Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 214: Final Before-the-Season Review + Q&A

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

This episode shares final thoughts ahead of the season opener and covers some listener-suggested subjects. 

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Drive Into the Baskets. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all having a super great day. So preseason is over. We are only a few days away from the start of the season. And I didn't really anticipate too well that it would be impossible to find enough material on preseason to talk about for two separate episodes. I don't know, it's kind of funny beginning of the episode that way. But anyway, got to this one. didn't really know exactly what to talk about. So polled a few longtime listeners. Really appreciate the ideas that you guys gave me. And I'll do my best to go over those.

And just talk about some final preseason takeaways, so to speak, or, you know, things that I think will be a little bit interesting going into next season. Or maybe they're just a little bit nitpicky. In any case, might end up being a shorter than usual episode. as a result, much like last weeks was, I often plan to keep these episodes to like 45 minutes and they end up being an hour, sometimes more. So 30 minutes is definitely unusual for me, but this will probably be another such instance. In any case, first things first, I'm not going to be complaining about the coaching this episode. Let's be real, I mean, J.B. Baker's staff has nothing

special on the offensive end, but he is way better than anything the pistons, to this point, way better than anything the Pistons have produced on the coaching side of things in a long time. I mean, even just watching, you know, a bunch of preseason games and watching how the offense is coached. Like I've said, many times they came back to this team and Stan Van Gundy's first season. So the Pistons have just had a few bad offensive coaches. Well, you know, too. Well, Van Gundy was bad.

Casey was poor. And then the guy from last season, you know, we all know. how he was. So it's been for me very refreshing to watch a decently, you know, competently run offense. It's nothing spectacular, but competence is a big change for this team. We hope that it goes into into the regular season. I don't see any reason why it won't. So yeah, that for me has just been very refreshing. Like when the pistons were in the midst of getting destroyed by the Warriors in the first quarter not in preseason game four all i was thinking was like oh goodness this is such a relief you know that uh you know i didn't care that the pistons weren't winning i was like my goodness like

even if they're not hitting shots like wow it looks you know this looks so much better and then yeah i mean it's yeah so that i've been happy about granted of course it's a very low bar that it's like wow look like the pistons have an okay offensive coach like let's go great awesome but, you know, low bar or not, it's pretty big deal for me at least. And I think it'll make, I think it's certain to make a difference this upcoming season. Of course, the question is given, you know, the talent has to be there, of course. You know, so the difference, of course, the question, of course, is what difference is it going to make and what are we comparing it to? Because the Pistons are definitely going to be trying to win games this season.

and last year's coach was a disaster, and Dwayne Casey was mostly coaching during a rebuild, and it's like, so you're going a long way back to find kind of a comparison point for this current season, a long, long way back. The early Joe Dumas days as general manager, is we really haven't had a situation in which the Pistons were really in the midst of a youth movement.

and trying to come out of a rebuild and win more games. I mean, that's, that's, uh, they tried a couple of rebuilds in the fly, like the Dumars rebuild on the fly, quote unquote, which was, of course, a complete disaster. The Pistons were trying to win and were winning like their way, or they were winning their way into the midwattery every year. And that was with a bunch of veterans on the team playing leading roles. So not all of the leading roles, of course, but it was very different from right now. So not really that much to compare this.

anyway, just some final takeaways for me from preseason. And preseason, like, yeah, takeaways, again, a very limited value. All that's going to matter is what happens when the actual honest goodness action starts and things will look a little bit different there, presumably anyway, because things get tightened up in the regular season. Nobody really cares too much about preseason. It's a time to experiment to just get your guys some time in the court. I see where you stand with more uncertain quantities.

like your youth and your exhibit 10 contracts and basically try out guys, one of whom Omar Stevens got waived, I think earlier today. You didn't get to play too much. And yeah, I mean, once it gets the regular season, I mean, you have to be ruthlessly efficient about everything you do because that's what's necessary in the NBA these days. So some guys won't play who played in preseason, some shots won't be allowed, and so on and so forth.

So in any event, what can we take out of preseason? season though or you know just some storylines for me number one tim hardaway junior was absolutely hideously bad i don't think a shot's going to stay quite as bad as it was i think he had like 26% true shooting through four games but the guy's value a lot of it has always been tied up in his shooting and it's just that much more so now that he's slowed down because now his defense sucks and he even has trouble attacking in flight like into the ball in flight and just jetting into an open lane or close-outs or whatever else. It's really, his shooting is basically everything now.

