Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 192: Two Paths Forward

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

This episode builds upon the previous episode by expanding further upon the team's two potential paths forward (win now vs. development), and spends some time underlining that the Pistons are in an even more unenviable position than one might think.

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Driving to the Baskets. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all doing super well today. So before I get going, just want to apologize for something the last episode. I only realized well after the fact when one of you, a listener, got in contact with me. And he didn't say this in so many words, but that I spent a lot of that episode ranting about Monty Williams, which I've done a lot of. I did a lot of during the season. Not it was necessarily undeserved because we all know how horribly was. but you've heard more than enough of me doing that.

I've been told some of you find a cathartic, which is great, but I think that I could probably just put up better content than that. And, you know, what, hopefully he's gone next season. I think any incoming president of basketball operations would hopefully not look at him and say, you were a complete disaster and the worst coach we've seen in decades. Here, I have another year. So hopefully not, but I'm going to try to disclude Monty Williams' Rance

from the remainder of my off-season content is because, again, I just don't think they're all that, well, maybe they are, but I've done enough of it, and probably some of you don't want to hear more of it. So if he has kept his coach, I'll talk about him a little bit then. We'll try not to rant even then. But let's move on. So today, and yeah, this is a Friday episode, which is unusual for me. I had some scheduling stuff earlier in the week, but, you know what, it's the off-season.

So I'm just going to build a little bit of the first. a little bit on what I talked about last week in terms of how it's going to be an interesting offseason for the organization. And I'm actually going to get started on draft stuff a little bit sooner than I thought I would because the draft lottery has really snuck up on us. At least it snuck up on me, probably because there's unfortunately very little to be excited about this season in terms of the draft lottery. Basically, we all know it.

This is a week, at least what's looking right now, like a remarkably weak draft class in terms of really top-end talent. Just by simple math, you know, it's likely that there will be a good, you know, a very good player or two within the draft class. You just never know where in the draft. And in this kind of draft, you just never know where in the first round

or even the second round that might be. Like 2013 was a remarkably weak draft. Best player, of course, was Janice, who went in, I think it was number 13 or number 14. A fun story about that. If any of you don't know this, so Mark Cuban, until Matt Ishpia, who's like Mark Cuban on speed,

took over in Phoenix. Mark Cuban had really been the most active owner in terms of participating in management decisions. And his general manager is Donnie Nelson, with whom he had kind of an acrimonious split a couple years ago, came to him and said, you know, Mark, this guy is the future, this, you know, this Janus kid, he's the future, and we got to draft him.

Like no ifs and Zanzibbutz, we got to draft him. And Mark Cuban said, no, I want to trade out of the first round so we have more cap space so we can make big offer to Dwight Howard. And the rest is history. Of course, Luca took them another four years to get him. It's a nice consolation prize. But I guess that's just another object lesson of why owners shouldn't get overly involved in team affairs. Your best owners are going to hire really very good personnel as general manager. And maybe you let the general manager ideally hire the coach.

And maybe they put in some input, but largely they just stay out of the way and let the professionals do their jobs. So maybe we can hope for that someday as Pistons fans because Tom Gores, of course, has been ruinously meddling. And even after years in which he seems to have just been hands off, and for better or worse, and this is what he was supposed to be doing. I mean, this is what you want somebody to do as an owner. Just let the professional do their jobs, and he just couldn't resist putting those midst of his back into the coaching search, unfortunately. for all of us. But hey, rumors we've heard is that he may be willing to eat that contract. Anyway, I've somehow got my way back to Monty. Let's talk to him. So I talked last time about how it's going to be an interesting offseason in terms of, oh, and I can see actually where I just

got, let me look back to the beginning of what I was saying there, that the lottery is really coming up on us. It's on Sunday the 12th. So I think, as I've lost all track of the date, yes, this is the third. And, you know, my guess the fact that this is Friday, probably could have given me a the clue of what day it is, you know, nine days before the lottery. So that's coming up on us. So after the lottery comes through, we'll get started on draft content. And, I mean, this year it's going to be a little bit more open. I mean, things could get interesting in the top 10.

