Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 202: The Offseason So Far -- Tim Hardaway Jr., Free Agency, and JB Bickerstaff,

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

This episode discusses the trade which brought Tim Hardaway Jr. to Detroit, recaps free agency so far and opines on why in the world it's gone so slowly, and speaks about the organization's hire of JB Bickerstaff as its new head coach.

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Driving to the Baskets. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all doing great today. Coming at you with a day after the 4th of July episode, hope you all at a pleasant 4th, and hope you all get a 4-day weekend instead of being dragged back into work for Friday. We're about five days into a surprisingly slow free agency period.

Definitely not what we're all accustomed to. For my part, I've been really in-depth in the NBA for about a decade, and this is by far the slowest one I've experienced. So we'll talk a little bit here about why I believe that has been the case. Talk about the Tim Hardaway Jr. trade. Talk about what the Pistons have done in Free Agency so far and how the rest of it looks and hope that that doesn't become outdated like six hours after I post this episode. And then finally discuss the Pistons' new hire of head coach.

So as far as Free Agency goes, I think it's been a few factors. And sorry that my voice sounds so raspy. I've been losing it a little bit. Hopefully I remain intelligible here. So a few factors. one, just in terms of things starting off slow, is that the NBA has really cut down on tampering, tampering being talking with other teams' free agents before free agency opens. It used to be that we would see a big slew of deals in the first couple of hours of free agency.

And obviously, it's not like, oh, wow, you guys are just so efficient, you know, arriving in terms of a big new deal within like a half hour after free agency opens. I mean, obviously these teams and players were talking to each other before free agency opened. that's clearly not happening anywhere near as much. Either that or it's, you know, or either that or the teams and the players are being super circumspect about it by signing contracts. It's like, okay, they agreed it to a contract before free agency opens

and it's like, oh, well, we'll just announce it like, I don't know, like six hours or 12 or 24 hours after free agency begins, and people, you know, in the NBA will be none the wiser. Maybe that's happening. But it also seems like players and teams just aren't talking before free agency. agency opens are not nearly as much. And as a result, we're seeing a lot less in the way of immediate deals. I think the only really immediate deals we saw after free agency open were Sam Houser and Kevin Love resigning with their own teams. So, yeah, it seems like players are meeting with

their suitors. You know, they're taking their time to do that, and then they're making a decision afterward. So really hasn't been fast and furious like usual. Yes, that's boring for the fans. The NBA front office, of course, doesn't and shouldn't really care if it's boring for the fans. They're most focused, as they should be, on just making sure that the process stays fair, and that the rules, which are intended for the process to stay fair, are being followed. So that's one reason, of course, not the only reason. Another big reason is the conditions put into, excuse me, by the new CBA into salary cap mechanics, particularly the second apron.

Now, as expected, we're not seeing second apron teams dump players to get below the second apron. That would be completely counterproductive for them. The flexibility they would gain from getting below the second apron would come nowhere near to compensating for the talent that they will have lost in dumping useful roster players. I guess that flexibility wouldn't allow them to replace those players. So we're not seeing that. We are seeing teams be careful about getting above the second apron and also getting

even close to the second apron because it's not just about the now teams want to be careful about not needing to spend into the apron until they're ready like if you already have your core pieces you really need to keep them and you know you're ready to contend then okay you resign a player to a much bigger contract you end up above the second apron and that's worth the loss of flexibility that comes from being above the second apron and i should note about the second apron because I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding going around. It does not prevent any team from resigning its own players within the bounds, excuse me, within the framework of bird rights.

It just makes acquiring new talent a lot more difficult, whether on the free agency markets or by trade. The first apron also does that just to a lesser degree. So I had it planned to get into a whole segment about the nitty-gritty of all this in terms of the context of salary cap mechanics. but ultimately decided that probably wasn't going to be super interesting to listen to. The MBA salary cap mechanics are extremely complicated. I feel like my expertise in them is very good.

Nonetheless, I'd rate it only not to toot my own horn. I just kind of how I feel. I'd nonetheless only give myself like an A minus handle, a minus grade in terms of my handle over it because there is inevitably in some situation going to be this minute, obscure detail that comes into things that I just didn't consider. I compare it to the NHL's salary cap mechanics, which is just hard cap. It's like the NHL's mechanics are like a children's novel versus the MBA's quantum mechanics.

You know, so the NBA's quantum mechanics manual or textbook or something like that. It gets really complicated. So, yeah, I'm not going to do that. But suffice it to say, I think the new stuff in the new CPA is having an impact and will continue to have an impact. and where I think it's going to be interesting to see it have an impact, is it's possible that more players will hit free agency in the future because teams are just not willing to spend above the second apron or close to the second apron in order to keep players

when they feel like they're just not ready at that point or they just want to maintain more flexibility. So we might see more kind of mid-level talents, probably not like game-changing starters, hit the free agency market in the future. And also it's just going to be a different sort of situation. It used to be that a team's ability, to spend above the first apron.

And, you know, the first apron has always carried significant, but not crippling penalties for exceeding it. It used to be that the amount that the team could spend above the first apron was limited only by how much money ownership was willing to pay into luxury tax. Like you had the Warriors, for example, who are like the ultimate tax team in NBA history. And, you know, a combination of being far above the tax line and being subject to what's called the repeater penalty, which is if a team has been above the tax line in three out of the past four seasons, the tax penalties multiply. They ended up some seasons back, paying, like,

if I remember correctly, $60 million in luxury tax on Kelly Ubrae's $15 million contract. So it cost them $75 million for a single year of Kelly Ubre, I believe is what it is. So teams could get truly outrageous, and it really did give a big advantage to bigger market teams, like the Golden States of the world, who had that money to spend versus smaller market teams who had a lot less. So that's why the second apron is there. So we could, I think, We are already seeing some interesting consequences of the new CBA, and I think that will continue going forward. And finally, I think there are just some remaining dominoes to topple

