Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 193: An (Extremely Meager) Defense of Tom Gores

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

This episode attempts to contextualize the few genuine positives to Pistons owner Tom Gores in the larger picture of the upcoming offseason, and also discusses the NBA postseason so far.

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Drive into the Baskets. I'm Mike and I hope you're all doing super, super well today. Recording this about 72 hours, I think, before the lottery. Actually, a little bit more than that being on Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening or something like that. As we all know, the lottery doesn't really hold the same sort of appeal that it did over the last three or four years, I suppose. This being a very, very uninspiring draft class, but still going to be better to see the pitch. distance walk out with a higher pick rather than a lower pick, even if that matters a whole lot less in terms of overall value than it did.

Well, in pretty much every draft since, I don't know, maybe 2013. At this point, the field is looking pretty much like Sarr and then a bunch of other guys in the top 10 with no necessarily really defined order to them. And even Sarr isn't really being projected as a particularly like super high ceiling kind of guy. it's not the greatest thing to have at the end of the most difficult Pist in season, probably any of us have ever gone through. But, you know, it is what it is. And hope for good things, obviously.

So honestly, this is, I struggled to think of content to cover in this episode and thank you to everybody who made suggestions much appreciated. This is like the deadest of dead periods. I was very, very little to talk about a substance about the piss. right now. There will be more after the lottery when we see where the pistons will fall. And we can get into draft stuff and then free agency stuff and player reviews. And as we see how the offseason takes shape, we can talk about just how next season might look. And there'd be plenty to talk about then. But this is just like the deadest of dead of dead periods right before the lottery

when we're just waiting to see what will happen with that. We're waiting to see what will happen in terms of personnel hires. And then we take it from there. No, fan apathy is really at its height. Like I said, a little excitement for the lottery. I think it actually should be an interesting offseason with the capacity for a lot of disruption. Like, you know, some players, for example, are likely going to be at the move period, just by process of elimination. If the Pistons want to bring in some veterans, they're not going to have room for all the young players

who end of the season on the roster. So you could see the likes of Isaiah Stewart or Marcus Sass or whoever else, hopefully not Ivy and hopefully not darn unless the deal is very good. It's basically hopefully not selling on an nonprofit. punting on talent. But, you know, some things will likely happen that the, you know, the behest of, you know, in the hands, rather of an uncaring new president of basketball operations who isn't attached to anyone unlike Troy Weaver, who, of course, brought all these players in. So for possibly the better, for possibly the worst. Again, like I said in the last episode, I feel like the

pistons are not far off from being a much more respectable team. I don't think gutting this roster is necessary. The money factor was really, really bad. Like he was a wrecking ball through just an absolute wrecking ball to the team. The roster had issues without a doubt. Some of those have been rectified to a small degree as a result of what happened to the trade deadline. But I don't think that the leap from last season to next season to, you know, 30 plus wins is very huge as long as Monty Williams is fired. You know, as long as the team just built in brings in some stabilizing veterans and et cetera, et cetera. Doesn't need to be a huge thing. So yeah, I think the roads, the Pistons being at the 30 plus win team is, you know,

assuming decent health is not long. More than that is going to depend upon offseason development of young prospects. And if the Pistons don't trade this pick on whoever they bring in. And so that was actually really always going to be the case for the Pistons to reach a high ceiling. To become a contender, it was going to require that the youth really make it, the youth were going to be the big thing. This high ceiling young players brought in good development and that they were going to be the guys who are really going to power the next generation of the Pistons to hopefully a championship contending team.

So, yeah, that was always the hope for major improvement. So I would, you know, repeat, don't trade those players on whom you beat selling low just for a few extra wins at the cost of sealing. Because, again, keep in mind that the same qualities which make the likes of Duren and Ivy expendable. and don't get me wrong, these are flawed players, but still we're betting on ceiling here. Yeah, the same qualities, which are that they are raw and they have uncertain futures and that they may or may not ultimately provide good value at the NBA level.

Also make them less value on the trade market. So again, trading them away, I think it would be lose-lose, but I just don't expect that gigantic changes are necessary for last season's roster to be respectable next season for what happened last season to not be repeated. So I'll probably keep this a short episode. Rather just limit it to things that I feel like are going to be interesting to talk about, interesting to listen to rather than just have it be long just for the sake of, you know, just for the sake of releasing a longer episode this week.

And like I said, there's just a not a great deal to talk about at the moment. I know that at this point, a lot of podcasts for teams in general, especially teams in the lottery are doing lottery projections or mock-off seasons. I'd rather just wait to see where the pistons actually fall in the lottery and then go from there. There will be plenty to talk about, like I said, around the draft and personnel, excuse me, front office personnel and free agency and whatnot when we know more. So one thing to cover, and I know that this kind of maybe flies in the face a little bit, what I just said. But I've been asked, what I think is the likelihood that Monty Williams and Troy Weaver will be fired. And yeah, we'll know that probably inside of a month, presumably.

but and maybe this is just sleeplessness and far more caffeine than I usually drink speaking and or maybe just sort of a maniacal hope, who knows. But I'm pretty confident that Monty Williams will be gone and I'm fairly confident that Troy Weaver will be gone. Maybe he's just demoted to a role, you know, which he's more capable by all accounts. He was a pretty good assistant GM in Oklahoma City. Can't fault anybody for the hire. He was really considered an up-and-comer.

He just did an extremely bad job. though at this point I think when you have a guy who's had that much authority again we don't know exactly how much authority Arunelam had and that guy my goodness I hope the new president of basketball operations insists that Arn'telam gets no say about anything because the guy seems extremely corrupt and self-serving but I don't think but the guy like weaver who's presumably had quite a bit of authority that you're going to want to just demote him into a lesser position lesser position I mean that's just probably going to lead attention you know in the unlikely event that he doesn't just say well you know, it'll be a relief not to be the GM to go back, you know, to go back to doing whatever I did well in Oklahoma City under Sam Presti.

