Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 199: End of an Error: Adios, Monty

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

This episode recaps the firing of Monty Williams and previews 2024 NBA Draft prospect Cody Williams.

Welcome back. Everybody, you are listening to another episode of Driving the Baskets. I'm Mike and hope you're all doing great today. So huge news, of course, we've all heard it, came out today. I'm talking obviously about the pact between the Russian Federation and North Korea. Yeah, jokes aside, he's gone. It's over. No more Monty Williams. Honestly, I didn't know, well, I had thought about how I would feel in this situation. you all know how I feel about how I felt about Monty Williams. There is nothing in sports that pisses me off more than bad coaching. And man, this is just about, not just about, this was absolutely the worst coaching I've ever seen in my life in any sport.

So, you know, I thought it would be a real fist-pump moment, thank goodness, just overwhelming elation. It turned out to be about 20% elation because I'm excited, you know, I'm a lot more excited now about the future and about what next season will look like, whereas it would have been pretty crumming. rushing for me if Monty had been kept. But it was probably 80% relief. You know, relief that now I could be excited about next season, relief that now I'd be able to go back to hopefully watch, you know, really enjoying Pistons basketball rather than just, and this is a problem of my own.

I'm just not good at accepting when coaches are doing an absolutely terrible job. I mean, I, this season, watching Monty coach, I would get so angry. This has never happened to me in sports before, and I'm not predisposed toward anger. I just don't really get very angry generally. I would get like so angry that I would feel it in my gut. It was not a good feeling at all. It was not like the Stan Van Gundy days

when I would just be feeling pretty pissed off. And it's like, oh, well, you know, screw this guy and say, why is he doing this? And it's really frustrating. I mean, I would genuinely get like borderline enraged about, like, not enraged. But I would genuinely get pretty angry about it. And I would feel angry about it for hours after the game. and I'm not talking about like yelling and throwing things angry, just angry.

I'm sure a lot of you experienced that too. So it was relief that wouldn't have to go through that next season. And, you know, relief that there's more hope now for next season, you know, for next season. I know the stuff's all about next season. It's just that there's more hope. And also, honestly, a lot of relief that this organization did not get in its own way again, that an organization with a propensity for an absurd. degree of management incompetence made the right decision or more accurately in terms of the relief

did not make the wrong decision. Now, you all know how I feel about Monty. I mean, I'm glad we don't have to deal anymore with a coach who just doesn't care, who happily phoned it in, who sacrificed his integrity for money. Monty is the kind of guy who is like to portray himself as this kind of solemn man of high integrity. Nothing was forcing him to take this job if he didn't want it, you know, the ethical thing to do, which I think should be expected of anybody is if you take on a responsibility like this especially, you know, any responsibility really, especially in this kind of situation where you're doing a very high profile job for a lot of money, there are two options you have. If you don't intend on doing the job to the best of your ability, don't take the job.

I don't care how good the money is. Or if you don't want the job and you take it anyway, you take it with the expectation of yourself that you will execute these duties to the fullest. I actually believe that this is exactly what happened with Dwayne Casey. I'm not sure how many of you remember, and I think I've talked about this, but I'm not sure how many of you remember that he said he had been planning on taking time off. He had wanted to take a year off. He got back what was back then, actually, a pretty good contract, $30 million over six years.

Moni's offer last season really reset the market for coaching salaries. There are a lot of coaches who should be thanking him right now. But back in 2018, $6 million a year was a good salary for a coach. and I think that that really changed Dwayne Casey's mind about taking the job. However, Dwayne Casey came in and never did anything less than 100% of this job. Summer kicked off. He was across the country to visit his players, tell them what he wanted to work and wanted them to work on. I remember, you know, not long after he was hired, he showed up in California where Stanley Johnson was training.

Stanley was, for whatever bizarre reason, working on his mid-range game, and Dwayne Casey put a stop to that. says I want you to work on this. Did that as far as I can remember with all of his players. He, again, I've always, well, I've said this for a long time. I think Casey was a poor encore coach, but an excellent leader and, you know, and a man of high integrity by everybody's account. And even Stan Van Gundy, I think, though, you know, he frustrated me even more than Casey did. I think, I think it's apparent that, you know, he never put in less than 100% either.

