Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 197: Troy Weaver's Departure + Reed Sheppard Draft Profile

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

This episode discusses Troy Weaver's departure from the organization, briefly sums up his tenure, and takes a close look at 2024 prospective top-five pick Reed Sheppard.

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Driving to the Basket. I'm Mike and hope you're all doing great today. So we're on day whatever of Monty Williams watch. News is that the team is, or rather Trajan Blankton, is evaluating what's to be done with the current staff, including Monty. If you're like me, then, well, this makes me seem like a little bit of a junky and I'm probably on my phone a little bit too much. but every time I'm away from my phone for a little while or every time I get a notification, I suppose experiencing a bit of a moment of high anxiety to see if it's news. The only way that I realistically see Monty William Sting is if what we've heard about Tom Gora's and his willingness to fully eat this contract is untrue. I can't conceive of any way that Trajan Langdon can look at the absolute catastrophe that this last season was

and think that keeping Monty Williams in the absence of any other factors is a good idea. I mean, the only way you could, I could see that happening is, well, two things. Number one, Gora is putting some pressure on money. I know, excuse me, not on money on Langdon to say, well, I want you to be really sure. just so, you know, that we're not sending this guy out with $55 million still on his contract, though, of course, some enormous fallacy, the sunk cost thing. You know, the real cost is, the additional cost is just going to be the next coach they hire, presumably is not going to be anywhere near so expensive.

But, you know, if there is that pressure and if Langdon can fool himself into thinking, well, we just got to get Monty to buy in next season, if that ends up being the rationale, it's like, okay, well, that implicitly notes that Monty took this job and at that time a weak record annual salary and league record overall contract without really any intention of genuinely doing the job. And I don't see how you can possibly in that situation view him as worthy at all of a second chance. I mean, just how can you do that? it's like, dude, you threw a whole season on bad decision after bad decision after bad decision and outright neglect and yada, yada, yada. So I just don't see it.

And I'm just hoping against, maybe not against hope that this organization will actually make the right decisions for once. Other news, the other half of the not-so-dynamic duo, Troy Weaver, was fired, I think four days ago. That's less of a big deal to me. I think that Troy's hard power was gone the moment they hired a president of basketball operations. And, I mean, of course, it was a wholesale vote of no confidence in him by Tom Gores. His hard power was 100% gone the second that Trajan was hired. I mean, he no longer had any executive decision-making power.

And so even if he'd stayed, even if Trajan Langdon had seen fit to keep him in some capacity, I know he was offered as a token, a quote-unquote off-site scouting job, which he turned down. But yeah, even if trade-of-mankton had seen some use for him, some actual genuine way he could contribute to the organization, I mean, if you're Troyweaver, I think, I mean, you've already basically been told by the actions of Tom Gores that he thinks you failed. And I think that's a reasonable thing to, it was a reasonable claim to make implicitly or otherwise, and that you cannot be trusted with the executive decision-making power. So if you're him, you take what's left, the money that's left on your contract, and you accept getting fired.

So I've spoken quite a bit at length at what I think Troy Weaver's failings have been. I'll just summarize a bit here, though I don't feel like I can necessarily summarize it. I think it's a little more nuanced than this. He didn't really ever have much of a strategy. There were basically just three aspects to it. number one, you know, tank for high picks. And you can't really fault him for that. That's a way to get good talent in the NBA is to pick high in drafts. The Pistons were very fortunate in 2021, considerably less fortunate in 2022 and then got slammed by the lottery odds in in 2023 and 24.

Things would look a little bit different if they had had more lottery luck. But then we come to the other part of things, which is finding diamonds in the rough and building along the margins. And in that capacity, well, we'll just go on to number two, which is, well, number two and number three. Basically, the two other tenets of Weaver strategy were bringing high character guys and it's like, okay, that's all well and good. And you want to have high character guys in your team, and do you want all of your players to be of good character because there are troubles, see another problems otherwise. But, I mean, that's not an end in itself. And occasionally, I think Weaver was a little too focused on that. It's like, oh, look, this guy is of high

character, and I'm going to prize that over other things. It's like, a guy can just be a pretty good character, and you can actually draft a talent. I think Sasser was very much a character pick, because his fit was always weird, and he was not coming out of the NCAA with really any skill beyond shooting. They flash some surprising playmaking, though it's, again, like I've said, that's going to depend upon making a very difficult shot profile work. But you saw such character picks as I think, who knows if Luca Garza was one, I think Isaiah Livers was won to a degree. He marked, I mean, Weaver in his first two drafts, I mean, obviously, Stuart, a lot was

prized on character there. And, you know, character was really prized with Sadiq Bay. That turned out to be a poor evaluation because we all know what happened with Sadiq Bay. He just decided in season three that he was going to get his, and it was all downhill from there. Sabinly, who knows. So it's like, okay, characters all will and good. It's not really an end to itself. It's not really a, it's not really going to be a key pillar of team building, though.