And it's one of these things like with role players in the NBA. Like the NBA is cutthroat, like not deliberately cutthroat, but it's cutthroat in the sense that if you decline past a certain level, somebody is going to come in and take your job. NBA is the best basketball league in the world by a huge margin. And the standard of talent and the standard of competition is higher than ever. and like the guys who age well into their 30s are typically either your really good players who are going to find ways to be good no matter what but also just have more effectiveness they can lose and still be very very much good NBA players or like your really high-level role

players beyond that I mean guys who are just more basic role players like Tim Hardaway Jr. who was a starter for I mean he was he was a good role player for a while but if you don't have that much in the way of buffer, you can end up out of the league pretty easily. And Tim Hardaway Jr. did not really have a ton in the way of a buffer in order to be a good rotation player. He needed to be an elite shooter and be serviceable enough on defense. The defense has gone. The elite shooting hasn't been there for a little while. We saw him make one play against, I think this was against the Suns when he came off the screen, got the ball, and shot it off the move. That's a shot he has to be able to make. You know, he has to be a

genuinely good three-point shooter. And man, was he bad at everything in preseason? So I think the shot will come back, but, you know, there are going to be some decisions hopefully to be made at some point in the season. Like if we see, oh, hopefully, I'll talk about a sorrow a little bit later, but if he comes back, I mean, realistically, you don't want to have both Beasley and Tim Hardaway, Jr. on the floor at all times, and if Hardaway Jr. is not shooting well, you're not, I mean, he's useless.

So we'll see in the regular season. He was just remarkably, remarkably bad. And talking about Beasley and Timorle-Jradorly, you can avoid having them on the floor at the same time if you start one of them. I'm not convinced that that's the right decision. And if they're both coming off the bench, that's going to be a little bit harder. But, yeah, man, did he look horrible in the preseason? Just absolutely, absolutely horrible.

So hopefully that changes in the regular season, but it's going to have to be a shot. His defense can't get better. You know, he's never really had good defensive acumen, and he's lost the step. So I've seen it asked, could he potentially be flipped at the deadline? I'd say the answer to that is almost certainly no at this point. Tim Hardaway Jr. is just not a postseason caliber player.

He's too much of a defensive liability. He would need to get back to being an amazing shooter for it to make that sense. Well, it's not only that he's too much of a defensive liability. It's just that severely erodes his value in the postseason. And he just hasn't really been, he would need to be a really elite shooter to merit a postseason role. Postseason rotations are small. They're kept small so that you've just, you've got as players with as few weaknesses as humanly possible. And you've got your best players playing as much as you can.

And, I mean, it's the postseason. You've got to do everything you possibly can to get yourself the best chance of victory. Every point matters. So guys who are exploitable or just doesn't make sense to give them time, we'll get time. Anyway, moving on, hopefully, or I'm really hoping that Isaiah Stewart shooting gets leveraged, more. It's a very basic thing, like just what you can do with the spacing center, but it's very useful nonetheless. We've only seen it, we saw it used very little in the preseason. Like, just have a player come around an Isaiah Stewart pick, and if he's, like, for example,

Jade and Ivy, if he's able to get ahead of his man, and you just have Stewart pop back out to the three-point line, then okay, the opposing center now has, can make one of two decisions, decisions. He can drop and cover the rim, which is going to open up Isaiah for a shot, or he can go and cover Isaiah, which is not going to happen because it gives the likes of Jaden Ivy a free path to the basket. Isaiah Stewart can hit his wide open threes. So it's a simple action, but it's a useful action. Or have, again, Ivy, who's going to be the best ISO attacker on the team, have him get an advantageous matchup, and you've got five guys in the floor who can shoot. And again, the rim protector can go back, but then you leave Stewart open.

Or if somebody closes out on Stewart, then he just kicks it off to another shooter. And, you know, the kicking around the perimeter until you find an open shot seems to be a, seems like it's going to be a hallmark of Baker staff's offense. And, you know, that's good. You know, generating open threes is going to be just as it is for anybody. One of the primary goals are really the primary goal, aside from getting open shots at the rim, of course. but he's been utilizing Isaiah a little bit more kind of in the interior in a not so helpful way. Like, Isaiah is great at using his strength to clear out space in the interior.

So he's useful in that respect. But once you have him just kind of like jet into the paint, then he's just clogging. So in any case, it's just something that I think is very important to leverage for him at center. He's shooting to leverage it as much as possible because he's not good in the interior. like he's just he scores from below the basket and his hands aren't the great you know what the greatest excuse me even in terms of catching passes and yeah his touch around the rim just isn't super good in order to get like even even just basic non-negative value out of him you've got to be able to leverage his shooting that's speaking of stewart i mean it's we don't know at this point who's going to

start pickerstive's made that clear i'd be surprised if it's not durham but it'd be potentially Stewart, and it's worth noting that Dern has not really been used a ton as a role man to this point with Cade Cunningham. And if it's not going to be a major hallmark, though it would surprise me if it were not, because he's good at that. And Bickerstaff has talked about the importance of vertical spacing, and of course he made great use of that with Mowbly and Allen in Cleveland. So, but if that's not going to be a major focus, then you consider starting as a Stewart. Because in that case, I mean, Stuart, Duren has looked a little bit better on defense, again, preseason only. But he's, we saw a lot more effort from him, I feel like, at least in the Golden State game. But

