Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 208: Why Next Season Will Be Better & Jaden Ivey Season Review

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

This episode goes more in-depth on why next season should be very different from the disasters of seasons past, and then reviews Jaden Ivey's tumultuous sophomore season.

Welcome back, everybody, you're listening to another episode of Driving to the Basket. I'm Mike. Hope you're all doing great today. So getting closer and closer to preseason, really looking forward to it. I continue to think that a lot of Pistons fans will be pleasantly surprised by next season's team. I'm not saying, hey, you know, go look. The Pistons are going to win 40 games next season because I think that's highway. I'm like with it, that's going to be the case. And also the team just wasn't constructed with that in mind.

I think that Trajan Langdon and Company wanted the team to be better and certainly wanted the team to be functional, because functional is important. I mean, both in just providing a decent basketball product. But also, and this is something that Troy Weaver really missed, it's important for the sake of providing a good development environment for the young players who remain absolutely and, you know, 100% key to the future of this team.

So much is going to depend on how, at Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivy and Assar Thompson, Jalen Duren, and also now Ron Holland, develop what they can become at the NBA level. This team is immensely dependent upon that. So providing them with that good development environment is important. It's one that none of them have ever had. As we remember, Troy Weaver drafted his franchise player in Kate Cunningham and decided promptly to not give him the role players that the team needed to run anything

approaching a modern offense. I know I've mentioned this now several times, but the best lineup Cade has played in was him and Corey Joseph, Jeremy Grant, Sadiq Bay, and Isaiah Stewart, pick and clog, Isaiah Stewart, who couldn't shoot back then, or play on the role, needless to say. Now, that's not a very good lineup.

It was just the best lineup that he's played consistent minutes in because he had three shooters next to him. So in any case, yeah, in his rookie season, and this continues to amaze me. And I know I've said this before as well, so I'll keep it short, but it's like, okay, you bring in your franchise player. And your decision, when you draft your, you know, your guy who was supposed to turn the franchise around first overall,

who lives in the high pick and roll is to take away the veteran pick and roll center you had on the team and just dump him. And then not give him a single athletic big, not give him really anywhere, even remotely in the range of enough shooting. You know, stack the team with, you know, too many reclamation projects, too many below average role players, no function, whatever the case. We lived through the unpleasant Weaver years. I mean, ironically, the most functional team probably in the Weaver era was in the first season, you know, pre-Ked Cunningham. I guess it helped in retrospect that Killian Hayes missed most of the season. In that respect, obviously, I'm not saying good thing you got injured, but, you know,

you had Killian Hayes in the rotation then. The team would have been considerably less functional. I digress. That's completely unimportant. But I think that we as Pistons fandom, the next season, season will be, you know, a pleasant surprise in that, like, so many things have gone wrong with this team for a long time. We haven't gotten to watch functional basketball for a very long time, you know, outside of, you know, that very short stretch after the trade deadline and before the team

started its wait season tank and Cade's rookie season. And just so much has gone wrong. Like, if J.B. Biggerstaff is a competent coach, he will be the best coach the Pistons have had since Flip Saunders. The team now has the accoutrements to run a modern offense, and the Pistons haven't been able to do that in a long time either. The last opening night roster Pistons had that hit the floor with enough shooting was in 2017, 2018, and that's because Stanley Johnson for like the first 20 games was actually able to shoot the ball reasonably well. So is he and Roger Jackson and Avery Bradley, who was good for those first 20 games before he heard his groin and fell off, well, and regressed. And he was never the same after that. And Tobias Harris, of course,

who's back on the team this season, seven years later. And all of that under Stan Van Gundy, who, for those of you don't know the history, in 2017, this was after kind of like the disastrous post-playoff season in 2016, 2017. And it was Jeff Van Gundy and the assistant coaches who got to Stan Van Gundy and said, you know, we've got to stop running the offense that you're running. You know, we've got to run a more efficient offense. We have to get Andre Drummond out of the post. This is absolutely terrible there.

And so for the first 20 games of the season, the Pistons actually had a pretty fresh offense, even though it wasn't necessarily all that efficient. Like when you're Stan Van Gundy and you're having Tobias Harris set an all-paw screen, your best scorer so that Avery Bradley, a horrible mid-range shooter, can curl around, take a handoff from Drummond, and then take along to the worst shot in basketball from just inside the three-point line. Things are not ideal. This gives you an idea of how much of a dinosaur Van Gundy was and just this complete inability

to keep up with the spacing era. but in any case it's just like things have been so miserably bad for so long like dwayne casey as a coach did his best but really wasn't fit to coach offense in the NBA even when he got to the pistons in 2018 and it just got worse from there of course last season's coach was just a catastrophe and just so many things have gone wrong like in last season so many things went wrong at the same time and like we're for the first time i think in a long while going to get to see like a halfway competent roster hit the floor under a hopefully a competent coach. So much of the season is going to depend upon how the youth do.

You know, like can Cade get it together in terms of attacking the rim and shooting the ball at the same time? Can Jaden Avey shoot the ball? And can his coach use him more effectively in tandem with Cade? I continue to think that's very much the case. Jaden Avi is not just an on-ball player. Is it a very willing off-ball player who will do anything in the disaster of him? And his shot, of course, has to be there. and Asar Thompson improve as a shooter.

