Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 216: Sweet Victory

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

This episode discusses the team's first win of the season and goes over player and coaching takeaways after five games.

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to another episode of Drive into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all doing super, super well today. So I did promise last week that I'd be having guests on here more often. So today's guest, he's been the owner of the Pistons for 10 years. No, I'm just kidding. It's Price, which is even better. He does not run unethical businesses, and he's yet to sleep with the spouse of anybody in his family.

And I think he'd be a much better owner than Tom Gores. So anyway, Price, jokes aside. Great to have you back in the show. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're most welcome. So we're recording this on Wednesday evening about an hour and a half after the Pistons pulled off their first win of the season. And for me, this was just a huge relief. I mean, I knew going into the season that the Pistons were facing an extremely difficult early schedule.

They did get a bit of a break tonight in that Paul George and Joel Embed, which is like 50 plus points of production for them and also not having to play Yabuselli at center. but nonetheless I mean I think this was an important win for the fans of course but also for the players yeah how did you feel he's finally seeing the piss and pull one off we finally got the monkey off of our back

as fans and I'm sure the team feels good too it's easy for bad teams I think to stay bad because mentally you just get so in your head about the record and it can really affect like your decision making when games games get tight, you're like, oh, here we go again.

And instead, the team actually, I thought, held it together when it's all too easy for them to not. Yeah. It was good to see. Yeah. You know, without a doubt. Yeah, I think you're right that it was important for the players. So we're just going to really take this show in whatever direction, excuse me, this episode

in whichever direction it goes. Typically with a guest I'd outlined pretty closely, but we decided not to do that. So hopefully it doesn't become too much. meandering and I think we can pull it off pretty well here. So I'm just going to go in no particular order, though, of course, having listened to the show, both you Price and anybody else's been listening for a while. You know, I'm going to talk about the coaching first. That was inevitable. It's your hallmark at this point. Well, I mean, there's nothing that bugs me more in sports than bad coaching. It doesn't matter who it is. Like watching, my goodness, even teams I don't care about,

even in hockey teams, and I don't watch much hockey anymore, even teams in hockey I don't care about. It's like, you know, we talked about, you know, we talked about the Red Wings and you're far more well-versed these days in the Red Wings than I am. But nonetheless, I saw that Lolon was starting, not starting, was playing Sider and Sharaa together. Oh, no. And I just about blew a mental gasket. It's like these guys were absolutely terrible inside her second year, and he immediately became better once he was freed from Sharrat. Anyway, that's the Red Wings. But it's like, what are you doing? I know that bad coaching from Lalone bugs you a lot.

I inherently affects you more than me. Yes. I have been on the fire Lalone train for a year now, and I was pretty skeptical when he was hired, and I feel pretty justified in my skepticism, to say the least. Yeah. Yes, I concur. I agree fully with your standpoint.

But anyway, here to talk about the Piston. So Bicker staff, I've set my piece about him, of course, that's coming in. He's a solid defensive coach. He's clearly liked by his players. I think there was maybe a little bit of a tension between him and Mitchell, but Mitchell's a bit of a diva and Donovan Mitchell. So he was coming in, however, is a flawed offensive coach.

So it's funny at this point after five games. He is both a significantly flawed offensive coach and probably the best offensive coach the Pistons have had in the last decade since I've been watching. So it's a funny paradox. But, yeah, there have definitely been some things about his offensive coaching that have bugged me. How have you felt about it?

It's been a little KCS-esque at times with sort of the stand around and just watch one guy dribble it out. But at the same time, I am noticing a lot more stuff being set up for players to actually get them open. I mean, part of that is roster-wise. We actually have a bit of shooting now that we can actually justify that sort of play. but at the end of the day, they're making more effort in that regard. And it's a huge, huge improvement. It's like, welcome to the 21st century NBA Detroit Pistons. Yeah.

It's a much more functional roster for sure. Yeah. And I completely agree on the fact that much more is being done, much more is being done in the all-ball movement sense than, again, any coach since since I began watching again in 2014, which isn't necessarily saying much, but that part of it is refreshing. definitely enormously more use of offball screens, including using guards to scream, which is a nice touch.