He was just very unfit for the job at that point, you know, as well. both GM and increasingly as time went on as coach. Whatever the case, Monty saw the money, and he sacrificed his integrity by taking on a job. He had plainly zero intention of doing well. And he did something that we have not, I don't remember the last time this was seen in sports. I mean, if you can remember, a recent instance of this, even not in the NBA. I mean, tweet app, can tell me, because I can't remember any recent instance of a coach, just absolutely phoning it in, like just not caring on the road to,

one of the worst coaching performances in modern MBA history. And I always say modern NBA history because I don't know anything past modern NBA history. And I'd say pretty unreservedly, the worst coaching hire the Pistons have made in the last 40 years. I mean, yeah. So, you know, it was a case of a coach who would go out and just do a horrific job, make the same mistakes. So you can't really call the mistakes. Make the same decisions, horrible decisions, because clearly he knew what he was doing. Nobody in the right mind would do a lot of what he did.

and just do it again and again and then get up in front of the media and lie about how he was not going to do it again and then do it again, though as the season one on, he just resorted to blaming the players instead. Anyway, that's about as much as I want to talk about Monty Williams ever again. Realistically, I mean, just honestly,

I'm looking forward to hopefully the article coming out in which we get more insight into what happened beyond closed doors because my guess is that it was pretty ugly. I think that probably Tom Goraz, as I said in an episode a while back, probably strongly disliked the guy. You know, I think anybody would in his place. And so I'm looking forward to reading that. And then I would like to never think about Monty Williams ever again.

This was an incredibly unpleasant episode. I'm just glad he's gone. And I hope to just never think about him again. If he ever coaches in the NBA again, which I doubt at this point, but who knows? Because, I mean, it doesn't matter how often you fail as a retread. You know, if you're well known and you have, you know, any distinguished past at all, you might get hired anyway, though. Yeah, who knows? I mean, money's got another six years.

And actually, I should note that I was wrong about saying that he was still being paid by the sons because I believe his contract had a set-off clause in which if he was being paid a salary by another team, then he wasn't being paid by the son. So basically, if he chooses the coach in the next five years, he's unlikely to actually, you know, be making any extra money. but if he does coach, I'll take great pleasure and hopefully the pistons stomping all over his team. And that'll be it. So as something else I should note, I spent a few minutes at the beginning of last episode lambasting Tom Goras because I believe that he was the one standing in the way of Monty being fired because he changed his mind about wanting to take on another coaching salary or just give up on a contract this large. Needless to say, I was very incorrect because it came out that.

he may have been the chief driver in Monty's firing. And so, Tom, if you're listening to this, and I doubt you are, because you probably would have hired somebody to kill me already, if you're actually listening to this podcast, or if you have been listening to this podcast for a while, I'll just leave it to a quote from one of my favorite scenes from Battlestar Galactica, for those of you who have watched that show, I'd recommend you do if you haven't, if you're a fan of sci-fi.

But, yeah, in the words of Bill Adama, you were right, and I was wrong. Let's leave it at that. So as I've said, I firmly believe that Tom strongly invested in this team succeeding and is willing to spend the money. Realistically, in this case, I think it would have cost the pistons more money if they had kept Monty. I mean, imagine how much money they lost last season by having Little Caesars Arena half full for every game. And, of course, the fan base, we saw it, was extremely jaded last season. That's expensive when fans lose interest.

So there's that. On the other hand, he brought in trade from Langdon and paid a salary. He brought in Fred Vincent. I'll talk about that in a bit in a bit, excuse me, a shooting coach who was working for the Pelicans. He was one of the best in the business. He brought him in. I'm sure that cost a certain amount of money.

The man's willing to spend. He's still cartoonishly incompetent, and he's, you know, bears certainly significant blame, though, again, Monty Williams also bears blame for this himself for the manner in which he brought on Monty in the first. place. And my hope at this point is that he is finally hired competent personnel and we'll get out of the way and stay out of the way. Though ironically, his participation, as it has been portrayed in this last season was probably during the season at least was positive and him almost certainly having been the one to set Monty Williams straight on Jaden Ivy, but I digress. Yes, so hopefully

he has hired good personnel and we'll get out of the way and we'll stay out of the way this time. of personnel, I know that there is some ambiguity as to Trajan Langdon's role in all of this. Did he want to fire Monty? Was he still in the process of making a decision? Did he get overruled by Tom Gores? Personally, my guess is, I mean, first off, you might argue. I mean, the way that Wodge, Adrian Wodzunarowski, excuse me, put it, was that the decision was made at the ownership level. We don't exactly know what that means. know, did, was Gora's always going to be the one to make the decision, given that it's his money? Was Langdon kind of on the fence? Was he taking too long? Because certainly this had dragged on for a while.