Stewart is still just so much more of, he's just a really smart defender and just really has it together in a way that Duren doesn't. So defensively speaking, you're going to get more out of Stewart. And if you're not really utilizing Duran as a, you know, to a great extent as a role man, then his advantages over Stewart get a lot thinner and he might not actually provide you better value. But again, solely preseason. Shot selection, especially on the part of role players, most notably Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. Malik Beasley should not be attempting mid-range pull-ups, as I've droned on about numerous times. I mean, you just don't want the vast majority of players attempting that shot. Malik Beasily can't make it. So even Tim Hardaway, Jr., who's a few

times looked like he's going to attempt shots like that. I hope this is just a hallmark preseason. And finally, Ivy really isn't getting ball handling reps. When Kay Cunningham goes off the floor, like assuming Ivy is on the floor, it immediately becomes playmaking by committee. when you have the likes of Tim Hardaway Jr. bringing the ball up the floor, for example. And it's ugly. No playmaking by committee thing with no weed handler is ugly. I don't know why. I hope once the regular season starts,

I don't know why it was happening in preseason that way. I hope once the regular season starts, Ivy has given a chance to really weed the offense, in part because he's just the best choice to do it, I think. Much better than having nobody, but also so, you know, the reps are helpful for allowing him to learn. So both reasons there. Beyond that, yeah, not really a ton to take away that I hadn't already spoken about last episode. I'm just looking forward to the season starting.

I'm looking forward to what I believe will be the opportunity to watch decent basketball for the first time in quite a while. I mean, I was fine with non-decent basketball in those first two tank years, now two and a half, if you want to count the like three months before COVID-East. ended the 2019-2020 season. You know, in that situation, it was like, woo-hoo, lose more games, you know. Let's tank. Let's, you know, let's get good draft position.

It was exciting back then. I didn't really care that it was bad basketball. And then when it's like, okay, we've got more talents and, okay, who cares if the pistons lose and who cares of Dwayne Casey is a bad offensive coach, you know, it's just fun watching the young talent play. And, of course, then. Yeah, whatever. I'm just looking forward to watching what I think is going to be decent basketball again. Might not be winning basketball on any given nights, but if it's well-coached basketball with a functional roster,

this is going to be drastically more enjoyable for me than any basketball I've watched in quite some time from the Pistons. So I'm looking forward to it. Continue to maintain that Pistons probably, if a lot goes well, have a ceiling of around 35 wins. but 35 wins in the east in this eastern conference may well get you somewhere close to or into the plan. So that's a lot to hope for and that's a ways in the future. All right, moving on. So what's happening with the SAR and what do I think is going to happen? And so I've actually gotten together a team of board certified cardiologists, and they've come back with one unanimous conclusion that if I let them go, they won't tell anybody I was holding them against their will. All right, I totally stole that joke from Redwater Media.

If you don't know about them, it's a YouTube channel and their review of the Fandemannis, which is like 14 years ago, still some of the funniest content I've ever seen on the platform. So check it out if you're interested in that sort of thing. anyway yeah i don't i don't know any anywhere near enough about the details in my medical knowledge even if i did is nowhere near sufficient of the task of coming up with a prognosis of any sort then nobody has the details outside of the organization so i don't care how qualified you are you know basically the range of outcomes is from well he'll be fine and i'll never have to deal with it again to it might be an issue to his career is over, and we're not going to know, and time will tell. We'll put it that way.

That would be a huge bummer for all involved, if this turned out to be a long-term issue. Obviously, it would suck for the organization. It would suck for the fans, and most of all, would suck for Assar Thompson. But, you know, that bridge hopefully will not be crossed. Now, do I think that Ron Holland might get a larger rotation role with the SAR out? I have my doubts. Ron is fun to watch. I mean, the guy is incredibly competitive. like incredibly competitive. He really kind of personifies that Detroit grit of don't back down from anything and, you know, just go out there and, you know, put everything on the line and every play.

So he's super likable. He's athletic. He's good in transition. You know, he's a pretty good, he's a good on-ball defender. He's a decent off-ball defender. He's got, you know, some refining to do on that side of things. But on offense, he's about as close to a zero and a half court as you can find. He can't really do anything.