I think that Moni is tremendously more likely to be fired because I can't see a president of basketball operations come in and say, well, let's look at you. You were an absolute catastrophe in every conceivable way, and there is no possibility that outright disinterest in doing your job didn't play into that. You know, or maybe we'll just send you to see if, well, whatever, I'm not going to get into it. I promise I wouldn't get into this. And basically look at the terrific job that Monty Williams did this last season and say, well, let's give you another season. You know, I have full carte blanche to decide whom I want to keep and whom I want to fire. But, you know, sure, let's keep you.

I think, you know, from all that we've heard, this incoming president of basketball operations is going to have full authority on whom to fire. And that's Tom Gore has the money, way too much money to do through it, Monty Williams. Again, that was a little weird because Moni didn't really have that great of an NBA track record. very, very little better than Dwayne Casey, and I think better only because he got very, very lucky in 2021. We've heard that he's willing to take the hit.

And I'm going to transition a little bit to talking about Tom Gores and putting up what amounts to a very, very meager defense of Tom Gores because I think there are, I mean, there are plenty things to say about him by him being the worst owner in the NBA that are absolutely correct. I mean, he has been a disaster. He's owned this team since 2011. it has one season above 500, two playoff appearances, zero wins, second playoff appearance. The first one is a competitive sweep insofar as that's not an oxymoron, and the second was

the worst first round drubbing in modern NBA history. And there is exceedingly little that Tom Gores has done well and plenty that he has done badly by way of being far more involved than he should be, and hiring incompetent personnel. Though, like I said, I don't blame him for the Troy Weaver hire. I mean, Weaver really was accounted a real up-in-comer, a long-term, a long-time assistant general manager under one of the best, one of the better general managers in the league. So here's kind of what, kind of the perception I have gathered exists in some quarters about Tom Gores is just an absentee owner who doesn't really care about the Pistons and kind of just owns an NBA team and doesn't care whether they win or lose. I don't think that's true at all. I think, well, let's start with a couple of things here.

Number one, yes, Tom Gores is a sleazy human being. There's no doubt about that. The guy who runs highly exploitative businesses has an affair with his brother's wife and so on and so forth. I mean, the guy, yeah, even just the Securita stuff is really dark and really, really bad and shameful. And basically a guy just exploiting other human beings for the sake of his own enrichment, which would be bad enough, period. not to mention the guy already has billions of dollars. So is he a good human being?

No, I don't think, I mean, I think, I don't think there's much of an argument to be made to the contrary. Are there other sporting team owners who are the same yes, is that an excuse, no. So we're not talking about Tom Gores on his ethical merits in this situation because he doesn't have much in the way of, I mean, there's just not much to say in terms of complimenting him as a human being. I mean, the guy does some bad things on the business side of things, some dark things that people shouldn't do. And go look up, Secura, to us and Tom Gores, if you don't know what I'm talking about.

So we're just going to talk about him as a basketball owner here. So just to be clear that I'm not complimenting him here on a personal level and any of the positive things I'm saying, only talking about him as a basketball owner. So I think that Tom Gores actually, he's an absentee owner only in the sense that he doesn't live in Detroit. there are plenty of team owners who don't live in the same city as the team that they own. There's some that do. And then you had Mark Cuban who would go to every, for a long time, would go to every single Mavericks game home or away, which I thought was very admirable.

I mean, the guy was very, very engaged, a little bit too engaged at times in personnel decisions, not necessarily to the benefit of his team. But I think Tom Goraz actually cares enormously about the success of the team. I think he's very, very invested in seeing the team win. I think he's willing to spend any amount he needs for the team to win. The trouble is that he's been incredibly, incredibly incompetent and bumbling in how he's gone about trying to help the team win. Number one amongst those is just that he medals far too much. I mean, he has thought he isn't incredibly amateurish.

I mean, less amateurish than he was when he took over, in which point he was unbelievably amateurish, a guy coming in and saying, well, we don't need to rebuild. We just need to try to win. a winning culture. And, you know, once we build this winning culture and winning culture, where you can put in air quotes, because what does that even mean? I mean, like, okay, we're going to try to win games, and then we're going to win games. And I guess we're going to have less of a winning culture than the better teams that win more because they actually have more talent, and therefore are able to build a better winning culture because they're winning more.

Tom Gore has thought that just a winning culture was enough to compensate for a lack of talent and no, we don't need to rebuild and build through the draft. All we need to do is win. And once we get to the playoffs, we can just build on that winning with team culture, which of course is complete nonsense. I mean, I'm, I don't want to. I mean, actually, I would love to talk about this, but I'm not going to because I'd be very, I doubt anybody really has much interest in listening to it. But yeah, for those of you who are familiar with the history of the early First World War, and I've read the guns of August, you probably know what I'm referring to in the French, and this got a lot of people killed, were all about kind of spirit.

and not about practicalities and logistics, and just our fighting spirit will carry us through, and we're not going to get massacred by machine guns. Anyway, I could talk about military history for a long time, but it's basically got to consider the practicalities of things. Obviously, fighting a war is a little bit, just a little bit more. Now I kind of feel like a bit of an idiot. Obviously, there's a little bit more and more than two professional basketball.

One is life and death, and the other is not. So let's not make that comparison. And just points and laugh at how silly I just sounded. But in any case, basically he just thought, yeah, all it was going to take was attitude and spirit and culture. And obviously, in the NBA, you need talent. I mean, you're not going to win with talent alone, but you need talent to win. And that's just pretty much an immutable reality. And it took Tom Gora's nine seasons, really eight and a half.