You just, you never know where things are going to go or what pat the Pistons are going to take doubly so because we don't know who's going to be making the decisions this summer. Of course, I imagine all of us probably. I can make that, well, a lot of us anyway. We're a lot more excited for the draft lottery last season. unfortunately did not go the Pistons way, but we're going into a draft season in which reportedly some teams would be okay not getting the first overall pick because they think that the player drafted number one may be overpaid.

Now, the higher you are up in the draft, the more, you know, the larger contract you get. It's an ugly situation. And I'll expand on that just by saying it's worth noting, I think, more than I did last episode, that this is just an ugly, ugly situation for the Pistons overall. I think, again, not telling you anything you don't already know, but I'm going to go into just how ugly it actually is. So as I see at the Pistons have two options this off-season. They, and I went over these, I think, but I'll go over them again briefly.

Number one, well, I'll go over them in a less, you know, probably in a less shiny, whatever, slightly darker way, I guess, is I just talked about, okay, are we going to look at compete now or rely on, you know, just wait on and see if you can get development out of the young players on your roster. I think it would be more accurately put as option number one is win now and sell low on young assets, notably Jayon Duren and Jaden Ivy. We just both finished up their second year. And probably not Asar Thompson, but you never know.

We don't know who is untouchable, who will be untouchable under this new president of basketball operations. We know that Asar was largely untouchable under Troy Weaver. And until him, you never know where he has his hands and things. So it's basically do you sell low on those guys in order to bring in guys who can help right now? And do you, again, just stress getting as many decent role players as you can on the team and whatever you can do in free agency? But I think selling low is likely to be one of those things, you know, because it's just, I could be completely wrong, but it's going to be hard.

I mean, does this organization want to focus on development? I mean, that's the other avenue. The other avenue is to look at the fact, you know, is for this organization to look at itself, the president of basketball operations, to look at the organization and say, you know what, we are unbelievably, thanks to Troy Weaver,

unbelievably dependent, like tremendously dependent upon the development of some raw young players and say, well, that's just the best avenue that is available to us if we want to have any hope, any realistic hope of building anything in the future that even remotely resembles a contender for a championship.

So those are the two paths I see. and unless if Tom Goraz steps in, he says, I want this, I just want more wins and I want you to make the playoffs soon. Then it'll be just the really, really comical, hilarious situation of there having been a four-year rebuild and a lot of losing only if the pistons to find themselves back exactly with the same management strategy and the same stupid strategy of, you know, let's be the Bulls and, you know, just win games. The Bulls are horribly managed. They were just all about making the first or maybe the second round of the playoffs. They didn't sell this year, even though they had no chance. well, they were given a chance of possibly making the playoffs, excuse me, through the plan, and they couldn't beat, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, they lost the Bulls without Jimmy Butler, I think. You know, could have sold the Mardi Rosen, possibly. Could have sold Alex Caruso, but no. We really want the Pistons to be back in that situation where it's just, well, our primary goal is just to make the playoffs. You know, if that's, I mean, I think if you're a fan who has just sat through three and a half seasons worth of losing, or excuse me, four and a half seasons worth of losing as we started around the turn of the year in 2020 a few months before COVID shut down the season.

And you just reached the point where you say, I just want to see better basketball. We've been watching bad basketball. We've been watching a lot of losing for a long time. And you know what? I just want to see better basketball. I don't care about anything else. I don't fault you for it.