Again, I think it's important that all players, you want all of your players to be hard workers and team first guys. So that was one tenet of it. And the other was just accumulating as much raw talent as he possibly could. and just trying to mash it all onto a roster and hope that some of that raw talents would translate into actual production on the court. As we know, absolutely none of it did. And I'm not talking about the talents,

the likes of Ivy and Inesar or Duren, who are all lottery picks and two of them are top five picks. I'm talking about all the reclamation projects and, yeah, just the raw talent he brought in and 100% of it failed. and bringing that raw talent in and giving it minutes, major roles in the rotation came at the cost of fielding

actual honest to goodness functional rosters for the youth to develop in. That was a problem, so it was a double whammy because you were not getting, I mean, you got nothing out of it and you had to, it came with the opportunity cost of, again, fielding just decent, not even decent. They don't need to be winning raw. They just need to be semi-functional rosters, especially on offense.

Like the 2021 off-season. So, yeah, just to summarize, that was, it was basically, that was not much of a coherent strategy. Just those three things are not enough to build a good team. And he went, and who knows how much involvement Stefanski earlier on, because I, I don't think he's, as we've been told, really overly involved in the personnel side of things at the moment. And aren't telling him, you just don't know.

He's the boogeyman. you don't know what involvement he has. But I think it's a relatively safe assumption that this was Weaver's strategy. I guess Tell him and Stefanski were around before. And, like, there's nothing wrong inherently with going off the beaten path. And sometimes, you know, being innovative is not a bad thing. But there are reasons not to abandon certain conventional wisdom. And unfortunately, I mean, it wasn't just that Weaver went way overboard

in terms of just looking for all of the high-ceiling raw talent he could get. It was also that he was not a very good talent evaluator. Who knows the development staff had anything to do with this? But there were just a lot of if he can shoot guys. There were guys with questionable basketball IQ, but real athletic gifts and like Bagley and Wiseman. Wiseman was the most egregious of all of these, of course. And so, yeah, I think that I keep coming back to this

because it was just such an abomination, the 2021 offseason really just typified Troy Weaver. I think a lot of us didn't realize it at the time. I didn't realize it at the time. Maybe I was, I don't know, for whatever reason. So just to sum that up, and I went into this at length, like back in November or something, just went into why I thought the rebuild, where I thought Troy Weaver had gone wrong at much greater length. I just paused for a moment and went and rechecked the list.

or check the list of episodes. That was episode 175. So the 2021 off season, it's like, okay, you're drafting your prospective franchise player. And in that situation, especially if he's elite guard, you generally want to surround him with a decent amount of shooting so he can run a functional offense. And just give him what he needs to put him in position to succeed. Doesn't need to be putting him in position to win right now. And the Pistons at that point, I think it was, I think it was. very much the right thing to do to go for more high-ceiling talent in the draft and to really, yeah, to focus on that, focus on development, you're not really trying to win.

And that's fine. But, oh man, Troy Weaver do the opposite of fielding a functional roster around Cade. The first thing he did on draft day after it was, this is shortly before or maybe a little bit after it was reported that the business had landed on drafting Cade was to dump, was to trade down 20 spots, I believe, in the second rounds to draft, excuse me, to dump Mason Plumley, who had been like the 25th best starting center in the league in his one year with the Pistons, but nonetheless was a veteran pick and roll big for a player, Kate Cunningham, who lives in the high pick and roll. That is a useful thing to have.

He could also help out a little bit with interior playmaking. So you dump him on the same day. I mean, it would have been a useful player. And you replace him with Isaiah Stewart, who was terrible on the role. Wasn't shooting at the time. Could do nothing but get in Cade's way. And for your backup center, you signed Kelly Olinick for, quote, unquote, for the spacing. And then your third string center is Luca Garza or Trey Liles.

None of these four centers can operate on the pick and roll. They're all on athletic bigs. What else do you do? well, you don't surround him with much shooting at all. That team had, if I remember correctly, two reliable shooters outside of Cade, just Grant and Bay. And who else was on there? Diallo, oh, well, if he can shoot, it can be a good player.

Josh Jackson, oh, if he can shoot, he can be a good player. Frank Jackson, who had one good shooting season and two bad ones. Killian Hayes, who even in Europe did not have a pedigree as a, you know, just he didn't have a good track, where he didn't have any sort of established track record as a shooter. You know, he was going to get, of course, they wanted to see what they had in him, and that was just kind of what it was,

but he wasn't shooting either, and there was, there was no, it shouldn't have been a high degree of confidence as he was going to be able to shoot. You had Trey Liles, who was generally a good shooter one year and a terrible shooter the next year. He went back and forth,

not a reliable shooter. Oh, sorry, I forgot Kelly O'Winnick in the shooter category, but he's more of kind of like a decent shooter. who was pretty inconsistent from season to season. And beyond that, who did you have? Sabin Lee? Well, if he can shoot, he can be, you know, a decent rotation player. And beyond that, Isaiah Livers, who was not likely to be healthy for some time.