I mean, that would be huge. It's like Asaar is the most if he can shoot the ball player I've ever seen in my life. Because, well, aside for maybe his brother. Because if you just give him a shot, I mean, and I continue to say this because it's just remarkable to me. I mean, we've even sought from him as a rookie. Then, like, here's a guy who I think has persistently undersold in terms of his versatility. Of course, the versatility is not going to get you. you anywhere if you're a horrible shooter on the perimeter. But, I mean, it makes you better,

but it's not going to be enough to make you a good player. Vassar Thompson never learns to shoot. He is unlikely to be anywhere on the fringes of the NBA because, you know, maybe he'd find a regular season role with the team that has so much shooting that don't need him to do it, but you get to the postseason, that doesn't matter. You know, unless you're the Warriors and you're Dremont, and you've got Curry next to you and Clay Thompson and for a while, Kevin Durant, then if you're a complete liability on the perimeter, then NBA is just very, very, very hard. harsh toward that. You've got to be able to keep up on offense. And if you can't shoot as a perimeter player, you're a drain on your offense. So, but you look at what Asar can do in terms of

just as athleticism, which is a big thing, you know, for both off and on the ball. Like, his handle isn't great, but if you get him in position to attack a closeout or just to attack a guy who hasn't gotten fully set or a player who's not all that fast, the Saar is going to be able to get past him very easily, his ability to run the foreign transition, to catch lobs, to You know, just, I mean, he can serve as kind of a secondary role man. And also, I mean, it gets tied together by the fact that he's very smart. Like, Sarr Thompson has very high basketball IQ. We didn't get to see a certain amount that he might have been able to do last season

because, you know, of course, like at some point, I mean, after these season previews are after, well, this isn't a season preview, but after the season, you know, I'd do whatever season previews. And at that point, I can just stop making any reference relatively. or absolutely to last season's coach and just never talk about him again. But I have to talk about him in this, you know, when I'm talking about Asar Thompson last season. But even just talking about the guy, even not mentioning his name, just makes me angry. Like, I think I mentioned this. I'm not a very angry person by nature.

I just prefer to stay even. And it's like I can get angry about sports. I and nothing bothers me more than bad coaching but typically with van gundy who was like the worst pistons coach I'd like in his last two seasons it was just awful you know I'd get upset and like you know what are you doing and like basically with the guy last season I would get so angry that I would feel it in my gut and I'm like is it safe for me to be watching basketball right now should I really be watching this and there was also the knowledge that it was going to be the same thing the next game and the game after that and the game after that.

So anyway, I'll be glad when I don't have to make any reference to him at all. So unfortunately, Asar was used, like, literally to his weakest extent. I mean, taking a guy who's the worst shooter in the league and making him a corner specialist, you're denying him the ability to contribute, and you're making him the biggest spacing liability he possibly can. You know, he would have been able to space the floor, at least a tiny bit better, even just even if the incredibly lazy, still very, very incredibly lazy, and incredibly negligent attack had been taken to,

okay, we're just going to spot you up, you know, above the break instead, because there he's at least in, you know, in better position to attack through open lanes, whereas the baseline is, you know, it's quite a bit harder to do that because, you know, you're up against the baseline. And also up there, he could be setting screens or whatever. So anyway, I feel like last season really just, he was used in a way that highlighted him as much as possible

as in terms of his primary weakness, very little in terms of his strength. So he is a very, very smart player. And that ties a lot of things together. That's kind of like a force multiplier. And you have a guy who's both very intelligent and, well, three of these things, very intelligent, extremely athletic and very, very, very hardworking. So if he never gets it together as a shooter, that's still a problem. I don't think like 34%, you know, in the long term is really going to cut it because that's a guy you can still leave open. and swarm your other better players.

But anyway, just back to what I was saying, just his ability to, you know, if he can improve, if he can be like a half-decent shooter next season, that'll be big. And then Jalen Duren, of course, is all about the defense. And this is really going to be the, I'm missing on the word right now. But the, not the do-or-die season, but it's going to be a really big deal. Just because if Duren comes back and, like, I'm confident he'll work harder. But the question is still there as to what he can do. What is his ceiling in terms of his acumen?

Like his smarts, his ability to make the right decisions. So if he's bad on defense again next season, then this front office could very well determine that he's not in their future plans as their starting center because particularly as a traditional big, you just can't be a bad defender. You've got to be a good defender. Do you want to be starting as a traditional big?

Not like really good per se, but at least plus above average or the value of providing is just too poor. So, you know, you look elsewhere, with Isaiah Stewart going back to, almost certainly, going back to backup center. And Simon Fontechio, who was a strong role player for the Bistons last season, getting an entire season here. I don't know if Marcus Sasser is actually going to play. And you look at the additions, and yes, the Pistons will probably be a weak defensive team next season

because really a lot of focus was put on offense. But Tim Hardaway Jr., not really the same shooter he used to be, but he's a guy who attracts gravity. and most situations can't hit his open threes, Malik Beasley. Again, pretty poor defender, of course. But a very strong catch-and-shoot guy who also attracts gravity, and if you don't defend him, then he's likely to hit his shots. Paul Reed, who at the very least will provide decent center depth.