He's not much of a passer. He struggles to attack the rim, and needless to say, his shot is really bad. I think he made one three in the preseason. All of this was to be expected. He's a project. He was coming in raw. So the pistons don't even need to run a nine-man rotation. I mean, Bigger staff ran an eight-man rotation a lot of the time last season,

you know, with just nine occasionally or in cases of foul trouble or whatever else. So a SAR being out doesn't necessarily mean that Holland will get minutes. And right now, Ron Holland just cannot play functional NBA basketball, given his struggles in the half court. He is significantly behind even where a SAR was last season coming in as a rookie who couldn't shoot. And I learned this amazing statistic actually about a SAR last season that he had more airballs on threes than made threes. Yikes, never really had thought about that. But we all know he had a terrible shooting season. But anyway, that's sort of neither here nor there in this conversation.

or I guess it is there. Even given the fact that he couldn't shoot, he was still far ahead of where Ron Holland is right now. Because the Sars came in as a very smart player. Billy High IQ always knew the right thing to do when he wasn't pasted to the corner, which was not the case early last season. Yeah, so I always knew what to do.

Doesn't have a good handle, but has a sort of athleticism that Ron doesn't have. He's much burstier and has much better vertical. So I was just able to, cut to the basket at the right time, is able to to pretty effortlessly vertically spaced the floor and the half court. He could attack kind of discombobulated defenses because

if you have to rotate to try to cover him when he's, you know, when he's attacking, if he catches the ball and attacks right away, he's going to blitz through that open lane with that, you know, amazing. It's just, well, I don't know if amazing, but very, very, very good. Athleticism of his and elevate at the rim, you're not going to get there in time. And just smart, connected passer, a guy who even from his first game in the NBA could be relied upon to the vast majority of the time make the right

decision. And Ron just can't do that. I mean, he's probably just as bad as Asar was in terms of attacking from on the ball. He's got a better handle, but just kind of struggles to navigate his way to the rim. Assar just sucks at finishing through contact. And that was the case in overtime elite as well. But anyway, my point is that Bron is just not ready to play all offense at the NBA level. He is really just almost completely without utility in the half court. So I wouldn't put it out of the question that the pistons just run in roughly eight-man rotation, you know, until hopefully a S.R. Thompson returns. And, you know, the starters, I continue to hope that Fontecchio end up in the starting lineup, the guy is actually coming back from some minor surgery on his foot. You know, he was out,

I think on a toe. He was out for a certain amount of the offseason, so he's really still making a full comeback. But I suspect it'll be either he or Beasley in the starting lineup. I think we can conclude at this point. So obviously, Kate is a starter. Obviously, Tobias Harris is a starter. Almost certainly Jaden Avi, very probably Jalen Duren. And, you know, one of Beasley or Fonteke. And elsewhere, you're outside of the starting lineup, whatever, whatever it is, outside of those five players. you're going to have Isaiah Stewart. You're going to have Tim Hardaway, Jr. And my goodness, I think I've forgotten how to count. All right. Okay, no, I haven't forgotten how to count. Never mind. I had to go to the list.

I was like, I could have swear on there were eight guys who are certainly going to be in the rotation. Yeah, so Tobias, Tim Hardaway Jr., Stuart, Cade, Ivy, Fontechio, Beasley, Duren. So I think that's a fine eight-man rotation. you can try to push Marcus Sasser into some minutes there and, you know, push Beasley or Tim Hardaway, Jr. up the lineup a bit.

You'll always have Fontecchio and Tobias to handle the power forward minutes. And, of course, Stuart and Duren at center. So Sasser, who looked terrible in Summer League, excuse me, well, he looked terrible in Summer League too, but he looked really bad in preseason. But this may be his opportunity to get some minutes and whatever. He, yeah. So, yeah, Holland could come in and see just a very minor role.

That wouldn't surprise me. And frankly, I would prefer it as fun as it is to watch him on defense and as fun as it is to watch him make transition plays and just to make really kind of greasy, gritty plays and, you know, be a real competitor with, like, a 120% compete level. It's just tough to run a functioning offense with Ron Holland on the floor, even harder than it is with the Sart Thompson if he can't shoot. So barring a pretty significant improvement on his part or further absences,

my guess is that we're not going to see too much around Holland. There was no reason to not give him big minutes in the preseason, but there is reason to not give him significant minutes in the regular season. I think I went over rotations already. Sorry, I'm running down the list of suggested topics here. I think I already talked about rotations last time around. again, the rotation I'd like to see in the starting lineup, Cade, well, actually, this one's going to be tough to pull off with the Sarr out of the lineup. So if a Sarr Thompson is in

the lineup and whatever, I'll just talk on the basis of the two scenarios here. So if Assar Thompson is in the lineup, then I think you're talking in the starting lineup or what I'd like to see, Cade, I.B. Fontakio, Tobias Duren. And, Off the bench, I'm just not a big fan of Tim Hardaway Jr. We'll put it that way. Off the bench, Asar, Stuart, Beasley. Yeah, and then if you want to try to shove Tim Hardaway Jr. in there, fine. I'd basically just try to have Asar on the floor with at least, you know,

with four guys who can at least at some degree space the floor. At this point, with Asar out, yeah, I think we're likely to see Beasley starts. But, you know what? I can guarantee you one thing we're going to find out next week. A defensive outlook for the pistons. So one thing I think is worth noting is that Kate Cunningham has continued to have issues on defense. Just making kind of baffling mistakes for a player as very smart as he is. Just gets caught ball watching.