And ultimately, end up playing only the final quarter of the season. And you get where I'm going with this. Like, the Pistons got very, very lucky that Corey Joseph randomly became an efficient force. or a 40% plus three-point shooter because that meant that Cade had decent spacing in the starting lineup. At least when Jeremy Grant was in the lineup, when Jeremy Grant, the persons were one injury away from having way too little spacing. And in the event, they had two injuries to Grant and two Olinick.

But even one would have meant only, even if Cade had shot well, I mean, it would have meant two non-shooters in the starting lineup period. Now, it's worth noting that actually the best lineup, with significant minutes that Cade has ever played in to date was he, Corey Joseph, Sadiq Bay, Jeremy Grant, and Isaiah Stewart. And that's in part because even though Stewart was always far from an ideal compliment to Cade

and again wasn't shooting that season either, which was always befuddling to me because he was just, him shooting at center was always going to be a necessary component of him being a non-negative contributor. And that continues to be the case. but, you know, there were three shooters next to Cade, you know, at shooting guard and at the forward spots, and Stewart at least was a good defender.

Stuart and Grant's a good defensive duo, and Bay was a serviceable defender there in that season as well, as I've said many times. Stuart, if he's at least got a couple good defenders in the perimeter, and especially, and I mentioned Grant because he was a solid helpside rim protector, you know, in that event. that was a solid defensive lineup. Cade in his rookie season was a pretty average defender, much better than he was in this past season. So that was the one and only, literally only lineup Cade Cunningham

has played in for a significant number of minutes that was able to run a functional offense. And sure, he missed almost all of his sophomore season, but even going into his sophomore season, and granted this was in part because of an injury to Marvin Bagley. but at the start of the season there were shooters in the floor between

Stewart and Bogdanovich and Bay but they were like the slowest least athletic front court most undersized and just the combination of undersized and incredibly slow and unathetic

is really something else they're basically not fun it was not a functional front court and it was in small minutes anyway because ultimately K did not play many games but yeah just in through all the games he's played it's just like that one lineup from like the last 25 games of his rookie season is the only functional lineup and it was able to play defense too but the only functional offensive lineup that he has played significant minutes in and that is

ridiculous and that lineup actually had a at a positive net rating that lineup was not bad at all but man it was just it was just it was just ridiculous. And again, that in that lineup would not have worked if Corey Joseph had not randomly after a season as a below average shooter become a good one. The other pistons couldn't. The front office could not have been anticipating that. So, uh, rant over. We all know, Troy Weaver failed pretty hard. Um, again, though, he's the one I was less concerned about because just the overlap between he and Trajan Langdon is always going to be significance and all of this hard decision making power is gone, whereas Trajan's not going to be on the floor

telling Monty Williams how to coach. They just don't overreesome. They just don't overreesome. will happen the same way. So I think the Monty decision is the bigger one. So let's move on to talking about this week's draft prospect. And oh, first, in a little bit of draft news, DeCola Topic, who was a potential top five pick. It came out today and he confirmed it that he has partially torn ACL. And that probably kicks them out of the top five potential, you know, its potential for being in the top five, which kind of sucks for the pistons, because If the Pistons have, if you see Clingan go in the top five, or top four rather, then, and you have one other guy, whether that's Topic or Ron Holland or Dillingham or whoever, and you never know in this draft. Who ends up going in the top four, then the Pistons have access, and you've got to think that Sar is going to go in the top two.

Then one of Risa Shea and Shepard would be available at number five, and that would be nice. So this news, well, I mean, it sucks for him. Though partial terror, it depends on how bad the terror is. It's bad news for him. It's also less than ideal for the piston. So who knows, maybe it would end up going outside the top four anyway. Okay. So the one we're going to talk about today is Reed Shepard.

And oh, yeah, this is the kind of pick. I'm not, you know, I'll talk about how I feel about him. But this is just a situation where having pick number five sucks. Week draft or not, it's always better. to pick higher rather than lower. So anyway, let's talk read Shepard. So Shepard is a guard out of Kentucky. It's going to be about 20 and a half on opening night of his rookie season.

Average about 29 minutes per game, primarily off the bench. I believe he only started in five games. So 12 and a half points per game, four rebounds, four and a half assists, 55% from two, 52% from three, 83% from the line for a whopping 70% true shooting. took about 4.53s a game, about 3 and a half 2s, average two free throws, and came away with upwards of two blocks a game, excuse me, upwards of two steals, about, you know, well, I have in front of me right now actually I'm going to say about 0.7 blocks per game, two turnovers, and only also about two fouls.

He's about 6.1 and 3 quarters inches without shoes, which makes them very, very slightly taller than Marcus Sasser. 182 pounds, and a wingspan of just over 6'3-foot-3. And his role at Kentucky was largely perimeter shooter, of course. So let's talk physical pros and cons first, before we get to offense and defense. So pretty good athlete. Like it was in the upper echelons at the draft combine in terms of open floor speed and standing vertical. He was tied for the highest in the very dubious value for him, max vertical.

max vertical you get a running start and that's going to be a lot more useful for it's going to make a lot more of a difference in taller players whether that's running the open floor or cutting or on the roll or whatever else you know that that's where that's going to make a difference that they can sky for lops

or off the run you know weeping to block a shot or whatever this is going to be a much lesser deal for a guy who's about six foot two with the short wingspan so he's got decent burst he's got pretty high top speed. So athleticism is pretty good.

