actually,

until after the season is over. I will say what I've already said, which is that free agency is not looking particularly great. There are some guys you can look at there just to talk about. briefly about it, like Malik Monk, for example, who can only be paid about $19.19, $19, $19, be a little bit below a minimum wage, $19 million per year by the kings who are over the cap and only hold early bird rights, which means that, yeah, they wouldn't be able to offer him more than $19 million a year. And guys like Gary Trent Jr., be a solid bench player. So there are some dudes out there. Just the issue is that most of the dudes out there are not

very good, and also the Pistons will be competing with other teams that have Capspace and are in a better position in terms of where they stand, you know, where they stand in terms of their ability to win games, and whether they are teams that are pretty good in the right now or teams that are just further along in their rebuilds. So it'll be interesting to see. That's a ways in the future might be a little bit scary, but we'll see. One thing I do want to mention about Tobias Harris, is, I mean, I should be pointed to, the guy is at, uh, what I think? South of 34% from three this season. He shot 34% or 35% from three, two seasons ago.

And he's at south of, last I checked, south of 35% on catch and shoot threes. So it's not just that he's taking a lot of pull-ups. Tobias, if we could get like 2018, 2019, Tobias, I'd be like, absolutely. Bring it on. but he's not really that player anymore, a player who's reliable from three and adept at attacking off the dribble. I mean, he's still technically versatile

that he can, yeah, he can't attack the rim off the dribble. He is decent and isolated. He's actually pretty good in isolation, especially against, you know, against mismatches, whether they be small players or just slower forwards. And, you know, he can post up mismatches. He is just a solid finisher around the rim and so on. It's just the thought of bringing another shaky shooter onto this team

kind of fills me with a little bit of panic. Well, not panic, but it just does not sound like the right thing to do. This team does not have enough in the way of reliable shooting. Do you want to pay money? And that assumes that he'd come to the pistons when I think Tobias, who is a very, very avid competitor, would probably want to win a championship and might take less money from another team to do that.

You know, he's going to be 32. his prime is reaching its close. He's going to start to decline. Now is his time to still have a major role in a contender. So that's going to be a consideration. But Tobias, I mean, unfortunately, and we can talk about letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But, you know, you picture the idea of bringing another shaky shooter onto this roster, under this roster, which is one of its characteristics. You know, one of its crowning faults is that just the shooting isn't there. And that's somewhere where Malik Monk could help. But again, the Pistons are going to be competing with teams that are in better positions, you know, for the services, even the likes of

Monk, who I would imagine at this point is going to be really looking to cash in. It's just at that stage of his career, at that age. So I'll just end with a final question. It's actually two questions from the same listener. Thank you, Andy. number one since kate need shooters around him to succeed and since none of our young guys can shoot should we dump the young guys minus kade figure we're referring here to primarily to ivy and and to assar thompson not durin just being a a traditional big i don't think he's ever going to be able to shoot but should we dump the young guys minus kate or should we dump kade i mean if you dump kade then you've just got a bunch of guys who can't shoot which is a problem in the first place assuming we're talking about the other three but also i think he's he's the only one of the three who's actually qualified to be a real lead creator. And I think the only one of the three who has real takeover potential is a score. I think Ivy can be a real solid number two if he reaches his ceiling.

Maybe make some All-Star games. But I think Cade's the only one of my superstar potential. I don't think you can dump Cade in any situation. I just don't think it's a viable option. So if I had to pick one of those two, and if we're talking, you know, dump in the context of trading them for guys who would, you know, fit better around. him, then I'd have to go with trading the others. But I think trading any of them, any of the three of Duren, Thompson, and Ivy at this point would almost certainly mean selling low in a way that

I don't think would be worthwhile for the Pistons. I think patience makes a lot more sense. Rather than sell low, just take a chance on them developing into good players whom you'll be able to keep and you'll have restricted free agent rights on whom you'll be able to resign with bird rights. And at that point, Excuse me. At that point, you know, you just hope for that. And at that point, if they have high value and they're under contract, you can trade them for, you know, then you trade them if that makes sense for your roster. And second, what is the player archetype?

That would maximize the current abilities of Ivy Duren and Assar. So that's a tough one. When it comes to Asar, there's really no way to maximize him, so to speak. I mean, you can surround him with four shooters. But the fact is that he'd have to be way. better as a creator than he is right now to make that really worthwhile. I mean, and we're talking like Janus and Jimmy Butler good. I mean, it's just, it's really hard to make a non-shooter worthwhile and to just say, okay, well, we're just going to, we're going to have shooters around you.

I mean, your typical model there is okay, but you're the one running the offense and then you've got the shooters around you with, which obviously is, I mean, if Hussar ends up being that player, then, well, that's interesting. And so that's, that's a good, problem to have because that's a very high ceiling score. Of course, that seems not particularly likely. And I don't think that's the question you're asking. But yeah, so is Saar, I don't think there is a player archetype that can really maximize him to a worthwhile degree if he can't shoot. Duren, if you can't play defense, that's a tough one. I mean, Duren's defense at this point is like replacement level. This is not a guy you can have as your starting center if you want

to be a good team at this level of defense. Occasionally, I mean, occasionally shows you that he can be a reasonably, you know, a decent defender. You know, not what you'd hope for when the Pistons drafted him. I think that they did so probably in significant part on the basis of his defensive potential. But, yeah, I mean, at times he really puts in the work and he shows you what he can do in terms, at least in terms of on-ball offense. He's off, you know, he's able to stay with guys. He's Wong. He's athletic.

And it's just the off-ball offense, the decision-making, even when he's trying hard. are very questionable at this point. I remain hopeful. My opinion of his defensive ceiling has maybe gone down somewhat, but I'm still hopeful that, you know, agent and seasoning, because, again, he's still just 20. Age and seasoning will do him some good, that the work ethic really has to stabilize.

