Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 206: Win Total Over/Under & Jalen Duren Season Review

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

This episode discusses the Vegas over/under on wins for next season's Pistons -- and why the Pistons will achieve the over -- and then recaps Jalen Duren's mixed-bag 2023-2024 season.

Welcome back. Everybody, you're listening to another episode of Driving to the Baskets. I'm Mike. Hope you're all doing great. Back from another week's hiatus, I don't know, at this point, I wouldn't blame you all for kind of meming on me for all the times. I've said, man, it's really my intense to be consistent with this, and I'm really going to try to do so, and I really do want to. The reason, really this summer to a degree, which I really talked about, and I'm not hunting for sympathy here and it's nothing severe but uh there's just been a certain amount of uh recurring illness which yeah it's not like anything life-threatening but it is exhausting and really what's happened the last two times i missed episodes is i've sat down to do an episode i

don't remember if i recorded a draft i think i recorded a draft of this yeah i'm pretty sure i did and i was just like this was terrible like this episode just sucked and i really don't want to post it. I just didn't really have the energy to re-record it. I just couldn't, I got to sit down and be in the right headspace. And as funny as this sounds, it has to be like, you know, within a certain window after I've eaten because my blood sugar will absolutely dive, you know, after like, I don't know, like three and a half hours. I'm not diabetic. I just, it's just how I am. Anyway, I don't want to get into medical stuff. But yeah, that's pretty much why I've been less consistent than I would like, both in posting regularly this summer and also

posting on Wednesdays, which I am generally able to do during the regular season. Anyway, let's talk about the Pistons. We were in the absolute deadest of dead zones at this point with the Olympics over. The Olympics said that were very interesting. Well, not very interesting, but kind of telling in terms of what it's like when you have an actual honest-to-goodness team. versus just having a bunch of talent mashed together, a bunch of guys, which is what it was with the United States, a bunch of guys who are absolutely accustomed to being either the top dog or like, aside from Derek White, the very least the second, you know, the number two

guy in their team. And when you have players who actually play like a team, that's kind of a force multiplier, so to speak, or it's just what you have in the NBA, but in the Olympics, France and Serbia, for example, like Serbia played an excellent game and they still lost because they just don't have the talent, but they do have a pecking order, so to speak. I mean, Yokech is at the top and everybody plays around him, period. And, you know, France had their own pecking order. And these were just able to play like, you know, play like a team. Whereas for the United States, it was like Devin Booker was willing to play as a role player. But, you know, for the most parts, you just don't have that same degree of teamwork of guys just being able to, being willing,

rather to just really downgrade themselves into role player territory. Like, the talent was obviously no issue. Like Tyrese Halliburton, I don't know if he played a single minute. I didn't watch every game. He played very little if he played it at all. Jason Tatum did not play much, frankly, they didn't need the two of them. I mean, they just had so much a talent on the team as it was. So it was just, it was just interesting to me just to see, you can have that much talent. and still other teams can, like France, of course, came close to. Other teams with drastically less talent that just play as a team are able to really give you a run for your money despite the fact that your team is packed with Hall of Fame caliber

talent. In any case, now aside from, like, RICO Heinz and, you know, whatever other, like, off-season leagues, we see NBA players participate in. It's dead until early October when preseason begins. So about seven weeks all told The schedule came out today I mean for a team like the Pistons It's like the schedule just kind of is what it is

I know it starts out pretty difficult November is pretty difficult And just hope the Pistons can bring it And go out there and win more games So I want to transition to that actually I know the Vegas over under Which I believe is around 26 games Came out a couple weeks ago

Maybe three or four weeks ago I can't remember from what we've heard, the over is a lot more popular. And in my opinion, that is as it should be. So, like, the Pistons have obviously had two really bad seasons in a row, and last season was the worst in franchise history. I would not be going into next season, judging, you know, predicting on the basis of that. It's not difficult to win 25 games in today's week.