Decent agility, not great. But it covers ground well. And he can jump, though, not necessarily the greatest at elevating at the rim. So physical downsides, poor anthropometrics, just bad size, bad wingspan. These things matter. And it's one of his chief downsides.

If Reed Shepard were six foot five, with a 6-foot-8 wingspan, then be a top three pick, like probably maybe in contention in this draft for number one, but he's not. And again, at the risk of making a, that's what she said, statement for those of you who are fans of the office, the inches very much matter in the NBA. It is a game of inches. The margins are extremely small. These things matter also. Every weakness gets exploited. That's just how it is in today's game. I'll talk about, more about the issues with his size and, oh my goodness, again. This is not meant to be a double entendre.

Okay, let's move on. Let's talk basketball. All right, so we talk, let's talk about his offense. So what Reed Shepard is at the core, an elite shooter, particularly in spot-up situations and in limited movement on catching shoots, but also shows some pull-up potential and some long-distance pull-up potential. like one of the guys, I wouldn't be surprised if he were the kind of guy who could pull up from like very long distance.

Like, you know, the likes of, you know, Damien Willard, for example, not Damien Willard as a player, but you see guys who can really pull up from well beyond the three point line. And that's a useful skill to have. He shot upwards of 50% on pull-up threes, relatively small volume, only mid-30s in the season. But still an encouraging mark. Upwards of 50% on pull-up interior. jumpers as well. Again, only mid-30s, but still an encouraging sign. It shows you some shot creation potential. He's not a lead playmaker, but he reads the floor well. He can parlay gravity into

passes. He's a pretty solid passer. He might have room to grow there, but my feeling is he's probably just going to be more of a driving kick playmaker than an actual weed guard. But he's unselfish. He's got pretty good vision. And again, he's just good at parlaying the gravity that he attracts as a shooter into open opportunities for others. He's also able to attack closeout tably, you know, to get to the rim with his burst or make passes if guys, you know, if help arrives in time. He can attack off the catch, just in general. If he's got an open lane, his burst will get him to the basket, you know, relatively short amount of time. Or again, willing and able passer in those situations. Run the the floor well in transition.

And yeah, I mean, he's like basically at the moment, a very elite shooter who can do some more stuff. That shooting is always going to be useful. And again, I mean, if he attracts significant gravity when he's attacking the interior, just at the three-point line, and, you know, just parlay is the fact that you have to absolutely close out hard on him. And, you know, he can parlay those close-outs into other opportunities at the rim. or opportunities for teammates or just opportunities to wrong for defenses. These are all useful skills. In terms of cons on offense, he is very much a straight line driver.

That's a tough thing for a guy as small and short-armed as he is at the NBA level. That's just a ticket to having trouble getting into the rim. So he just may be much more limited as a creator. Well, he's a freshman. He was a freshman in college. And his creation wasn't really, he wasn't really much of a creator there. but probably more so at this stage than he projects to be in the NBA. Because, yeah, if you're a, I think, six-foot-two guard, who, you know, he's got pretty good burst, not elite,

in terms of, you know, his ability to just beat guys off the dribble. And, yeah, you're basically just a straight-line driver. You know, you're going to have just guys in the NBA, especially rim protectors, are not going to have a ton of trouble with you. Even your defenders are going to have a pretty easy time in many situations. is just forcing you to one direction or another and making your shot pretty tough. But yeah, if you're just struggling to beat guys like that

at his size and against NBA length, just your window as a creator is significantly smaller. And that's something I don't think is likely to improve. You don't see guys generally make drastic improvements in their handle at the NBA level. So that's definitely an issue for a guy who, well, it's just the downside. We'll put it that way.

It just narrows his window, his likely window as a creator. to creating shots, particularly, you know, creating shots, pull up mid-range jumpers. Again, he's flash some potential, but that's a tough archetype to pull off. You know, we're seeing it with maybe Sasser will be able to do it, but not many guys can do it in the NBA. Because, I mean, though, if you can shoot like 50%, that's an efficient shot. I'm sure in that case you have to be guarded, it's, it's tough to shoot that 50% consistently. Not many guys can do it. Like, he's got a limited track record.