I mean, I just find it very difficult to believe that any executive of sound minds would make the decision to keep Monty Williams after what he pulled last season. If not only did he have every option of not doing so, but the owner of his team, I guess. got to think had made it clear that he wanted Monty gone, you know, from all that we've heard. So it's for that reason that I doubt Langdon actually wanted to keep Monty Williams because I cannot think of a single reason why that would have been the case. So hopefully we find out more and hopefully we find out that, you know, at the very least, at the absolute worst, he was on the fence. And, you know, yeah, we'll see what we find out. As far as...

as the subject of coaches to take on the head coach role, which of course will be a priority for the organization now, I got to think that this would be a little quick that you want to have a coach in place when free agency begins in part so that that coach can have some input based on a system, in part because it may be a turnoff to potential free agents if they don't know the coach whom they will be playing for. So in any event, I'm going to leave that for another episode.

I'd like to do some more research on potential candidates first. So moving on, Fred Vinson, as noted, one of the best in the business, as far as shot doctors are concerned, was brought over from where he'd been previously working with Trayjum-Langdon in New Orleans. And what's stock implications of that? So at number one, obviously, this team needs it. I mean, Ivy needs it. Asar needs it.

Kate probably doesn't need it quite as much, but Kate does need it. I mean, guys who are already, I was going to say, decent shooters, realistically, like even the likes of Isaiah Stewart, if he's on the team next season, could use it just to quicken his release, which is still pretty slow at the moment. Though part of the issue is just that he is very hesitant to shoot any coverage. And Sasser, his form is fine.

I don't know, maybe there's some improvements can be made of that. Whatever. Just even for the sake of Ivy and Asar, that's a big deal. one thing I should caution about is that there's a big difference between a solid catch and shoot guy and an actual elite shooter. If we're talking elite shooters, it's like these very highway sought after guys who can reliably hit motion threes, you know, off screens, off relocations, or whatever else, guys who are actually elite shooters.

Because those guys, I talked about it when I was discussing Dalton Connect last week, those guys just had a different dimension to your offense. And though I'd love to be proven wrong, I think it's pretty rare and shouldn't be expected of Vince and that he's going to turn Ivy, for example, into like one of those elite motion shooters. So those are guys you're probably still going to have to find in the draft or in free agency. But nonetheless, of course, this is an unqualified positive. Does it make me feel better about the Pistons potentially drafting a guy who can't shoot

quite as well at the moment? I don't know about that. I think, again, the Pistons would really benefit. I mean, I don't want them to draft connect at five necessarily, but whether it's here or Reed Shepard, who I don't really think quite as highly of, though I would say I don't think super highly of connect, but I mean, Pistons have got to find themselves

one of these high-level shooters somewhere. Like if you're the Celtics, then you've got five guys in the four who can all shoot and create. You don't need those elite shooters. But if you're most teams, it's really good to have one, or two, or however many you can muster. So it would make me feel, little bit better about picking a guy like Buzellas or like Cody Williams, who I'm going to talk

about shortly, maybe not quite as good about picking Ron Holland. And I'm going to try to put out an episode on Friday morning about Holland and Castle, who are the last two I'd really like to go over on Monday. I'm going to try to put out another episode just about fringe guys in the draft, whom if the Pistons should somehow maybe end up with the later picker, if they trade way back, could be of interest to them. So it's like at this point, the pistons are so short on guys who can reliably shoot that just having Vincent isn't necessarily, it doesn't necessarily make me feel better about them bringing in guys who,

even more shaky shooters. And again, I think he can maybe, as far as young players go, even make solid shooters like Isaiah Stewart, for example, better. But there's no guarantee. I mean, there's no guarantee even the best. shot doctor in the business can take a bad shooter and make him reliable and the pistons need reliable shooting. So I would feel less bad about them drafting a guy whose question marks shooting, but I still wouldn't feel great about it. Oh, and one final note