before the rest of the players who are still on the free agency markets, and these aren't like super notable players, but they're guys who would never have lasted until July 5th in previous years, like not a chance. And I think those dominoes, one of them is this, five-team gigatrade that involves the Warriors, the Mavericks, the Hornets, the 76ers, and the Knicks. And these teams are aiming to fold all of their, a lot of transactions they've done so far

into a single trade in order to just execute them most optimally within the bounds of the NBA salary cap mechanics. If that doesn't work out, maybe things could change a little bit. None of the transactions are going to fall through as far as I know. but could have some implications. And then there are also the, I almost just said UC Markening. UC Marketing was a goalie for the Edmonton Oilers, who played in the Stanley Cup finals in 2006

after Dwayne Rollison got injured and Ty Conklin gave up a really bad goal in game one. So actually, Laurie Markinen from the same country. They're both finished. And Demarta Rosen, so Laurie Markening trade talks, and Demar de Rosen, who's almost certain to take a sign in trade. because he doesn't want to play for any of the capspace teams. So just whatever implications those two could have for how teams do things going forward. And of course, there could be potential implications for the Pistons if they can be a third

trade, excuse me, a third party taking on salary in a trade that involves marketing, and that's less likely and possibly more likely. Demardo Rosen, as Woh just said, that the bulls don't want to take back salary in a sign-in trade, and so that could potentially position the Pistons to take on possibly useful roster players alongside assets. So how all that goes could inform whether or not the Pistons end up doing that or spending their cap space on free agents. So we'll talk about that a little bit later.

First, let's talk the Tim Hardaway Jr. trade. So it sent out Tim Hardaway Jr., excuse me, to send out Quentin Grimes in exchange for Tim Hardaway, Jr. and three second round picks, one of which is Toronto's 2025 second round pick, which probably pretty high in the second round. And then I believe picks in 2028. Sorry, I don't have it sitting in front of me. So Dallas had to dump Hardaway in order to get access to the full mid-level exception, which it had been planning to use to sign, re-signed Derek Jones Jr.,

who ended up going to the Clippers. It was used on Najee Marshall instead. And I got to say for Dallas, I mean, regardless of what happens going forward, this is a great trade for Dallas. this made Clay Thompson possible, this made signing Najee Marshall possible. They traded away Josh Green, who's a useful rotation player, and recouped some of their second-round draft stock in the process, and Grimes, if he can recover, some of his previous form could replace Josh Green.

The Tim Hardaway Jr. portion of this doesn't bother me. You know, it's a salary dump, and it's less flexibility for agency, but that's fine, and Hardaway Jr. is still, like, a reasonably decent, rotation player who provides a skill that the pistons need. It's the fact that Quentin Grimes was pointlessly needlessly involved in this trade that I really dislike. And it's not like I'm, like, I don't think this is like a huge deal for the Pistons, but I just, I really don't like that Grimes was sent out in this trade. He was basically sold for peanuts. The Mavericks were highly motivated to make this trade period. I think maybe the Pistons would have gotten one less

second round pick. Here's the thing with Grimes. Grimes is not a young player who is just still developing and just, you know, needs basically, like this team has a lot of raw upside with guys who need to develop, and it's kind of unclear as to what they could be. And you don't want to have too many of those guys on the same team. Grimes is 24, and as a sophomore, he was the average to arguably above average starting shooting guard for a 47 win playoff team. So we know that, you know, so though he does have faults, like you don't ever want to ask the guy to create anything off the dribble because he's really bad at it. He is a borderline elite defender who can defend three positions and has. And in the playoffs two seasons ago caused Jimmy Butler a lot of problems, which very few players

can do. And, you know, he can typically shoot threes at a pretty high level. He did that as a rookie. He did that in his final year in college. And he did that in his second season in the NBA. Kind of did a little bit less well at it in his third season. He had some issues with consistency, still when he left the Knicks, he was shooting about between 37 and 38% on catch and shoots. So health is a concern, I think, based on how much time he missed in his first and third seasons. But, you know, you never know. In this past season, it should be noted that, number one, his injury wasn't bad. The injury he had when he came to the Pistons, it was just a partially dislocated kneecap.

It was the first knee injury. He is sustained in the NBA, and ultimately he came back and played just six games with the Pistons. And then just because he was suffering from soreness as a result of that injury, and of course, the season was lost. And I would imagine the plan was just, you know, recover, come back, play next season. The piston shut him down for the rest of the year. He probably could have been brought back and had been fine. I would imagine.

Who knows that's speculation. But basically, he was shut down for an injury that just wasn't bad. So it's hard to say how many games he would have missed if he were playing in a different situation with a team that would have just said, okay, heal and come back. back and who knows how long that might have been, but the pistons obviously weren't going to do that. Whatever. So, yeah, my point is that Quentin Grimes isn't a, what can he be? He isn't a, like, here's a guy with potential upset, but we don't know what it is.

We know that he's got a starter ceiling on, you know, on the right team, on a team that's not going to ask him to create and is just going to ask him to play really good defense and shoot threes and attack some closeouts. So that's the kind of guy, really any team wants, any team will want a guy, you know, a strong three and D player. And Grimes isn't like a 19, 20 year old, he's 24. So this is a guy, basically, if he can just recover like 80% of his sophomore form and stay healthy, then this is a genuinely useful rotation player. So I don't like that he was sent out for peanuts. And I'd like to find out why that happened. I think this trade from the start was a big win for the Mavericks,

because they not only got rid of Tim Hardaway Jr. and only had to pay second amount draft stock, but they got a potential useful 3-and-D guard in return. And, yeah, like, if Grimes winds up to be a useful rotation player going forward, like if he can recover some or, you know, even all of that 2022-2020 form when he was such a valuable role player for the Knicks who did not dump him, they were planning on, it is said that they were planning on keeping him until the summer if a good offer didn't come along. It wasn't just, well, he's out of the rotation, so we don't care. you know, he was there, the legitimate trade piece left on that roster.