And, like, my goodness, out of timeout plays, which the last three coaches were completely unable to call. I remember once Van Gundy, I don't know if you remember this game in 2017, the Utah Jazz went in a big run. And, yeah, Van Gundy, out of a timeout, called the Drummond post up against Gover. It's like the worst post player in the league

versus the best defender in the league. And that, needless to say, went extremely well. it might have hit the rim. So that's been refreshing. Tim Hardaway Jr. has been really the go-to-to-guy on those, and he's been doing pretty well. So in some ways, in some ways the offense is, you know, better than it's been in a long time. In other ways, there are some things that I find very frustrating. One of those is the shots selection.

Like, I feel like, especially with, you know, it's mostly with the veterans, but I think just in general, Bickerstap doesn't coach. shot selection very closely. And so there have been some games. Tonight was no exception when players are just vomiting up a bunch of really bad mid-range jumpers. And then there are games against the Celtics when the shot profile is very tight. If I could live in a world where Tobias Harris never takes another fade-away jump shot,

I'll be happy. I'll be a happy person. Those are terrible shots. When he does basically the same thing that Blake Griffin did, which is, you know, dribble a little bit in from the three-point line and then back a guy down. And Blake Griffin during his, you know, big season with the Pistons was excellent at that. Really, he only had three moves back then. He would either do that post up from, you know, around the high block, maybe a little bit further. He would shoot a pull-up three or he would just drive straight up the middle.

Then he was able to be an all-MDA player through those three moves. In any case, Tobias Harris is not Blake Griffin. He should not be taking those turnaround jumpers. And I think bigger staff needs to tighten things up. Same thing, Cade takes some bad mid-range jumpers. Tim Hardaway Jr. is allowed to take mid-range jumpers. Beasley, these are bad shots. So that's been irritating for me because it's like, I want a coach who's just not going to make mistakes on offense, like easily avoidable mistakes. And coaching shot selection. And speaking of Van Gundy, he didn't do it, which was suicide on offense. One of the reasons the pistons were, you know, in the bottom five and true shooting percentage in all five of a season. But, yeah, so that's bugged me. And then what's really bugged me is the

utilization of the center's utilization of Stuart and Duren. I was just going to bring this up myself. Like the next part for me is how Stewart hasn't had nearly enough open looks drawn up for him to capitalize on his shooting, which I mean, so far he hasn't missed a free throw. And I've felt pretty good about every time he's taken a shot, it just hasn't really come. And I'm sort of skeptical, or not skeptical, but wondering as to why that's, that's, what's happening. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me either. Like, it's not only with Stewart,

it's with Duren as well. Bickerstaff is operating kind of on a scene but not heard model from, you know, his centers, which is basically they're essentially being marginalized and not being used to their strengths and they're operating on very low volume. Like Duren is taking less than two-thirds as many shots as he took last season. A lot of their possessions are just hanging out right outside the paint waiting to get an offensive rebound and clocking in the lane. But completely agree about Stewart, who's pretty weak on the pick and rule. And shooting at the five is still a major asset. Traditional centers did not die out.

Like it looked like they were going to in the late 2010s. Most centers still cannot shoot well. And I don't think that there's been another case. I mean, who knows if this will keep up? I'm afraid it will. Even though Bigger Staff said today he was going to try to get Stuart more looks, he was like, oh, we're playing four out and it's like, well, do you not

understand the merits of a five-out system? But, yeah, and words are cheap. He didn't do it in this game. But I can't think of a single instance in the spacing era in which a coach took a legitimate stretch five and played him deliberately as a traditional big. It is completely ridiculous and very irritating to watch.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. And on the Dern front, which I'm sure we'll spend at least a little more time today talking about. about him, but on offense at least, have been a bit disappointed that he isn't being allowed to do more because that's sort of been his primary strength in his early NBA career, which is that he's a real weapon down low. Like, guys cannot really handle him when he's allowed to activate and be just a pure physical monster down low. Yeah. He drastically improved his touch.