He bought the team in the 2011 off season. And it was until, I mean, it was late 2019 when he finally. realized, okay, we need to rebuild. And the way we're doing things is just us competing for a low seed every year. So, yeah, that took him more than eight years, about eight and a half years to finally get that through his head and the failure of the Blake Griffin trade. And I'm sure all of us who watched that first game against the Grizzlies, against basically the G League Grizzlies, I think Markisal was the only player of repute on that roster who was actually playing. And the Pistons barely won. And, But, yeah, Tom Gores was out there, and I remember the Grizzlies play-by-play guys,

the commentators rather in the next game, talked about how, you know, at that game you would have thought, based on how Tom Gores was acting, that the Pistons just won a championship. The guy was completely hammered, and throwing T-shirts into the crowd. And after the game, it was just embarrassing, you know, just how he was acting. And, I mean, realistically, the Pistons had just beaten a really bad team, but he was just thrilled to have a star. and then the Pistons went on and beat three more teams who, just like the Grizzlies, were playing the second night of a back-to-back and away game, playing for the third game in

four nights, which is an extreme disadvantage. And none of those teams, if I remember correctly, was particularly good. But yeah, the Pistons won four straight. And then when they started playing against teams that were not exhausted or bad in trying to lose, they just started losing and the rest of the season was a disaster. And then the next season came along, and Blake, was excellent, but unfortunately the trade that it brought him in had made no sense because you don't make that kind of trade, you know, if you're not in position to contend if it's not going to

actually also meaningfully improve your team. So Blake was great. The Pistons limped to a 500 finish in a not very good conference whilst two-thirds of their games against teams above 500 on, excuse me, teams with records above 500 along the way, and then got absolutely stomped on in the postseason. And I mean, the Pistons were going to be. he got stomped on whether they had Griffin or not. He played very well in games three and four, and they still get annihilated. So, and then of course the next season, Blake came back and was a shadow of his former self. And I think at that point, Tom Gora has realized, okay, well, you know, maybe trading for a superstar, you know, maybe this whole plan of just

building a winning culture and they're getting to someplace and then cashing in for a superstar isn't going to solve all of our problems. Who knows? I think that Stifonsky played a role in getting through to him. I think we saw Stifansky in the 2018, 2019 season. season and again, I should reiterate Stefansky's ridiculous story, which is that he came in as an advisor to help rebuild the front office and hire a coach

and basically ended up hiring himself as general manager. I mean, the Pistons just went ahead without a general manager and he made all the personnel decisions. I didn't do a terrible job, I didn't do a good job either, and this is a long hallmark

of Ed Stefanski that he's had an immensely mediocre career, like the very picture of mediocrity. And so, yeah, that's certainly what happened in his first two seasons, or his two seasons running personnel for the Pistons. By what we've heard, he's been much more on the business side of things for a while. Though, again, I remember hearing only one report about that, but we haven't heard much about Stefanski being involved in the personnel side of things for a while.

But in any case, yeah, he basically talked himself into that position. I think that a big reason why he was hired was that he knows how to handle Gores. And I think he did handle Gores pretty well. in those first two seasons. He convinced Gora's that they should sell on Reggie Bullock, for example, rather than keep him when they would be very unlikely to be able to retain him in the offseason, that they definitely should not buy at the deadline. And I think that he was the one who got through to Gores. I mean, he was incredibly mediocre, but he was a professional executive. Dumars was not really quite the same sort of, you know, lifetime professional executive. Van Gundy,

of course, had no executive experience. before he joined the Pistons. So I think it was the combination of the Blake thing failing and Stefanski just knowing how to handle Gores. So whatever the case, it took until wait 2019 for Tom Gores to finally say, okay, well, we should probably do things differently. It was a long, long, long, long, long time.

And the fact that he even had that philosophy of the winning culture thing. And yeah, we just got to win now. And no, we're not going to rebuild. This is all we need is to build a winning culture and we're just going to keep trying to do it. And, oh, well, things aren't going so well. let's make a big trade for a big name.

I mean, that just kind of boggles the mind. I was way too involved, and he had really, really incredibly out there totally foolish ideas on how a team should be built. So basically all of this is to say that, well, we can move on to, okay, like I said, hiring Weaver, I don't blame him for. And he decided, by all accounts, for those few years,

to just keep his mitts out of things. We heard in 2020 that the Pistons did not expect the organization, including Tom Gores, presumably, because you may, you know, as the guy who signs the checks and has the ultimate decision-making power, did not expect to make the playoffs for the next few seasons. They were fine with making the playoffs organically, but they did not expect it. You know, in other words, that the focus was really going to be on development and draft position, and we just, we didn't hear much of anything about, about Gora's involvement. I mean, granted, the organization is, as for a long time, and very, very close-mouth, not much leaks out. And that's probably a Gores directive, if I had to guess, because the Pistons, because that's now persisted across three different front offices between Van Gundy, Stefansky, and Weaver.

But, you know, by all indications, by all that we heard, Gores was not very involved. He even got up, and I think this was two off seasons ago, something, maybe mid-season of season of three of the rebuild, and said, yeah, we're losing a lot. And shockingly said, maybe it's probably for the best that we're losing right now. Of course, he still managed to talk about the culture being built. You know, that remained very important to him. That's, you know, what, they still get a great team culture. And, you know, to a degree, actually, that was reasonably true.

I mean, Dwayne Casey did a great job of that through a lot of losing. But then, of course, Weaver ultimately didn't do the greatest job. But as we all know, it was Tom Gores who came in and decided that he was going to get involved. And, you know, I want Monty Williams. And we're going to spend any amount of money that it takes to make that happen. And again, the spending any amount of money. Great. I mean, not every owner is going to do that.