And they, you know, ultimately ended up trading him for Boyon, who did not do well for them, but ended up being salary matching for, in the Mekal Bridges trade, so it wasn't all lost. But, yeah, this is just all to say. I just don't like that Grimes was dumped in this trade pointlessly. And it's going to hurt if he can rediscover that form, because, again, this is the kind of player in that form whom every team wants. We didn't get to see Much of him with the Pistons. his one good game was that one against the Knicks in which he did legitimately play very well. And Knicks fans saw a lot of that form in his sophomore season.

So as far as Tim Hardaway Jr., well, as far as the draft stock, there are a few different factors. And again, I think just based on what Dallas was able to do as a result of this trade, you know, they might have ultimately just paid second round draft stock to give themselves, you know, the ability to get Clay, the ability to sign Najee Marshall, and the ability to possibly replace Josh Green, whom they traded away in the sign-and-trade with, you know, to get them Clay Thompson with Quentin Grimes. They might, he might replace Josh Green if that works,

you know, if he works out for them. And they might, even if that five-team trade works out, retain the trade exception that they got as part of the hardaway Grimes deal, though that would be of kind of slightly limited value to them because they're hard-capped at the first apron as a result of doing a sign-and-trade. Anyway, it's like, If, you know, what can Tim Hardaway, Jr. provide to the Pistons is one. Tim Hardaway Jr. is not the rotation player he used to be two years ago or even, or certainly not four years ago.

When he was a genuinely good starting rotation wing, who was rightly considered an elite shooter. He's now a guy who is much less consistent as a shooter, and he's just not the positive value rotation player used to be. That's why the Mavericks dumped him. He was completely expendable. He was on the fringeses of their postseason rotation because he's now. a bad defender and he was never really all that great at doing anything within the arc. It certainly isn't now. Basically, I mean, he was a postseason defensive liability and just the vast vast majority of his value is now found in his perimeter shooting and he wasn't consistent at that. So teams don't dump players like this if they really prefer to keep them. A genuinely solid rotation player, maybe you pay a little bit to just dump him because it didn't take no

salary in return or very little salary in return. But basically what the pistons are getting is a player who may or may not provide good value. And once again, if there were no Grimes in the picture, this would just be a matter of, you know, did we get proper value against the cap space lost in terms of what Hardaway provides and in terms of the second round picks we got. But basically, if Grimes does well,

this trade is a loss for the Pistons period because they lost a valuable player for peanuts. And Quentin Grimes and this sophomore form is considerably better than what Tim Hardaway Jr. can provide now. But just as far as what Hardaway can provide, at the very least, you know, he is a shooter. Question is, can he get back to his previous levels of consistency and effectiveness? He's going to attract gravity. Guys are going to have to chase him because, you know, he is a movement shooter.

And if he gets hot, he's going to hit shots. It's just going to be the difference between him being this really solid play finisher, who really contributes a lot of spacing not only in his ability to shoot, but in that he can hit motion threes and you have to stick to him. Or is he going to be a guy who just shoots a lot but doesn't do a particular. really well. Now the Pistons obviously aren't looking to win this season, but even just having him be a guy who is a must cover because, you know, because he's gotten back to being a very consistent three-point shooter is going to help in terms of spacing in particular. And also just the

pistons being a more competitive, you know, putting up a more competitive product. As far as the second round picks, you never know what second round picks. Number one, it's difficult to trade meaningfully into the first round. We're just using second round picks, unless you're willing to spend a lot of them, But what I mean by meaningfully, like we saw what the Pistons did in the 2023 draft with Marcus Sasser. Unless there's somebody you really want at the end of the first round, and the difference between the end of the first round and the start of the second round round is not typically that significant. And if it is, then it costs a lot to trade, you know, probably a lot more than three second round picks.

So, like, first round pick has an alluring sound to it, but not all first round picks are created equal. And the outcomes of a late first versus an early second or not. significantly different. And other teams are going to know that as well. I mean, sure, you can trade that for a first round pick, but, you know, if you're trying to, you know, maybe that's a future first, who knows. But if you're trying to flip that, I mean, teams know, they can flip that in a trade, for example, other teams know where that trade, where that first round pick is likely to fall. Just the fact that it's a first round pick does not inherently give it high value. Depends on

the draft, depends on who's available. It depends on how, you know, what position it's likely to fall out. So these second round picks may amount to something. Maybe the Pistons get a useful rotation player with one of them. Maybe they include them, you know, in a trade that, you know, nets them a meaningful improvement, or maybe they just end up being a failed draft picks and or really minor, not particularly significant add-ons to trades that don't really improve the business. So it would have hurt less if Grimes weren't included. I just don't really understand why he was. If it turns out that it was his health, major long-term concerns, that's a different story. But it was just surprising to see him included. Do I hate the

trade? No. Will I hate the trade if Quentin Grimes turns out to get back to what, you know, what it is, the question is not what he can do. The question is if he can do it again. If the answer that is yes, then yes, I will absolutely hate this trade. If not, then, you know, it's whatever. You give up $12 million in cap space for three second round picks and a guy who can hopefully help the Pistons this season. So let's move on to free agency and what the Pistons have done so far, which is just turned down a bunch of guaranteed, non-guaranteed salary and team options. And signed to Tobias Harris.

I'll just go over the first of those. You know, obviously the Pistons were not going to keep Evan Fornier. And in response to a question, I've seen asked if the Pistons could have just traded you as a salary matching for the other team to turn down his option, the answer is no. In order for him to be used the salary matching, Pistons would have had to accept his option, which would have meant the other team taking on. $18 million of Evan Fornier, which is obviously not a positive. Malachi Flynn of the 50-point game. He's gone. That was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in the NBA.

