Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 198: The Endless Wait for News + Dalton Knecht Draft Profile

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

This episode opines briefly on the interminable wait for news on the head coach situation, then goes in-depth on prospective top-ten draft pick Dalton Knecht of the University of Tennessee.

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Driving to the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all doing great today. So another week closer to the draft, another week closer to free agency. Yes, I'm posting this on a Friday. Just my plan of trying to get back to Wednesdays hasn't worked out too well. Hope, especially given that this is the off season, that you're all okay with it. Still trying. Mike to have a regular day.

In any case, I think this would be a short-than-usual episode, though I think I often say that. and then rambling on to 50 minutes to an hour anyway. So, you know, we'll see what happens. In any event, yeah, another week gone. And no news of any sort from the organization about the coaching situation. And I'm personally, I mean, we're all aggravated with the Detroit Pistons, I'm sure. But just the dysfunction never ends. Those of you who have been around since, you know, been watching for a long time,

have now gone through 16 years of drudgery. And, you know, 13 of those seasons have been with the Pistons under the ownership of Tom Gores. I've only been watching for about 10 of those. Well, nine seasons rather, which means the entirety of my time as a hardcore Pistons fan has been watching the Pistons under the ownership tenure of Tom Gores. And just the dysfunction under him never ends. It just genuinely never ends. and, you know, hopefully I'll look back in a couple weeks and say, okay, well, it just took the

pistons longer than it should have to reach what should have been by all rights, an incredibly easy decision. You know, I hope so. But at this point, it's aggravating. Not only is there no news, but, I mean, there has been no decision, but there is no news at all. There is not the slightest bit of transparency. There is not really the slightest bit of transparency about anything.

I mean, we barely even hear whom the pistons are working out in terms of draft prospects. So it's kind of like, okay, like, you know, from the organization, you know, we, you know, we really intend on making progress, you know, really grateful to the fans for sticking with us. We're not going to give you any information and we owe you absolutely nothing. It's this just a ludicrously discordant message. And again, I think it all begins at the top. I know I recorded an episode a few weeks ago, you know, making a very meager defense in Tom Gores and what sets Tom Gores apart, the one and only thing are two qualities. That set him apart from the worst of the worst of the worst of American pro sports franchise owners.

One, he's clearly very invested in team success. And two, he's willing to spend whatever it takes. Though again, with the Monty Williams situation, he managed through just, again, it's absolutely baffling how a hyper-successful businessman like him could make the mistake of pursuing Monty Williams like he did. Take no for an answer. You know, just throwing money at a guy is not going to get you a dedicated employee. I think that's what may have happened with Casey.

We know that Dwayne Casey was planning on taking time off. And he got what back then was a pretty hefty contract, $6 million a year. Of course, the difference to Dwayne Casey is that by every indication, he's a man of very high integrity. He did the job to his utmost. And, you know, you couldn't. I mean, he could ask for better coaching. But, you know, the guy by all accounts is, I mean, he was an extremely hard worker as a coach, you know, wherever he was, including in Detroit. So, but whatever the KAC, I managed, Tom Gores managed to even turn his, his very very

very, very real willingness to spend a lot of money into a major negative with the Monty Williams situation. But, you know, everything starts from the top. And Gora's the spite, it's kind of like the well-meaning fool from, you know, the classic stories. It's like, you're well-meaning, but you're still a fool. And Tom Gora is cartoonishly incompetent, like genuinely cartoonishly incompetent. When he gets involved, it almost invariably goes badly. And it's like, okay, well, even trying to hire a coach with the amount of money your spending is going to present. in a disaster, and it was a disaster. And I believe, I mean, it's possible that Tracham Langdon just is taking his time, you know, doing a thorough evaluation of Monty Williams in which event,

I mean, there's only one logical conclusion he could find from that. And if he's doing an evaluation that takes this long, then it's probably at the behest of Tom Gores, whom I'm guessing is not quite as willing to just eat the contract out of hand as we've been told. And my guess is that the holdup is Tom Gores and in his hesitance to just move past a very, very expensive contract. You know, and again, I think this all starts and ends at the top. It's extremely frustrating. I mean, this organization cannot stop getting out of its own way, and it starts at the top. But just, I mean, he is just a, it's unbelievable how inept he is and amateurish.