It's just not hard. So we can harken back to the 2021-2020 season, which was Cade's rookie season. That team won 23 games with the core of Cade Cunningham, Sadiq Bay, who was terrible in the first quarter of the season. You recall, that was, you know, like the ham-fisted experiment of, hey, Sadiq, just take the ball at the perimeter and please try to create offense. He had a much better, you know, final 75% of the season. And Jeremy Grant, who missed 35 games. this was a team, a roster that was really a total mess. And it was coached by Dwayne Casey, who again, very good leader and just great in the locker room and solid development guy.

Average best on defense and pretty darn poor at coaching offense. So a coach who was probably on the whole making his team worse on the court, I'd say that pretty confidently. But yeah, a mess of a roster which featured three rookies like Luca Garza even got time on the court. three reclamation projects at various points of the season between Bagley, who was decent, and Josh Jackson and Hamadudiela, who believe we're not, only three consistent roster players who shot reasonably well from three, not including Isaiah Livers because he only played 19 games, but Corey Joseph, Jeremy Grant, and Rodney Magruder. That is all you had, as far as guys who shot about average or better from three, Jeremy Graham,

is at about 36%. Rodney McGruder only played 51 games, and, you know, really obviously he couldn't anything but shoot. So not enough shooting, and it was just, it was Troy Weaver's typical roster of just mashing together as much talent as he possibly could. He had diverted from a somewhat different strategy in his first season to just really having none of the roster essentials. There was not, despite the fact that they had brought Kate Cunningham and they dumped their athletic pick and roll big, Mason Plumley, who, you know, would have been useful in order to give pick and clog Isaiah Stewart the start at center instead, not helpful for Cade at all.

The guy just is reasons I've gone over many times. It's just really bad in the pick and roll. Cade lives in the pick and roll. And I say it wasn't even being used as a shooter at that point, so it's not like he was spacing the floor at all. He would just set a pick, front end of the interior, and get in Cade's way. So Kelly Olinick was signed instead of an athletic big. He ended up missing more than half the season.

Again, Luca Garza got minutes in 32 games. He was terrible for obvious reasons. But you run down the list of players on this team. You know, we can just go by the number of games they played. And it's pretty funny. Killian Hayes, of course, was on the team and spent the first half of the season starting next decade despite the fact that there was no realistic possibility of that duo working out. Or my opinion, at least there wasn't.

He was terrible. After 40 games got downgraded to be really bad backup point guard instead. Corey Joseph, who ended up just, I mean, And he saved the possibility of Dwayne Casey and being able to field a functional starting lineup. And again, the lineup of Cade, Cojo, Bay, Grant, and Stewart is the best consistent lineup that Cade has played with to this point. Just because it had four shooters. Well, Cade wasn't a very good shooter, though. He shot upwards of 34%, including a decent number of pull-ups from like the late November onwards.

So it wasn't terrible, but he wasn't good. His percentage got really dragged down by that dreadful first quarter of the season. after he came in completely cold, having missed training camp in preseason anyway. So just because there were like three and a half shooters in the four and, you know, guys who were decently able to play defense. So like, I mean, the other lineup that Cade has played decent amount of minutes with that fulfilled those criteria was last season, but not many minutes. That was Cade, Ivy, Fontecchio, Stewart, and Duren.

Again, not exactly an all-star lineup. But yeah, in this season, Cade, spent a lot of time in the starting lineup with Diallo and Stewart, two non-shooters. But yeah, you run down the list. Frank Jackson played 53 games, shot 31% from three. Trey Liles played 51 games. And after Owinnick was injured, he spent a lot of time as backup center, because again, Troy Weaver had not really bothered to have a third string center.

So Trey Liles was it. This was not the same Trey Liles that it would be in Sacramento who lost 20 pounds and remembered how to shoot. So this was a Trey Liles who ended up playing backup center, shot 30% from three, and couldn't play defense. Again, Rodney Magruder, locker room All-Star, but not a good NBA player. Josh Jackson never learned to shoot. Sabin Lee, 37 games, never learned to shoot. Bad. So, this was a mess of a roster coached by a below-average coach. And only like a late-season hard tank prevented this team from reaching 25, 26, probably not 27, but that amount of wins.