These are basically the Pistons could bring back some of these guys if they wanted to. You could have presumably Stan William Moody back on a minimum contract or maybe possibly a two-way deal. You know, you could bring back Taj Gibson, of course, though he's not going to play. Rather just have him be some sort of player coach, you know, their development coach rather. I've seen some questions about a mood A about what this happens, because yes, he is athletic and he can't shoot. His IQ, in my opinion, is just not NBA level. Those guys routinely in the wrong place on defense. Cannot make basic passes on offense.

I just said, I personally just don't think he has much to offer the pissings again could bring him back to play at the end of the rotation. And maybe they will. But Langdon, of course, has no attachment to him. Buddy Beheim has gone. Hopefully, Langdon is more judicious with actually using his, two-way contract spots for players who have any NBA upside at all rather than because, you know, you used to work for his dad, you know, Beheim at Syracuse. You know, two-way contracts don't typically, most often they will not produce an NBA player.

Sometimes they will. Sometimes you are the heat, who, of course, are the best in this respect, who will go to the finals with three former two-way players in your roster. So it's not worth wasting. And then, of course, that brings us to the big thing the Pistons have done in free agency, which assigned Tobias Harris to a two-year $52 million contract. I'm happy with this signing. You know, Tobias is not perfect, and he is 32.

The term of the contract is good in just two years, so the Pistons aren't paying him into when players really start to decline in their mid-30s, not everybody, but a lot of them do. The money didn't, I mean, it took a significant bite out of their cap space, but they've still got plenty left, and I like Tobias. And part of this, I'm not going to lie, I just I really like Tobias as a person. And I was really sad to see him get traded away from the pistons because the guy is a hard worker, a model teammates, and just a good human being who, you know, puts a lot of his time and some of his money into community causes. It just seems like a good dude and just a model sportsman.

So what does Tobias provide to this team? So he is still solid on offense. I mean, notwithstanding the degree to which he was pilloried for being terrible in this past season's playoffs. And he was terrible in this past season's playoffs. He was also ended up on the periphery of the offense, which is always a bad thing for Tobias Harris, who falls off when that happens. He just disappears. So just a quick player profile, you know, what can Tobias do? So Tobias is not an elite, but is a decent three-point shooter.

He can do some creation off the dribble. He can hit open mid-range pull-ups at an acceptable percentage. So that's just a useful shot to be able to make. And it also just means guys have to cover you when you're attacking the interior. He is a smart and active offball mover. He is a high percentage restricted area scorer. And he's become a decent passer off the drive as well. You know, not great, but decent.

He can do it. He just is going to give the Pistons another guy who can create some offense. He's going to give them a veteran scorer, you know, who's reasonably reliable. And just some good veteran presence on the team and just a great guy in the locker room. And he's never really been a vocal leader, as far as I know. Maybe that changed in Philly. But I think he'll be a stabilizer. he'll add spacing he'll add offense and and that's you know all of these good things what tobias is not

is a particularly good defender he's not bad per se i don't think he doesn't really do what he used to in detroit he was really a minus defender in part because he just had pretty poor awareness get constantly caught ball watching and so on and so forth he's more just kind of a maybe slightly below average defender. And you don't want him switching on the fast guards. He just can't really do that. But, you know, he can generally hold his own. He's definitely not a guy who's going to give you secondary rim protection,

you know, or, you know, much meaningful help defense. He's not like a Jeremy Grant who's going to come out of, you know, come out of left field to block a shot. And he's not, you know, Isaiah Stewart, who, of course was, you know, it's a situation where if he has to come and provide, you know, rim defense, you know, help rim defense, then he's just playing his natural position in that situation. So Tobias isn't going to provide that. He's a decent rebounder, but not particularly good. And I, but I just, I really like the signing. You know, I like that this money went to a guy

who is going to provide some stability on offense and is going to provide a veteran presence in the locker room. And of course, shooting. Shooting is really nice to have. So Tobias isn't perfect, but I'm happy with it. Also, it's worth noting he's a very durable player. It's been very rare that he plays less than 70 games in the season. And that's important. I know I harp on that. I harped on Brandon Ingram being injury prone,

averaging 25 games per season missed, like O.G. Ann, you know, be being even worse in terms of his health. And availability is the most fundamental ability. If you're not on the courts, you're providing worse than no value. You know, not only providing no value, but you're tying up that cap space or whatever assets portrayed for you when that could have been used in a player who is going to be on the court more often. Also kind of disruptive if a player is in and out of the rotation, a major player.

So durability is important. And Tobias is durable. Tim Hardaway Jr. is durable. And not everybody is that durable. That's useful to have guys who can stay on the court. So solid B-plus to the Tobias deal. Not B-plus because I think there are any major downsides. is just, you know, A or, you know, A minus A plus trade.

Excuse me, pre-agent signing is generally because you got a really good deal or just got something went seriously right. So at this point, the Pistons have 26 million left in cap space. It should note that the Pistons can't use all of their cap and then use the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception, all exceptions, like trade exceptions, bi-annual mid-level. those all levy cap holds which hold up cap space so teams that are operating as cap space teams will have to renounce all of those to use that cap space so the pistons will be able to sign of the cap and then they will be able to use the room mid-level exception which is a little bit less than eight

million if you can use to sign a player to a contract of up to two years and then there's simon fontecio whom the piston sent a qualifying offer to qualifying offer to means that the players are restricted free agents and you can sign you can match any offer sheets sent to them so Fontecio, as long as he takes less than, I think, around $13 million, he'll fit into the early bird exception, which means that the Pistons can spend up to the cap and then re-sign him. It's actually going to get a little bit, well, it would be interesting in terms of restricted free agency. So the issue with restricted free agents and why they rarely get offer sheets