And this is after 13 seasons, and he's barely learned anything. Just everything he touches when it comes to. the Pistons turns to dirt. It almost always goes badly. I mean, it's hard to screw up buying a G-League team. And, you know, give them all the credit for that. You know, the Pistons were going to lose the drive because the drive were not willing to move. And the Pistons had built this new performance center and they wanted a G-League team in Detroit. And Robert Sarver, who was the owner of the Sons at the time and was really a cheap skate, oh, didn't, you know, he wanted to cut costs. So Tom Gores went out and bought a G-League team. It's like awesome.

good job, Tom. It's an unequivocal benefit for the team, and that one is hard to screw up. But beyond that, it's like, where have you not screwed up? So, yeah, it's just frustrating. There is no reason for this, for the weight to be this long for a coach who was a complete and utter disaster. And I'll just say, I don't abide by, oh, you know, I don't blame him for taking all the money. It's like, okay, well, you can say you don't blame him for taking all the money. And I agree with that. But you absolutely can't blame him for taking all the money when he had absolutely. absolutely no intention of doing the job and did an absolute and utter terrible, horrible, comically bad job of it, which was some combination of genuine ineptitude. And these,

either one or both of these latter two, I'd say it's virtually indisputable that these were the case, given the horrendous dropping quality from his time with his previous teams and just the fact that no NBA coach can realistically do as badly as he did. I mean, it's just logically impossible, as he suffered a bunch of silent strokes in the offseason. Yeah, some combination of genuine ineptitude, gross neglect, and outright sabotage and the fact that the third one is even, you know, a plausible explanation just shows how ridiculous it was. So what's there really to think about?

The guy was a catastrophe. It was a catastrophe in every way, you know, on the courts and in terms of player management as well, you know, he lost the locker and basically in game number five. So anyway, not going to talk at length. I promise I wouldn't talk at length about Monty. just contextualizing this and what is the holdup. There is very, very little in the way. There is virtually no reason to keep him.

I can't think of a single reason. You know, it might plausibly, you know, even if we're talking economics, based on how he did last season, it very plausibly could cost the pistons more just in terms of tickets and merch sales to keep him than it would to pay like $6 or $7 million a year or less maybe to a first-time coach,

to a promising first-time coach. So obviously they're the economics and it's not my money. But in terms of a basketball operations, from a basketball operation standpoint, there's literally every reason to get rid of him and no reason to keep him. And there's no reason to say, oh, well, you know, if you buy in and actually do your job this season, then you can stay because a guy who was willing to completely phone it in. And again, at the very least, was guilty of an incredible level of neglect and a total lack of integrity between not doing the job and constantly. constantly lying to the media when they tried to call into task about why you're doing this. You know, that's not a guy who'd give a second chance to. It's just not.

It doesn't deserve a second chance. And, you know, what message you, this is a lesser concern, but what message you're sending to everybody else in the organization, including the players, you know, for what that's worth? You know, who knows? I mean, that's not a primary consideration. The primary consideration is getting him away. So you can have a better coach, and so he doesn't do any more damage because he did quite a bit of damage last year, you know, between just what the players must have gone through. And the damage he did to development and the damage he did to the rebuild, you leave him in place, you can just do that damage again. It's not let's give him another

shot and fire him halfway through next season. Because you fire him halfway through next season, it's because he's done a horrible job again. And then, you know, restarting with a new coach midseason can work sometimes, but often that's, you know, it's a difficult process. So every reason to get rid of him, no reason to keep him, you know, from a basketball operation standpoint. And again, even from an economic standpoint, you're probably going to defeat anything like he was last season. And again, I don't care if he decides he's going to come in and actually do his job. I don't think he deserves that opportunity. I did. And again, there's no real plausible reason to bet on him improving. So, yeah, even from an economic standpoint, you're probably losing more money by

keeping him than you are by replacing him. So anyway, that's that extremely frustrating situation. And it sucks that we absolutely cannot depend on this team to make the right decision in any situation. That's just how it is. This is probably at this point the worst run organization or the NBA. And again, that starts right at the top with an owner who is just comically incompetent and learns at a glacial pace. All right, so moving on, only really a couple of storylines this week. You know, one thing I think is is worth visiting. There have been some reports that there are teams looking to move into the top five,

you know, looking to trade up. I think those primarily come from Kevin O'Connor, who regrettably, you know, regrettably because this means other options for the Pistons is an un-reliable source. But, you know, if there's truth to those, great. We got more options for the Pistons. We got information, combine strength and agility and measurements, Nantometrics, rather, for the European prospects and found out that Risa Shea is not very athletic

at all. He's still going to go probably top to maybe number one, which just shows you how absurdly weak this draft is, this draft class is. Just a guy who can shoot threes and play decent defense, but is, you know, his leaping ability, you know, at least by the measurements of the combine is remarkably poor. And if that's the case, then your ability, you know, to play weak side rim defense is drastically reduced because, I mean, he's got decent heights. His wingspan is pretty meh. It doesn't really have like a super long, you know, super long arms to compensate for that and so on and so forth. Probably a moot point for the Pistons.