He doesn't have a track record the likes of, say, Tyler Harrow, who was the last legitimate shock creator to come into the NBA, and that that was really his game in the NCAA, and he's managed to translate it to the NBA. Another guy who was supposed to have that archetype was Johnny Davis, a terrible pick, because, again, that's very difficult to make work, and he didn't have anything like the track record that Harrow had in the NCAA. So basically, I think with Shepard, he's going to need a good in-between game in order to make his playmaking work in the NBA. Also, just to be a creator of any ilk. So if he can get the mid-range game going and he can make very difficult pull-up twos, then, you know, and also if he can

make difficult pull-up threes, or if he just needs to be regarded very closely at the three-point line, you know, if he can parlay all those things into enough gravity that guys will get open and he's able to find them. So, but, I mean, again, it's tough to pull off. He had a very promising rookie season at Kentucky to say the least as a shooter, but it wasn't on the highest volume, especially in the interior. And can it be repeated? Who knows? That's another thing to think about. I mean, the guys, I think it's deeply unlikely the guy's going to come into the NBA and shoot as well as he did in the NCAA. This was an unbelievable shooting performance by any measure for anybody at the NCAA level. And I think it's hard to see it. I mean, if he can do it,

then more power to him. That'll be, he'll be an incredibly efficient. score at the NBA level just based on the threes alone, but that's something to consider on offense. Can he do that? So his defense, and this is a, this is a weaker area. I mean, he is good at playing passing lanes. He does have active hands. At the NCAA level, I mean, for a guy his size, putting up even like, you know, three quarters of a block per game, averaging three quarters of a block per game, is pretty impressive. I mean, that's a combination of his leaping ability and his speed and also to a degree is level of engagement. And two plus steals is impressive. Also not foul per own. You know, only two files per game. That said, I mean, just

steals and blocks are not necessarily going to translate to good defense and they don't in his case. That's in part because he is small and he wasn't really all that small for the NCAA, but he's very small for the NBA. Small with a short wingspan. It's also his athleticism does not translate to lateral movement. So these things, you put them together that's going to hurt for somebody. You know, just the combination of the poor size, the poor wingspan, and poor lateral movement means that he's going to be fairly easily beaten because he doesn't really move too well laterally when defending drives, and he doesn't have the height and the length to really

compensate to a degree for when his, you know, basically just to keep between his guy in the basket to a degree or challenge shots, you know, just to compensate a bit for that not-so-great lateral movement. Also, his instincts and awareness off the ball are not great. Those are below average. And you even look at like his, those blocks are unlikely to translate well against the taller opponents in the NBA who are faster and more refined in terms of their shot mechanics, higher releases. The steals, who knows if those will translate. I mean, he is. He is. is, I guess, kind of T.J. McConnell-esque in terms of just the fact that he's probably going to, I think he's probably going to be pretty good at stealing balls at, you know, again, at racking up

steals in the NBA. But again, just steals don't necessarily translate to good defense. And in Shepard's case, they did not in the NCAA. And I don't think they will in the NBA either. Like Steph Curry, who was never been a good defender. He's always been a below average defender. And he's always been, you know, he's played next to Clay Thompson. And he's played next to Dreymond I mean, he's, he's always had strong defenders alongside him. Just the fact that he has been in the upper echelons and the NBA in steals at times has never made a good defender. Generally, guys who rack up a lot of steals on defense are good defenders, but not always. And Shepard is, I think certainly he was in the NCAA.

Probably will be in the NBA an example of that rule. So he's young and, you know, he could improve in terms of, at the very least, his awareness and his decision-making, but not everyone does. players often don't, and just his size and his length are not going to improve. So his best case, I would say, is an elite shooter who has, you know, can create shots at a high level and can parlay his pull-up ability from three and his pull-up ability in the mid-range into a better ability to get to the rim because he needs to be covered more closely at all times. And he can use that, yeah, not only to get to the rim, but also create plays for others.

again, you see what Marcus Sasser, for example, can do when he's hitting his shots, when he's hitting his tough pull-up twos. Like, you have to throw coverage at him at all times, because if you give him space, he's going to sink those shots at an efficient level, and then teammates get open. He's Sasser's never going to get to the rim, you know, in any case, but Shepard does have the burst to probably do it if he has to be covered closely. And he does have the vision to make it work.

I think he'll still probably may or may not be the most ideal off the bench, could probably go either way, but, you know, he could be a solid compliment to elite handler as well. And, you know, in that event, if he pulls it together as a shooter, if he can do, you know, as a pull-up shooter, both from the perimeter and particularly in the mid-range, then, yeah, he could be a real, you know, pretty darn good scorer. I don't think an elite score, but pretty darn good score and also just an elite floor spacer, you know, especially if he gets his movement shooting together as well. And, you know, in this situation, this is a guy who is very likely to compensate for what he's going to cost on defense. His worst case is still probably an elite perimeter shooter, but one who's just somebody whose ability as a creator is largely limited to the perimeter,

who's an ability, you know, if he can't get it together as an interior shot creator, we'll have very limited playmaking upside because guys will just single cover him, just like they do. for example, with Sasser, when he's not hitting his shots in which event, none of his teammates get open. And because I think Shepard is not really going to be able to break down defenses off the drive, he's just going to neuter him as a playmaker. And you add his, what's likely to be poor defense there, is basically just an elite shooter who's exploitable on defense. And that's just the definition of a situational shooter.