is that number one teams, the clock on them doesn't start until the moratorium ends, which is July the 6th at noon or 1201 Eastern time, and then teams have 48 hours to decide. So basically a team, you've tied up cap space in that offer sheet, and so it could be like eight days, basically, until the other team decides. And if they decide to match, then that cap space is basically gone because nobody's available anymore. In this situation, it's like, okay, well, if there were notable free agents, restricted free agents in the market, then it becomes a whole lot less risky

because there are still players out there. In the events, the only notable restricted free agent is Isaac Okoro of the Cavaliers. there are only five non-two-way, so not players who are not on two-way contracts, restricted free agents remaining. That's Okoro Fontechio, this guy whose name I cannot pronounce, who plays for the bucks, Trent Wofford and Pistons Legend, Stanley Amoudet. So Okoro, I wouldn't say he has a very significant shot of being a piston, just because look at whom the Pistons have in,

on the wing right now. So between shooting guard and small forward, you've got Ivy, Hardaway Jr., the two projects, you know, Asar and Holland, and you've got Fantacchio and Tobias. So here's like a complication in free agency. There are guys like Gary Trent Jr.

And even Wu Kinar might fit into this. Like guys have to, generally when you have a notable free agent going to a team, like a guy who could, you know, go to any number of teams and get a guaranteed role, they want that guaranteed role. They want that guarantee, you know, those guaranteed.

minutes. They are not going to be too keen. This isn't like NBA 2K, though I remember the last 2K game I played was 2K 13, and yeah, you had to give guys a certain number of minutes. Like if you name them sixth man, it was like you have to give them like, I don't know, like 24 minutes or something like that in your rotation and they get pissed at you. But, and they would only be willing to accept the six-man role if they're below a certain rating. I think it was like at 81 and below. But guys want to play. I mean, these are professional basketball players. playing at the highest level they want to play, they want to win. That's going to play a role in them if they're wanting to come to the Pistons on a cheap deal

or come to Pistons at all. And they want a guaranteed role, not just for being happy because they're often also playing for the next contract unless they're veterans playing or for contender. Of course, that's not a consideration for the Pistons. So when you look at guys, like, for example, like free agents who are left, like Gary Tren Jr. or Malik Beasily or Luke Kennard, it's like the Pistons have five guys lined up for the, you know, for potential minutes of the positions they play. And why would they want to come in and compete for minutes,

especially knowing that if Assar and or Holland play well, then they're probably going to take a back seat. You know, I suppose they could get traded in that situation, but you have no control over whom you get traded too. So why are you going to come into this situation when you can go and play guaranteed minutes for a contender, possibly for less money, but also the pistons are not going to, why would they overpay a guy just to come in and possibly end up playing no minutes?

and then you have to trade that guy down the road. And it's worth noting with trades that there's an additional landmine in the collective bargaining agreement at this point, that if you take in more salary in a trade than you send out, then you're capped at the first apron. And hard-capped, and that means any team which is above the first apron, and that's a lot of contenders, it can't make such a trade. It's often difficult to make salary-matching work and trades for those teams, and it's going to be more difficult now. But it just comes back to guys have to want to come play in your city, and it's not just how good or bad your team is. it's what kind of role they will have for your team.

So unless there's like no market for Gary Trent Jr., why would he come to the Pistons? And, you know, he could always, for example, just take a cheap bridge deal with some team and hit the market next season. And maybe be more notable and be in a better position. So, like, yeah, the wing rotation for the Pistons now is completely, you know, is pretty full. I kind of hope that free agency by now would tell us more about the team's plans for, you know, the likes of Ron Holland. It is not because, like, I think. that's, I think that Langdon passing on Najee Marshall, of course he knows very well, and Fred Vincent as well knows very well from their time with the Pelicans, and it indicates that he wants

to keep the door open for Holland, possibly, and I would say certainly as Sir Thompson to get minutes. So, yeah, if, if you play well and you can shoot, yeah, we want to be able to give you a role, and that means not promising that sort of role to another player. We know that that they pursued Buddy Heald, who knows how really aggressive that pursuit was. because again, I don't think they could really offer him a guaranteed role. He's also, for what it's worth, kind of redundant with Tim Hardaway Jr. Of course, you can never have too much shooting, but if you want to keep space open for your young players to get time,

then you really want to have two of those guys are more to the point. Is Buddy Heald going to be willing to sign when he's going to have to probably compete for minutes and compete for a role? I'd say the answer is no. So, yeah. So, yeah, in terms of salary cap stuff, $26 million for the Pistons. the other teams potentially with capspace are 38 million for the jazz. And the jazz, here's their situation.

They've got Larry Markinen, who is being paid only $18 million in the final year of his contract. That's an incredible bargain contract. Nobody saw him being anywhere near this good, but he was traded away from the Cavaliers in the Donovan-Mitchell trade. So he's in trade talks, but Danny Aange never budges on price. Like if he sets a price, and if he doesn't get it, he'll just keep the player, even when it's not necessarily a good idea for him to do. do so and he wasted some picks in, you know, in the 2010s by just saying, well, I'm only willing to trade them for this. And that didn't materialize. And so he just ended up drafting players who

really were not very good. So he set to high price. He doesn't budge. He set a very high price on Markinen. Markina may or may not move. And they can't give Marketing the extension he wants right now because you can only in an extension give a player 140% of the salary in his, is in the final season of his current contract, and that's nowhere near the salary that Markinem would sign for. I mean, he's almost certainly you get a max contract. So what they can do is use CapSpace to renegotiate the final season of his contract and get him up to a point at which he will be able to sign a max contract, you know,

when that's 140% is not a barrier. In practice, they would probably just elevate him to the max right now, which means giving him an additional $24 million, and then you give him a four-year day. extension on top of that, and that is functionally a five-year max extension. So the jazz, unless they're very sure that they're going to trade them, are presumably going to want to keep $24 million of that open, which dumps them to about $14 million of cap space. So that makes them a less probable dump team, you know, for a dump team for less probable candidate for salary dumps to go to, or at the very least, they would need to be small salary dumps. The spurs