As you know, it just takes the wrong assignment on switches. Gets caught acting half a second behind in whatever situation. It's happened more times than I would. like of him just not paying attention to the man he's supposed to be guarding when he's off the ball. And then suddenly he's closing out half a second to a second too late. And the guy gets an open shot. So if Cade struggles, I don't think he'll struggle, like anybody will struggle to the degree they did last season on defense. But if he's even between there in his rookie season, his rookie season, he was a very serviceable defender. I mean, nothing has happened to Cade's head. He's making

mistakes now that he was not making on defense in his first month in the week. So if he's closer to last season and he wasn't his rookie season might have issues in the starting lineup. Jalen Duren, I think, is going to have the single greatest impact on, it's going to be the single greatest swing factor in terms of this team's defense. Because last season, of course, he was hideously bad. And if he can be average, that's going to be a pretty big deal, especially because he's almost certain to be starting and he's probably going to I don't know, I would guess average about like, you know, 26 to 28 minutes a game. So those would be two swing factors there.

Tobias, when he was in his last stint with the Pistons, actually would make the sort of mistakes that Cade makes now, but he's made quite a bit of progress in the defensive end. I put him in the realm of average. Ivy, I think, gets improved just in terms of his ability to track what goes on around him, but he can still end up behind his man. in some situations. So I think it's safe to say that he's probably going to be a minus on defense as well.

Tim Hardaway Jr. is a bad defender. Malik Beasley has been better than I expected, but I'd say would top off at poor. You know, Fontecio is solid. Saur, of course, if he's in the rotation, is very good. Isaiah Stewart, always reliable on defense. So, yeah, this team does, however, have more below-average defenders than above-average defenders. So as I've said, I'm fine with this team prioritizing offense at the cost of defense. I think it's very, very, very critical for the youth to be able to finally develop in a

coherent and functional offensive system, which up to this point, you know, all of them currently on the team have not been able to do that because of a combination of personnel and coaching. So neither of those are issues now. So if the Pist are going to go out and just struggle on defense, but they're able to run a functional offense and fine with that. So in terms of defensive outlook, I mean, it does help that you've got a bunch of really hard workers on this team. Tim Hardaway Jr. does not fit into that category on defense. At least he certainly wasn't putting in the work in preseason. But for the most part, you've got a bunch of really hard workers in this team. And that's sort of a force multiplier,

you know, guys who I think all of them have really bought in. And that's going to help things. But I think that this defense will top off at probably below average and might be bad. But if the offense, if they go out there and run like an average offense, you know, great. I mean, that's a huge deal. Pistons have not had, oh, my goodness, in terms of like actual shooting efficiency, they've, I'd have to look bad. I know in the Van Gundy era they were the only team to place bottom five in every season. But the last time the Pistons, this is horribly surprising given, you know, that they've been

a rebuild. The last time the Pistons had a non-badter offense was in the Blake Griffin year. In terms of offensive rating, they were 18th. And before that, of course, under Van Gundy, they were terrible. And after that, in the midst of the rebuild, they were very, very bad. So an average offense, if the Pistons are able to run an average offense this year, like, that would be an incredible amount of progress. Oh, wait, I was looking at, I was I looking at, I just think I might have gotten the number wrong in 2018, 2019. No, they were 16th, excuse me, in 2018, 2019. So, yep, defensive outlook.

Excuse me, probably pretty poor. Offensive outlook might be better. And speaking of offensive outlook, again, just preseason, but Jaden Ivy, I've thought, was probably the best player for the Pistons and preseason on offense, certainly. I would say, not probably, I would say certainly. Shot form looks a great deal better. He looks much more in control.

We've heard repeatedly about how incredibly hard he works. And I think you can really see that in the changes at least he's made to his shot, which is a huge deal for him if he can shoot that shot, if he can shoot the three and make it reliably. That's going to be huge for the pistons and huge for his game. I talked about that quite a bit in the last episode, so I don't want to repeat myself. How it's going to look when Cade is not on the floor. So talked about that a bit already.