And, you know, you've got Bobby Clinton, and I'm not sure if he's going to actually play. I've talked about that before. Anyway, we'll see. But it's not about just the guys who were added. It's also about the guys who were subtracted, whether the trade debline last season or in the offseason. I'll just go back to what I said before about the Pistons fielding non-functional rosters for quite some time. And of course, last season it was a combination of the roster being very inadequate and also having a coach who made it even more inadequate, like much worse,

and really prized his highly, highly, very extremely bad players and gave them a significant rotation rolls. So you look at who was subtracted as well. And Killian Hayes, of course, tops that list. Killian Hayes, who was without even a shadow of a doubt the worst player over the last three seasons to get significant minutes in the NBA. Like if we're looking at guys who got significant minutes over that entire span. And he was supposed to be off the team last season. And it was that coach who asked to keep him and then promptly made the front office regret saying yes by starting him over Jaden Ivy and then using him for the rest of the season until he was cut with very few exceptions. Anyway, don't need to rehash the Killian history. But he's been a major rotation player the last three seasons aside from a very short period in his sophomore, excuse me, his junior season, because he missed most of his rookie season.

he I guess it's not I guess we just say rookie and sophomore seasons in the NBA that makes more sense so in his third season yeah he had that that short span which he was he was decent for a little while I think that's kind of passed into history as Killian actually being a genuinely good player when even in that span one good game like two blue like maybe one okay games two blah games and in a really bad game so he was inconsistent even then but even that was sandwiched between a hideous start to the season and a terrible end to it. So just one of the worst players, the NBA seen in a long time, and it was an absolute ridiculous, crazy, stupid situation that he got as many chances as he did and started so many games. They started more than half of his career games. But anyway, last season he came in. It was arguably his worst season. And there is nothing even remotely approaching Achillian Hayes who is likely to be in the rotation next season. like nothing even close. Like everybody who is projected to be in the rotation

can actually provide something and is not just an awful player who's there because either the general manager wants him to get a chance because he's like a potential high-ceiling talent or because the coach said, well, I want to keep this player even though he sucks and I'm going to give him a major rule. There is not going to be a James Wiseman, for example.

Like you replace him, well, with Isaiah Stewart is the backup center, but even a third string center because Stewart and Duren are likely to miss some time based on their history. I think Stewart's missed games are a little bit inflated because he could have come back late in his third and fourth seasons, but they just decided to keep him out, both to heal and to lose games. But likely those guys will miss some time. So not only do we not have James Wiseman, who did take some strides near the end of last season, thanks apparently to Taj Gibson.

That makes you kind of wonder, why weren't you trying harder in the first place? but was still bad, aside from like maybe four or five games. It remains to be seen, even with an improved work ethic, if he has the basketball IQ to make it in the NBA. But in any event, no more James Wiseman, who provided a ton of comical moments last season in just all the worst sorts of ways. But, you know, not only that,

but you're replacing him with, you know, a good backup center. I think Isaiah Stewart is a good backup center. And Paul Reed, who is probably the best third-string center in the league. So none of that. Marvin Bagley wasn't very good last season either. So none of that. Last season, you started with a raw J.1. Duren in a sophomore season and two reclamation projects. There are zero reclamation projects on the roster right now. So it's basically the opposite at center, even though J.1 Duren remains a question.

You do not have the likes of Isaiah Livers, who unfortunately, I continue to believe, just lost the step from that ankle injury after, you know, which was just another very significant injury in a long string of lower body injuries. So I just lost the step that he couldn't afford to lose because he was, you know, had below average mobility in the first place. Losing a step as anybody in the NBA can really hinder you. But if you're already slow, then that's a pretty big deal. And also completely, this happened to other players.

It happened worse to him than anybody else completely lost his brains last season, you know, was brought in as, you know, a player who was poised and had, you know, pretty good basketball IQ, not great, but certainly above average and could be counted upon to make the right decision on the majority of cases. And last season hit the floor and was a complete moron. I don't understand why.

In any case, of course, got a significant role from his coach and even got the start for part of the season. There were some games when Killian and I remember one game, I believe, where it was Wiseman, Killian, and Rivers in the starting lineup. And it's like, even on a bad roster, you don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. But it happened. So that's not happening.

Joe Harris, unfortunately, was never going to contribute, and I think even Troy Weaver understood that. But, you know, on this team, at least, if you need to reach deep into the rotation, you have guys who are probably going to be able to do a little bit better than Joe Harris will. Like, again, just so much went wrong, even with the veterans last season.

Boyan missed a ton of time, and when he came back was just even worse than he had been defensive. before. Alec Berks had a pretty darn poor season. Like he started off strong and then got injured and had a terrible, like next 20 games before he picked it up after that. Basically, Boyon and Burks were like the team's shooting and neither one of them was a positive value player. Berks' defense was also just hideously bad. And you had Kevin Knox, who I think was quite a bit better than livers, for example, but still was, it's always been, can you shoot Kevin if you can. You can, you can,

be a bench player, maybe not for a great team, but for A team, but he still couldn't. And then, of course, you had the bevy of flunkies who came in after the trade deadline in Fornier and Troy Brown Jr. and Sheikh Milton, Malachi Flynn, of course, scored 50 points in one game. It was terrible the rest of the season. And ultimately, uh, Matu as well, you know, aside from Mattu, came in really late and was just there to be a warm body. These other guys should never have been getting significant minutes. But of course, as we know, the old coach decided to make that happen. Yeah, just thinking back to this post-tread and trade deadline games when the Pistons ended up playing 11 or 12 deep, a lot of those being all bench lineups for terrible players

who were never going to have a future on the team and should not really been playing in that season at all. So this is just all goes to say. And of course, Gallinari and Muscala, you know, shout out to those guys. They were actually pretty decent pro players for the Pistons. But this just all goes to say that so much bad has been subtracted. And of course, like the ultimate bad, I would say, in terms of subtractions, was the coach himself. Yeah, just that was the biggest one. But you've, so you've not only added, you know, some decent talent.