Not every owner is just going to say, well, we're going to give you the biggest coaching contract in, you know, what was then the biggest coaching contract in NBA history. And unfortunately, like I said, the guy is willing to spend. He sometimes goes about things in a very, very amateurish and melodroit way. And so he took a coach who didn't really have the greatest track record and was not interested in the job and just offered him more and more money until the guy said, yes. It's beyond me how Tom Gores, who say what you will about him is an experience. extremely successful businessman who started from very little and built an enormous fortune could possibly think that that was a good way to get an invested employee. It's like here's a ton of, there's more and more and more and more fully guaranteed money

until you take the job because you think it would be stupid for you not to do so. So obviously that didn't land the pistons in very good coaching territory. I mean, in his minor defense, there was no way of seeing exactly how bad things went. I don't think there's any way of seeing that coming, but he certainly did risk. the Pistons getting a very uninvested coach who just didn't really want the job and was just there because he was offered far too much money. So he goes out and does active things. He is an active owner.

He's not an absentee guy. I mean, he actually will go out there and spend the money. It's best if he's not too actively involved. But you know what? And the Pistons, when the Grand Rapids drive were not willing to move to Detroit, Tom Gores went out and bought a G-League team. He went and bought it from Sarver, former owner in Phoenix. and he went and built that big performance center alongside Whittles Sears Arena.

And again, he went out and spent an enormous amount of money for a coach who did not merit that amount of money. I mean, a guy will go out and spend, and I think if the Pistons are ever at a point at which it makes sense to pay the luxury tax, they'll be willing to support a big payroll. I think Tom Gores genuinely absolutely wants this team to succeed and will pay whatever amount of money he needs to. He just needs to keep his hands out of business and hire the right professionals and let them do that. jobs without his meddling. And I'm really concerned about what level his meddling might be. Like I said, if we end up back with Tom Gores saying, I just want immediate results and I want us to be better next season, it's going to be hilarious a loop just right back to how things were before.

And I just, I hope that doesn't happen. But upshot of all of this, when the new president of basketball operations, whoever he is, comes in. I think that's, I think Gores will take the hit in terms of Monty Williams. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but this is, this and everything we've heard and everything we know about Tom Gores, I think he'd be willing to do that. I think that it feels like he's willing to go in on whatever the new president of basketball operations wants. And so I think there is a decent chance that he will just punt on an enormous coaching contract that, well, he himself, you know, foolishly came up with and up the amount again and again and again. Though it should be noted, of course, $13 million is a great deal of money.

That's not much more than the mid-level exception in the NBA. a non-taxpayer, mid-level exception. And not a great deal more than the average NBA player's salary last season. And, of course, doesn't count against the cap. But again, that's a great deal of money. Tom Gores has an even much, much greater amount of money. But, you know, it's still a considerable amount for an owner to just leave on the side. But, you know, why keep the guy if he's just a terrible fit for the team?

And I think that Tom Gores, that his priority is unseen the team succeed. So that was my very, very meager defense of Tom Gores. His issue, I think, continues to be that even though he wants to see the team succeed, that he wants to be involved in building that success. And I think that he remains unbelievably amateurish, even after his franchise being the least successful one in the NBA over the course of his ownership over 13 seasons. I guess we can just hope that he is simply a very, very slow learner. He has gotten better.

He hasn't gotten better enough. It has been very slow. His improvements have taken a long time. And has a team owner ever come back from this? sort of sustained stretch of complete ineptitude. I'm not sure. I'd have to look back a long ways. I guess you could say Vivek Rana dive, sort of.

So, yeah, we just hope that he makes the right higher this off season. Whatever, I just hope for improvement. But I don't think he's a bad team owner in the sense that he is, again, I think he is very invested in team success and he is willing to spend and spend a lot. So there's that at the very least. And I think that'll play a part in the incoming people. B-O-B-O having president of basketball operations, really having the authority to get rid of Monty Williams, despite the big salary, and to get rid of Troy Weaver, who was also recently extended,

but probably has paid quite a bit less. All right, so I thought this was going to be a short episode. I already talked 27 minutes about it. Let's talk a little bit about playoffs, and insert joke about Jim Mora and his playoffs rant here. For those of you who aren't familiar with that, just go search for playoffs, Jim Mora, M-O-R-A on YouTube. It's famous a little bit from probably about 30 years ago, a guy named Jim Mora, who was a coach of the Saints and the Colts.

Successful regular season coach, relatively speaking, never won a single playoff game and is probably most well-remembered for that little playoffs rant. So go check it out. It's funny. So we're about halfway through the second round here. And so let's just talk about lessons gleaned. And I don't think there are necessarily any new,

Who season lessons to think about as more of what we already know. And no particular order. As ever, elite creators are everything in the playoffs. The playoffs become, I mean, guys who can create offense at an elite level are the most important thing in the NBA, most important players, most important quantity to have in the NBA. And they get even more important in the playoffs where just one-on-one creation, especially in isolation, becomes just that much more key against considerably tighter defenses. So rotation is shortened, guys who can't play defense are often on the outside.

You're facing the other team's best players a lot more of the time. And teams are just playing much, much harder for every fraction of every point they can get. Fractions of points we're talking in terms of across the entirety of a game. So I want to keep the other team's point for possessions as low as you can and yours as high as you can. It's no different in the regular season. It's just that every possession is contested much more hotly at the postseason level. Of course, talking about fractions of a point. a stupid way of putting it. So basically just having guys who can take somebody else one-on-one

and get you buckets at a high rate, it's going to be that much more valuable. You know, if you're thinking Anthony Edwards, for example, or Shegelgis Alexander or Luca hasn't really been all that good, even though Luca is just a threat in being. I mean, defenses are always going to have to throw two guys at Luca. Even if he's having a bad game from the field, he's really going to be warping defenses, though he just hasn't been very good so far. But Ray Irving has been very good. Donovan Mitchell has been very good. Jalen Brunton has been very good. You just need those guys in the regular season, but you need them that much more in the postseason. You need that creation star power. You can be like the Celtics and be considerably less dependent

upon it because you've got five good scorers on the floor at all times. And Jason Tatum is a superstar. There's no doubt about that. But when you've got five guys who can shoot and, you know how many of them Basically, all five of them can create offense too. Derek White has really been a revelation. I love that trade for the Celtics in the first place, but man, is he taking it to another level? So, yeah, when you have five guys on the court who can score and all of them can shoot too,

then you're relying less on star talent, on superstar creation. And that's a big thing for the Celtics, because for them it used to be, well, you know, either Tatum and Brown create a lot of offense off the dribble or were screwed. They went from being extremely, dependent upon it to being less dependent upon it than any other team in the postseason right now. So, yeah, but nonetheless, I mean, there's elite creators or everything. Defense gets stronger and more important in the playoffs.