I just hope Ivy is given the keys. I hope one of them is on the floor at all times, and I hope that that bigger staff really gives Ivy the keys, excuse me, to run the offense when Kate is not in the four, because otherwise I think it's virtually guaranteed to be ugly. Like, it is a marked change when Kate comes off the floor and it's just Ivy on there, at least it wasn't preseason, again, which may not actually mean anything. I mean, it's like the team goes from having a handler to,

really just not having any handler and not focusing on penetration at all, and things get pretty ugly. So I think that Ivy can hold down the fort well enough with Kate off the floor if he's given that opportunity. We saw what he could do in the late stages of his rookie season. He's not a great playmaker, but he can make the right pass off the drive. He's just, he's not the cerebral playmaker. He just collapses the defense, draws help, and then passes out to the open guy. And finally, which players could be able to be?

in line to have a bigger role than expected and why in which players may have a smaller role. Hmm. In terms of smaller role, I'd say Tim Hardaway Jr. is the chief candidate there. Either he or Beasley, but I think Beasley is likely to be a reliable shooter and also his defense isn't quite as bad as Hardaway's. So let's say there's a situation in which Beasley is doing, is just really outperforming. Tim Hardaway Jr. as a shooter. And he's outperforming him as a defender, which I think is very well.

likely. Neither, Beasily, I don't think it's going to be, again, better than poor. Maybe he'll just reach below average. I think Tim Hardaway Jr. is just, you know, have, I think his issues on defense, I think are permanent. And I think that his floor is considerably lower than Beasley's. So let's say Fon Takio is shooting well. Let's say Jaden Ivy is shooting well. And Kate Cunningham is shooting well enough, though. Likely to be primarily on the ball. Tobias Harris is likely to be a decent, is overwhelmingly likely to be a decent three-point shooter. So, And Isaiah Stewart, again, I think is going to shoot well from three. I think that's just going to be a long-term thing.

So you've got Tobias, Stuart, Cade, Ivy, Fantagio, and Beasley shooting well. You've got suddenly enough shooting in a starting lineup, and if a czar is back, you can run them alongside four shooters at most times. And in that situation, your need for Tim Hardaway, Jr. really declines. And, of course, if a Vassar comes back and can shoot decently well, then Tim Hardaway's, I mean, his, place in the rotation is basically gone. So, I'd say he's the likeliest to have a smaller than expected role in terms of larger than expected.

Hmm. There just aren't really many notables who aren't going to have significant roles already. I'd say Asar Thompson is the one who comes most to mind if he comes in and through some combination of divine intervention and Fred Vinton is able to shoot the three reliably at like 35, 36%, then he's a starter and his roll balloons from probably mid-20s minutes to mid-30s. Because if Assar Thompson can shoot the ball, then he's a guy you want to have the floor as much as possible. And actually, I think he'd probably lead the team in minutes in that situation. Well, maybe he or Tobias.

Tobias, I mean, I can't really say enough good things about the guy's work ethic. He is always in tip-top, tip-top, tip-top condition. Like we've heard about the guy doing three-day workouts in the off-season. He's an incredibly hard worker. he stays in great shape. He's also very healthy. You know, the guy does not miss many games. So if Asar isn't in the starting lineup, then I'd say Tobias is probably the likeliest to lead the team in minutes. But, yeah, Asar, if he can shoot, I mean, if he can just, the shooting is all, that's the only possible thing outside of health that might keep him, you know, outside. It might keep him away from a big role in the NBA. If you can't shoot, of course, he's going to find himself on the edges of the league like any non-shooting perimeter player.

no matter his excellence in other areas. But, yeah, if the guy can just get it together there, I mean, he's got amazing athleticism, incredible work ethic, you know, just great conditioning we saw last season, and could be one of those, you know, perennial leaders in minutes in the NBA. If he's able to justify a spot in the starting lineup for anybody,

but yeah, if he comes back and is just suddenly able to shoot, well, yeah, then TIL to have a massive role, and that too could push Tim Hardaway Jr. out of the lineup. The thing is, I mean, you just don't really need two kind of shooting specialists who don't really provide much else as long as you have shooting elsewhere. Pistons don't really need a situation as long as they have enough shooting elsewhere where you're going to need to have one of Tim Hardaway Jr. Or Malik Beasley in the floor at all times. Like if they have enough shooting elsewhere, then, you know, you prioritize minutes to the youth. And one of those two departs the rotation, and I don't think it would be Beasley.

So just a much more consistent and reliable shooter. And again, is likely to just provide better minutes on defense than Tim Hardaway Jr. is likely to, even if neither of them will actually be good. Or even if neither of them will likely be even average. And finally, Paul Reed, I keep seeing this asked. You know, the pistons are paying him close to $8 million. Why would they do that if they're not going to give him time? Paul Reed was basically the definition of a no downside signing while he was a waiver claim.

So the pistons had a lot of cap space. They were not going to use it. They hadn't even reached the cap floor at that point. And you have to reach the cap floor. Otherwise, you, well, it's a complete and utter waste in every respect because the distance between where you are on the cap floor gets filled by a cap hold. And you are not eligible for luxury tax. revenue sharing. So you're better off just paying that money to somebody. Otherwise, you're,

literally just losing money for no reason. So, but that's a different discussion. So his contract is also fully non-guaranteed. Contracts in any given season become fully guaranteed in, I'm sorry, I still haven't looked this up, January, February. Up to that point, I mean, the Pistons could have claimed him off waivers and then just waived him the next day. There's no repercussions. At this point, after the regular season starts, his cap hit will increase in a game-by-game basis. But still, they could just get rid of him whenever they wanted. And all that he would count against the cap, though that's not particularly important at this point.