I didn't mention Tobias, who, you know, is a decent talent, not a world beater by any means, but he's a veteran who can get some of his own offense. He's, his share of unassisted offense is generally, aside from the Hardin season when you had Hardin and Maxie and Embed. His proportion of unassisted offense is generally from his first full season with the Clippers onward hovered around 50 percent. He's generally been pretty fair at it.

They're pretty fair at attacking off the dribble, like not in an elite way, but in a way that at least hits the half-court efficiency threshold. So, you know, and he's a steady veteran who is not great on defense, maybe a little bit below. average, but serviceable. So isn't going to be like Boyon, who comes in and just, you know, last season gave up more points on offense than he, then he generated points on, or more points on defense, excuse me, they generated points on offense. Ron Holland, sorry, I started seeing Paul Reed for some reason. Ron Holland, I don't think we'll play many minutes. I continue to feel that. I think it's very unlikely the business

will run a 10-man rotation, you know, Baker staff in Cleveland, brand eight or nine. It's not going to be entirely his decision because, of course, the front office is going to want to get minutes, the guys you want to get minutes to. But putting Ron Holland in there with Duren in the equation and Assar Thompson in the equation means, I mean, it's one less guy who's really ready for NBA minutes, though, who knows, maybe he'll come in and surprise us. I think that would be a big surprise and also the guy is raw in terms of his decision-making in a way that Assar Thompson was not coming in last season. Again, Assar Thompson, very smart and very mature player coming in, just that shot. And so I think the team wants to play functional basketball.

Oh, to get back to what I was saying, yeah. If you just have a Sarr Thompson in the lineup, then you can at least that this is just a band-a rather than a solution to have him on the floor with Isaiah Stewart a lot of the time. And, you know, at the very least you've got four shooters in the floor and you just use him as a role man. Though, again, this is a situation in which the other team can just slap their center on a Sarr, back him into the paint, and also, you know, be defending on the pick and roll against the Sarr with a much larger player. And, you know, and still packing the paint in the same way. in, well, not the same way, but a very similar way. And then Isaiah Stewart, who his hope was creating off the dribble,

is not going to be able to punish the much smaller defender he ends up on. But nonetheless, you also have J.B. Baker staff, who's going to be significantly more creative on offense, at least, though I don't think he's a great offensive mind. I do think he'll be significantly better than last season's coach or Dwayne Casey. And so at the very least, you can kind of slap a band-aid on it, you know, on his SARS inability to shoot if he is still a bad shooter next season. and like 10% of me says, oh, maybe you'll come in and actually be decent.

I know that's a lot to hope for, though I continue to have hope for a Sarr Thompson shooting, especially with Fred Vinson now in the mix. Wouldn't be surprised to find out that a SAR has worked eight hours a day on his shooting, you know, every day of the offseason. You know that work ethic and, you know, his knowledge of what he needs to do for the team. Again, I think those are also very important things. We've seen players in the past who just decided that they wanted to play their own way, on Ben Simmons, for one.

And no, I don't feel like shooting. Sorry. I know the game demands it. I know my team desperately needs it. But, oh well. And when you actually finally criticize me for it, I'm going to hold out and act like I was treated unfairly. Yeah, Ben Simmons is one of my least favorite athletes in the NBA.

So in any case, if you just have a SAR on the floor with Isaiah Stewart in the event that he's still a bad shooter, then, yeah, that mitigates the impact. You have him on the floor with four other shooters. just mitigates, but it does mitigate. If you have both he and Ron Holland in the rotation, and one of them's going to spend significant time with Jalen Duren and three shooters in the NBA is basically automatic trouble.

So maybe Ron finds his way in there in case of injuries, but I think the goal in this season was really just to run a functional team, particularly functional offense. And that's something that the Weaver regime never prioritized. You know, it was let's throw as much raw talent on the floor as we possibly can. Or when it came to last season, well, we want to win more games, but we're still going to throw, you know, we still can't resist throwing reclamation projects in the floor at the most important defensive position at the very least. And, of course, you know, even then, I mean, the fact that Troy Weaver thought that blowing $20 million on Joe Harris was okay given the rest of the roster. Like at the time, I didn't feel quite as bad about it because maybe I was certainly more optimistic than I should have been last season.

did not see the coaching thing coming. Nobody did. Or if you did, then I don't know. Buy more lottery tickets. So I know that didn't make any sense, but you get my point. Yeah, like some focus was put by a competent looks like, hopefully. You know, returns look all right. A general manager on actually building a functional team,

which the business have not had since the first quarter of the 2017-2018 season. And before that, and then like the final quarter, I guess in the starting lineup, you could argue, you know, the rest of the season as well in 2015, 2016. So this just all goes to say that, yes, things have been very bad for the Pistons for a very long time. And we have not seen a great deal of competence. And I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility that this season is a breath of fresh air. I don't think it's going to be a season in which the Pistons are going to win a ton of games. But I wouldn't put low 30s or even mid-30s of really things go right, you know, out of the equation.