I don't know if he's necessarily going to go top two, but it's entirely possible to go number one. And I think we'll come off the board before number four, excuse me, before number five. And finally, we've heard the Pistons have worked out some more players, but amongst whom is, Jacobi Walter is a potentially elite shooter. And sort of a sleeper maybe to rise in the draft. But again, we've just heard so little about the players, the players whom the Pistons have worked out. Either they're not working out many players, which would be utterly baffling. Because even if you're hoping to trade the pick, you want to get as much information as you can get.

You know, because you might end up drafting one of these players, who knows? So either we're just not hearing about it or they're not doing it. You know, if we're not hearing about it, why? If they're not doing it, even bigger why? All right, so let's talk draft, and today's prospect is going to be Dalton Connect. So Connect on the older side, about 23 and a half. He's going to be on opening night. Went to junior college for two years where he grew three inches from about six foot three to upwards of six, excuse me, upwards of six, five.

Transferred after those two years to northern Colorado in a very charming town of Greeley. I'm using charming, very facetious. it's an old coal mining town. It's not bad. I mean, it's about an hour away from where I live. I've spent time up there. It's not bad, I guess. It's just, I guess, kind of a pastime out here to, you know, to trash on Greeley. In any event, two years there, transferred to Tennessee, where he was in this past NCAA season, SEC player of the year, and Zaneath Smith finalist for a men's player of the year. So, measurements, about six, five, and a quarter inches. So 6'5-1B4-1-Wingspan, 6-9 wingspan, solid 212 pounds, near the top of the pile at the combine in terms of agility and speed, in the upper ranks in standing vertical and pretty high up there in terms of max vertical, which again isn't super useful outside of defensive situations and vertical spacing.

Again, less useful for a short, short-armed guy like Reed Shepard, has more implications for a guy who's taller. and a significantly longer wingspan, like Connect. So he averaged 22 points, five rebounds, two assists, about half a block, half a steel, a little short of two turnovers, two personal fouls, 50% from the field on nine and a half two point attempts, 40% on about six and a half three point attempts, and 77% on about six free throw attempts per game.

And an immediate minus that comes up is that there are just way too many consonants. in his last name. That's a joke, but, you know, seriously, only one vowel and in six letters, you know, whatever. Don't laugh. It's a completely lame joke. So I'll start this off with, you know, in terms of his pluses and minuses with a bit of miscellaneous.

It's worth noting that his work ethic is really good. This guy's just a super hard worker on both ends. Physical player, you know, really seeks out contact on offense, not afraid of it at all, you know, placed physically on defense. It was very healthy in college and his conditioning. was very good, you know, to play a gigantic offensive role at Tennessee. And then your miscellaneous minus, of course, is his age. You look at age, players at 23 and a half are really unlikely to find much in the way of significant growth. You know, it's not out of the question. And, you know,

we've seen it happen. But those tend to be kind of extreme cases. Like, you know, look at Draymond coming into the NBA at 22 and making a ton of progress. But, you know, Traymond's a pretty exceptional player. Yeah, that's, of course, younger than 20. 23 and a half. He'll be about, he's about six months younger, no, five months younger than Buddy Heald was when he was drafted. Anyway, moving on to physical stuff, pretty good athlete. You know, agile, good open floor speed. That's a decent first step. He's a pretty strong vertical athlete. Sort of deceptively strong. He looks pretty lanky, but he's got a strong body at 210 pounds. again, his leaping ability is pretty good, and his length and strengths should make him a solid, you know, those three things together should make him a solid defensive rebounder.