It's definitely been a lot to sit through. And I firmly believe, and I'm not extolling. You know, I'm not tooting my own horn here. It's just, I think there is no wrong way to be a thing. man. So I hope this didn't come off condescending, basically. Just what I'm saying is that, you know, there are two different schools of thought here as well that mirror the two different schools of two different possibilities and management. It's like, do we shoot just for better basketball at this point? Or do we continue possibly enduring more pain for another season,

another two seasons and the hope, you know, with the focus upon just trying to, we feed minutes into the young players, the raw players that we've got, the B.SR and Duren and Ivy and whoever they draft this season. And, you know, we'll hope to get a high pick in the 2025 draft, which is a lot stronger. Or maybe, who knows, maybe these players will develop more this season and we'll win more games. We're going to get some veteran role players around them. Either way, hopefully through free agency. And you know what? We're just going to try to have, you know, we'll see what happens, but we're really, it's going to continue to be a development thing, maybe a sort of maybe rebuilding the rebuild sort of year. Who knows? And that means more

losing. So I guess I was just saying, you know, I'm all about, you know, I'd prefer to sit through the pistons losing for another season in the name of hopefully, hopefully building a contender. What I would want to see the pistons do is hopefully, yeah, that was the goal in this rebuild. It's like, we don't just want to make the playoffs. And that's the way that Tom Gore is, but we don't want to be competing for the seventh or eight seat every year. And so that's what I prefer. But, you know, for those, I mean, I've just seen, I've seen a lot of, a lot of back and forth, you know, else were in Pistons discussion. I don't know. This isn't really very relevant. But, yeah, I mean, there are two schools of thought there. And for those of you who just want to

see better basketball, I don't blame you one bit. So not that you should care if I blame me or not, for being honest here. So in any case, we can also look at the fact that, like, how much can the Pistons realistically improve if they're not improving from within, you know, from within in terms of development. And the answer I would say, well, I'll say this first. This last season sucked. Like, it was horrible. It sucked more than any Piston season I've ever sat through. I bet it sucked worse than any Piston season, any of you who've ever sat through. I've talked to people who have been Pistons fans for 40 years and said this was the absolute worst. This was the hardest season that I've ever been through in all of my years watching the Pistons.

I don't think that next season is likely to be repeated in any case. Number one, I would hope, is, you know, Monty Williams being gone. I think that that would make a significant difference. Again, I think that the Pistons last season could have reached 25 to 30 wins with a good coach rather than an unbelievably bad coach. So for the team to not suck, and I'll reiterate again when I said before, you look at the roster, I don't think it's like this roster is a 14-win roster. I think that this was a roster that was incredibly badly managed by its coach. And then down the stretch of the season, the last six weeks just didn't even bother trying to win.

Or there was some nagging injuries, and it's like, okay, well, why in the world would we ever play these guys who have nagging injuries when the season is, you know, it's pointless? And, you know, we just want them to recover and not risk making it worse. So I don't look at, and I know I'm repeating myself, I don't look at this roster and see complete disaster. at least the roster they started with last season. You know, it could be argued that there's more promise in the roster that they end of the season with. Maybe not by a ton, but I think all will take for this team to be respectable next season, respectable as in probably not a playoff team, but respectable. Even exclusive of whatever development we see from Jaden Ivy, from Jalen Duren, from Asar Thompson,

You get a new coach, of course, I imagine that goes without saying. You sign some veteran role players in free agency and hopefully you can get somebody good, you know, or a few goods. And you take advantage possibly of some very low-cost trades to bring in decent veteran talent from teams that just want to dump salary. And I'll reiterate also, I think I said this last time, the second apron doesn't really become, the most punitive aspect of the second apron in the long term is that if you're over the second apron for three of the previous five seasons, then your first round pick moves the end of the round. Which isn't really ideal, though, of course, a lot of teams over the second apron aren't going to have their first round pick anyway. But your other aspects are basically

restrictions on trades and no non-taxpayer, excuse me, no taxpayer, middle-level exceptions. So you can only sign a minimum contract and free agency. And you are not allowed to send out cash in trades. You can't take out any more salary. They're taking any more salary than you send out and so on and so forth. But in the immediate, you're not allowed. But in the immediate, idiot sense with the second apron. Teams that are over the second apron that are still trying to win are not just going to lose players. They're going to want to continue to try to win. Like you dump somebody's salary. And if that's, you're not going to dump a good player because it's like, well, how are you going to replace them? You're just making yourself worse. I mean, the fact that you can only