before I get into another draft profile here, and this is a little bit embarrassing. I referred to Nicola Topich as Nicola Topic a couple episodes ago. Sorry, I feel a little bit linguistically ignorant about that. It is actually, I'm quite certain, pronounced topich, as in Yokic. All right, so speaking of guys who don't really have much of a shooting track record, today we're going to talk about Cody Williams out of the University of Colorado, a place where I spent quite a bit of time because that's where I attended college. Though, honestly, I mean, I grew up in Michigan, obviously. And this is more of a football thing, but But for all of us who grew up watching Big Ten football in person and then moved someplace else and then watched another college team.

I remember getting into Folsom Field, which is the football stadium there, and thinking, like, it's not a small stadium, but I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. You know, after having grown up watching games at Spartan Stadium in the big house, I was like, this is like watching. I felt a little bit like, you know, that sense of smug superiority. I mean, it was 19 at the time, where it's like, oh, you know, you call this college football. And I was still very much a Michigan State basketball fan at the time. So I never really went to any of the basketball games there. I don't think anybody, I mean, the only notable player, I believe, in the NBA right now coming out of Colorado is Spencer Dimwitty. And though, of course, Williams will be drafted this season and Tyler, not Tyler Smith, De Silva.

both of them are coming out of both of them are buffalo's coming out of the university of Colorado Colorado being the Colorado Buffaloes so in any case let's talk Cody Williams is the brother of Oklahoma City Thunder standout Jalen Williams one of them this is J-A-L-E-N rather than J-A-Y-L-I-N and there may be another J-A-Y-L-N Williams coming into the NBA in the draft or I think he might be a second rounder I might be completely brain farting on this In any case, Jaylen Moems, who I believe was drafted 15th in 2022, and has drastically outstripped his draft position. He's been excellent for the thunder.

In any case, 6'5, so about three quarters of an inch taller than a SAR, 7 foot one wing span, that's very good, and a twig at 178 pounds. In terms of his athletics of the vertical, decent standing vertical, and three-quarter sprints, otherwise pretty unremarkable, well, above-average standing vertical. And he'll be about one month short of 20 years old on opening night. His stats this season, 24 games, started 18 of them. He missed 13 games due to a variety of injuries. And it's worth noting that the first half of his season was much better than the second half of a season.

So did these injuries hurt him? Who knows? and it's 28.5 minutes per game, 59% from 2 point range on about 6 and a half attempts per game, 41.5% from 3 on a very small volume, only about 1.5 attempts per game from 3. And 71% on 3 free throws per game. Total on the season, 12 points, 3 rebounds, 1.5 assists,

about half a block and steal each two turnovers. So more turnovers than assists, and about two personal fouls. And 62% true shooting. by the team in that, even amongst the Biggs shot profile. He attempted 46% of his shots at the rim, very high percentage for a perimeter player. He hit 73% of those, which is an excellent mark. Only about 42% of his field goals, his made field goals were assisted. 38% else were in the interior on about one-third of his total shots. Again, only 21% assisted, of course, 38% is not good,

though he actually was pretty good in the paint, just anywhere outside of the paint, not so much. and again 41.5% from three, only about 20% of a shot's taken from there. Only 41 total attempts in 17 made, and it's almost all of them assisted. Oddly enough, he only shot 75% on dunks. He attempted 20 dunks and missed five of them. Not exactly a warning sign, just weird. So he's a very basic prospect in terms of evaluation. Like, there are not many things to be said about Cody Williams,

or he's just pretty much an upside prospect who falls within a prehist. I'd say relatively common niche. So I'll break it down a little bit here. So let's talk physicals. His pluses, solid height for the wing, excellent wingspan. Wingspan is big in the NBA, game of inches. It helps you to score, helps you to defend, helps you to take up space. I mean, in scoring, whether that's on the drive or finishing lobs or whatever else, just a very helpful asset to have. He's athletic in transition. He runs the the floor well, solid two-foot leaper, and just agile, good body control, even despite being very slight right now, which he's going to need to improve upon. He was able to, you know,