And, you know, also give him, you know, some decent options on offense. In terms of his minuses, just that he's not really an explosive athlete off the dribble. You know, he's not a guy who's going to be really beating anybody one-on-one. That just limits his creation potential, which I'll talk about later. It's not that he's unathletic. It's just that he doesn't really have the first. step. It doesn't really have an explosive for a step. It's decent, but it's not explosive. So his positives on offense, the guy's a shooter, you know, plain and simple. Sweet stroke,

he's got a quick release with good mechanics and a high release point, solid lift, especially when he shoots off the move. High arc. This gets the shot off fast and through coverage, you know, whether that's, you know, pulling up in transition, catching off the move, whatever else, he sets quickly and shoots. It was just a very strong shooter on high volume. 42% on catch and shoots on 182 attempts per game. He shot 40% from three while he was guarded, 47% while he was unguarded. More than two-thirds of his threes were guarded, you know, which is a pretty darned high proportion. That's an extremely high proportion.

Shot 37% off screens on about two attempts per game, which isn't high volume, but he can definitely do it. And also, I mean, he was often shooting from a couple feet beyond the line and the end of the AA's, so NBA three-point range. He can pull up a bit. He can definitely shoot off the move and he's a smart off ball mover. That's a skill. Being an active off ball mover, not all guys do that in the NBA. Being a smart off ball mover is definitely a skill.

He knows how to get open for threes. Just really good at using screens and repositioning on threes. Excuse me, repositioning off screens for open threes. He's just to relocate, move and shoot off the catch. That was his ammo in, like he'll have the ball. He'll pass it and relocate and receive it. and shoot off the move. That was, yeah, that was his MO in the NCAA.

That's always a big deal in the NBA to have that skill. You know, good off ball mover plus quick shot means you always have to be tracked by defenses. You know, and that makes you just a tough cover and a major asset in the hands of a good coach. Because, you know, they perpetually, you're basically a perpetual option in being, so to speak. Like, defenses are always going to have to account for you. you know, you're always, you know, you're just, you're basically always going to be a threat. And so, guys, defenses are always going to have to be paying attention to you. They're always going to have to be chasing you around screens.

And that just, you know, that creates gravity. And you want to give defenses as many options, you know, as many things they have to track it once. Because, of course, that means more opportunity of open, you know, that just makes, you know, for obvious reasons, makes life easier on your offense. You know, they got to track more options than. and much higher probability of wrong footing them. And of course, there's also just what he can do, which is be a guy who can hit difficult threes off the move.

That's just a very, very valuable skill. And especially if he can do it off screens, it's just an extremely difficult option to guard in the NBA with the current freedom of motion rules, which is don't allow you to hold a guy up. He's not quite as fast as the likes of KCP, for example, or old Clay Thompson. but you look at situations where a guy just curls around an offball screen or just curls around a big, you know, hands him the ball off the screen

and he shoots. It's basically impossible to stop a guy from getting a good opportunity there if he's able to hit that shot. And it's, you know, projects as one that connects should be able to make. And just a guy who can hit tough threes off the move is just going to be an asset in any situation. He's got the size also to set screens and then move and shoot. That's always a helpful action. to be able to, you know, the size and the strength, it's always a helpful action to have.

So he's the guy who's going to have the means to get open, and he's going to have the means to hit unguarded shots at a high clip and guarded shots at a high clip as well. Also fearless, completely fearless shooter. Again, also just doesn't need much space. Closeouts don't bother him at all. He's just remarkably good at shooting through close coverage. He's not like, say, and I feel like I should contextualize him in the vein of Reed Shepard, who is also an elite shooter in college, albeit on much lower volume. You know, he's not like Shepard in his shooting.

Shepard is more of just, he's going to shoot open shots for the most part, at least he did in his freshman year in college. Who knows what it'll look like in the NBA. But Connect is going to shoot tough shots through close coverage, and he has the size to do it. It's, you know, he's not six foot one and a quarter. He's got, you know, he's about four inches taller than Shepard, six foot one and a half, rather.