Of course, the next season, the roster was even more of a mess with the team having traded Jeremy Grant. Sure, you get J. Land-Duron out of it. Not having Grant really actually hurt the last couple seasons. If I were in charge, well, whatever, I mean, if, sure, if I were making the decisions, I would have pursued Jeremy Grant and beaten Portman's offer, which would have been possible. I just, I think it would have been worthwhile. I think Jeremy Grant was very underrated in Detroit. He was allowed, unfortunately, by Dwayne Casey, who loved his go-to veterans, to whom you could just say, take the ball and score, and Jeremy Grant was allowed to pursue a pretty inefficient shot profile we saw after the All-Star break that season, after Troy Weaver, not doing Casey,

Troy Weaver had talked to Jeremy about playing a more efficient game, that his shot profile got much better, and he was just a better scorer. But Jeremy is an effective two-way player, you know, good defender, can create offense, not a three-level score, of course, because he's terrible from mid-range, but effective at attacking the basket, good at shooting threes, and was just the stabilizing two-way presence that I think the roster really benefited from. So you get rid of that. You've got the raw Jaden Ivy in the starting lineup. You've got a raw Jalen Duren on the roster. And of course, you start that season with just an abomination of a front court of Sadiq Bay, Isaiah Stewart, and Boyan, just the least athletic, most undersized front court I've ever seen.

You ultimately lose Kate Cunningham, and because Troy Weaver is not really, even after one and a half seasons of Killian, or one in a quartered and changed seasons of Killian, as being one of the worst players in the league, brought in a contingency plan. Corey Joseph is a year older and just really doesn't get the run. So you've got Killian Hayes starting for most of the season. Sadiq Bay takes a dump. Kate is out after only 12 games, and that's a gigantic loss. And, you know, Isaiah Stewart would get moved to power forward

and then ultimately miss about half the season himself. And then, you know, Isaiah Livers would shockingly miss 30 games and so on and so forth. And the roster had even less depth than it had the year before. But we'd really losing Grand Turt a lot. And then, of course, this was the women yama sweepstakes. And so kind of hard tanking was the order of the day. Whatever. And then last season, of course, was the ultimate nightmare.

A season in which the Pistons were actually looking to win, the roster was just a complete mess with nowhere near enough shooting. And, you know, Isaiah Stewart's starting a power forward. And Killian Hayes, again, Isaiah Liver's coming back and being comically bad and having been relied upon to even play at all, despite his just his history. of injuries was completely insane. Assar Thompson being a zero-level score coming in from the OTE, but yet being clearly relied upon to play some minutes. Joe Harris, of course, was worthless. And from what we've heard, they never really expected him to do anything. But that roster is still kind of a mess. You lose Monte Morris, who really would have helped things before the season even begins. And of course, worst of all is that, you know, on top of this being an inadequate and

poor roster, you have the absolute and unequivocally, and by a significant margin, worst, most destructive and just awful, awful, awful in a way that is not even remotely normal. A coach in the NBA, like coach the NBA is seen in decades, only Jim Boylan, who played, excuse me, who's brought in befuddlingly even though he had nowhere near. Nothing in him that said NBA coach. It was just incredibly outdated and couldn't manage young players and so on. and so forth, and it was just a terrible coach in the locker room. Not only he may have even come close, and he was plainly trying, he was just horrible at his job,

whereas, of course, the Pistons had a coach whose name has been lost to history, who was, at the very least, just negligence to a horrible and unprecedented degree, and at worst, may have actively been trying to get himself fired because it was, I mean, he lost the team so many games by means of coaching decisions that made no sense and no coach, has come anywhere near to hurting his team as much as that guy did last season. I'd say he was the single, like the roster was a mess. Injury luck wasn't really there. But this was not, in my opinion, a 14-win team.

I think a good coach probably would have had them at 25-ish wins, maybe, you know, maybe close to 30 if you have a great coach. But instead, they had like the worst coach imaginable. I mean, it just still is completely mind-blowing. So what's going to be doing? different next season. Here's why the Pistons would be better. More functional roster, which is not just a matter of, which is not, have like the Troy Weaver special of not enough shooting and just a bunch of young talent mashed together, like as you'll recall.