But darn at this point, again, work ethic really being a factor. I mean, if he doesn't, if he continues to play defense, how he has been this season, then he's like a backup center in this week or a good center, or, you know, or a starting center for a bad team because he's, he's complete jelly on defense. So, again, that's a tough one. If you can just get the defense together and then you've got the makings of a, you've absolutely, I mean, just as a solid defender, even if he doesn't reach that sort of, you know, high, well, if he doesn't become a strong defender, I'll put it that way.

You know, even if he is just a solid defender, then you've still got the top 10 center there. And then you just have to have the guys around him be able to shoot, but he's a traditional center. Guys around him have to be able to shoot no matter what. Also, he's just the center period. You know, the other four guys should be able to shoot anyway unless they're these kinds of rare superstars, again, like a Janus or a Butler or a Draymond,

who are in a situation that doesn't demand that they be able to shoot, and they've got just the exact right teams around them. So, yeah, so Duran in general, guys who can maximize his current abilities on offense, just shooters. And I guess on defense, you want to throw a really good help side guy in there. I mean, Stewart does help in that he's very able to defend the paint. So if during his out of position there and Stewart or gets switched on the perimeter,

Stewart can run in there and play defense. But, of course, that playing a power forward really just wastes a lot of things for Stewart. And finally, Ivy, again, shooting has to come together. That's on him. If he can just shoot well, then he has a lot to offer on offense. Again, I think it's going to take a competent coach in order to use he and K'd productively together according to their strengths and I think that they can work. But the shooting has to be there. So, yeah, it comes down to Ivy and Assar. I mean, they have to be able to shoot. Ivy is not good

enough to be the sort of Morant player who is just unstoppable on the weight of the basket. Even then, that model is questionable with the Grizzlies. I guess I forgot, Ja, when it comes to guys who can't really shoot and you have an offense that plays around them. And Ivy, I mean, the Morant is just a, just transcendence, excuse me, at attacking the basket. in a way that I think I'd be very surprised if Ivy were a horribly anybody is. So, yeah, Ivy's just got to be able to shoot. I don't think you can just say, especially given that he's more of just kind of like a driving kick guy

rather than a weed handler. Yeah, I don't think he's a guy. You can just deal with with the bad shooting and surround him with shooters. He's just got to be able to shoot too. So I don't think that answers your question necessarily. I think that these are just guys who all have to address critical areas of weakness. during the defense with a sarah shooting and with ivy the shooting as well. So I don't think there is a player archetype which can compensate for the weaknesses they have at the moment.

And Ivy is the closest, of course. If Ivy can just be a reliable shooter, then he's going to be able to contribute to an offense period, though his defense is still rather shaky, quite shaky, and he's got to provide quite a bit of value on offense in order to really make a significant positive impact upon the game. Again, this has not been an ideal season. close this with with my opinion on on ivy's struggles of late and his sophomore slump in general which has really just kind of been a late season sophomore slump is that sure there are some issues with ivy himself like some issues with just playing under control with his shooting his form has

really devolved in the last month or so and in his three-point shooting has just been terrible he sees been bad overall since the break so he has some things he needs to work on on the shooting, of course, is non-negotiable. And just playing more under control like he did down the stretch of last season. And at times this season, that's also, you know, that's a must. And that was also an area of concern coming into the NBA, just his ability to make the right reads and decisions. I would say also he has been handicapped by how he has been coached just in being benched

for ostensibly for reasons of defense when really none of his teammates were ever held accountable for playing bad defense. And then there's basically being buried, you know, playing for the bench, occasionally being the 10th man, and being denied the opportunity to really handle the ball in any capacity, you know, even for all bench units that were dying for their lack of ability to penetrate, kind of toiling under those circumstances until, whether it was the front office or the owner, said, you know, said to his coach, you have to put Ivy in the starting lineup. and then being denied the opportunity to handle the ball, which he did a lot last season, until, again, whether it was the front office, the owner said to his coach, you have to let him handle the ball.

And then still being plunked in the corner for long stretches and doing nothing, you know, in any given game or, you know, or just being denied a consistent role. Like, okay, you can handle the ball in this game. But on the next game, you're just going to spend a lot of time in the corner and, you know, either we're not going to put any effort at all into running sets for you. into giving you the ball and an advantageous position and allowing you to attack off the dribble. Or we'll give you some, but even then, even in these recent games,

he hasn't been getting the usage you probably deserves. It's just, it's been, this is a bad situation for a young developing player, and Ivy is still somewhat raw. Ivy has, in my opinion, this has been my opinion since his rookie season that he might be this sort of player who doesn't truly come online until season three. But this was, I've got to think, a terrible development. environment for him this season. When you have any young player, you want to give them a consistent role, as consistent as you can, and put them into position to succeed the best way that they can,

the best way that you can. And the opposite of those were done with Ivy this season. So this is all just to say that I don't think he should, I don't think it's reasonable in two ways. Number one, because he was a player who was coming in who was, who really, it was still somewhat raw and had quite a bit of a development to do. But also that this is, has just been such a mess of a season in how he has been coached. And yeah, he was denied that, he was denied being put into the, you know, the best position to succeed. He was denied the opportunity to have a significant role. And he was just basically jerked around for the vast majority of the season. And that's a really tough situation for a young player to be in. So,

you know, I'm still hopeful that we're going to see better out of Ivy. And hopefully he's more responsibly coached next season. Because he's, you know, that is an important thing. And so that'll be it for this week's episode. As always, I want to thank you for listening. Hope you're all doing well. Catch you in next week's episode.