I'm not going to go in saying, well, the Pistons are definitely going to be a play-on team, but the bottom of the east this season is going to be weak, and hopefully the Pistons can be kind of like a bottom-middle team, and in that case, if you get to 10th, then you get to play play in-game. You got to win two of them, but even the Pistons playing in a playing game would be an enormous step forward for this team. But mostly, I'm just looking forward to watching more functional basketball, and better-coached basketball, and just altogether, I think that,

this season deserves to be, not necessarily deserves to be looked at, because what's going to happen is what's going to happen, and that's in the future. But I think that it's going to be different than, like, the last five seasons have been in, you know, all the ways that I went over. And certainly things, again, have been very, very bad for the business for a long time, and we're capped off by probably the worst sports season any fan can endure, which was last season. So I just spent about a half hour talking about that. Speaking of rotations, I see this in terms of, you know, the prospect of starting lineup, this subject come up quite a bit as to should they put, and I know I've talked about this in previous episodes,

but it's a topic that I think is, you know, worth going over, you know, should they put a Sart Thompson in the starting lineup, even if he can't shoot for the sake of defense. And I just want to go over, again, maybe a little bit more in depth, why that's, a bad idea in today's NBA. Yes, the Pistons will probably, again, you know, if they field the starting lineup of Cade, Ivy, Fontejo, Tobias, and Duren will probably be a relatively poor defensive team just because you're going to have those guys playing a lot of minutes as a lineup. Some of it will depend on whether or not Duren can, at the very least, rediscover a work ethic and then hopefully, you know, make some progress in a processing area of things. He was quite a bit

better as a rookie just by working harder. He's a very hard worker on defense as a rookie and then incredibly lazy as a sophomore. So I would rate for young players the most important thing in the NBA to be able to come up in a functional offense. A functional offense in the NBA is 100% key to success, in my opinion, and it was 100% key to development. And these guys learn how to operates, or they come up rather operating in a functional offense that allows them to learn. And that's basically the most, it is the number one most important and necessary thing in the NBA these days is to feel the functional offense. Functional offense needs functional spacing. You can get away with less of it if you have multiple superstar creators, but

in the regular season anyway, in the playoffs, that stops being the case. So let's say you put a SAR in the starting lineup and I have no doubt the bigger staff is going to use him more effectively than the last coach did. The last coach who used him, as I've said, in criminally stupid fashion. That was like the worst thing he possibly could have done throwing Asar in the corner.

So I have no doubt that he'll operate a SAR more intelligently, but there's no replacement for actually being able to space the floor. The fact that Asar would not be attempting many threes doesn't really matter. I mean, sure, it's if he's, and this is assuming he comes in

and is not a significantly better shooter, which I think is a lot to hope for. But, you know, even if he is like a 34% shooter in that lineup, if Ivy is still shaky, then, you know, who knows even if it's ideal even then. But I don't think any of us are banking on a Sart Thompson coming in as a reliable shooter next season. So assuming he's not a shooter. Yeah, obviously, you don't want him shooting a lot of threes. The defense wants him shooting a lot of threes if he's shooting it that bad way of a percentage.

But it's not just that. It's not just okay. We just won't have him shoot. It's the spacing. It's the fact that defenses can leave him wide open. You know, they could even slap their center on him. some situations and just, you know, back their center off into the paint. And if the player has the ball, and this is less of an issue with the SAR, this just said this happened to Westbrook, who is

arguably the most egregious spacing liability of the spacing era. Like when he was with the Lakers, like if you have a guy who can't shoot and he's on the ball, a defensive three seconds doesn't apply if the defender backs into the pains because he's still technically guarding the guy. So I remember the situation in which Dremon, you know, partially just to be just to be a bit of a jerk like he likes to be, which is, you know, in this situation, whatever, some might find it funny, some might find it a little bit, you know, whatever, Draymond like, whatever the case. He was guarding Westbrook because it allowed him to just back away into the paints and be the very strong interior presence that he is.

And he was literally just backed into the paint with Westbrook at the three point line. And that's guarding. It's a defense of three seconds is three in the lane without guarding. In that situation, you are guarding. And so, I mean, Westbrook's choices in that situation amounted to attacking into packed paint, you know, against a guy who, yeah, I mean, if you're sagged off, you're going to have a much easier time defending. The guy's not going to get past you.

Or at least has a drastically lesser chance of getting past you. It's also Dray amount in that situation. But it's like, okay, well, you can drive into the packed paints and probably not really be able to do very much. sure you can shoot a three and we know that you're arguably the worst three point high volume three point shooter of all time so when it comes to assar yeah you also can't just say well we'll just operate him on the ball more there are two issues there which one of which is yeah just the aforementioned issue is that his defender can just back off and if his defender is in the paint that's still fine

you can just hang out there the other is that you're taking the ball out of the hands of much better handlers those being kate in particular or ivy uh assar even against OTE, opposition, had issues as a handler. And his handle, maybe he can tighten up a bit, but he also just struggles to finish through contact. And again, nobody's also going to come and help if he's just attacking into a Sagdow defender. It's not like he's going to be opening up shooters.

I mean, this is a situation which nobody has to come and help. So all of his teammates are still going to be covered. But anyway, I digress. Just going back to the spacing. It's like, sure, you can have him not shoot very much. But this just means that either his defender, can just sag off or his defender can go and double whoever is handling the ball, be that Cade or Ivy or whoever else.

And that just makes life much, much more difficult for everybody else, like much more difficult for everybody else. So instead of Cade coming around a pick and being able to attack into a spaced out interior where guys actually have to cover his teammates and he has easier lanes to the basket, he's instead going to run into Asar's defender probably being in his path and his situation, you know, and then attacking the rim becomes a great deal more difficult. And what are you going to do in that case pass to Asar? You know, if you're the defense, you're applauding that option.

It's like, okay, well, I guess you're just basically resetting and wasting shot clock, or even better, Asar is actually going to shoot the ball. So it just, I mean, four shooters is, aside from very unusual situations, like Miami, because you have Butler doesn't really shoot all that much. And outside of the playoffs where he magically becomes a good shooter is not particularly good at it. So you have him in Auto Bio. So two, you know, a non-shooter and a bad shooter.