sign a minimum contracts, you know, okay, well, suddenly now you have the non-taxpayer ML, but it's probably going to get you a worse player than the one you just sent out. So I don't really bank on the idea that teams are just going to dump salary to stay below the second Abram. These teams don't want to make themselves worse, but it's possible that there will be some opportunities to take on a decent role player or two or three. Presumably the Pistons will look to do that in free agency. Though I think the dream of the current front office,

possibly the incoming front office or the incoming president of Basque operations will share this, is that the Pistons just, I hate this term, weaponizing this cap space because it's nonsense, you know, because obviously the soon-to-be-old front office leading far too much into it. And the Joe Harris trade just stands as a shining monument to going too far, also to making bad bets. And Troy Weaver was an inveterate gambler who has failed on every single one of his bets.

But all of this is to say, better coach, you know, some decent veterans, and hopefully you get some development. I know I said exclusive with that, but hopefully you get some improvement from, you know, from the team's youth. And I think that you're a decently set up team to, win like 32 games next season with decent health. Now, is that enough? You know, you're looking for more. I mean, that's, that depends on Tom Gores primarily. Here's one thing that I do want to address. I don't think that Cade Cunningham is going to be a flight risk anytime soon. I've seen some

concern over that. It's not really, it would take Cade being like an incredibly, unprecedentedly ornery player for him to ask out like this summer or, you know, or next summer if the team doesn't improve. I mean, number one, I mean, we know Cade's a leader. You know, he really wants to make things work here, but even if guys aren't, it's, yeah, he just sat through a really tough season, which was functionally a second season. You can't really say, oh, he's been playing for three seasons. And he hasn't won because he played very few games in season two due to a long-term injury that needed surgery. But, you know, players just generally don't get ornery that quickly. He's also soon going to have about 200 million reasons to be patient, which is his extension,

which is presumably going to be signed this summer. And I would say at that point, you, I mean, if you're a player of his sort, yeah, you just take the guaranteed generational wealth. And then the clock, I would say, starts. You give it about three seasons. And if he still hates his life here, then maybe he asks out then. You also consider that, you know, just if you're making this mad rush to put like a half-decent team around him, how happy is he going to be if you cap off your ceiling, you know, at the first of the second round?

And there's just no getting past that. And there's no real way to reliably improve the team that. for a guy, I mean, if who's going to be, what be Hope K will be, like a top 10 player, they generally want to win. So whatever the case, I mean, if you want some recent examples, you look at John Wall in 2009, Kyrie Irving in 2011, these guys hardly won anything in seasons one through three. The first two seasons were both bad. And in season three, I think the Wizards won like 28 games and the Cavs won 32.

Of course, season four for Kyrieu is when LeBron came back to Cleveland and Kevin Love came in and they made the finals and so on and so forth. But I wouldn't worry about it is my point. I strongly feel that the Pistons do not need to make a mad rush to better players around Kada out of fear that he'll leave. I don't think that's a realistic possibility. I hope I don't have to eat these words, but I feel 99% confident we'll see him sign the extension this summer. So anyway, I think that just taking those steps, gives you a respectable team. Like, I think that there is very, very little chance of the Pistons having anywhere near as bad of a season.

And, I mean, again, you got to have a new coach. I think there's a strong argument to be made that if the current coach is retained, then nothing belied that's going to happen in free agency and the draft and whatever is necessarily going to make a huge difference because he's that bad. But provided that the Pistons get a new and competent coach, who's hopefully not yet another retrib with the ceiling, though, again, nobody could have seen this season's Monty Williams coming. Yeah, again, I think these measures just get you a significantly better team. Not an actually good team,

but again, I don't think this was a 14-win roster. I think this is a 25 to 30 win roster, and so on, I'm repeating myself. Again, I think it's worth noting that whatever happens, and I would be shocked if the Pissons gone to next season, just in tank mode. Whatever happens in terms of free agency, there will be some guys, there will need to be some shuffling, we'll put it that way. You look, next season at guys you can feel confident. Okay, this is, unless there's some sell low going, you know, some sell low that happens in the team's, you know, young prospects, which again, I think would be a terrible idea to sell low because if you want to have any hope of building