A lot less points are being scored than we saw in the regular season. Yeah, just defense gets tighter. And so maybe the refs are calling it a little bit looser than they have in the past. But again, teams just locked down. You've got, and you've got less bad defenders in the floor at any given time. So are you going to be able to win on defense? Nobody gets more important in the postseason. It is very bad to have a weak defense in the postseason.

You still need a potent offense. And again, you still need that superstar offensive talent. But defense will carry you further. Bench depth is important, even though rotation shortened, we need to have that depth, whether it's for injuries or just so that you're not playing your starters a zillion minutes. The Nuggets actually lost some critical depth in the offseason, and they, as a result, are playing their starters.

They have the least bench minutes played in the postseason so far. And they just have very, very little heft off the bench. It doesn't help that D'Andre Jordan is somehow their backup center. So, I mean, you have to have Yokic on the floor basically all times. DeAndre Jordan is a good locker room guy, by all accounts, a terrible NBA player at this stage. You want him playing zero minutes in the postseason if you can. But the Nuggets are really struggling from lack of depth. They're also struggling because the Timberwolves have just done very well.

And I thought that the Nuggets last season at a very easy route to the finals and that they never really faced a team that was both well-coached. Basically had the personnel and the coaching to attack Yokic on defense. I mean, their Achilles heel is Yokic on defense. Yokic does try harder in the postseason, but he has bad mobility and he's always going to have bad mobility. If you put him in the pick and roll, or you force him to play help defense, he's, I mean, he's bad at defending the pick and roll because he's slow.

He's bad at defending in space because he's slow. He's not, I mean, think about Isaiah Stewart. But worse, like Isaiah Stewart's inability to rotate in the interior significant distances. Like if Isaiah Stewart needs to rotate and then contest, he's going to get there late. That's in part because he can't jump very high. I mean, Yokic is... Yokic is only about three inches taller. But, all right, let's not bring Isaiah Stewart into this.

But basically, if you put Yokic in a situation in which defense, in which preventing the opposition from getting a bucket requires him to reposition and contest, it's likely to go hard for the nuggets because he's not going to get there in time. like basically Denver's entire defense is built around protecting him. And then you have Anthony Edwards, who, of course, is causing them a great deal of trouble. Carl Anthony Towns is doing his part as well. So sorry, I neglected to silence my phone. Oh, wow.

It's an invitation to participate in an important survey about term limits for Denver City Council. That's exciting. Being facetious and it's not exciting at all. I guess take shots at me for not doing my civic duty or something. in any case, yeah, so the Nuggets, I mean, the Timberwolves, or last season, Anthony Edwards just really wasn't all that engaged in the postseason. I mean, he really took some games off and he was settling for just bad jumpers rather than really attacking the interior, which of course is not the case now. The Timberwolves then moved on to play against the

sons who did have the personnel to put him in the pick and roll and into attack him, but Monty Williams just didn't feel like doing it. He just decided to have Devin Booker and Kevin Durant and Chris Paul when he was healthy. just create mid-range offense off the dribble. So they had the personnel to do it, but he just didn't feel like it. Kind of like a preview of how things would go with the Pistons, just didn't really feel like doing the coaching. Though he is also just limited in his own way in the postseason,

I think this was much worse than usual for him. I don't know what that was about. But then they played the Lakers. We really only have LeBron capable of penetrating in Darbenham. It's just a really bad coach. And then they played the Heat, who, of course, have the best coach in the league, but Jimmy Butler was injured. And the Heat last season, as with this season, just not a good team.

They're a bad team without Jimmy Butler. Once he got injured, they were finished. He was playing, but he was not himself, and they were finished. So this season, the Nuggets played the Lakers again with the same Darvindham. And now they're up against a well-coached team with a really one of the leagues at this point is coming into his own, at least in this postseason, and we'll see if it continues, but an incredibly athletic and very capable creator who was tough to stop in the weight of the basket.

Timmer Wills were also just playing elite defense, which is good again. Defense, you're not going to win on defense. like the era of the 2003-2004 pistons that going to work pistons is over. The NBA deliberately ended it because defense was way too potent back then. Again, after the changes to hand-checking, the pistons actually in 2005-2006, 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, had the top six defense. I think they were ranked fourth, fifth, fifth, sixth, fifth, sixth, sixth, sixth, so they actually adapted to be a successful offensive team.

You had to. Defense wasn't enough back then. But again, the changes to just the evolution of the NBA has also just made offense that much more potent. And then, of course, the 2018 rules change us to freedom of motion, which I hope will be reverted that the NBA, as we know, is looking at rolling back some of the potency of offense. But even then, I mean, just the era of winning on. Like, none of this about elite defense by the Timberwolves is to say that you can win on defense. The Timberwolves at this point have the best offense in the playoffs so far. only six games, but you have to have that elite offense.