And one who's not going to be worth keeping on the floor in some situations, particularly in the postseason. That would, of course, just be a poor value on the pick. period, useful, but, you know, to a degree, you know, a better shooting Gabe Vincent away from the Miami heat. This isn't a situation. Like, you know, we had Brandon Miller last year and Jabari Smith Jr. two years before that, where it's like, okay, if they don't get it together as creators at all, their floor is strong three-indy wing. You know, it's, well, Shepard, it's like, I think his floor is very good perimeter shooter. But at his size and what are likely to be his struggles on defense and his complete lack of versatility on defense, this is not an ideal outcome by any means.

So why do you draft him for the pistons? Primarily for his shooting. You know, the pistons knee perimeter shooting. And Shepard is likely to be elite in that capacity and you hope that the other things come along as well. Why don't you draft him like his potential limits as I've, you know, as I've gone over particularly in the area of defense. Again, if he were three inches taller and had longer arms,

this guy would be probably in contention to go number one. But he doesn't. Also fit. You know, are you sure? Like, the back court is pretty crowded right now. Fit's going to be a consideration. And, you know, I'll talk about, well, hey, I can talk about Fit right now. Usually I do that last.

So basically, a question of Shepard is going to be good enough to be a guy who can lead an offense on his own. You're probably going to wind him up next to another, you know, next to a lead guard. Pistons have exactly one lead guard in the team at the moment. That's Kate Cunningham. they're probably, I think this offseason, and this could introduce some complications as well, are going to want to go out and get a backup point guard if they can get one, the guy who can step into the starting lineup if Kate is injured or just lead the offense when Kate is not on the floor or in foul trouble.

So you're probably going to see Shepard line up, I would imagine. Well, it depends on how, again, how he comes along as an interior shot creator. But you'd be, I don't think you necessarily want to bet on that at the moment. So again, you're probably going to want to line them up next to another guard with decent size. And the starting lineup, I mean, it's like the pistons at this point have three guards. They're going to want to give significant minutes to, you know, between Cade, Ivy, and Grimes. I know there's always the potential to move Cade up to small forward. I just, for reasons I've gone over in the past, I just don't think that's a very good idea.

And, you know, Sasser, I think is probably the likeliest player on the team to not be on the roster or to be a depth player next season. so I'm not too concerned about him. But as long as Ivy stays in the lineup, as long as you're keeping Grimes, just the, you basically got three shooting guards on the team. I don't have high confidence in Ivy's ability to be a lead guard, and I never have.

And that's, I think it's fine if he's not a lead guard. But, yeah, in this situation, you know, unless you really get, unless Shepard punches well above his projected weight, at least next season and probably into the future, I mean, just you're going to have to restructure things. basically a shooting guard. And I don't think you want to sell low on Grimes quite so easily, quite so early Grimes,

who was a top 15 shooting guard in his second season with the Knicks, and could potentially, you know, if things really don't pan out with Ivy, be starting shooting guard for the pistons going forward, though they need to find some creation elsewhere in the lineup. And, yeah, I just don't think you want to give up on Ivy. So the fit is weird at this point. You've got other young players who want to give minutes to and see what you have there. So let's talk value.

Here's the trouble with short guys. If they're not good defenders despite their size, the likes of Lowry or Fred Van Vleet, then they better be pretty darn good as scores and preferably pretty good as playmakers as well, or they're never going to return value on a high pick, even by the standards of this draft. Size, you know, height is to avoid the whatever, insert humor here. So height is a big deal in the NBA, much more than it was a decade ago. mismatches are exploited much more than they were a decade ago. You know, wingspan helps.

Think Reggie Jackson, for example, who has a ridiculous, like seven-foot wingspan at around 6'2 or even Willard at 6'8, but Shepard doesn't have that. So you look at the guys of Shepard's size and wingspan in the NBA today. Like you've got Old Lowry and Fred Van Fleet, and just for the record, I mean, having two very short players in the back court, which the Raptors did, in 2019 and won a championship with would not fly today. That would be hardcore exploited today. The game was just not really played quite so close back then.

I mean, it's just things weren't exploited quite so much. Like, the game is increasingly scientific, just trying to find advantages everywhere you possibly can. But you look at Lowry and Fred Van Fleet and Conley. These are defenders who can score. You look at, you know, who could playmake as well. You look at non-strong defenders like Garland and Conley. Tyree and Brunson, you know, all guys who are two or, you know,

probably less than six foot two because you're always pretty much always round up in the NBA, to are obviously elite scores and strong playmakers. And after that, it kind of falls off, you know, to bench players like McConnell and Pistons legend Monty Morris and Cole Anthony, et cetera, McConnell, who has his issues as a shooter too. I mean, that's a different story. But, you know, you've got these guys who are strong defenders. And solid scores, preferably, you know,

to are also, you know, generally decent playmakers, like old Lowry and like Fred Van Fleet's and like Mike Conley. Or you have guys who are not strong on defense, but are really strong scorers. And then you have bench players, you know, kind of backup point guards who are not really all that great and would be a pretty poor return on value, you know, even by the standards of this draft.