I think autobios should really be shooting more threes. He's got decent touch. But you can make that work because, you know, it's Butler, it's Auto Bio. And more importantly, it's Spolstra, who is like the only guy in the league who can make two non-shooters work outside of Golden State in that situation. because you've got Steve Kerr, Steph Curry, most importantly, and Draymond, though, you know, losing Clay Thompson might hurt a little bit in that situation. That was a very strong trio. I'm curious to see how Clay does in Dallas because he's always been way worse away from Curry.

Curry is really the straw who stirs that guy's drink. It becomes very easy when you just run Curry around some screens and you've got to throw two guys at him, and then Clay just runs around an offball screen and gets an open three. Your job as an elite shooter becomes a great deal easier. you are on the floor with the most defense bending perimeter player in the league. And one of the most, arguably the most defense bending perimeter player, perimeter shooter in the history of the league. The Cavaliers do it, but I mean, having two star level creators at the guard positions

helps, but also they stagger Mobley and Allen as much as they can. And that's just not, it's not a good combo. I think they really have to move off of Allen, ideally, if they can find a good trade. It's much more of an issue in the postseason. So, I mean, like I said, there are things that can be able. like yeah having multiple star level creators and donovan mitchell is one of the best creators in the league the pistons unfortunately don't have that but again cavaliers they're doing that because it's the best situation at the moment also helps that both of them are bigs but you're rather than mowbly's playing a

power forward but that just happens to be the best alternative and also they of course want both mowgli and i want to get a lot of minutes you have the pelicans where it can be an issue with zion i think they'd really love to have a spacing center no zion is arguably you can make a case. One of his seasons was like the most unstoppable season of all time in terms of attacking the rim. So slightly extenuating circumstances there, but also just not ideal.

And then finally, you can make the case for the Nuggets that Aaron Gordon is not a particularly good shooter. That was the case last season, certainly. Again, just like with Golden State, if you have, I mean, Nicole Yokic is the most game-bending, offensive center of all time,

you know, maybe aside from Wiltz, though that's such a long time ago that I'm not really going to compare it to today's NBA. So at least in modern NBA history, by far the most game-bending center in a game-breaking offensive center in the history of the league. And that makes Gordon's poor shooting more palatable. This is basically just to say that there are some exceptions. And like for Denver, yeah, it makes sense to eat Gordon's poor shooting because they really need that defense around Yokic.

I mean, their entire defense is based around protecting Yokic. but also like when you have Yokic, you can bend the meta a bit if you have incredible superstar talent and or amazing coaching and Malone's not an amazing coach but he's a pretty darn good coach. But Yokic is the ultimate you have no good options player.

You play him one-on-one and he scores on you or you double him and he throws a perfect pass and if somebody's shooting pocket and you're screwed either way. Whatever the case, the Pistons do not fit into that category of having really game-breaking, game-bending talents. Most teams do not. not. You even see the Mavericks, for example, who had pretty big problems in the finals because Derek Jones Jr. and PJ Washington are not shooting well. So the Celtics on defense were just

free to, you know, take the defender from one of them and completely blitz Luca or Kyrie. So not all kind of incredible talents are necessarily going to make that an okay thing. Again, not as much of an issue in the regular season. It's definitely an issue in the postseason. And it should be noted that the Mavericks. I mean, the moment that Bluka arrived, they were surrounding them with shooters. So, again, kind of get a little bit off topic, but you need that spacing, basically, if you're almost any team. And, and again, these teams, it's like the teams that can be exceptions. It's not necessarily because it's ideal. It's just because it's the best option for them. That I think is very much not going to be the case for the Pistons. Obviously, these teams can run

functional offenses, too. I mean, that's the key. And the Pistons with the Sarr on the floor. Yeah, you're going to make a life more difficult on Cade. You're going to make life more difficult on Ivy and you're just going to make your life. Yeah, it's just going to be really hard to run a functional offense. And I know it's been forever since the Pistons consistently ran four shooters. Oh, goodness. I mean, I think 2015, 2016, you know, with Reggie, KCP had, you know, decent season from three. Marcus Morris did okay from three and both Ilyossova and Tobias, who replaced him. I think that was like the last season in which the pistons were able to consistently stretch the floor, you know, with four shooters in the floor, even if they still weren't, you know,

particularly good shooting team overall. But, I mean, it's a must in the NBA. And on defense, you know, if you have a bad defense, I think that's okay. I don't subscribe to the notion of creating a quote-unquote defensive culture. If you have the defenders who can defend and they're motivated, then you'll be able to play defense. So, you know, later on, you can put more priority on defense by ideally fielding better defenders. But for now, if you want your players to learn ideally how to play well on offense, and also basically do the single most important thing in the NBA, which is to feel the functional offense, period, because offense is, you know, is where games are won. And today's NBA defense is still important, but offense has been

preeminent for a long time. Well, by a long time, I mean, the spacing error really began in 2015. So, I mean, we're nearing a decade and it's just accelerated. And again, with those freedom of motion rules or freedom of movement, I don't remember what they call it. One of those two. In 2018, it just, the defense has ended up that much more disadvantaged. You know, my defenses, it's like the equivalent of the car of, you know, on offense, putting in a gallon and you get X number of miles on the highway. And on defense, you put in a gallon. And, you know, it's like you're driving off road. You're just going to get much less out of it. That changes a little bit in the postseason. But again, still being able to run a,

functional offense and not giving the defense anything that's going to make life enormously easier is still pretty key there or very key rather so anyway yeah i think you just eat the bad defense that's a choice you make you don't sacrifice being able to feel adequate spacing in today's NBA for the sake of improving your defense it's just a bad play period I think we've seen an overwhelming amount of evidence to that effect it's basically just a given these days and again in the future. Hope the Pistons have better defensive personnel. And then you see better defense then.