Just defense is not going to carry you that far on its own. Now, just going back to bench depth, you have to talk about the Knicks, who are, you know, impressing to a degree. I mean, Jalen Brunson is an absolutely key component of that. But, I mean, you would think, I mean, I went and checked the bench minutes. Tibido, excuse me, loves playing his starter's extremely heavy minutes. It's a long-running joke about him, but it's actually accurate. And, I mean, the ultimate manifesto.

of that was Derek Rose sustaining its first serious knee injury while playing absolute garbage time minutes. I mean, in a situation in which you shouldn't have been on the floor. Of course, you know, whatever. I mean, if you're, Derek Rose, it seemed like that was coming. You know, the guy just is very injury prone. Who knows, whatever. Obviously, it's not Tom Thibodeos. Tibido, I always get mixed up here. Not Tom's fault as to the fact that that happened, but he likes to play a starter's extremely heavy minutes. And that's what he's doing so far. And you got to think that the Knicks are probably going to run out of, uh, run out of steam. And in any case, I mean, they and the Pacers who are behind two to zero to the Knicks at this point are probably competing just to see who is going to

get annihilated by the Celtics in the conference finals. But still, good for the Knicks. You know, they're, they're making the presence felt again. Um, but yeah, just that, that lack of depth, I think is ultimately going to be killer. The Cavaliers, I don't think have a hope of making it past the Celtics. How happy Donovan Mitchell is is going to really make, make a lot of a big difference this summer because if he's unwilling to sign an extension, then maybe the cavaliers trade him. If he is willing to sign an extension, then they're payroll balloons, and who knows, maybe the Pistons can poach the likes of Isaac O'Cohor off them. Wouldn't be a bad get. He's an interesting option. I should note on offer sheets, just for the sake of, I don't know, post-season, excuse me,

off-season scenarios that offer-shoots are rare because, I know I'm launching into a bit of an A-Side here. Offer sheets are rare because they tie up your cap space and they rarely succeed. So your average offer sheet is going to go through. Basically, there's going to be collusion between the team giving the offer sheet and the team of the player receiving the offer sheet. And basically this team is saying, okay, well, we know, basically the offer sheet is put in with full knowledge that the team isn't going to match. And it turns into a sign and trade where the team with the player who's losing the player is just happy to get something back. But even then, it's very rare. So offer sheet, unlikely to be put in by the pistons on anyone unless they are very confident of a success.

Otherwise, you are very likely just setting calf space on fire because it's not until 48 hours after the moratorium ends, so more than eight days after free agency opens when a decision has to be made by the team holding the restricted free agent's rights. Anyway, so that's just something to think about. But these Celtics are very impressive. And again, injuries are that team's Achilles heel. Borzingus is out for a little while, and they don't have much in the way of depth, but man, is that starting lineup something else? You have five guys, all strong defenders, and all creators, all shooters. That is a tough lineup to go up against. And again, depth is their weakness, but they're actually getting some decent minutes from Al Goreford and from Sam Houser.

But yeah, you're really, of course, leaning very, very heavily upon your starters, but even just having four of those guys in the floor at any given time. You're in very, very good shape. I guess I'll just make some predictions here because I don't know if I'll talk about playoffs for the rest of the rest of the postseason with draft stuff coming into the mix. I think that the thunder are the likeliest to make it. I think it would be a clue. I think the Timberwolves are likely to come out of, I think they're likely to beat the

nuggets at this point. It could take as many as six games. And whatever happens, I think the thunder will come out of the west. I think it's their combination of just having a very good roster. It can run five out in every situation with two guys. Jalen Williams and Che, of course, who are very strong at attacking the rim. Chet Holmgren, who, as long as he doesn't have to play against Yokic is going to be able to match up against, I mean, he'll match up fine against Gobert. He'll match up fine against Porzingis.

And, you know, he can attack off the dribble as well. They have a top-notch coach. I think it's, I'd give them 70, 30 chances of beating the Timberwolves. I think the Celtics are going to end up in the finals. And if everybody's healthy, I think the Celtics go all the way. But man, the Celtics, I mean, if you're, I mean, presumably you're all pissed and fans. I'm going to go out there and watch a team that plays as a team that all, they all play defense. And they're very talented.

I mean, the Celtics are really the ultimate team left in the postseason, excuse me, in the postseason this year. I mean, you don't see, for example, like Drew is mainly just playing defense. and poor Zingas is not really being used in very high usage. And whoever saw Derek White averaging 23 points per game on incredibly high efficiency. But this is a team with five very talented starters, you know, who are all very capable on both ends, who are all strong defenders. Yeah, if you want to look at a team that's like these old going to work teams, I mean, they're never going to find a team that's exactly like that.

But, yeah, the Celtics are, they're just a very strong team. and in a very team's team with five guys, with five starters who are all very important. All right, so getting actually upwards of 40 minutes here. Let's just talk. I'll answer just a couple. Again, thank you for everybody who submitted topic suggestions. Just a couple more. Oh, yeah, one sentiment I'd like to visit ahead of the lottery and ahead of the postseason

is a middle finger to Jalen Duren for completely muddying the waters here in terms of how can he play half decent defense if he's trying hard because we just don't know how much at this point his incredibly bad defense performance worse than when he was a rookie and one of the worst of anybody at his position and I'd say almost certainly the worst of any starting traditional center.

I don't know how much of that was just poor defensive IQ and how much of it was him just increasingly caring less and less about defense across the course of the season that's at the point where by the end he just didn't care at all. I mean it was basically just an empty stats player. Well, not quite empty stats because he was still, again, he made huge strides as a score, though he's still a traditional center. But if you're that bad on defense, I mean, good luck having as a center.