keep pretty steady through contact against almost almost everybody in the NCAA even was a lot of the guys in the NCAA, not almost everyone, a lot of the guys in the NCAA he was driving into were heavier than he was. Physical mind is as noted, he's a twig, and it doesn't really concern me too much. You can almost parlay this into a plus by saying that he's almost certainly going to improve by putting on weight. Does not appear to be like this sort of extreme skinny that some guys just are genetically like Chet Holmgren. Some guys can absolutely stuff their faces. Some people can absolutely stuff their faces and they're not going to gain weight. Guys like Chet, guys like Thonmaker, a maneuver. Of course, they're, you know, players on the other side of the spectrum, like L. Jefferson,

for example, who can look at food and gain weight. So, but he doesn't look like one of these guys who's just going to have trouble putting on weight. His brother, and again, this comes down to genetics, the same genetic legacy. His brother is very well built, which, you know, is a thing. It's an important thing, rather. You know, it gives you more of an indication. But he just doesn't have the sort of body that makes it look like, man, how is this guy going to gain any weights?

I don't think that's going to be a problem. Should be able to put on 10, 20 pounds. Another minus, he's a pretty blah one-foot leaper. Again, solid off of two feet, especially when he doesn't have the ball. Excuse me, when he's not attacking from on the ball. But a pretty blah one-foot leper, unless he has a runway, though almost ever been in the NBA if they have a runway, almost any perimeter player can really get up there. And just not explosive.

Like his first step is nothing special. Not really somebody who's going to be beating anybody off of explosiveness or speed in isolation. and, you know, even if he's attacking in the pick and roll, it's not a crippling weakness. It's just something he doesn't have. And the same thing is true of his brother. He's not particularly explosive. Jalen Williams gets by on Handel and Smarts and proper use of his body.

You know, he's, that was really one of the things that was considered a downside about him was just his athleticism was very blah coming out of college. Everybody, you know, just the general consensus, but that he'd be a pretty good role player because his fundamentals were all good. But I believe he was a four-year player, yeah, out of Santa Clara. And this was judged the ceiling wouldn't be all that high, and that's turned out to be incorrect. But I digress. So let's talk offense.

You know, of course, the primary thing to look at, and this was his bread and butter, was attacking off the dribble. Pretty smart drive IQ, definitely fearless on the drive. He loves to put the ball on the floor. His handle is decent. Wouldn't say it's great, but he can hang on through spins, through contact, and so on. And his touch at the rim is good. and he can score with both hands. He's decent into contact.

Again, I'm not saying anything here. Jaywin Williams is a pretty basic prospect. I'm not saying anything here that probably 20 other people haven't already said. But that's really his calling card. And, you know, obviously that's a strength, you know, the willingness and willingness to attack the rim pretty ferociously. And, you know, combine that with touch and we use the decent handle. and just a good awareness of how he's going to get to the basket.

Like we saw it with guys like Ivy, for example, like when he got into the NBA as a rookie, it was pretty much, well, I'm going to drive in a straight line and use my speed to get to the basket. It doesn't work that way in the NBA versus guys who are able to be more reactive, which I think Cody Williams is and will be able to be. A decent in-between game in the paint, close to 60% on his floaters and assorted other shots within the paint and not in the restricted area.

pretty active off-ball mover. Being a good two-foot weeper helps things in terms of attacking. He can. Again, not super explosive, but he, you know, he can get into open lanes fast enough. Yeah. And then the fact that he can weep well off of two feet when he gets the ball, means finishing is a lot easier for him, can catch lobs too. Again, strong in transition due to good open floor speed

and his ability to really get up there with the runway. Also, that touch at the rim helps. just a very determined attacker in transition. And a shot for him is solid, if a little bit flat-footed. So he's not somebody who's coming into the league with a broken shot. You know, you saw some flashes, some rare flashes, an example of him driving and then stepping back and shooting a three and hitting it. That's not necessarily something to bank on,

but, you know, if he's a guy who is able to shoot well from three and make guys respect him that way, you know, if he's got really any capacity to step back and do a half decent job of it. Of course, that's just an asset on its own. But yeah, let's not look that far. The last potential business drafty we talked about that way was Killian Hayes, aka French Harden. I wonder how many stepback threes we actually saw him make in the NBA.

But basically, you know, you have potential there. If the shot is good, and I'll talk about that in a moment, to have a guy who's pretty smart and pretty good off the drive, hopefully. It's got a decent floater game. is a decent game of the paint. And also can shoot. You know, needs to be respected enough. You know, it makes it easier for him to drive.