I mean, the Pistons still sitting on $10 million in cap space. And I'd say they're very unlikely to do that and to do anything with that. I'd say it's probably being safe at the deadline to try to facilitate something. Because they've now missed on a couple of chances. I think the Hornets have taken on two salary dumps, one from New York. one from Charlotte. I was Reddy Jackson. And they've gotten five or six second round picks out of the bargain. So clearly, Trayton is saving this for something. But anyway, the third string center market was really barren. Isaiah Stewart and Jalen Duren will miss time. Neither one has been an Ironman. And so the Pistons needed a decent third string center.

It's the fact that they are paying Paul Reed $8 million a year is not inherently does not inherently mean anything particularly because again they really did not need the cap space. Cap space was something that they had in abundance and did not really have anything to use it on because the whole four opportunities to take on bad contracts and assets never really came around. So, yeah, this was a no downside signing and the salary on its own doesn't necessarily mean he's going to see time. And again, preseason is preseason, but I think it was expected that he would be behind Isaiah Stewart and J. and Duren in the center rotation. And I think that's going to remain the case.

That said, regrettably, it's almost certain that one or both of Duren and Stewart will miss a fair amount of time. So he will get his chance. And finally, this wasn't a question I was asked, but it was a discussion I was having. Basically, what's the difference between, I know I said finally before, but this one came to mind. You know, what's the difference between Isaiah Stewart's shooting ability in terms of its value at center versus power forward?

you know and why is it a big deal that he can shoot at center whereas he can shoot a power forward and he's still really bad there so power forward was two things and i'll summarize because i've talked about this like eight zillion times before number one was that it's just his offensive skill set was terrible at power forward he could shoot wide open threes but that's it and like the minimum standards for power forwards at this point are it's so much higher than that it's not just that it's not just you can it's not just you can shoot threes and stretch the four though i say i couldn't really effectively spaced the floor per se. These days your power forwards, I mean, basically if it doesn't matter who you are, you have to be able to, at the very least, move off the ball

and attack closeouts. You know, attack closeouts in the sense of at least drawing coverage and making the right pass. You know, like those are minimum standard things. Again, go back and watch the finals. It was just interesting to me to watch even the likes of Derek Jones Jr. being able to attack a closeout and make the right driving kick. You also want to be, you need to be able to, move off the ball so that you can draw your defender. Stuart can't do that either. Basically, his mobility was absolutely literally the slowest power forward by a significant margin of anybody who saw significant minutes of power forward. Yeah, could not move off the ball, could not attack closeouts. Just too slow, really, even if his handle weren't absolutely awful, which it is.

Meanwhile, at center, I mean, you don't really have those same requirements. He has, oh, and also, yeah, he wasn't providing any value elsewhere. I mean, it was basically just stand out in perimeter and take a shot. Maybe set a screen. Some of that was coaching, but some of it is just a very, very brutally limited skill set. Oh, and the second thing was the opportunity cost. You put Stewart out there in power forward. You're not fielding somebody who could do drastically more on offence of power forward than he could. At center, these limitations are not anywhere near as much of an issue, just in terms of his mobility, his ability to attack closeouts. I mean, he's not just standing out at the perimeter. What Isaiah Stewart is doing at center, you know, he's clearing out

space in the interior. He's setting screens. Hope, you know, do some scoring around the basket. Not good on the pick and roll, but, you know, he'll serve there. So he's doing center things in the interior. And his shooting is a bigger deal because whereas a power forward, you just kind of expected to be able to shoot. And also Isaiah Stewart couldn't really space the floor per se. Because, you know, you leave him as his defender of power forward. You made relatively certain that he's still going to be there when you get back.

you know, if you have to rotate back to him. You know, whereas at center, it's a different story because now he's being guarded by the primary rim protector. So it just, it's a very, very different impact on the defense. Like I described before, like suddenly Isaiah sets, you know, not suddenly, but Isaiah sets a pick. And if his teammate gets past the defender, then the center has to come and help. And if it's a guy who can score at the rim, has to back pedal toward the basket.

and that guy's defender is still going to be chasing. So Isaiah Stewart in that situation is open for three. Or you come out and defend Isaiah and suddenly the rim protection is gone. You have a secondary rim protector who's not as good of doing it. And also, not all centers can shoot. I mean, the ability to shoot as a center

is a very, very nice thing to have. You can play a five-out offense. Just putting five shooters on the floor, gives you a lot more options. It makes life a lot more difficult in the defense. Being a shooter, power forward, Of course, back in 2015, 2016 even, stretch four was still a term, you know, a lot of centers back then, excuse me, a lot of power forwards back then were forced to either become centers, weren't to shoot, or depart the league. Back then, a lot of them were just smaller centers.