And this is, man, I want to stop talking about last season's roster. It was just such a nightmare season. But you'll recall that like even at center, you had a raw J. Linduron backed up by two reclamation project centers. So in any case, you have a more functional roster as far as shooting goes, like with the addition of Tim Hardaway, Jr., who is not what he used to be, but is still, you know, a decent shooter who hopefully can rediscover his old level of consistency, which had him, you know, for a little while there as one of the more dangerous shooters in the league. You got Malik Beasley, who last season was a very elite catch-and-shoe guy. Isaiah Stewart will presumably be back at center, and he has his issues, but he is a strong

defensive presence there and will be able to space the floor. Fontechio, who came in, of course, will be able to space the floor. Fontechio, who came in, of course, late last season. And I don't think he's going to average 16 points per game, but he can shoot the ball. We know that. He can play defense. Tobias Harris, a veteran who, again, can shoot, can do some attacking off the dribble. And then Cade is a year older and hopefully better condition, but of course was very impressive last season, though he was never really able to put together a stretch in which he was good, both at the rim and from three. So hopefully that gets better. Who knows. knows what progress will see from Asar. Hopefully we see some progress from Duran and from Ivy at the

very least. They've had another offseason to work on things. And then you have guys like Bobby Clintman and Braun Holland, who in my opinion are unlikely to be in the rotation unless they're injuries. So in any case, you've got a much, a roster that is much more of the essentials on offense. You'll be able to field a rotation that hopefully will include only one non-shooter and Asa in addition to Duran. Hopefully you keep Asar away from Duran as much as you can. And You know, with Cade, you'll presumably be able to run a modern offense for the season with, I think the starting lineup will be Cade, Ivy, Fontechio, Tobias, and Duren. I think Duren's just going to get a go, period.

And again, things could change, and I'll talk, it's possible, I'm likely, but I'll talk about that in a little bit. Who knows if Sasser will get a run or not. In any case, so much more functional roster. And again, it's worth noting that Troy Weaver completely punted on future. yielding actually functional rosters. His strategy seemingly was focus on getting high character guys in the roster and high character is important, of course, though I think it really informed his decision to draft Marcus Sasser when Sasser had a very precarious fit and it was just a weird pick. And, well, who knows, maybe Sasser will surprise all of us. And then to just get as much

raw talent, high ceiling talent as he could, and just mash it together and hope it worked out. So from season two on Marty, you put no emphasis on fielding functional roster. So this is a considerably more functional roster as the most shooting the pistons have had. And I know I may have said this at the beginning of last season. If I did, I apologize. But this roster, I'd say, has the most shooting of any piston's team ever. Of course, shooting not really having been prioritized nearly as much before the spacing and efficiency era. Again, the youth will be a year older.

Hopefully, a lot of progress generally is made in off-seasons. So hopefully we see a good. amount of that. Better coaching. J.B. Bicker's staff is not brilliant. I'm not going to mince words about that, but he's considerably more dynamic on offense than any coach the Pistons have had in a long time. Admittedly, the Pistons have not had a competent offensive coach since well before I became a really an ardent fan of the team. Like, I'm told variously Larry Brown or Flip Saunders, depending on whom you ask. Flip Saunders is, I found a little bit controversial.

Not controversial, but Pistons fans, at least those I've talked to who were big fans back in that era, are kind of mixed, sort of split on whether or not he was a good coach. In any case, a bigger staff, good defensive coach, and dynamic enough as an offensive coach. He's not the sort of good offensive coach I would have liked, but he's decent. But plainly once, wanted the judge.

unlike the last coach and seems very motivated to do it again the last coach horrible in every respect so baker's staff not brilliant i'd say pretty average as a coach but average makes him significantly better than any coach the pistons have had in a very long time though who knows again like uh the laurence franks and you know coasters and curries and and so on uh i don't know too much about i just have to take other people's word for it uh none of them had a roster that really could have been done, too much could have been done with. Though even those teams were winning in the high 20s and the low 30s. Very different era, though, of course.