a contender, then you have to bank on this, on the development of these players rather than just sending them out in exchange for possibly like pretty unremarkable veteran help or possibly draft picks, which I'd be shocked to see the team do just kick the, kick the can further down the road. Here's the thing about those three players also, especially Duren and Ivy. And I have to note again that that Monty completely muddied the waters in terms of these prospects, all of them, including Asar, by just completely horribly mishandling them, particularly Ivy. But where they stand right now is that the three of them are raw prospects with bust potential, even Duren. If he's just this bad on defense, it's going to be tough for any team to

really get good value out of him. So these are all raw, prospects with uncertain futures and bust potential. And that's the very same reason that they, you know, particularly Ivy and Duren are potentially expendable for the pistons, makes them really lowers their trade value, lowers their value on the trade markets. And so do you really want to sell low at that point? It's not just, oh, hey, you know, look at these guys who we have who are really great, you know, super high ceiling and don't ask us why we're willing to trade them. This is basically what it would be. So do you really want to sell low on potential when this team at this points, I mean, that's their best and really honest to goodness only aside from, you know, hoping,

you know, for this upcoming draft that you get somebody who outperforms expectations or hoping you get somebody lower on, you know, further into the first round in future years that who really beats expectations? Those are your only real ways, only real means to elite talent at this point. I mean, the Pistons, obviously at this point, but as a team where the Pistons, are you're not going to trade. You're not going to mortgage your far future. The Pistons have a limited ability to even do that because they can't trade it first until 2029, aside from their upcoming first. You're not going to make one of these huge blockbuster trades for a good player, you know, for a star player where the Pistons are right now, or even if you're like a team that's

only going to make the first or second round, that's still not worthwhile. So, or Pee, what I said, I think if the Pistons really wants to have a hope of building a contender, you have to, you don't sell low on this talent because, I mean, again, that's just the only way, the only real, you know, reliable way the pistons or realistic way the pistons have a building that contender is by having, you know, at least one or hopefully two or ideally all three of those players actually come up to provide value, ideally, you know, a couple of them at a very high level. But so assuming that the pistons don't make what I hope, what I think would be the big mistake of really selling low on high ceiling young talent.

you look at who's going to be on the roster, at least to start the offseason. And I think it should be reiterated that the president of basketball operations, unlike Troy Weaver, is going to have no connection to these players. So obviously, K, it's going to be there. If we're going with a scenario in which none of Ivy Thompson and Duren are traded, that's four guys you have on the roster. Isaiah Stewart makes five. Malachi Flynn, of course, is going to be there.

No, I'm just kidding. Fontechio, Sasser, and Grimes. I'd be surprised to see Grimes going to be. anywhere. I'd be surprised to see Fon Tacky would go anywhere. So that's eight guys. And that's out of, like, it was, it's very unusual to run a 10-man rotation. It happened this season because the coach is a moron, you know, particularly so, given that you didn't have the personnel to run a 10-man rotation, you typically want to stagger your starters with bench players so that you still have some of your best players on the floor at all times. So assuming we're going with a better coach who's

only going to run maybe nine guys typically, or eight and a half. I mean, sorry, I was, partially a money joke, but partially just that often you're going to have, like, it wouldn't be surprising for your ninth guy to not play many minutes. So obviously if you're adding guys, adding somebody in the draft and you're adding somebody in free agency or hopefully, you know, a couple of somebody's. And yeah, I know Tobias Harris is getting clowned right now because he had an absolutely terrible postseason, you know, capped off by a game in which he just let himself very characteristically get pushed to the periphery and not be involved.

This has happened constantly since he came to the Pistons, and ironically, Doc Rivers was the got the most out of Tobias Harris. You know, Doc Rivers is a bad coach, but he was really, he gave a lot of efforts toward keeping Tobias involved, which is a very good thing where Tobias is concerned. So, you know, not particularly exciting prospect, especially given that Tobias has been pretty poor as a catch-and-shoot guy from three, you know, in two out of the last three seasons. Whatever, free agency is going to be free agency. and I have to caution people again that the pistons are going to be bidding against some better teams. The Magic will have cap space. Sixers will have a ton of cap space.