So, but in terms of his minuses, shooting is one of those. He did shoot 41.5%. Unfortunately, it was on very low volume. He made 17 threes all season. And we can play a little game with the percentages. Just to illustrate how low volume it was. If you take away just one of his made three-pointers,

and suddenly he becomes 16 to 41, and that 41.5% drops to 39%. Take away one more, it drops to 36.5%. If you get him down to 14 made threes, so if he just turned three more of his makes and misses, he's suddenly at 34%. And if he just turns five three-pointers, just five across the course of his entire season,

his entire 24 games, then you're looking at about 32%. So this is why I say he's very unproven, despite the percentage. He also shot very little. volume in a senior year of high school. So you can't really look at this guy and say, well, we've got a reliable shooter there. And that's an issue for the pistons because again, I mean, it's going to be an issue for anybody, but again, with the pistons, you look at them and the pistons, you know, at the

risk of me sounding like Vivek Granada, for those of you have seen the Stouskas video. You know, in the NBA you need shooters. I think Stouskas said he hits, you know, 89 out of 1003-pointers. Yeah, I never forget that video. That one's hilarious. So in any events, I mean, the Pissons need shooters. The Pissons need good shooters. And it's going to be as important for Cody Williams as it is for any other perimeter player to be a reliable shooter.

So he's got positive indications, at least as far as his form goes, and the fact that he wasn't terrible from three. The free throw percentage was a little bit concerning. That's not necessarily a slam-down correlation, but it's nice when it's good because that's a positive indication. again. You can be a guy like Killian Hayes, who's a very good free-throw shooter, and it's terrible as a perimeter shooter. But, you know, I like Cody's form. He doesn't get much lift, but the mechanics was solid enough. It's just that he doesn't, she didn't shoot many threes. And, you know, in a senior year of high school, he didn't shoot many threes in the NCAA, so you can't know for sure. So it's still a question mark. Shooting, again, is essential for a perimeter player.

And, you know, you could, I don't think the argument necessarily. needs to be made. But you could argue that at the NBA level, I mean, it's going to be even more, it has additional importance for a guy who's going to find hopefully a certain, you know, decent amount of his value on the drive because if it's Cody Williams first step. And again, if he can't shoot it, you know, good luck to him and the team he's on anyway in terms of getting value out of him. But given that he's not very explosive, if his opponent is willing to sag off, that's just going to neuter his game altogether. Sorry, if you just heard a message tone. forget to silence my phone before I record episodes.

So beyond that, he's going to have more trouble attacking at the NBA level, given that his athleticism is just not very good. His handle is decent enough, as I said, but more average. And if your athleticism isn't great, then you want to have the handle to compensate if you're really going to find a lot of value on the drive. And I don't think he really look at his brother and say, oh, his brother can do it. That's not going to, of course, doesn't work. that way. See in general for effectiveness, plenty of other brothers, including twins who have not

been created equal in terms of NBA effectiveness. It just needs more refinement on the drive in general, though he's got the touch there and, you know, he's got space for development. But, yeah, he's just going to need to refine his drive game in addition to putting on weight in order at the NBA level. I mean, you've got a lot less space, rim protection is drastically better. Defenses are drastically better in general, the fences are drastically better. And so for a guy, you know, like Jalen, like his brother, you're not, if you're not really explosive, sorry, something really loud just fell somewhere, I hope that wasn't in my kitchen. If, yeah, if you're just not explosive and you want to really find your value in the drive game, then you've got to find other ways to do it. You've got to

find other ways to enhance your game. And finally, playmaking is still a significant question mark. was not a bad playmaker per se at Colorado. And, you know, if you're going to end a lot of your drives, you know, scoring a very high percentage, then it makes sense that you're not passing really all that much. But it's kind of a necessity at the NBA level these days that you'd be able to do basic playmaking. And I think he was able to do that. I think he'll be able to do that at the NBA level.