So, again, you know, the next point, better coaching. Again, coaches, I know maybe I'm on the extreme end in this way, but I know a lot of people are of the opinion that coaching, or maybe I'm wrong. It's just, I see this a lot that coaching is a lot, it's just not all that important. It's just a lot of it's just the talent that you have. And the talent is very important.

but coaches are a good coach is a force multiplier makes your team better can make an average team good like you see spolstra who's a magician and takes some not-so-great heat teams and gets the most out of everybody and runs a scheme that again gets the most out of everybody even with only three shooters in the four he's the only one who can make that work outside of steve cur with you know who made it work with with you know some of the greatest shooters of all time which spilster does not have And, I mean, it can really make the difference in the postseason, of course. There are guys who are able only to make their team the sum of its parts, rather than more than some of its parts.

And you want a coach who's going to make the team more than some of its parts. But most coaches are in the average area where they don't make their team really better or worse. They're good at some things. They're sometimes not good at other things. And then you have the bad coaches who actively make their teams worse. And last season was an absolute case in point that the roster was poor. everything would have had to go right for it to challenge for a playing spot. Again, a good coach, I think high 20s and wins.

But the Pistons got the worst coach the NBA has seen in a very long time. And he took a poor roster and made it monumentally worse on the court. So the better coaching, I think, is going to make a significant difference. The team is likely to struggle on defense. And as Jalen Dern really brings that Kate Cunningham can recapture his pretty average, maybe slightly above average rookie defense. And Jade and Ivy make some strides. And I mean, those have you been listening to this show for a while,

know how I feel about sacrificing offense for defense, like in the starting lineup, for example. I mean, like the Pistons, it's been so long since they actually fielded at a lineup that consistently fielded at a lineup that had four shooters in it. That, I mean, it's kind of comical. Like, did it for more than 20 games at a time. But that is the norm in today's NBA.

I mean, it's no coincidence that the Pistons have had a, horrible offense, almost perennially. They managed a decent offense during the Blake Griffin season, but that was largely because of Blake Griffin. And that was also much closer to the beginning of the spacing era. That roster would have more issues now, given that it was basically feeling two non-shooters with Bruce Brown in the mix for the entirety of the season. So, yeah, you need it, basically, unless you're one of those very special exceptions, the likes of which I just mentioned, you need at least four shooters and five is even better, of course. Like traditional bigs these days, you're giving up a lot on offense.

You better be pretty darn good at everything else. If you're playing big minutes as a traditional center, because having five shooters in the four is very nice. You know, we saw like the Celtics beat the epitome of that. Like that Celtics team with five guys who could all shoot, were all decent passers and could all create offense. It's like the only thing that was going to beat that team was injuries. And in the event, they got pretty lucky outside of the injury to poor Zingis.

And El Horford, aged though he is, was able to come in and do very well, and he's still a staunch defender. Pretty not a versatile score anymore, but he can certainly shoot. He's an extremely smart player. So I don't think you ever sacrifice spacing for defense, which is why I don't think we'll see a Sarr-Thompson in the starting lineup. Bickerstaff started Mowley because he was just the best option that they had, even though it was three, even though it was two non-shooters. I mean, he was the best option they had, and they staggered him and Jared Allen at center. And, yeah, so, I mean, and they also just wanted to get them the minutes. I mean, Mobley is a genuinely pretty darn good player, even though the shooting still isn't there.