And you have hardly anything between. That continues to apply at like 6 foot 3-ish, too. but you know you get the point and again you know the inches matter in the NBA so that's the concern you know the the size factor is a big deal because yeah just i mean on offense it provides him with some limitations it's really on defense where it's going to hurt you know especially if he is a liability on defense who is not able to provide strong value on the other end then his roots to positive value is much hazier his route to providing a value on this pick is much hazier.

And again, you might end up with a guy who is just the depth shooter, you know, situational shooter. And again, his fit is always going to be lineup dependent. You're always going to want to have a larger guy at shooting, you know, a significantly larger guy at the shooting guard. And if his playmaking doesn't pan out, which, again, is going to depend on his progress as a creator in the interior, then you're going to want to play him next to a weed guard as well. This was the concern I had with Sasser going in.

against Sasser. He exceeded what I thought he would be as a playmaker, because he was never a playmaker at Houston, even as a 22-year-old. What I thought he would be coming in was just a guy who, and Shepard was better than him, even as a freshman, than Sasser was as a senior. But nonetheless, I mean, if these guys can't be lead guards, then, yeah, you basically have to play them next to a lead guard who's significantly taller or just courting a lot of trouble on defense. You know, significantly taller, and obviously, you know, commensurably larger wingspan and et cetera, et cetera. And it's worth keeping in mind that Sasser was actually a very, very elite perimeter shooter in the NCAA. It was not really very smooth road for him in the NBA.

Stuff doesn't always translate. I mean, I think Shepard has probably got even better touch than Sasser does, you know, at least as a perimeter shooter. but there's also, and I think it's very, very likely that he will be very good at that in the NBA, at the NBA level, though not 50%. Hardly anybody does that, but only one player has done that. It's Kyle Corver on relatively low volume with a bolt, no, with the jazz some time ago. But there's always a possibility even that that shooting doesn't really translate at a high level and that he is a short guy who shoots in the high 30s, which isn't bad by any means, but it's not a lead.

I digress. Anyway, let's move on to a few questions. And this one I've seen discussed, and I know this was brought up by Omari and Bryce on their podcast, about the possibility of trading Ivy, number 5, and number 53 for DeJante Murray. And I think this was Omari's idea. And with all due respect to Omari, of whom I have a high opinion, I wouldn't do this trade. So I think the fit with Cade is very poor.

That's always going to be a consideration. There is just tremendous overlap there. They're both at their best by far when on the ball. Murray has had a poor fit with Trey Young, likewise a heavily on-ball player of more so than Cade, which I think is instruction enough. They've got very similar shot profiles. I think both of them attempt a ton of mid-range offense.

neither really gets to the rim on high volume. So you've got two guys who are, it's good to have guys who can get to the rim, put it that way. Neither is a proven shooter. I think Kate will get there. Murray is a major regression candidate. He shot 39% on catch and shoot threes this season, but that was an enormous leap from the sub-33% that he aggregated over the past three seasons. Also, it's just, why trade into a deliberate poor fit? You know, why repeat Atlanta's mistake?

Like overall, you know, at Atlanta, was basically, I mean, the fit was always going to be precarious. You got two heavily on-ball guards, both also, you know, undersized guards. Murray was a good defender, but it should be noted as his defense in Atlanta really took a dump this season. But, yeah, two ball-dominant guards. A lot of overlap. They made this trade just because I guess maybe it was best available and they wanted to take another pick. Excuse me, they wanted to take another step.

But, yeah, just in terms of the fit. and there is more overlap between Kate isn't quite as ball dominant as Trey Young, but Trey Young, of course, is an only three-point shooter. There is more overlap, though not off the ball. There's arguably more overlap between Cade and Murray than there was between Murray and Trey Young. You know, why willingly repeat Atlanta's mistake

by trading into the same situation that they're trying to trade out of right now? Also, like, sure, you want to get help, absolutely. But the goal is to get the right help. It's not just to get any help. That's especially true for an expensive trade such as this one. The cost of a trade is not just the asset cost. It's also the opportunity cost.

I mean, if the pistons trade away Ivy and number five, number five is not super valuable. But I think Ivy continues to maintain a high ceiling. You know, that's, you're going to be able to make an expensive trade. Again, I mean, you're going to have the capital to make another trade, another trade like this. but it's just like I get the desire to see improvement, but making major moves that are both costly and suboptimal

is a very likely route to limiting a team ceiling. And I doubt that any of us are going to be super happy if the pistons end up blocked into mediocrity again because they completely did away with caution and prudence and just it became an all rush to get better and just suboptimal moves were made that were, you know, that do have a high opportunity cost. So I don't know if Atlanta would accept this,

they'd have to think pretty darn well of Ivy because I think, you know, they're not going to get a difference maker at number five. Even if they package number one and number five, could they really get a difference maker at that point, just with those two picks and, you know, whatever salary they have to send out. So that's a question also. But as the Pistons, I just think that the fit is, would be exceptionally poor. And it's not, I mean, it's important that your fit be at least one plus one equals two. And this would be more like one plus one equals one. see at the best, possibly worse. And again, Murray's defense took a dump this season, so he's not even necessarily going to be helping you in that area. I've been seeing a lot of, I guess this