He's about $4.00 than Shepard. He's got much longer arms, much higher release points. So that just makes him much more able to shoot through that tough coverage. He's got the athleticism to burst through open lanes on and off the ball, be that cuts or sometimes lobs. He's smart on both. And he's got the vertical ability in size to finish pretty effectively at the rim. Like he's, again, we can contextualize this, compare him to Shepard,

whose size and short arms basically just are going to make it much more difficult. difficult for him to get to the rim, even at the NBA on, at the NBA level on, or even attacking through open lanes, you know, if, if defense comes and helps, I mean, that just really closes and closes it off for him in a way that it does not with Shepard, just with, excuse me, with, connect with his, with his better size. So should be strong in attacking closeouts, can also, you know, curl along, a curl on close outs, excuse me, or just, just through open lanes, just keeping a defender on his hip and, and scoring with a free hand, has a strength to do that. And just his roots to have a half-decent off-the-drive game in under-ideal situations

and to attack the rim and also to finish through contact is just, it's a lot shorter. His road to being able to do that is a lot shorter than it is for the likes of Reed Shepherd. I just continue comparing them because, again, he's just looking at two probably elite shooters at the NBA level. His handle is fairly decent. You know, he's got like a limited but decent collection of moves solid enough, nothing special. You know, if it were better, he'd be able to better compensate for what's a solid first step, but not explosive. He could isolate and mismatches in the NCAA using his strength. I should probably be able to do that as well in the NBA, not with speed, but with strength. Again, fearless, you know, fearless on the drive as well. Attacks and the contact,

Hunt's free throws, got to the line almost six times per game in the NCAA, safe with the ball at less than two turnovers per game. And just a high volume guy in college. He had the this ridiculous 33% usage rate. Again, his conditioning was good enough to bear up under that load in the NCAA. Hard worker does not mind the spotlight, does not get phased. You know, he's a gamer. And that's an important skill to have at the end, you know, at the NBA level, of course. His minuses on offense, questionable creation upside.

You know, again, like I've said, he's not likely to be beating the average opponent off the dribble. His creation really may be limited to pull up threes, which he definitely showed an aptitude for. in the NCAA. And, you know, though chiefly in transition, not so much in the half court, you know, but you never know. And pull-up twos, which, you know, he's got upside, just in terms of what he's shown, but upside doesn't always translate. And as I'm very fond of saying, it's very, very difficult to make that game work on volume

in the NBA. You can generally count on just a little more than two hands, the number of guys who can do that on volume and with acceptable efficiency. and we just, you know, he attempted very few of those in college. So, you know, similar to Shepard, I suppose. You know, if he can't make the pull-up to his work, then he's going to have trouble really having much in the way of a playmaking game for others and also just a creation game in general.

And when he comes to his playmaking also, he's pretty unremarkable. His basic stuff only. Who knows if that's going to improve much at age 23, though the NBA game does open up things more for players, just in the way of increased, you know, increased spacing, just, you know, better systems and so on. But again, he's just, he's probably going to need that pull-up two game in order to attract more than single coverage. You know, and at the NBA level, you have to be able to make the right pass off of closeouts. And if you're going to be the perimeter player.

And there's not necessarily an indication that he's not going to be able to do that. And it's just he's unlikely to be better than a pretty mediocre or below-average playmaker at his position. and that is not the worst thing in the world. It's not what you want in an NBA game where you just increasingly want all of your players to be able to make decent passes. Five years ago, it was pretty remarkable that the Raptors had just generally had five guys

on the floor who could at the very least, you know, have a, at the very least, had a decent driving kick gamer, you know, a fairly good driving kick game. Now you see, like, with the likes of the Celtics or just anybody. It's just having the solid driving kick game or ideally having a better than solid driving kick game is increasingly becoming the

norm for perimeter players. And again, I think Connect might top off as just a decent driving kick guy, which isn't the worst thing in the world. And it's, again, just not ideal. It's fine. He's not turnover prone. As long as you can just make the obvious passes, okay. And again, he's not like a six foot two guard like, like Reed Shepard. Where are you just, you're going to need more of those skills, you know, to, you know, your roots to being an effective NBA player is a little bit more difficult. So less of a downside and more just lack of a positive, we'll put it that way. His touch around the rim is decent, but not great. And scoring the rim and the NBA will be harder.

I think at the NBA level, he's just how he's likely to be played. Again, he's not likely to be attacking one-on-one. but, you know, it's more just acceptable touch than good touch. You'd like to have good touch. And finally, sealing. You know, if the creation doesn't come together, he's probably just a shooting role player for the most part, but probably a very good one.

On to defense, on the plus side, super hard worker. As athleticism helps, decent length, that helps. Strong enough to go up against guys, you know, maybe larger small forwards, larger power, you know, not against power forwards, probably, but he'll stand a decent chance. He's a physical player, and he doesn't back down.