The Thunder will even have a decent amount of cap space. So another way in which things are looking a little bit dim. But the upshot of all of this is that you'll probably see at least a couple of guys gone from the rotation. I would imagine so if they're, you know, unless the team just decides to go with like one veteran on a team who's the oldest projected rotation player is Simon Fontechio, who's 28, but has all of two NBA seasons under his belt. And I think it's, yeah, I would be shocked to see the Pistons go with option number two entirely of just banking entirely on development and, hey,

we're just going to roll with what we have. So basically, I think, I think, however, that it will probably default largely to number two, it would be my prediction. And again, I'm somebody who just wants to see the team continue to slow build to build a contender. If the decision is made up top to go all in, we just want to be better right now. I think that would be a mistake to basically, I don't think, you know, better regular seasons, but very probably minimal postseason success. But if they don't go with that, basically, which I don't think would be just very economical or a good idea, then they might stick closer to number two just because they don't really have much of a choice.

Like, they don't have much in the way of valuable assets in the team to trade away. The Ross, you know, the team is not in position to do a lot of winning right now, unless they see a lot of development. You know, what do you do in that situation? Like, again, they might just judge that, hey, you know, we're willing to just sell low on high-ceiling young guys for talent right now because we want to win right now. But how much better is that really going to make this team? One thing I feel like I can say pretty confidently is that next season will.

be significantly better than this one again, unless they get a new coach or a drastically different version of Monty Williams. Like, what happened last season was a combination of a front off as building a flawed roster from the top with an obscene way and, you know, an obscene way and effectual coach. And like, darn, I'm just repeating myself. I'll just reiterate if, which I've said a million times in this episode, as long as they just take some basic elementary steps to make improvements, I think that you'll see, assuming decent health, like a floor of 25 wins next season, which isn't very exciting, but it'll be drastically better than last season, which was an anomaly brought on by some deeply unfortunate factors.

Now, something I think, in terms of management strategy, I think it's very, very important, one thing that, and I don't know why I'm even talking about this, because we have absolutely no control over it, but my hope is that the new front office that comes in is not panicky, and that Tom Gores is not panicky. Like obviously things need to be done. And, you know, there will be cost to that, of course. But my hope is that the incoming regime will go about it judiciously. At this point, there's really not much to be gained by just saying, well, darn it, I just want improvement right now, no matter how much it costs. You might take some risks. You have to make some changes. But whatever happens, my hope is that the new front office is going to go about it judiciously and with wisdom and not

with panic. And again, that'll come straight to the top, straight from the top of Tom Gores. Who the president of basketball operations is going to be, is anybody's guess? Like I've said, I would be absolutely flabbergasted if it were anything but a veteran. I hope that it would be opposite with the coach. I mean, Tom Gores has gone with, like he came in with Dumas. He went with Van Gundy, then who had absolutely no management experience. he went with Troy Weaver, who was highly thought of as an assistant general manager, but had no head honcho experience. I think he's likeliest to go with a known quantity and hopefully not a mediocre one.

Like Tim Connolly out of Minnesota would probably be your best bet, though I'm not sure when exactly he technically would become available, though his work is pretty much done on this season's roster, needless to say, with the Timberwolves. You know, and with the coach, it's okay, well, we're going to go with retread Stan Van Gundy. We're going to go with retread Dwayne Casey. We're going to go with retread Monty Williams, and hopefully it's the opposite in that situation. All right. So finally, I'll visit a topic, which I've seen a lot of talkover,

which is Brendan Ingram. And I know that a lot of people would like to see some more established talent alongside Kate Cunningham. And Brandon Ingram, I would say, just isn't it? And I'd say there are two reasons for this. One is that the Pelicans wants to win now. I mean, they want to continue contending for a championship. They got a bad, but probably, you know, I would say given the past,