Certainly as a traditional center, good luck having a positive impact. So, yeah, just horrible defensively. So it's like if the Pistons go in and get this number one pick, or even just going in a free agency, do you replace J. Windarwin as center? Do you just bring in a guy? I mean, you don't want to draft Alex Sar just saying, and again, this could be completely irrelevant if the Pistons aren't number one. But you can't just, I mean, you're not going to.

in a draft, Alex Sar, hoping that he gets his shot together at this point. I think the ship has sailed on the pistons, taking players like that. Just given where the organization finds itself and given presumably where ownership finds itself, well, Tom Gores finds himself. I don't think that the incoming front office is going to be given complete latitude, and I don't think, I mean, I'd be surprised if they took Sarr and it's like, well, let's just put him in next season and see if he learns to shoot a power forward. I guess you can bring him in and bring him off the bench as your center. So I guess there's that. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. and you just split minutes between he and Duren and Hohen, you know, and see who comes out ahead.

So it's pretty much, I guess, a win-win in that situation. Probably enough, I hadn't really thought of that. But, I mean, if we just knew more about J-Lind Duren, I mean, let's say the Pistons, 86% chance, I mean, with Sarr, 86% chance the Pistons are not walking out with the number one pick, so it becomes irrelevant. So what do you do with J-Lind Duren in this situation? I mean, if somebody like Claxton, who is not likely to be available, because I think he's very, very likely to stay in Brooklyn, where he's been open about wanting to stay,

and they don't know their picks until 2028 unless they swing. I mean, I know they had that trade offer on the table for unspecified picks and Jalen Green in exchange for Mikhail Bridges. I mean, if the Nets have been able to get their picks back from the rockets and they had sent the picks out, I don't remember how many of them are picks or how many of them are swaps remaining. But if they had been able to get those back in that trade, then cool, you rebuild then. So if they can do that, cool, maybe you'll let Klaxen go. otherwise you're tanking for nothing.

You just still want to compete, so why do you let him go? But if there's a situation in which you have a guy who wants to come in because he wants to start, and he's a stronger defender, a guy like Claxton, and, you know, but he's like, well, I don't want to come in, and this is a thing. You always got to consider player motivations and free agency. These guys all care about, these guys all have their own priorities. So with a guy like Claxton, you know, who can, you know, who would have other options. It's like, well, there's Jaylen Duren.

You're going to come in, but. you know, we know you've been the starter in Brooklyn, but we want you to just accept that if Duren does better, then you're not going to start. What do you say if you're Claxton? Well, if you're other options, you say, oh, thank you, but I'm not interested. And I'm not here. This is a guy who's only going to start if this prospect, whom you would much prefer to succeed, is not performing expectations. So Duren just severely muddied the waters. I mean, he actually looked pretty good. And this first couple weeks, yes, it was before an injury. Yes, I mean, but also he was just trying harder. So, I mean, if we had to have,

Jaylen Duren at maximum defensive effort for the entire season, then we would have seen more of where he stands at this point. He decided that he'd rather just care less and less across the course of the season, and I couldn't possibly care less that the Pistons were in the midst of a bad season. I mean, these guys are professionals. It's just, there's no excuse for just disengaging because the season is going, is going rough. You know, there's just no excuse for that. So, you know, whatever other factors were in there, This is something that players that almost invariably young players do, almost invariably NBA players do. They come and they compete hard every night as a matter of course because that is their job.

And, you know, they have that expectations of themselves. And they, you know, they have that pride as professionals of just going in and doing their job. There's, of course, the additional gear that some players can reach in ideal situations where they're working that much harder. But that's a different story. you know, in that case, it's like, okay, well, momentum, environment, whatever else. But the vast, vast, vast majority of NBA players come in and compete hard on any given night just because it's what they do. So that would a lay side.

Yep, basically a middle finger to Jalen, both for deciding that he just didn't feel like doing his job, they didn't feel like trying hard and felt like checking out. And also just for just the way that that confused things in terms of making judgment of his long-term outlook that much more difficult at a pretty, in a pretty important offseason for. for the pistons. And if you're playing center, I mean, for Duren, you're a traditional big, you have to be a strong defender. You know, if you want this guy to be your, at the very least, a solid or above average defender, I'll put it that way, as a traditional big, if you want this guy to be your starter going forward. And we have no idea if Duren can do that even if he's

working hard. We also don't know if he's going to work hard. So that makes things hard. But yeah, I just can't believe I just thought of that with Sarr. You know, you don't have to draft him as your power forward of the future. And you bring him in and, you know, split minutes and his, rookie season because Saar has some bulking up to do and some work to do as a rebounder and so on and so forth. So you bring him in and you split minutes and you see who comes out ahead and you take it from there. And if Saar doesn't really impress, then you give him more time. And if Duren's really bad, then, well, I guess you trade him and bring yourself in a, well, this is I guess where things may start to go wrong because if Saar's not ready in Duren is still bad, then you don't really have a

qualified starting center. But who knows? getting way out of myself there. You're going to have that discussion after the lottery, if it's relevant. And then ends with a question I received from a listener, one of my favorite sports memories. I'll just go in no particular order here. Number one, or not number one, one of them, is definitely the 2021 NBA draft lottery. That was at the end of the first rebuild season. It was a hotly anticipated draft class, and it was going to be the first time the Pistons. really had a big shot at the number one overall pick. There were a bunch of us who got together on Discord for a watch party,

and man, I've never been, I don't remember the last time I felt that amount of anxiety about anything as I did about just sitting through this draft lottery because it wasn't just waiting to see where the pistons were going to fall. It was also like any team that jumped, meant that they might jump ahead of the pistons. So it was only the Raptors, and as we got down to the last four, I was like, okay, the Pistons are going to get a good prospect out of this no matter what. But like until, like, getting to number six and the OKC's card came up, and I was like, thank goodness.

Like, just thank goodness, Nazar Mohamed, who was there. It was remote draft lottery, but he was there representative on camera. Former, he'd played for the Pistons a long time ago. I was, did not look too happy. Cool. That's fine with me. You know, take your number six pick. Number five came up.