and poise around the basket last season. He was able to attack some centers off the dribble as well, a solid connective passer. And he's just basically, it's weird because in the first game, he was used a lot more. But ever since, he's basically just been standing around and does not do very much. I mean, he didn't play a ton of minutes today,

only about 13, but he attempted zero shots. He's been in single digits in free throw, excuse me, in field goal attempts in four or five games at this point. And he's not really used too much on the pick and roll. Yeah, the utilization, I'm sorry to say, is worse than it was last year. So, and yeah, on defense, he provides virtually no value at this point. So like you said, his main strength is being wasted. But Stewart, it's like, we know it's deliberate because Baker staff has said so. But it's just such a waste. And it's like even Dwayne Casey, who was, and again, clearly it's won't,

it's won't not can't, but it's like even Dwayne Gasey was able to make good use of Isaiah Stewart shooting at center. It's not rocket science. It's valuable, and it's all the more important because he's bad elsewhere on offense. He's not good around the basket. Yeah, I mean, he pretty much is good for, like, one highly contested offensive rebounded game. And he might be fouling. Excuse me. He might be just fouling on the way up anyway.

So it's just a matter of, he needs to be used more in his primary strength. And I think that would really help his offense, because at least at this point, I'm sort of convinced that he's our best option as a starting center. And I would really like to experiment us with going five out as like our primary identity. And then rotating Duren in, we want to do more like a traditional big thing on the second unit. Yeah. I got to disagree about his offensive rebounding. I think he's been pretty strong throughout his career when he's played center because he's good at establishing position.

A defensive class is a different story where it's all about, you know, jumping high and being taller. But in any case, yeah, when it comes to his offense, it's like there are just so many easy sets you can work in for a stretch five instead of like having Stewart roll and assuming that he's going to be able to catch the ball because he's not really, you know, super great at catching bullet passes. It's like have Kate or Ivy come around a screen. Yeah. And the center comes to help. And then you just dish it right back to Stewart on the pop or on your ISO sets with Ivy, you know, and, you know, against a good matchup. It's like put Stewart in the corner. and the big gets to either help with Ivy when he inevitably gets past his man and we have

Stuart Open or let Ivy get to the basket. I mean, there's just, there's a lot you can do with a five-out offense. It's extremely difficult to guard, but instead, Stu's being used as a lane clogger down low or a role man. Especially when our best players seem to thrive in space a lot, like Ivy naturally, because he's been so good. That's a player we should definitely talk about is he's been so good. Oh, yeah, of course.

At penetrating to the basket this year, and that's really set him up. Do you mean driving to the basket? Sorry, that's worked. That really. Yeah. Uh-oh. I walked into that one. Yeah.

It's hilarious. I know. Yeah. You know, 11 out of 10 joke. Yes, but um, Tis. Good job. Yeah. So, yes, he's been very good driving to the basket.

Oh, come on. Yeah. I didn't actually expect you to say it. Got to lean into it. Got to lean into it. Yeah, sure. Anyway, so, and also on the similar note, I've sort of come to this conclusion that a big factor with Kate is that he is much better in isolation

against a person guarding him than he is when doubled or when there's a lot of people around, a lot of contested looks. I think that's where a lot of the turnovers are coming from, is that he's quite good as an isolation breakdown player, but isn't that great at knowing what to do when the court is shortened or congested for him. Yeah, he has trouble with that. He often gets too deep looking for a difficult shot.

Yeah, and with Stewart, I mean, you can still run him around a pick and Stewart sets great screens, and then you just back Stewart out to the three-point line. And I made much of the fact that Cade, Stewart is not an ideal partner for Cade because he's pretty poor on the role, and Cabe lives in the pick-and-roll. but even that set, with the amount of respect that Cade is demanding at the moment,

yeah, you just have Stewart just pop off the pick, and then the defense has a choice between, you know, defending Stewart or just throwing or throwing double coverage at Cade off the pick and roll and giving up an open three, or having to close out on Stewart and then he kicks us to the open man. So, yeah, for me, it's been disappointing. I also just like, just very prone to go on tilt when I see a coach making a really avoidable error. I just, I would really like a coach who doesn't make avoidable errors. And a lot of them don't. So many of them do, but a lot of them don't, especially stuff like this. So I'm hoping this is just some ridiculous early season stuff, but I'm concerned. She's not convinced. I'm concerned that when a coach makes these kind of baffling decisions very