Not disinterested on defense by any means. He's very engaged. But defense is definitely not a strength for him. More of a minus, but not like a bad, straight, bad defender. Just certainly below average. Lateral mobility isn't great. His reaction in processing are below average.

He's not stupid. I think he's unlikely to be a liability. He's just below average. Not a good point of attack defender. But I don't think he'll be a big liability, just below average. But who knows? You know, will he have more? juice in a lesser offensive role when he is not absolutely the pivot in carrying a gigantic

offensive load, just in playing just a huge offensive role. That's possible. Not necessarily something to bank on, but he's a guy who's probably just going to be a below average, a blow average defender in the NBA. I don't think he'll be bad, but I'm quite confident he'll be below average. You know, if it just turns out that he's, you know, that even, I mean, even a few have really good conditioning at the NCAA level, I mean, just the amount of responsibility he had on off his offense was gigantic. You know, who knows? Maybe if, maybe it frees up some more energy for him on the other end.

And, you know, and his defense gets less poor. But I think almost certain to not be a, uh, an even defender. Again, not bad, but he's going to find his value on offense. So best case, I would say maybe kind of like a Harrow, Tyler Harrow like player. You know, if he can get the pull up to is going. So a guy who can bring you some pull up offense, some movement. shooting, probably with somewhat worse playmaking, but he's got better size, and Harrow is just a bad defender.

Eric Spolstra is an absolute genius of a basketball coach and managed to take the heat to the finals in 2020, with two of his starters being Harrow and Duncan Robinson, both bad defenders. But on the average team, Harrow's defense would be a bigger issue. So I think connect with his size and his wingspan and his strength will be a better defender than Harrow, but probably a worse playmaker. So this best case assumes that he really enhances his off-the-dribble shooting game, which not only allows him, you know, it's more creation, more ability to create offense, he's going to draw more coverage and have an easier time of getting into the rim

because he don't need to be played pretty closely in the interior. And worst case, you know, I think a pretty strong off-ball shooter who doesn't really have much ability to create offense. You know, I think Connect has all of the indications of a guy, who's just going to provide a lot of value as a shooter. So why you would draft him, the shooting, of course, which anybody can use, certainly the pistons, and his floor, I think, which is likely to be very respectable. And also just, yeah, you fell as a need.

You know, you might say, you know, why not just get a guy in free agency like Gary Trent Jr. Or Malik Monk. Well, number one, you're not certain to get either of those guys. Number two, the fit is kind of worse because those guys are very, very much on the guard side of things. I'll talk about that a bit later. well, very soon later. And why you don't draft him is ceiling, because I just don't think the ceiling is very high.

I think it would be fantastic. You know, Tyler Harrow would be a fantastic outcome. But you wonder how much, you know, what further gear he has at the age of 23. And if you're shooting for upside, he's probably not the player you take. Now, again, if you get a Tyler Harrow outcome, that's, you know, that's a great return on the number five pick in this draft, without a doubt. I don't think it's something to bank on. but if you have a guy who is averaging like 15, 16 points per game,

though I know Harrow scored a little bit more than that, but 15, 16 points per game and is giving you both good on and off ball value and elite shooting and non-bad defense. Again, probably more likely below-average defense, then, you know, that's good. But you're probably not betting on a significantly, and him showing significantly more than he did in the NCAA at his age in the NBA where things are going to be a lot more difficult.

In terms of the value proposition, elite catch and shoot guys with good size and athleticism, who can shoot off the move will always have value. The question is if it's value the pistons are satisfied with or if they'll look to move the pick or if they're looking for more upside. His fit is fine. He's not of ideal size to play small forward, but he can do it. He's actually the same height as Jalen Brown, same height as DeMarderoy's, same height as R.J. Barrett's, McCall Bridges, Kelton Johnson, et cetera, though not quite as beefy as some of those guys.