not necessarily altogether a surprising break in that Zion Williamson was injured. And Zion for this team is the difference between very mediocre and potential contender. I mean, if you can get Zion and he's healthy, he's as unstoppable on his way to the basket as anybody in NBA history. So they're going to want to continue to... They're in win-now mode. They're going to want to give themselves the best possible chance of winning a championship next year. And that means not actively getting worse

by selling low on Brandon Ingram and selling low would be the only way the Pistons would be able to acquire him. Yes, they have an extension for Trey Murphy coming up. But, you know, like, herb Jones is already under contract, excuse me, already under contract at a very affordable price for the next three seasons.

So it's like, yeah, you're going to have to pay Trey Murphy, and unless he makes, I think they'll extend him this summer, but who knows, maybe he'll choose the bet on himself. At this point, I mean, he's a strong 3-D guy, and those guys are valuable. He's not a guy you're likely to throw max money at because, yeah, strong 3-D, but much more of a play finisher than a creator. So, yeah, he'll cost. I mean, and the Pelicans have to figure out what they're doing about centers this summer. Who knows, maybe for them, you go after, well, actually, they're not going to have cap space, so who they can go after is going to be limited.

But, yeah, I mean, you want to have a strong wing. rotation. So if you have Ingram and Jones and Murphy, I mean, that's something you look for. You don't balk at that just because you're going to be paying the tax. But, you know, basically, if you just choose to get rid of Ingram, unless you have some win now, kind of we can help right away talent, you know, commensurate impact players who are coming back the other way, then you're just getting worse. And why would you want to do that? Even if you're concerned about your inability to keep him the next off season, I mean, your goal is to win a championship. And in order to win a championship, you assemble as much talent as you can.

You don't just dump it. From the piston side of things, I mean, I don't think Ingram is really all that great. And again, I know what I just said, which is that the pelicans don't want to get worse. And, yeah, they would be worse by just selling well on him. But for the piston side, even if they really had the capacity to make a worthwhile trade for him,

which I'm not sure that they do, because, yeah, the pelicans aren't really going to be looking for a Jaden Ivy or a Jalen Duren or a pick and a weak draft. is that's not going to help them as much as Ingram could. Ingram, I think, is maybe being overrated by some people. So here's what Ingram is. He's a guy who basically, I mean, his game is creating offense off the dribble in the interior. It doesn't take many threes.

You know, he's decent at them, but doesn't shoot many of them. It's mostly just a lot of jumpers and floaters and whatnot off the dribble. He doesn't really do a great job if you can get into the rim. He doesn't really break down defenses. He racks up quite a few assists, but he's not really the kind of, of guy you turn to and say, well, I want you to be our secondary handler. You know, he attempts just a lot of tough offense in the interior. You know, the last time he was made an All-Star, I think it was part his performance, but I think it was also part because it's like, hey, you know,

you finally come online and there's the anticipation of, you know, wow, maybe you're this sort of like Kevin Durant light sort of player, but he isn't. He's also very, very injury-prone. missed an average of almost 25 games per season since his rookie season, which was the last time he played 70 games, excuse me, the last time and the first time also he played 70 games. Over the last three seasons, he has missed a total of a full regular season, so he's missed a total of 82 games over the last three seasons. And yeah, your most important ability, no, not most important, but your most fundamental, your first ability has to be availability. Not an ideal, I mean, your ideal fits with Cade. I mean, I know your players don't, players don't

have to be an ideal fit with Cade, and I don't think Cade needs to be a heliocentric player. But guys alongside him, you want to have, like, pretty good offball utility. And ideally, the ability to take some of the handling duties, you know, off his plate, so he's not having to constantly do it. And another guy as a handler who can break down defenses, so Cade doesn't have to be the only guy who's doing it. And ideally, you know, for this team, you want somebody who's decent on defense. So Ingram will get you points, and he can get you a certain amount of