And I think ultimately they have to move on from one of them. And the playoffs, it was more of an issue that just the spacing wasn't there, particularly against the NICs two seasons ago. The NICS just hardcore exploited the lack of spacing. So that was because it was just the best option versus that it really made sense. Also, the fact that it was a power forward center combo maybe made it make a little bit more. or a little bit not less since. With the SAR, you have better options. I mean, just giving up offense,

just giving up spacing, destroying spacing in today's league is just, it's a losing play. That's just how things are. I'm hoping that, you know, we heard that the NBA front office was looking into making defense a little stronger. I hope they'll do that because any offense has been out of control for a while. But, you know, even then, I mean, it's still not going to change the calculus on giving up all.

offense for defense. It's still going to be a very focused offense focused games. It will just be a little bit less impossible to defend against certain schemes. And it'll be less of just kind of a revolving door on defense, the revolving door on defense that it is a lot of the time. So, yeah, that's all why I feel the Pistons will be in a position to maybe beat 26 games. There's also the fact that there are going to be some pretty, you know, a number of bad teams in the east this season. The Bulls, just by necessity, are headed it into a rebuild. The Hawks arguably got worse by trading away Dejante Murray, and they were a very middling team to begin with. The Nets are hardcore tanking.

The Raptors are certainly tanking. It actually went okay for them that they lost their draft pick this season. It went to the Spurs because now they are certainly going to have a draft pick in a much stronger draft in 2025. The Hornets are likely to be bad. The Wizards are likely to be bad. So, you know, we need to beat out five other teams to, you know, to make it to the plan. And if the Pistons stay healthy,

then, you know, I think they stand a good chance of being above at least the Nets, Raptors, Hornets, and Wizards. And those are all teams that they can beat up on, and the Bulls, again, perhaps. So if you can be better than those five teams, then cool, you're a playing team. You may be better than the Hawks, too, though, I doubt it. So, and, but of course, a lot of the next season is still going to depend very heavily upon what progress the youth have made. But it's definitely nice to have five bad teams.

teams to beat up on, because you play the majority of your games within the conference. In the east, the number of tankers is quite a bit less. The Spurs, excuse me, in the West. The Grizzlies, of course, unless Morant gets injured again, will be drastically better. The Jazz, at the very least, have Markinen, but they'll still probably be a bad team. The Spurs, Wemba Nyama may make it difficult for them to tank. And, yeah, that just might happen. The Trailblazers would probably still be bad.

So a little bit less in the way of it. of tank-tastic things going on in the West. But, yeah, in the East, yeah, I mean, all together, you'll have eight teams that are actively not trying to win. So that's, you know, all together between the East and the West and five of them in the East. So that'll help too. Okay.

So as far as there are potentially being room for things to change, I mean, there's still space for something to happen. There's literally space. I mean, the Pissons have $10.2 million in cap space. And then if they should chew through that, they also have the room mid-level exception of about 8 million. They can't be combined. You can't ever combine exceptions.

So basically to use the room exception, the pistons would need to get close enough to the cap that signing a contract, you know, they would sign a contract with more than the cap space they have left available. And that's when they would be able to use the room exception. And you can't combine cap space with the room exception. Again, you can't ever combine exceptions. like for example because I see trade ideas like this all the time you say oh well you just combine this player's salary with the trade exception and then bring back much more salary no you can't do that

you can't ever combine a trade exception like the mid-level exception the biannual exception any of those exceptions cannot be combined with salary or with each other so in any case the pistons have the means to do something now or to do something you know mid-season the room mid-level will starts to prorate down only after the trade deadline. There are often teams that are looking to escape the luxury tax, which only is applied if you're above the tax line at the end of the season, at the end of the regular season. And so that's an option,

or the Pistons could be a third team and a bigger trade mid-season. Who knows? Pistons are going to be, if they don't fill that cap space, one of the exceedingly rare teams to go into a season below the cap. It's because of the nature of the salary cap and the NBA. it's almost invariably every team is above the cap. Or maybe you have one now. And then the last team I can remember that it did.

It was the, I think the Kings a couple years ago. I don't remember when it was. So Langdon talked about wanting to take on salary dumps. I think it was more taking on salary dumps who could actually contribute. Tom Gores came out in Langdon's opening press conference and said we don't want a lot of salary sitting on a bench, probably a reference to Joe Harris, who retired today. and so I think the salary dumps they were looking for for guys who could contribute like Tim Hardaway Jr., I think a minus value rotation player unless he improves his shooting, probably a little bit more valuable to the average team,

to the pissons than he is the average team just because they really needed shooting. But in any case, he has a use versus guys like Karras who have none. So it seems, I think by all indications, that there just weren't good opportunities for salary dumps outside of Hardaway. and salary dumps are not altogether that common. They don't really happen all the time. So that, in my opinion, is my perception, is that that is why he chose to carry cap space into next season instead. You'd already have a relatively full of rotation.