So, of course, these days, the ability to shoot a power forward means that you can possibly, well, unless you're a big being treated as a power, excuse me, unless you're a center being treated as a power forward by, idiotic front office like Isaiah Stewart was. You know, it's just a bare minimum. And you've got to have more than that. So that's where it's valuable. And, oh, I'm going to say finally for the third time, who was worse, Troy Weaver or Steve Eiserman. I'd have to give that to Weaver because he was absolutely awful at his job.

But, and again, just stop listening here if he don't care about hockey. Steve Eiserman, of course, you know, arguably the most famous player in Red Wing's history, unless you were around to watch Gordy Howe, which very, very few of us were. And if you want to learn some interesting things, well, not interesting things. Gordy Howe was an amazing hockey player. He was also absolutely vicious. Like, go and read up some of his history. I mean, the guy was nasty kind of person you don't want to mess with because he'd come back and hurt you real bad.

And this was at a time when the NHL was not really keeping players from doing that. Anyway, so in the modern era, certainly the most famous Red Wing. maybe the most beloved hit, beloved athlete in Detroit sports history. So whether or not he fails or succeeds as general manager, I mean, I hope it stays that way. The guy deserves all the credit for everything he did for the Red Wings as a player. And even after that, I mean, it's been reported that, I mean, he played a really instrumental role in getting Ken Holland to re-sign

Pabal Datuk back in 2007. Holland at that point had engaged with some talks, then not necessarily gone anywhere, about trading Dotsuk for Scott Gomez, the guy who would go along, go on to, I think, go an entire year without scoring a goal with the Canadians. Whereas Datsuk, of course, though he'd had his big issues as a score in the playoffs between 2003 and 2004 and 2006, 2005 being the lock, I didn't score a single goal in the playoffs.

But he'd go on, of course, to be a Hall of Fame player. And one of the most entertaining hockey players, in my opinion, ever to watch. So, yeah, even when Stevie was an assistant GM, it was, I mean, he still clearly had a very positive impact. As GM of the Red Wings, he has done very little correctly. He has had six draft classes and has thus far had two players out of those. Both of them top ten picks, play significant roles in the NHL. Only four of them have actually, of the six draft classes, four players have actually played any minutes. He signed a bunch of bad free agent contracts.

no particularly good ones. He's yet to have a major win in the trade market. Alex De Brinkett wanted to come to Detroit. You know, he made that clear, and that really made Detroit the only viable option for the senators because he had one year left in his contract, and nobody else was going to say, oh, well, we'll trade the same amount of value for him and risk him leaving. And he continued to employ Jeff Blaschell, who was not a very good coach for quite some time, and then the current coach is just not good. So in this situation, it's just really bad, is pretty bad. Eisenman nowhere near as bad as Weaver was, but his job pretty poorly at this point, and after six seasons can still not feel the serviceable team. Where they found themselves

in a very similar situation, was that the Red Wings, like the business at this point, are just inordinately and enormously dependent. Like everything depends upon the youth panning out. Everything. Like the guys who are in the farm system for the Red Wings, and even Cider and Raymond, and Evanson, who's now in the league, if they don't pan out to an adequate extent, this team might not even make the playoffs in the midst of this rebuilt. And for the Pistons, Duren, Ivy, Cade, Asar. And if you want to say, Ron Holland as well,

Adam on top of that, though, I'd argue that those first four are much more significant. You know, the Pistons need at least three of those guys to do really well. The Red Wings, I'm not going to dive deep into the farm system there, but like the Pistons, I mean, they are, are so dependent upon that young talent, really panning out in a big way. Same thing in the NHL is in the NBA, a little bit different because, like, talent manifestation in the NBA is, you only got five guys in the court and your best players are playing, like,

three quarters of the game or more. And, but in the NHL, you have to have at least, at least one, preferably two kind of, like, really overpowering players on offense, not like necessarily like super elite, but guys who can really drive plays. And just, I mean, if you want to win a championship, we get on multiple top 30 players. But I mean, want the Rebblings to at least make the playoffs first. But yeah, so much for both teams just depends on the premier youth in the system really panning out in a very significant way. So as much as I really do love Steve Eiserman, if things don't go the right way this season. I think the guy deserves to find himself in the hot seat because six seasons is long

enough for anybody, even an absolute, you know, unimpeachable Detroit sports hero of Steve Eisenman's ilk. All right, folks, so that'll be it for this episode. As always, hope you're all doing great. Thank you for listening. And I will catch you in next week's episode after opening night.