can have up to $21 million in cap space if they choose to stay below the cap by waving some un-guaranteed salaries. As for why they wouldn't want to do that, well, maybe they want to keep those non-guaranteed guys. And if they operate as an above-the-cap team, then they have access to the, you know, the full taxpayer mid-level exception. I know there are just various implications to acting as an above-the-cap team versus below-the-cap team. Sixers are only down to $9 million. The magic probably don't have any left. We don't know the details of the Jonathan Isaac renegotiate and extend, but that definitely ate some cap space. And that's about it. So it's possible, depending what the spurs do, the Pistons are really the only team that's at this point willing

and able to take on significant salary dumps. Now, it's a different story when it comes to the probability of dumps, and also the salary dumps that Trajan wants. And so it seems like Trajan is not looking to just take on just dead salary. And I think Tom Gora has also maybe may have made this clear of his own right when he said, we're not looking to have a bunch of salary just running on the, sitting on the bench, I think you put, probably a reference to Joe Harris. So it seems like Langdon wants to take on assets, but get actually decent players in return. Maybe not players you can flip at the deadline, because that's unlikely. And, you know, Tim Hardaway Jr. would have to really make a lot of improvement back to his previous shooting

for him to have any value at all to a contender, and a contender's going to have to send back matching salary to, and that's not always easy. But players who can at least provide something. So I don't think that the Pistons would be looking to take on a dead salary with just second round picks going along with it. And in practice, it's rare to see a salary dump that includes more than second round picks. Like, for example, like something that's on the market right now is we know to be the case is that the bulls are trying to unload Zach Levine with the first round pick. So, yeah, first round pick is included there, but that's not worth it to any team. Bowls are going to have to include more than just the second, excuse me, first round pick. that the balls are going to have to include more than just a first round pick

because if Zach Levine without a trade kicker and trade kicker is a bonus that you get paid out if you trade if you're traded is owed about 132 million I think over the next three years with a trade kicker it's 151 million I think I've got that right I mean his salary with a trade kicker in year one would be 49 million dollars and 53 in year two prior to what I think is like a 51 52 million dollar salary in year three so That's an enormous amount of flexibility loss for a team. Three years of that, for a player who is constantly,

is really regularly injured, is nearing 30, very athleticism dependent. You can easily lose athleticism with repeated injuries. Zach Levine already has. Doesn't really like to play defense and is not enthusiastic off the ball. This is not a player who's likely to provide anywhere near the value against the salary. So, yeah, I mean, you Pissons could send out Isaiah Stewart in that trade and get a first round pick and return, but that's not worthwhile. But more to the points when it comes to just dead money,

you look at Wanzo Ball. He's got a cap hit of about $21.5 million. It doesn't make any sense for the Bulls to pay a first-round pick to just dump one year of Wanzo ball. And would Trajan be willing to just take on second-round picks and that sort of salary dump? I would say no. Why? Because Wanzo, it would be a miracle if he were able to resurrect his NBA career. So, you know, with an injury of that sort of severity and term, it's just miraculous if you can come back to the NBA.

and not have lost a certain amount and not have a long-term impairment of your athletic ability. You know, like, of course, impairment is impairment, and it's almost invariably going to hurt a player. But if you're, let's say, Sean Livingston, who horribly mangled his knee, the point where they were afraid they might have to, you know, take off the leg, or part of it anyway. He was a very athletic player. He came back and he was a lot less athletic, but he was still mobile enough to play NBA basketball. Like, Juanzo Ball, who was not very quick in the first place, if he loses a significant amount of his mobility, then he's done in the NBA. But just in general, I would say that the chances of him coming back and providing good value are very, very low. So do you take that on?

Do you spend $21.5 million in cap space just to have him come in and not play? I think the answer is no. Just for the sake of second round picks. Where we've heard that dumps our potential option, Los Angeles is not one. So we've heard in a least they're not going to pay assets to get off the contract of DeAngela Russell, for example. And here's LA's cap situation. Even if they dump Russell, they will have no cap space. and they won't even have enough cap space to use the full non-tax payer mid-level exception.

I think they could maybe use like $7 or $8 million of it, and basically they'll have dumped in for no purpose at all. They have lost a player who provides value, and they would have a lot of difficulty replacing that value, unless Derozen just completely changes this tack and says, okay, I'm willing to sign at a major discount, which has not been the case so far. But Wodge has reported a potential deal, like sign-and-trade deal,

with De Rosen going to the Kings and that the Bulls don't want to take salary in return, so the Pistons could be a potential third party there and get some, I don't know, arguably decent rotation players. You've got, you know, it depends on how much Der Rosen signs for in his first year for how much salary the Kings would need to send out. But Kevin Hurtor has been named as a potential. You know, he's definitely be some overlap with Tim Hardaway, Jr. They chiefly play the same positions.

They play very similarly, and they're both bad defenders. Hurt or might actually be worse, though I'm not sure. But maybe a guy you can flip, so that's a potential option for sure. Harrison Barnes is a seller they will definitely try to send out because he's not very good anymore. Empty calories score, the Kings were hugely worse with him on the floor of the season. And then you've got some other guys down the rotation, but very few of them. Like you've got Pistons legend, Trey Liles, who, you know, is a decent rotation power forward, though he'd be a depth, you know, just a depth player or traded.

the Pistons with Fontaccio and Tobias already in the mix. And then you've got Jalen McDaniels who would just be salary fodder and is nowhere near the player whom his brother is. So that has a potential option. When it comes to like a Markinen trade, uh, like he has a small salary. Like teams would, like the Warriors, for example, would not need to trade very much back. And they might as well just bake the cost of Utah taking on Andrew Wiggins just into the trade. Why include a third team?