But for now, let the youth grow up in a functional offense. That is something that Troy Weaver absolutely sacrificed in his never-ending fixation upon bringing in raw talent. Like, you know, you brought in Josh Jackson in his first season. That's a good move, raw talent. Okay, Reclamation Project, great. Wait at that season you bring in Diallo. They're both, if they can shoot players.

They're both going to play a big role in the rotation the next season. Yeah, it just goes on and on. All right, so let's finish this off with a play review. I'll talk Jaden Ivy today. And I'm going to slip into, for those of you are interested in listening to History Podcasts. I occasionally listen to them, I'm a big history buff. You know, periodically like, you know, Dan Carlin, I think is good at telling a story. So I guess I'm going to kind of slip into history podcast remote.

And it's like, you know, imagine if you're, you know, a young NBA player and yada, yada. No, I'm not going to do that. But, yeah, just to preface this with Jade Navi, who had an up and down season. Like, imagine that you are a second-year NBA player. You had a fairly promising end of the rookie season. You know, you're hard worker and presumably, you know, looking forward to going in and having another significant role in yourself more season. It's very important as an organization, as a coach, to nurture your young players,

put them in a position to build confidence to succeed. And instead, you find, out in training camp, though you're not actually told this by your coach, that you're not going to be starting. And, you know, that's kind of a bad first step. It probably doesn't help that you find out the guy who's starting ahead of you has been one of the worst players in the league for the previous two and a half seasons because Killian missed most of his his rookie season. And, you know, it's probably ostensibly, you know, and so this, apparently we've been told there was no real reason given for it besides some vague. I mean, he was clearly never talked to about it and told this is

why you're coming off the bench. But, you know, his coach made some vague reference to competing on defense or whatever, you know, or I don't remember really what it was. But, you know, you'd presume as that player that you're going to be able to maybe earn your way into the starting lineup. And then you find out that you're going to have a very minor role. You know, you're, you're not going to get to take many shots. You're going to be pretty marginalized when, you know, you're on with an all-bench unit that desperately needs a handle or you're not going to get to handle the ball.

It's going to be somebody like Marcus Sasser, who has a lot of two can't really penetrate. Or maybe you're on the floor with Killian Hayes, who's one of the most ineffectual handlers in the league, because he definitely can't penetrate or shoot. And these units are going to be flopping for lack of penetration, and you're good at attacking the rim, but your coach is just not going to let you do it.

and it doesn't matter. You know, you're really the only person being held accountable. Supposedly it's your defense, but the starting center is completely not as terrible on defense. He's not really doing much. The guy who replaced you in the starting lineup is having a horrible season, as usual, aside from like a few short spans, he's terrible. He's not being held accountable. Even Kate Cunningham is making a ton of mistakes on offense.

You probably know he's going to stay in the starting lineup no matter what, on defense, excuse me. You probably know he's going to stay there no matter what, but he's not being held accountable. And these things are probably not great for your confidence. You're not being put in a position to succeed when you're on the floor. Like when you're on the floor a lot of the time, I mean, your coach is not letting you handle the ball very much, even when Kate is out.

You are spending long stretches in the corner, you know, for no apparent reason, just completely uninvolved in plays. The owner has to get involved to get you back into the, you know, to get you into the starting lineup, even though, I mean, the guy who's there, Killian Hayes is absolutely terrible. The owner has to get involved again to get the coach to let you handle the ball. And your coach pretends that he just never thought of it, even though Dwayne Casey had let you handle the ball on very heavy volume with Cade Cunningham out in your rookie season.

And again, even after Ceylon is gone, you know, there's a period or out of the rotation, there's a period where you're still standing in the corner because your coach really doesn't like you and he'd rather just stick with his beloved predictable Cade Boyan sets. And then finally, Boyan has gone too, and your coach is forced to finally use you. but he still finds ways to put you in the corner.

And, you know, you're basically just screwed around the entire season. And as a young player, I mean, confidence is key in the league. The NBA is brutal. It is an incredibly difficult league to play in. These players are otherworldly good at basketball. You know, the opposition is incredibly difficult. It's a game of inches. You know, you see some of the best players in the world, you know, attacking the rim.

And literally, they are scoring into pockets around the basketball. basket, like off the backboard where there are like inches, you know, the ball is inches away from being blocked by a defender on many possessions. You know, confidence is key and especially in young players. And you go in and you're just confronted by a coach who arbitrarily just dislikes you and spends the entire season trying to marginalize you. It's got to be terrible for your confidence. All of that is got to be terrible for your ability to find a rhythm. And Ivy, of course, to his credit, didn't complain at all and just continued to work hard. but that is a horrible thing to do to a young player, you know, for the sake of his confidence and his success.