early, he's very likely to continue making them. So I hope it's not just hardheadedness. But yeah, on the subject of centers, I think, I mean, I don't know if you have anything else to add about bigger staff's offense. For me, it's just chiefly been shot selection and center utilization. And also just at the end of close games, he lets things get a little bit, give the ball to the guy and ask him to score. I, Kate's probably given a little bit too much latitude in terms of doing whatever he wants. It's not going well. I wish that he would be a little more active at calling a timeout, especially in fourth quarter situations, which we've struggled with so far in the early goings here of calling a timeout, running a set play just to sort of get the offense like reset,

because that's actually worked to a fairly good effect, I felt like. And I think he can kind of let the game sort of get out of control because he's sort of just letting guys like Cade, for instance, having too much leeway to just go out there and try to break somebody down. Yeah, I mean, he called, he ran out at timeouts actually pretty early, I believe, in middle of the fourth quarter against the Celtics. So I don't think he's been as bad as a certain guy who coached for the Pistons last season that nobody is, so there's no point comparing that. I don't think he's been bad as Casey also, who really just wasn't big on timeouts. It was terrible at a timeout plays. So I'm not sure I agree on that. I'll keep a closer eye on it. But yeah, late in the fourth. I mean,

yeah, his out of timeout plays again are decent enough. I'm a little concerned that opponents will catch on them because they inevitably end with a three from mostly THJ and sometimes Beasley, but we'll see. Yeah, I feel like on defense, he's done okay. But one more thing about Stewart, which kind of just underlines the problem, Ron Hollands, who's been in the rotation, that we didn't play in the second half against the Celtics, which I think was a good thing for the Bistons,

because he's very bad in the half court at this point. Comes as no surprise. He's very raw, and I doubt he would be playing if the Sart Thompson were available. so not saying he sucks or that it's his fault. He's just unready. And I think they knew that when they drafted him. But it's like you can't shoot. You have him on the floor with Stuart, with whom he's played about more than three-quartered his minutes at this point, I believe, after tonight's game. And you have two options. You can use him as a screener and roller and Stewart as a shooter. Or you can use Stewart as a pain clogger and Holland is spacing liability. And Baker's staff is going with number two. And that's terrifying to me. Yeah, I think for Holland, it's more so that they want like a wing to come out and provide some defensive energy on the second unit. And I do agree that it is concerning that Bickerstaff isn't really utilizing the players in their most effective roles. Yes. So far.

On the other hand, I think it's not that great deal, a great deal of concern for me, given the fact that. I feel like once Asar is back, that Holland's usage is going to significantly plummet. Oh, I was just saying in general that he would make that bad of a decision. Yeah, I hear you on that, and I'm just not worried about it, because it's probably just a matter of trying to get a Sars, excuse me, Holland reps when... Oh, that's not what I'm concerned about. turn her up. My concern is that he's just making a really awful decision on offense by going with the lose-lose of having Stewart clogging the paint and Holland being a spacing liability

versus having Stewart shoot and Holland role. Just because it's a terrible decision, it makes me just kind of scared that he's going to continue making terrible decisions like this because that's an awful decision, I think, by any measure. I wonder if it's not like a developmental thing to sort of get him playing the role that he's going to eventually play in the NBA if he does. work out. So that's maybe my hypothesis there, but it could just be a bad decision, purely. Yeah. Yeah, it just makes me anxious early on. And last season, I got anxious early on, and I was, I'm not, it is not and I told you so to anybody. But I got anxious early on.