But you always want to find as much value as you can wherever. And so it would be ideal to be a better playmaker, you know, a guy who's a guy who's, you know, a guy who's, and he's going to have to have the NBA level because he's not going to have anywhere near as easy a time get into the basket as he did in the NCAA. And again, particularly if you want to get maximum value out of your drive game. But as long as he can make basic reads off the drive,

fine, you know, that satisfies the minimum. And finally, no mid-range game at all, which is not a huge deal. But it's nice to have one, and it's just really nice to have one if you're depending a lot upon driving. Again, I think he's going to be more of a shooter. Hopefully he's going to have to get a shot together.

Yeah, obviously that goes without saying. He keeps saying it. He's going to shoot a lot more threes at the NBA level, presumably, unless he just ends up being randomly being as good as his brother on the drive. Jalen Williams has not shoot many threes. I think he should shoot more threes because he's good at it. But, yeah, it's not necessarily a killer thing to not have a mid-range game. And as I hover upon constantly, it's very difficult to be efficient on those. But you'll want them to at least be a threat. And he showed no acuity for them at all at C.U.

Not a crippling, you know, not a crippling weakness. Just something a little bit worth mention. shooting. Let's talk defense. So because he's going to find a certain amount of value on defense in the NBA as well. You can be quite confident in that. Hardworking. He's got good length, which he uses reasonably well. He's smart enough. He's not the standouts, but he's smart enough. Potentially, you know, a three position defender if he gets stronger. I think his upside is good defender. Probably no more than good defender, but good defender is good. You know, that's very helpful. Not a guy I think is ever going to be like a real standout defender, but certainly I think has the

capacity to be a plus defender. The athleticism isn't, like, bad. I should reiterate that. It's more just kind of unremarkable. But, you know, on defense, has some help side potential at the rim because he has a good two-foot weeper with good length. He's got, I mean, he's got plenty of mobility to get around. And he's got the wingspan to compensate for some of his athletic downsides, you know,

and talking about those. Yeah, athleticism strikes again a little bit, but it's not like, say, Reed Shepard, who has relatively poor lateral mobility and no way to compensate for it. Cody's lateral mobility is not great. It's not bad. It's probably sort of average, to maybe a little bit below average. But when you've got a seven foot and wing span, it gives you a bit of grace. And that's, you know, he's hardworking. He sticks with it. And finally, just thin, thin, thin, thin. He's got to put on the weight or he's going to get bullied.

Again, should be surmountable. So, yeah, on defense overall, I think, he'll be a plus. I don't think he's going to be one of these guys who's going to light the world on fire. But just the fact that he's a decent athlete, again, just decent. He's just a fairly average. And average is not a bad thing, just not a good thing. So, you know, average plus again, the potential weak side rim protection. And also the wing span should make him a plus on defense, should make him switchable, should make him multipositional. And of course, that's a very good thing. So best case scenario, adds weight, becomes more reliable shooter. You know, and that allows him to capitalize in his driving upside,

and he's able to refine his drive game. Then potentially can be a good score alongside good defense, you know, a 3-D wing with creation upside and a solid starting wing. Worst case, of course, is that he isn't a shooter, and that would pretty much ruin everything exclusive of anything else. Because, again, beyond just the obvious consequences of being an unbuilded shoot, just you cannot participate in what's very high efficiency three point offense you can't finish place from the perimeter and guys sag off of you which is bad in the regular season and killer for

you know if you're playing in the postseason exclusive of that i mean if guys sag off of cody williams then his you know his drive game which again hopefully is going to be a value you know real value ater at the NBA level or at least a significant value adder also dies so he becomes pretty useless so why do you draft him upside again the potential have a long 3&D multi-positional defender with creation upside. But it's really upside. And why don't you draft him? Because he's another upside player who isn't a proven shooter.

And again, Vinson will hopefully be helpful with these things, but you can't really bank on that. You know, it's not a certainty. And again, it's, you know, like improving to, like, good on catching shoots, or at least reliable on catch and shoots versus actually being like a genuinely strong three-point shooter are two different things. and I would be very surprised if Cody Williams became like a really high-level shooter. I think it's by no means out of the question that he can become like a 36, 38%, I don't know,

like decent, like wide open catch and shoots, you know, a guy who can shoot in the high 30s, which is where you want to be in the NBA, just in terms of, again, it's not just efficiency. You know, it's not just hitting the efficiency threshold. That's that you have to keep up with the opposition. You know, if their guys are shooting a higher percentage on open catch and shoot threes, then you got a problem. Just like, again, if free throws, like technically, you know, shooting 60% on free throws is a relatively efficient possession, but everybody else is shooting much better and you have to keep up.