So it was just, I mean, it was some of the worst and most irresponsible and stupid and just arbitrary and whatever treatment of a promising young prospect I've seen by, you know, again, one of the worst, by a coach who put in one of the worst coaching performances in the history of the NBA. And yeah, just completely morally bankrupt, devoid of integrity and how he coached the pitch the pitch. So that's what makes it hard for me to really properly review Ivy's season because that was such a confounding factor. His season was up and down, that he was highly inconsistent, especially as a perimeter shooter. He went into a pretty severe slump in March in April, particularly in March. His, again, from the perimeter, I mean, he hit a lot of his threes over the course of a relatively small number of games. and yeah it was just an inconsistent season and he had his struggles as a defender again

I think he made some progress over his rookie season as an on-ball defender but off the ball he still had his issues and it's just kind of hard for me to fault him for his struggles given the situation the completely absurd situation there were things he did well at he improved aside from March and April aside from that for whatever reason just that enormous slump, although that was largely during the period

when the pistons were completely tanking. Not really what you want to see, but if you're going to slump, if you're going to pick a time for it, then, you know, that's the time. I mean, you're fielding lineups with Malachi Flynn

and Chamezi Metu and Troy Brown Jr. and, you know, sometimes Buddy Beheim, and, yeah, it was, of course, terrible, horrible tank lineups. But prior to that,

he had actually improved a great deal as a finisher, like a great deal as a finisher. Kind of counter contrary to what one might have expected, he was actually quite weak as a finisher in his rookie season, particularly in the second half of the season, a period in which he improved in pretty much every other way. There was, I think, a learning curve for him

because in the NCAA, it was basically, you know, come around the screen, driving to the right, hit the afterburners, and just score before anybody can, even the rim protection can come and stop you. I think that was one of his go-toes, and he was just drastically more athletic than everybody else, almost everybody else. So he never really, I think, had to work on his handle, on plotting his roots,

and just on being smarter on the drive, which, of course, is a necessity. It doesn't matter who you are in the NBA. It's a necessity. So he got a lot better at that. You got a lot better at getting to the rim. And as a rookie often, he would just kind of run into the defender, run into the defender, really. I mean, they always had to pay attention to him because if you give Ivy a small opening, he's going to blitz through it. So he'd made a lot of progress there, and that's a big deal.

He was one of the highest scoring players, I think top 20 in the NBA in transition points. I mean, he's an absolute demon in transition. He's, again, he's got incredible acceleration and in one of the highest top speeds in the NBA. He was actually a pretty darn good offensive rebounder, like one of the best offensive rebounders among guards, again, because of his ability to just, you know, jet from one spot to the other to chase the ball. Also his work ethic, you know, he was, Ivy's work ethic never flags. He's an incredibly hard worker. So, yeah, he saw quite a few games in which he got the pistons, a good number of additional possessions because, you know, he again, would just jet to the spot where the rebound was coming down. He was perfectly willing to be really

physical and get knocked down trying to get the rebound. So he got to the rim, excuse me, to the free throw. line pretty well. And so it wasn't all downsides. I mean, we continued to see what Jaden Ivy can be capable of. It's worth noting that also, of course, the coach didn't even bother to try using he and Kade together. Rather to just shove Ivy in the corner. You know, they'd see very rare possessions in which they were actually played off of one another. And, you know, and you can see what could have been there. And I continue to believe that Kate and Ivy have a lot to offer each other. But that coach wasn't doing it. Dwayne Casey, I don't really knew how to do it. So just Ivy was another case, kind of like Jalen Duren, who, you know, the season really confounded

assessment, really muddied the waters with Duren that was in part because he just completely checked out on defense. So that was largely just his fault. You know, I'd say the vast majority of that in terms of muddy in the waters of his defensive potential was like, yeah, it was in its vast majority just straight up his fault, and he's admitted that he really didn't bring it on defense. With Ivy, it was the coaching, which really muddy the waters in terms of really being able to judge his progress as a sophomore. So, I know I've been giving players grades, and man, this one is just tough. I'm almost, I'm just going to go with kind of a not applicable. When you get screwed around by your coach this badly, I mean, this was 10 out of 10

messing with one of your players, like 10 out of 10 irresponsible coaching. It's just hard for me to look at that player and say, you know, well, how would you have done under a coach who wasn't a complete every bad word, you know, you can, yeah, like what would you have looked at, looked like under a coach who was at least like baseline, like below average, maybe competent and actually a responsible coach, you know, let alone one who's actually capable. Who knows? So I think this season, this upcoming season, will be more of a useful data point on Ivy. And may or may not be an important season for his future. Maybe the new front office is going to give him through season four or at least halfway through season. Well, I mean, Ivy's not going to be like somebody who's going to be out of the NBA after his first contract, obviously, even if he really struggles. But yeah, it's kind of unfair because he just kind of lost out on the opportunity.

to show what he had and what he might really have improved in season two. So we'll see more of what he's capable of in season three, hopefully, you know, under a coach, who I hope will do quite a bit of a better job on offense. And again, hopefully in a considerably more functional lineup, definitely be looking for him to be more consistent as a perimeter shooter. That was an issue in his rookie season as well, though he improved quite a bit in the second half of that.

And there were actually some intriguing moments. I think there were some in this past season as well, though not quite as many, because, again, he just wasn't really being used very much in many points. But certainly as a rookie in which he dashed off screens and hit Emotion 3. And it's like Ivy is a very, very difficult guy to track off the ball. He's a guy you want moving a lot off the ball because he's a very willing and an aggressive offball mover. Again, it's just very, very difficult to catch up with. And if you get him the ball, for example, also when he's moving, he's likely to get to the rim or draw, you know,

or draw foul. So definitely, though, the perimeter shooting is a must. And, you know, hopefully see some more of the poise that we saw him really develop in the second half of his rookie season. So that'll be it for this episode. As always, and I know I say this at the end of every episode, hopefully it's not becoming too rote, though I mean it every time. I want to thank you for listening. Hope you're all doing well. I'll catch you in the next episode.