He ended up being able to parlay some of that cap space into taking on a third string center and Paul Reed and otherwise barren third string center market. So, you know, I think that the white flag was really waived on that whole thing when they chose to take Fontechio and Beasley into cap space rather than just, you know, spending up to the cap and using the remit level exception on Beasley and early bird rights to sign Fontecchio. You know, I think once they took them in the cap space, I mean, I think that was pretty much just the end of things as far as the likelihood of being able to. except cap dumps. Though again, you even take on a cap dump who's useful, the rotation is pretty full. At this stage of the offseason, rosters are largely pretty set.

Teams have very little incentive to dump salary as a result, and none at all whatsoever to dump the salary of, you know, like the somewhat useful rotation players, whom Langdon, again, I think, was really looking for. And trades are very rare. Like, we saw the boy on trade a couple years ago, but which happened in September but that's pretty rare

so also the reason for that timing was that they had traded Donovan Mitchell which really sent them entirely into rebuild mode and they wanted to trade Blion in order to get below the tax if I remember correctly so yeah I think at this point probably just based on all

the factors I just went over the front office is going to probably go, this is probably the roster going into next season. There's always the opportunity for us to be surprised, but I think it would be pretty unlikely. All right, so moving on to our player review of the day. This is going to be Jalen Duren. I know I've talked plenty about him during the season, probably a little bit afterward as well. Duren, some good, some bad, averaged 14 points per game on good efficiency. About half a steal, you know, one block, two turnovers, three follows, followed about as much as he did last season.

11 and a half rebounds, 62% from the floor, about 80%, 79% from the free throw line. And he played in 61 games. So, again, some good, some bad. Let's go over the good first. On offense, he made a remarkable amount of progress.

I always thought that Jalen Duren's roots to flunking out of the NBA was going to be on offense if he just couldn't get that touch together around the rim, which was really bad as a rookie. And if he were really poor as a free throw shooter, which he was as a rookie. It's just like if you can't be very efficient around the basket and your free throws suck, then you might just not really have it as a traditional big. Now, that's no longer a concern. He came into last season dramatically better in terms of his touch around the rim,

especially on layups, and again, his free throw percentage also went up tremendously. So, yeah, we saw his percentage on layups go up by quite a bit, despite a more difficult shot diet. His poiseer on a basket as far as pump fakes and just finding the right moments and the right angle to score was much better. His footworker on the basket was much better. He was able to do some attacking off the dribble against opposing centers. Developed a somewhat decent floater was a solid connected passer, and this was alongside his typical pick and roll excellence, finishing above the rim and so on and so forth. He used his size and his strength well. Just remarkable improvement in terms of his refinement. I've seen it brought up, you know, should Jayland Duren, you know, be attempting, you know,

developing a mid-range game. Mid-range game amongst bigs is extremely rare these days. And that's because the NBA is very scientific as far as offense is concerned. You have to do that if you want to keep up. You have to subscribe to that. And there are just much better outcomes by having your big be closer to the basket. Mid-range, there are very few guys who can even make standstill mid-range shots, you know, the centers who can make stand-still mid-range shots and do it efficiently. And they'll get a much better chance just running some action around the basket for a much higher efficiency shot. As far as perimeter shooting, I mean, it's very unusual for a complete non-shooter,

like Jalen Duren to become a perimeter shooter. But there's also the fact that it just makes a lot more sense to have him in the interior. Where you have his scoring around the basket, his vertical spacing, his rebounding, and his ability to clear up, you know, to clear out space, and so on. If you bring him out to the perimeter, you're losing all of that. And that's a pretty significant loss. And he better be pretty darn good as a three-point shooter. If you're going to be doing that, I think that's unlikely.