and Utah has all that cap space. Wiggins, by the way, who was not a good player right now. He had those that, like, season and a half with the Warriors as a strong two-way player before falling off was not good. And the post-championship season was not good this season. The guy was far less than he could have been when he was in Minnesota, because just didn't really feel like working hard. Didn't really feel like playing defense. The difference in Golden State was that he worked hard and he played hard defense. And that was almost kind of an aberration because he spent much more time not doing that than he had. has spent doing that. You know, the difference between just kind of a low efficiency

chucker and really, really bad defender to a strong two-way player, and I just, I think it's unlikely. At number one, Golden State has no incentive to just dump him on his own. That time has passed. They, yeah, there's just no incentive for them to do so. They're not even above the first apron. They're hard cap there because they use their full mid-level exception on DeAnthony Melton. But just with regard to some talk I've seen about Andrew Wiggins, he would have half to rediscover motivation that he's currently lacking and that he has lacked for most of his career. And I just don't think that's necessarily likely. But the Warriors have no incentive to salary dump him right now anyway.

So here's how things stand should the pistons end up spending that salary in, excuse me, that available cap space and free agency. So right now, again, the wing rotation is a little bit crowded. And you've got at least three decent shooters there between Tobias. Fontecchio, Tim Hardaway, Jr. again, not great, but decent. And then Ivy, who's kind of a question mark, but at least has the best shot, arguably the best shot doctor in the business working for him, working with him right now. Well, hopefully right now, you know, hopefully the guys in the team who need that help are doing it right now, like during the offseason. And then, of

course, the Saar and Holland. In practice, I feel like it should be noted that 10-man rotations are not all that common. The team's old coach, who is just lazy and, you know, some mix of laziness and competence, and I don't even want to talk about it. Brand, full bench units, they are rare. It's likely as the Pistons will play a rotation of nine players on any given nights with the starters mixed in with a bench unit. So it's not like five and five where the starters come off and then we have the full bench unit. Teams don't often do that. That's a rarity. So, yeah, when you've got, yeah, I've been over this already. You've, you've, you've got those guys lined up between shooting guard and power forward. Tim Hardaway Jr. splits his

minutes between shooting guard and small forward. Sarin Holland could conceivably play all three of those positions, and Fontacio and Tobias could line up at either forward position. The team needs a reliable handler that might be the most pressing need right now. I've gone over it with the possibility of bringing on Tyos Jones because Kate Cunningham is the only handler right now, and I think that's a bad situation for any team. To have only one reliable handler, and basically, Not only, I mean, if Kate is out, then you're banking on Ivy and Sasser. You know, even if he's just off the court right now, you're banking on those two. And I think Sasser's ability as a handler is very conditional on him,

hitting a very, being good at a very tough shot profile. And in Ivy, I don't think is ever really going to be a good lead guard. He's more of just a driving kick guy who can pass and is a willing passer, but is just not really that great at it. I think just doesn't really have the acumen to be a lead guard. So I think it would be very unwise to just leave all this to chance and also basically require Cade to do all of the handle, just to have an enormous load as a primary handler and weed initiator.

So I'd say that's the most pressing need right now. And Tyos Jones is still on the market. This market is pretty low on them. You've got Kyle Lowry, who doesn't really qualify, and wants to play for a contender anyway. You've got Spencer Dimwitty, who's kind of a chucker. Don't think it'd be good to bring in a guy who's really inconsider. assistant shooter. He has an option. Again, I think he'd rather play for a team that is going to,

you know, for a more winning team. That's, who knows, he's an option. The option's basically left in the trade market on the free agent market are he and Tyos Jones. I think Tyos at this point with, I think it was Carrington, whom the Wizards drafted and with having Brogson on the roster who does miss a lot of time, but it might give you half a season or more. Tias might just be on the outs there. And in that event, his options are the spurs who would need to waive some contracts and play two really, really short guards because they sign Chris Paul. Or the Jazz, who may or may not, in terms of teams he could start for, he did with the Wizards and he wanted to start. Or the Jazz who may or may not want Keante George to be point guard for them, or the Pistons are a

sign-in trade. And again, that assumes that the Pistons are willing to offer him a starting role. So I think he remains an option, though I get the, I don't know why I bother with speculating. It feels like the front office would rather take on salary dumps. I could be wrong, obviously. And who knows, maybe Tyas is just waiting to see what develops if there are other options that develop, you know, after all these dominoes fall. The only other guy really in the market who was attainable, excuse me, was Monty Morris, who had a bad season with the Pistons and what very little time he played after he came back from injury. and then did not do well with the Timberwolves and ultimately signed but was a genuinely good backup point guard before that

and then signed their backup caliber and then signs with the suns for the minimum. So you can always say trade, nothing is guaranteed there and you have to send out assets. So in my opinion, that remains the biggest position of need. And then it's center. So at this point you're going into the season with Duren and Stewart that could change at any time. I'd be surprised if Durham was moved and I don't think he should be. But there are really no free agent centers left on the markets who are better than Stewart. So at this point, I think they go into the offseason,

unless you can include Stewart and trade for a meaningful upgrade. So I'm always happy to watch Stu play defense. You know, he's a genuinely good defender. I actually posted some video of his defense from two seasons ago, the last season he played full-time at Center on Twitter. I mean, he's a strong rim protector, he's a strong pain protector, he's a strong switch defender and he's very smart. His issues are on offense and also on the boards to a degree.

He's not the strongest defensive rebounder. He is strong on offense. Defensive rebounding a lot of the time, are you tall and can you jump high? And the answer to both of those for him is no. But on offense, it's often, can you establish position and are you willing to work hard for the rebound? And the answer is yes to both of those.