So, and that I didn't mention on his cons, actually, his free throw percentage was just not very good at see you. And you want to see him improve that. So in terms of fit, another raw upside player with unproven shooting. Do the pistons really need that? Again, team has no elite shooters aside from maybe Marcus Sasser if he gets a together. Sasser was a spectacular catch and shoot guy in the NCAA in his senior season. But nobody can do things like, for example, Dalton Connect can.

In terms of his positional fit, of course, the pistons need forwards. You know, he's got solid pites, solid length. And it can certainly and very possibly will line up at small forward. And so, you know, it's not a concern like, drafting a guard right now, wherein, you know, there might be a certain amount of roster restructuring that would have to come with the pistons drafting any guards, unless they wanted to play Quentin Grimes full-time, you know, full-time at Small Forward. Or unless they feel comfortable playing Jaden Ivy's backup point guard, you know, if you're

going to sign, if you're going to draft a guy like Shebert, if you're going to sign a guy like Monk, you probably have to do, well, particularly Monk, you probably have to do some restructuring, but I can talk about that more as we get closer to free agency. and I think the draft will, which when I post this episode, will be less than a week away, will give us some more insight into what's going to happen in free agency. And just in terms of the value proposition, of course, I already said that, you know, a guy who you're looking forward to improve his shooting and then just be a plus defender and then a guy who can do some attacking off the drive.

And everybody wants guys like that. Everybody wants guys who can defend multiple positions, who can shoot threes and can put the ball on the floor and do some creation and be a threat in that capacity. So that's Cody Williams. I know there's been a certain amount of noise, not necessarily from entirely reliable sources. It would not, well, I know nothing about Trajan Langdon. I mean, nobody, to be honest, knows anything about Trajan Langdon's draft philosophy. It was David Griffin, who called the shots in New Orleans. So that is a bit of a complicating factor, that all of us know precisely nothing about what his inclinations are.

But it feels the pistons could very well draft down. Like let's say you get an offer like five for 14 and Jeremy Grant. You know, what are you doing that situation? You got to seriously think about that if you're the front office and you're wanting to make comedian improvements

because Grant would really fill a big hole on this team. And it also frees you from needing to pay, say, Tobias Harris. But who knows, just who knows if he's even available. The Trailblazers are a team to watch because they're still rebuilding and they do have a high salary load. They should be able to avoid the luxury tax fairly easily. Right now, if they were to draft, you know, use both of their draft picks in the first round. Then they would with number seven and number 14, I believe, end up over the tax line, which obviously they don't want to do, not with their roster where it is right now.

I mean, they've got like Robert Williams, who may end up just being dead cap because he can't stay healthy. They've got Malcolm Brogden, who has a significant salary and is also constantly injured. They've got Aidan, who of course has on a rookie max contract. They've got Grant who's paid a significant amount. You've got about 20% of the cap in the off season in which he was signed. And yeah, so who knows if Grant could be on the move. It's just so hard to tell. I don't even bother speculating because it's impossible to know exactly who is going to be.

available on the trade market or for that matter what you know what teams will really what value they will place on the pick you know on pick number five and you might not even know that until you know the the pick it's time for the pick to be made it might depend on who is actually on the board of course will depend on who is actually on the board so if the best ones don't draft down um i would say that i have absolutely no idea what trade what trade will do we'll do we don't know if he's going to look for upside. We don't know if he's going to look for more sort of win now talents, like reliable talents. Like again, I think Dalton Connect will be, you know, we'll provide value in the NBA. I'm likely to be a world beater, but we'll provide

value in the NBA as is probably a pretty good motion shooter, which is always a valuable skill. You know, does he trade down to, I don't know, number nine, you know, with Memphis or something if Memphis wants somebody and take Connect there? You know, what, what, what, could be gotten from that. Does he want upside in the form of modest Buzellas? I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing his first name. Or Cody Williams, for that matter, you know, one of those two. Impossible to say. Things could take one of any number of directions and we're going to see where it goes in less than a week, and I'm looking forward to that. So that'll be it for this episode. As always, want to thank you all for listening. Hope you're all doing great. I'll catch you

in next week's episode.