In any case, so a good season for him on offense, aside from those rare games in which he decided to kind of go rogue and, well, was allowed to presumably and, you know, was taking mid-range pull-ups and so on. That was pretty rare. Defense, bad, bad, bad. As a rookie, he was raw and he did not defend optimally, like was sometimes kept out, you know, caught out of position, was not great at how he positioned his body to challenge shots, was not great at using his length to be maximally disrupt. but he was always very hard working. Go back and look at even his first few games in the league. It wasn't always pretty, but it was always high effort. And he did better in his first October in the league as a very raw 18-year-old than he did in any significant stretch last season. He completely checked out on defense.

He was legitimately terrible. And there's just never an excuse for a player to check out, no matter what. These are professionals. They're there to compete every night as a matter, of course. And none of his teammates checked out on defense. I mean, that's just not what typically players do. If his words can be trusted, it was definitely not because of the coaching, because he has openly said that he is still a big fan of last season's coach,

that he wants the guy to be involved in his development, and so on. He may have liked him in part because that coach let him do whatever he wanted on offense and nothing into play, basically, with no effort on defense without holding him accountable to any degree whatsoever. His ankles weren't an issue as far as his health. I don't think they're an explanation for what, you know, for his struggles on defense. He always brought it on offense. He was always a high flyer. He was always willing to attack the basket.

And yeah, you have to move a little bit differently on defense. But if his ankles were that much of an issue, I think we would have seen it on offense and we definitely didn't see it there. But again, assuming that his word can be trusted, I mean, he came out and said, you know, it wasn't his ankles. It wasn't anything. He just didn't bring it. And I completely agree that he didn't bring it. And that's never going to fly in the NBA period. it's certainly never going to fly as a traditional center. Again, you're giving up a lot on offense as a traditional center. There's what I call whatever. This is not like a really cool name or a cool concept thing. It's just kind of the facts of the matter.

The traditional center quartet, which you have to be good at to be a good traditional center, particularly if you're playing big minutes. High efficiency interior scoring, strong rebounding, good defense, or at least solid defense and high effort play. And he brought the first two. He was very bad at the latter two, especially high at the effort on defense. On offense, he always brought it. So, I mean, you also just need the defense.

And you need the defense particularly as a traditional big, but you just need the defense in general as a center. You cannot be this bad on defense. Center being, you know, the most important, the highest impact position on defense. This is why the defensive players of the year almost invariably bigs until, you know, the voters get bored and give it to somebody on the perimeter like Marcus Smart instead. which, of course, doesn't last long, and they just go back to Biggs afterward. Oh, Draymond gets his way in there. He plays like a big.

You know, he's not a center, but definitely primarily an interior defender. In any case, I mean, there's always the question of Duren is it is acuity also that's a concern, but there is no reason for him to not be significantly better last season than he was this season, simply by just working hard, which, again, should be a bare minimum expectation. expectation. And I think there's no reason for him not to be decently better than he was as a rookie, just based on his greater level of experience in the league. So as a good defender, it can be a top 10 center. You know, health, of course,

is a question. Just as a solid defender, he can still be a good player. A bad defender is just a major issue for the, just he can't do it. He's going to be a negative, if he plays defense like he did last season in the long term, he's a negative value player. And again, it's just also a major issue for the defense as a whole. And also, he was just a bad teammate last season. He did not go out there and put forth the effort. So again, he can make himself significantly better, maybe not a good defender. Hopefully at least to sell a defender next season just by playing with the level of effort he did as a rookie. Overall, his grade for the season, I would say a C-minus,

just one of the worst defenders in the league of disposition. His effort level on defense was inexcusable. His bad defense was very damaging. And again, I just think it's something I think cool that he's you know, good, reflects somewhat well on him that he's admitted to it. And it needs to change. So improved quite a bit on offense, but his defense was just absolutely horrible in a way that his offense absolutely did not compensate for. And again, got to be a better teammate than that. Got to be more professional than that. All right. So that is it for today's episode. As always, I want to thank you all so much for listening. Hope you doing great. Catch you in next week's episode.