And Jeff Welman. with the magic who I think was in a hotel. He had looked quite happy before, you know, just shortly before that when the Bulls pick had conveyed in the Vujavich trade and then looked considerably less happy once that Orlando's card came up

and then it was to the final four and the Raptors came up at four and Fred Van Vliet came off the screen and then it was down to Ben Wallace, Akeem Olajuwon, and Kobe Altman, yeah, the GM of the Cavalier. leers the cabs got called and then it was like oh my goodness we're down to top two and then at number two

because i think they changed to uh just showing beforehand they would show number one before number two they were showing number two and uh and that red came up and we all just went nuts like man my i was i was shaking after that that was just an incredible moment and it was just it was just so awesome to to be able to share that moment uh with with so many other fans i i've gotten to know uh through uh some of the other Pistons fans I've gotten enough over the internet. Yeah, it was just, it was fantastic. I was just an incredible moment. Going back before that, I should mention though I was far less of a Pistons fan back then and then a lot younger as all of this were. It was 20 years ago. The game five of the 2004 finals, probably very little explanation required there. That was just a magical run

in which just a real team's team, hardworking really blue-collar Detroit teams team, beats you know, a high-powered Wakers squad. Granted without Carl Malone, though, I think almost anybody should be glad that that awful human being never won a championship in the NBA.

But, yeah, the Pistons who were just the scrappy underdogs and came out and dominated that series against, you know, a team that was built on Star Power. So that was fantastic. Elsewhere in the going to work era, game seven

against the heat in 2005, the Pistons really just walked that game down near the end. That was, I mean, that was just a really hard-fought series. Game 7 against the Cavaliers in 2006, and again, I mean, that one, the Pistons were down three to two. I was actually at Game 5 when they lost, the Cavaliers to go down three to two. They came an inch from losing game six. And then in the second half of Game 7, this was LeBron James in his third season,

and the Pistons, it really just had all sorts of difficulty. and in the second half of game seven, they just zeroed him. I mean, they made him irrelevant. It was just beautiful defense, like absolutely beautiful. And, you know, unfortunately, they would end up going out in the next round. But, I mean, that was just remarkable to watch. And if we're talking outside of the Pistons, I don't follow MSU sports nearly as much as I used to. I grew up very close to Michigan State.

And actually was a Michigan fan growing up just to be opposition. to the rest of my immediate family, but I became a Spartans fan after I moved away from Michigan to go to college. I'd say probably, like I was really, I've closely followed Michigan State basketball for a while. Probably my favorite Spartans memory was the 2009 Final Four. I was back in Michigan at the time and got to go to both the Final Four in the championship, and we'll just forget about what happens in the championship. He's the Pistons, excuse me, not the Pistons. The Spartans got annihilated by by the North Carolina team led by Tyler Hansborough. But, yeah, the final four was held at Ford Field.

At that point, it was still the largest audience ever to witness the Final Four, the championship, of course. And in the Final Four, the Spartans played against Yukon. I think Kimball Walker was on that team. Sheem to be it was definitely on that team. And for the Spartans, that was a freshman, Draymond Green. There was Ramar Morgan, Goran Suu. in his senior year, Delvon Rowe, Kaelin Lucas was still a big shot back then. I think off the bench,

maybe no Drell Summers was a starter. Off the bench, Chris Allen, Corey Lucius, that's the one. EBOC, yeah, that was just an awesome game because it was basketball played in an enormous stadium and the vast vast, vast majority of the people there were wearing green and the crowd was super into it. And that was just awesome. That was just a great game. And then the Red Wings, of course, there was a 2008 Cup. And I just, I really got into the Red Wings in 2006. And I loved those teams in 2006, 2007, 2008 team. There were just a lot of high moments there. So the Red Wings winning the Cup in 2008, that was, that was a really big moment. Obviously, you know, that kind of goes without saying. And one of my favorites in-person sports moments was also in that, in that

postseason. I got to go to game for the Red Wings versus the Avalanche in their last meeting in the postseason, will remain their last meeting in the postseason unless they face off in the Stanley Cup finals because now the Red Wings are in the East. But that was really, I'd say, kind of the, that was kind of the end of the Red Wings Avalanche rivalry of that series. There were still a few players left who had played during the glory days of that unbelievable rivalry. I mean, I don't think we'll ever see a rivalry like that. ever again in professional in American professional sports

or North American professional sports I mean that was just an incredible rivalry between the Red Wings and the Avalanche so the Red Wings were a monster in that season and just an absolute machine in the postseason and so they were always favored to win and the Avalanche progressively lost players to injury

over the course of the series as well which of course made things that much more difficult for them and so by game four the Avalanche were down 3 to nothing. Their fans, probably a lot of them had, well, those who were not maybe quite as into hockey just for the sake of going to seeing the games just because, well, they weren't kind of the more dedicated fans to put it that way. A lot of them started selling the playoff tickets.

So I got to go for it a very, very cheap price. And the Red Wings were up seven to two at the end of the second period. And a lot of the Avalanche fans left. I mean, even just going into it, I mean, there are always a ton of Red Wings fans at what used to be Pepsi Center is now Ball Arena, just because there are a ton of Red Wings fans in the Denver area. And at this point, you know, in this game, there were even more because they bought this tickets cheaply off of disillusioned avalanche fans. And so probably by the end of the game, because a ton of the avalanche fans just hit the road at the end of the second period. So in the third period, probably like half the people they were wearing red. And it was just awesome.

You know, it was just awesome to be a game like that. that. And it was awesome to see the revenue completely obliterate the avalanche. And yeah, that was, that was just a really cool moment. And this is a more minor one. And it's more noteworthy for me, just kind of more on a personal level, given when it happens. But also in that offseason, Johan Franzins' overtime winner in Game 5 the first round against the Predators. That's also a memorable one for me. And that'll be that for this episode. As always, folks, want to thank you all so much for listening. Hope you're all doing great. I will catch you in next week's episode. I don't know.