But on offense, of course, as I've been over, like he's bad on the roll. He's a weak finisher. He can shoot and there will be more options. with the newer coach who was hopefully more innovative. He's just not an ideal option. And Duren, I mean, I went through some of his defensive tape from his rookie season, and he was still a poor defender, but he was a hard worker on everybody,

and that made a big difference. I know, I mean, his defense in this past season between it not being smart and him being really pretty lazy was extremely bad. But, yeah, I just still don't think the book is not closed on that, though, of course, as a traditional big, he's going to need to be at least an above-average defender in order to provide solid value, most likely, unless we've really seen another gear on offense. And then there are still questions about the wing rotation, but I would say in this situation, only who is going to get minutes.

I think anybody else whom the pistons bring in on the wing at this point will be somebody who is not guaranteed minutes, but can shoot. Like Chetty Osman, for example, who's a good shooter, but the traffic cone on defense. And who knows, maybe Luke Kennard if he just can't get a better deal elsewhere, though I struggle to believe that he would not be able to get a spot in the rotation somewhere with guaranteed minutes. So, you know, really what happens is I think we'll be down to what the front office can glean as far as assets and players in a salary dump. But that's complete speculation. It'll be interesting to see. That's really all I can say.

And yeah, there's still domino's left to fall and things left to do for the front office. office. And finally, we get to J.B. Bickerstaff, the newest head coach of the Detroit Pistons, signed a four-year deal with what you can call a team option on the fifth year. I mean, it's not like a CBA thing. It's basically the team decides whether or not they want to keep him in year five. Most recently, coach of the Cavaliers for four years was fired this offseason and replaced with Kenny Atkinson. So I don't, like, outright dislike. this higher, but I feel pretty underwhelmed and unexcited by it. I have been hoping for three coaches now that the organization would go with a young up-and-comer. It doesn't even need to be young.

It's like Mike Anori is not young, but go with an up-and-comer, just a talented assistant, a first-time coach. And those aren't perfect. I mean, they can flop, but they can also do well. I mean, some of the best coaches in the NBA right now are first-time coaches who have not been in the league for a long time. And in this situation, the Pistons, the organization yet again, or in this case, presumably Trayvindon, assuming he was given full authority to make the hire on his own, went with a safe pick retread with a history of having a solid floor and being a floor raiser and being a solid enough coach, but who has long-term flaws that are unlikely, he's very unlikely to improve upon him, which significantly inhibit his ceiling.

I'd like to point out that Stan Van Gundy was not really in this category. He was a very highly regarded coach, at least as far as I can remember. It wasn't, you know, he's a safe pick coach. I mean, he was highly regarded, and I still get a kick out of the fact that he would have been the coach in Golden State if Tom Gores had not offered him personnel control as well, because he was the Warriors, he was their ownership's first choice. And then we would have had Stan Van Gundy running Steph Curry on constant pick and rolls and probably not giving Draymond Green a chance

and who knows what else instead of having Steve Kerr who really innovated a perfect system for them. And Kerr would have been playing, or excuse me, coaching under Phil Jackson with an outdated triangle system in New York and Derek Fisher would have been, I don't remember what he got, some ridiculous contract, I think $30 million, so he would have been a lot less rich.

But Dwayne Casey was absolutely brought in as a safe choice retread. You know, I think that Gores saw a coach of the year and got a little bit excited. But Casey at that point was a pretty darn flawed coach, not creative on offense, you know, to the point where his boss had to say, well, we're not running your offense anymore. We're going to move to something new and Nick Nurse is going to plan it, not you. Terrible at adapting in the playoffs and just awful in clutch situations. And then the last coach they brought on whose name, I just I would prefer to think about him as little as possible going forward.

Yeah, I just don't even, I don't want to talk about him and I don't want to think about him. but he was in the same category when he was hired to Detroit. You know, he was an upgrade on Casey at the time seemed like a capable coach, like a good regular season coach who had flaws in the postseason, that he was not good at adjusting, and he was not very creative on offense. And he was kind of a tier above the Casey's and the Riverses and the Bickers, not the Bigger's, I mean, Bootenholzers of the world,

but still a safe choice retread, who had long-term flaws that significantly inhibited a ceiling. And I know the idea at the time was, okay, the Pistons aren't going to be in the playoffs anytime soon and you just fire him once once they've reached their ceiling. But anyway, it's irrelevant. We all know what happened with him. And then with Bickerstaff, I think he's an upgrade on even what the former coach

was judged to be. But he's also, like, his offensive coaching is not great. It's not bad. It's well above Casey level. It's not like he's got, I mean, he's a decent offensive coach. He's not like an innovator or a really good offensive minds. And he strikes me as the kind of coach based on what he said, who uses analytics because he really believes in them and like it or not analytics are maybe the NBA has been rendered down to his science at this point.

You've got to do it. And if things are not going well on offense, if it's just not working, or if the opposition, the other coach has thrown a defensive scheme at him that he was not expecting, he's not able to adjust in game. I mean, things just kind of stay as they are, and the offense doesn't work. So what Baker's staff is, I mean, he's a solid floor raiser, solid coach. I'm not calling him a bad coach. He's definitely above Casey's level on offense,

and just in terms of creativity and innovation and just coaching, capably coaching a modern offense. And by all accounts, he's a strong defensive coach. So I don't dislike the hire. I don't think he's a bad coach. I was just hoping for something else. It's not a sort of Dwayne Casey hire. when you can point at it and say this guy is not fit to coach well in the modern NBA.

And my goodness, this horrifying collection of mismatched parts that was the Pistons, 2018-2019 roster like needs an innovator because it's a mess. And then this is just the wrong coach right now. I think that Bickerstaff will be, you know, a solid enough coach for a rebuilding team. It's nice that he has experience running an offense with two non-shooters because it's entirely possible he's going to need to work with that. and you know with this season's pistons he's capable and I think he can work well with the rebuilding team he's just not what I was hoping for I just really would have preferred a first timer who didn't have those long-term flaws

all right folks well this episode has turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be I hope you enjoyed listening we'll be back next week with more talk of hopefully things happening in free agency and a summer league preview and so as always want to thank you all for listening I hope you're doing great catch you in next week's episode Thank you.