an assisted offense. But he's a pretty weak defender. He isn't really all that strong off the ball. He's much more of an on-ball player. And he doesn't break down defenses in the way that you would like. So even if he were available as a cell low kind of guy, well, it's a moot point because he's not. I mean, I don't know how interested I would be. And I know that I've talked about how Ivy and Duren probably don't have much value in the trade market. I would rather, and maybe this is a very surprising or crazy thing to say, who knows. I would rather bet on the potential of an Ivy or a Duren, though Duran terrified me with his work ethic in this last season on defense, at the same time as he surprised me with his improvement on offense. But I'd rather bet on the ceiling of a Duren

or an Ivy than trade a lot of potential ceiling for Brandon Ingram, whom it should be noted, has only one season left on his current contract, which would leave the Pistons in 2025 with the question of possibly losing him or in order to keep him giving him a max or near max contract, probably a max contract, I would imagine unless something had gone drastically wrong, which would overpay a very injury prone player for the next five seasons at a period at which his health is likely or to get worse than better as he ages and accumulates more NBA miles on his body. So it's kind of, it's an unlikely scenario in the first place, again, just because You got to look at the motivation, like anytime you're looking at a trade idea,

got to look at the motivation of the other team. Like when I'm looking at a potential trade idea, I think there are, well, I suppose four rules. I mean, number one, I think this is a rule for anybody you should consider for any trade, is that no other team is going to send you value in exchange for your team's disposable parts. Slam dunk trades for two teams are very unusual. Any trade, you should be able to come up with the rationale for both sides immediately and not have to justify it and not have to engage. in mental gymnastics.

And finally, I think you always got to consider the motivation of the team. Just like in free agency, you've got to consider the motivation of the players. So, yeah, you look at New Orleans. What are the Pistons? Why would they trade Ingram for anything but somebody who can help in the now? But even if the Pistons were in position to do it, had more, like if Ivy and Duren were ready or assets, you know, with more value on the market and they could swing that trade, I still wouldn't want to do it

just because I just don't think he's that much of an impact player and just to bring this into the picture because I've seen this in prospect of ideas that you would have an extension in place. You cannot extend and trade a player for basically the largest raise you can give him

over the final year of his contract is 5%. Otherwise you can't extend him until six months after you trade for him. And if you're training for a guy in the final season of his contract, never know what's going to happen. You might get to that six-month point. And he just really doesn't like where he is. And he says, well, I want to test free agency. And then he goes, you know, then he leaves for

nothing. So whatever happens, I mean, it'll be an interesting offseason. I think it may not be as eventful an off-season as some would hope. And I think maybe if it is that eventful of an off-season, it may be for reasons that, I mean, it may be because the Pistons have really punted on the future for the sake of returning to a win-now mentality. And I just think that would be, personally, I think that would be a real shame. That's not what I would prefer to see. But, you know, there's plenty of time.

We're not going to see the results. And we'll see the results at the draft lottery in nine days. And then the draft is in about seven weeks, which is a long time. This is one of the bad parts of being a team that's not, you know, well, it's one of the bad parts about being a team that's in the playoffs. And especially a team that was really bad the previous season because you got to sit through a year of bad basketball and then you wait

about like close to six weeks for the lottery and after that you wait about six weeks for the draft I think it's five and a half weeks for each actually but yeah so then the draft in the fourth week of June and then free agency starting on June 30th the evening of June 30th so it'll be interesting either way but we got a long way to go until we see what happens aside from the lottery so on that That'll be it for today's episode. Sorry if this one got a little bit rambly. I sort of just sat down and just tried to talk about what I thought was interesting that's going on. Like I said, after the lottery, get started on draft coverage.

After the draft profiles, talk a little bit about free agency. It'll probably be after the draft. You never know what will happen to the draft. And it's going to try to have more guests on in the meantime. I feel like I've done a lot of episodes actually for a longer period. excuse me for a long period, in which I haven't had anybody on the show. And I just think it would be a nice change of pace,

probably for me, but also hopefully, hopefully for you all. So in any event, as always, want to thank you all for listening. Hope you're all doing well. I'll catch you in next week's episode.