really isn't a question either. This is just something I've been seeing a lot of is trade ideas for the Pistons trade future first. Again, this is kind of like a situation where it's like, yeah, the Pistons want to improve. But the worse you are and the worst shape you're in as an organization with your roster, the less business you have trading future first. Like basically with things being very uncertain, like number one, this is the kind of trade that you make when you are already a competent roster and you want to make the next step and the pissons are not in that situation right now. But also when things are as uncertain as they are, you, it's just a bad move. You know, it's a bad move. It's a not prudent move. I mean, if they're lottery protected, then that's a different story.

but it's unlikely that, you know, watery protected picks are going to be, you know, enough to bring back, like, a good player. It's just unlikely that they're going to have super high value. I mean, if you're trading like a 2030 pick, and 2029 is the first, well, the Pistons will be able to trade 2030. That's on draft nights. No, they can trade 2030 already. The first one, they can trade is 2029. And, of course, you cannot be without a guaranteed first-round pick in two consecutive years. on draft night they'll be able to trade 2031 basically 2029 and 2031 they would be able to trade both of them

but if you're trading that far ahead teams will not generally want you to lottery protect those you know that's it's rare that you see a pick that far in the future be be significantly protected and it's just these are not the moves you make for a team where the pistons are right now of course you also um yeah i've just i've laid out the factors but just just just the worse you are, the less business you have trading future first. And again, there's also the opportunity cost of not being able to make that trade in the future for a player who may not really help you all that much in the now. But, you know, when you could get another player when the team is in better shape, hopefully,

who would be able to help you, you know, who would be on a better timeline. Monty, let's keep this short, because I've already said I'm not going to rant about Monty. Does he deserve a second chance because the roster was bad? I don't know if I've used this metaphor on this podcast before. but I would liken the notion that he deserves a second chance because the roster was bad. To say a NASCAR driver, I don't watch NASCAR. This is just for whatever reason comes up in my head as the metaphor. It's a NASCAR driver who does really badly because he either shows up to every race

completely intoxicated, like totally wasted, or he decides that he just doesn't really care and he's going to just swer back and forth in the races and, you know, crash his car into the wall every time. And you say, oh, well, we think he deserves a second chance because his car wasn't good enough. No, it's like he independently did an absolutely horrible job. It does not deserve a second chance. So that's how we would feel about Monty. I mean, he independently did a horrific job. Nothing about the roster forced him to make bad decision after bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, almost all of which are of a completely indefensible nature. And finally, and though I've gone over Klingan before, I'll just address this again. Why not Donovan Klingin this?

team needs a rim protector, this team needs defense. You got to contextualize this draft. I mean, after SAR, I mean, like the guys, the centers who are worthy of going in the lottery, even in this week of draft, is basically just Klingin. So Klingin is not really your typical defensive big in a couple of ways. Number one, he's going to be a very high variance defender. He's going to be, I think, quite good in drop and significantly less good in switch. And when he's made to defend in space and relocate, I mean, he's going to struggle.

He's going to get places late. He's going to get blown past. So he's not really like a defensive anchor. He's situationally, I think going to be very strong and situationally going to be quite weak. And it's going to need to have good perimeter defenders around him to protect him from being constantly targeted in switches and from needing to defend too much in space. He's also, I think, unlikely to be more than like a 25 minute per game guy. Just endurance with his frame is probably going to be a consideration.

And on offense, like pretty much all of your elite defensive bigs, like your Miles Turner's and your Rudy Gober's and your Jared Allen's and so on, bam out of bios, are athletic and strong in a pick and roll. I mean, Goberra not super athletic, but athletic enough, amazing. And he couples like an amazing standing reach and length with, he's just, I mean, he's just a strong finisher and he's strong in a pick and roll. And those other guys are all above average athletes. Miles Turner adds a three-point shooting as well.

And this is just a basic thing, generally, that centers of that archetype are going to have. Klinga does not. He's, I think, going to be a relatively weak role. man. He absolutely cannot roll explosively to the basket. He's a poor leaper. And even as a finisher below the basket, he's kind of like a below the rim above the rim score because he cannot go up strong. He's a just terrible jumper. So you're losing out on that as well. So you've got a defender who is going to just be situationally very strong and not all that strong elsewhere, who is not going to play a ton of minutes for you and who you're going to lose some stuff on offense. You know, just

having an athletic big who's good on the roll and a good finisher is a very useful thing. And if you can get it together as a shooter, maybe the calculus changes a bit. But even then, you know, he's going to be giving up some stuff as a role man and a finisher. And the shooting is by no means of certainty. All right. So that'll be it for this week's episode. Haven't decided whom I'm going to preview next week, probably Dalton Connect. And always want to thank you all for listening.

Hope you're all doing great. I'll catch you in next week's episode.