Who knows, he potentially pack on some pounds. You know, I'd add another five or ten pounds. You know, shorter wingspan, of course, than Jalen Brown, who's at almost about seven feet. About the same wingspan in size overall as, again, as DeRosen as the likes of Kelton Johnson and so on. So bokes up a little bit. He should be able to, you know, to play some minutes at small forward. And, you know, you see guys if his size played, some of them play the majority of their minutes, at small forward. So nothing stopping him from, say, lining up at small forward, you know,

next to Quentin Grimes with a bench unit, playing some minutes at small forward in the starting lineup. You know, at least K'd there gives you some greater size. I'm really sorry that it sounds like my voice is cracking. I do have a minor case of asthma, which may be flaring up a bit, this being well into allergy season. But in any case, yeah, you could line up, you could very well play most of his minutes of small forward can definitely line up next to Grimes if he's going to line up if he's going to play in the starting lineup which is probably not his ultimate fate in the NBA even on this team but who knows then you know at least you have Kade there who's going to give you larger average size in the back court well it depends on if he's playing next to ivy i guess with the size of back courts these days it's not necessarily above average but yeah basically it's just to say that he's not consigned to play shooting guard he can he can very well play small forward in the NBA. And playing against guys who are not quite as quick at that position, could be a boon to him on defense. So basically comes down to fit here isn't an issue. And the pistons do need shooting. Man, they do need, you know, they do need wings. So not by any means

a bad fit for the pistons. Scenarios, maybe you trade down and he's still available at number eight or number nine or number 10, though I doubt he'll be available at number 10. It might be a little bit hard to take him at number five, even in this draft. You might look more for upside there. Or if you're these pistons, maybe you just go for a sure thing. You know, maybe you have enough guys on the team who are raw upside. You certainly have three of them in Ivy and Duren and Assar Thompson. And maybe you just look for a sure thing. Again, if you draft him, you're almost certainly getting a high-level shooter who's going to be able to come in and contribute on day one. And it's not likely to be a horrible defensive liability like the, you know,

the likes of Blue Canard. It was not a horrible defense. liability, but very much a defensive liability. Though it should be noted, and yes, the selection of Kinnard over Mitchell gets rightly pilloried. It was just the wrong choice for the Pistons in every way. I mean, they were in no position to be drafting a win-now player at that point, especially, you know, given that Stan Van Gundy had no intention of playing him as Roque anyway. He had 80 million on the table to KCP at the time, which KCP, thankfully for the Pistons. Well, at the time, certainly, thankfully for the Pistons. He really became a good

role player until several seasons later. He turned down, even though that was much more than he was worth. And then Van Gundy signs Wynk-Gaulay, short, you know, I think second day of free agency. So, yeah, I just want to say about Gannard. I mean, Gannard is a spectacular three-point shooter. I think he, at this point, is number three overall in terms of volume behind Steve Kerr, excuse me, in terms of percentage, beyond Steve Kerr, who didn't really shoot on very high volume, and I don't remember number two right now. Whatever the case, Connect,

probably won't be as good as shooter as Luke Kinnard, but he will be considerably less bad on defense. So who knows? Yeah, if you're the pistons and maybe confidence in what they can do in free agency in terms of finding shooting there, we'll play a part here. And it's just impossible to know what's available on the trade market

and what the intention of the new regime is to trade this pick for some way. win now talent that's already played in the NBA. So that's Dalton Connect. Honestly, the more research I did on him, the less, you know, it's a little bit tough to stomach taking, you know, the idea of the pistons taking a guy who probably does not have a very high ceiling with, you know, where the team finds itself. But the, again, a lot of raw talent on the team already.

And just the more I researched him, the less I disliked the, you know, or you could say the more I liked the idea, not the problem. probably the former is a better way putting it. Again, just because it's tough to stomach, but the season we just had, rather the season we just watched. Though, again, I don't think the Pistons are as bad as this season made them out to be.

I don't think this roster is as bad as this last season made it out to be. But, yeah, I wouldn't feel too bad about the Pistons selecting him. I wouldn't feel great about them taking him at number five if they could trade down and get something in the process and take him at a later position. better about it because yeah my my suspicion my I would say my likeliest outcome for him is that

he's probably just going to be a high level shooter in the NBA and who's you know just a high level shooter with with kind of below average defense who's not likely to provide you with much off the ball but again elite shooting is not necessarily excuse me on the ball I'm not going to provide you much on the ball in terms of all recreation but again elite shooting is always going to be very valuable in the NBA and connect is I think likely to be. be a very good shooter in the NBA. All right, folks. So, yeah, and we made it to, we're less than 40 minutes here.

So my prediction came true on this being a short unusual episode. Next week, probably try to cover multiple players, and then we'll release an episode most likely Monday of the following week, two days before the draft, which is really coming up and Free Agency not far behind. So looking forward to it. Anyway, as always, I want to thank you all for listening. Hope you're doing great. I'll catch you in next week's episode.