I know that, and that's an exceptional example. So I guess I don't even have to talk about that. But with coaches doing this stuff early on, I get very anxious. That's just my thing. So I hope certain things change. In any events, more on the center situation. is Isaiah Stewart versus Jalen Duren. I think we're of the same mind as to whom we would rather start. What have been your thoughts about the value positive or negative that Jalen Duren has provided so far? I mean, it's only five games, but after what we saw last season and how it looks any different, if at all. I mean, at this point, I think you have to seriously consider bringing someone else in in the off season if this ship doesn't get turned around.

not that you necessarily give up on Jalen Dernan, like you trade him or don't sign him to an extension, but that I imagine that I would not be putting starting equity, as much starting equity behind him as I would have perhaps like two seasons ago or a season and a half ago, just because the issues on defense are fairly significant. And my general philosophy is that, The center can get by on being a bad defensive player, if it only if they are a absolutely

meteoric offensive player. And as good as I think that the potential toolkit is, I'm not exactly seeing a lot of Joelle Embed in Jalen Durenne. And Embed, Embedd, of course, a great defender. Yes, yes, of course, of course. I mean, Embedd is an all-world player for very good reason. but I'm just saying strictly on offense. We just ignore the other half of the court.

We just look on offense. I think you would still be playing Joelle Embed if he was that level of offensive player. You'd find a way to make it work. You'd be playing Duren, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, you said Embeddead. That's what I mean.

If you took Embed's defense away from him, that's... Oh, yeah, yeah, I agree. You still have a great player. And that's like... I just don't see Duren getting to that offensive high to just justify his like usage and just purely like in terms of aesthetics and I'm sure the numbers back us up. I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the stats because it's such a small sample size. I imagine that are are on off numbers are way better with Stewart on on the court than during.

As of tonight, yes. And the defense, I mean, we'll use defensive rating of course is it's more accurate for centers because they have, you know, by, you know, by significant margin, the most defensive, most defensive impact. And it is a small sample size, but of course, yeah, the pistons have been at least on defense, I know immensely better with him on the floor. Yeah, Duren, I wouldn't say significant issues on defense. I would say severe. Yeah. Maybe that's what you meant. At this point, he, just speaking about his development, he, his peak right now on defenses in his rookie season when he was just kind of a poor and raw defender who would make decisions a little bit late, didn't really know to position himself too well to contest shots and just didn't do enough to,

you know, to take up space with his wingspan. But yeah, he was just kind of poor and raw yet promising last season between his poor acumen and everybody got dumber last season. So that was what it was, but also just not trying. He was one of the worst in the league. Yeah. And this season, I feel like his effort has improved, but very distressingly, his decision-making and overall defense is still very bad. I think there is very, very little to be good to be said about his defense. He is like a deer in the headlights. It's been really tough to watch for me. And he is super exploitable on rotations. Oh, my- Oh, extremely. God, it is so utterly frustrating watching him on defense because I know that he's being baited every single time, and he's falling for it,

and just giving up open look after open look after open look. Yeah. And even when he's not making mistakes, and he makes a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes, at times he will make less mistakes, but that just means his defense is poor rather than bad. So even outside of his mistakes, he's just very bad at altering anything on offense. I mean, as a center. and I agree completely with what you said about his offense. I mean, the reason traditional centers need to be, you know, good defenders,

if they're playing a big role, is that they have an inherent ceiling on offense. You know, a pretty low ceiling, not a low ceiling, but it hurts that they can't do more than that. And I don't think Duren can really, is likely to overcome that. Maybe I'll be wrong, but I think he'll top off probably as a good offensive center for a traditional big. But, yeah, your good defender is all. alter plays by taking up space, you know, rotating to disrupt and so on and so forth. He pretty much just stands there.

He doesn't use his length to do anything. He doesn't really even alter shots at the rim very well. Nope. Yeah, he constantly ends up in the air because he bites on any bump fake. Yeah, it just goes on and on. His switch defense has been bad. He got destroyed by Butler. Oh, my God.

At the end of the game against the heat. I mean, it wasn't, and it's not like, I mean, as a traditional big, you have to be able to switch decently well. But also, but was not bursty. He didn't use his physicality. He just drove right by him and scored with no contest. So it's been really ugly. I think there's been no good and only bad to say about his defense.

And then we see Stewart come in and do everything right like he did tonight. He was amazing tonight. I felt like he completely set the tone for the team. and when the Sixers would go on runs, he was always in there trying to just fight and make sure that they were not getting a lot of easy looks, which was a huge, huge component for the wind tonight. Yeah. I feel like Stewart's excellence on defense is really, really undersold. And if you've been listening to the show for a while, you've heard me say this many times. And I just keep saying it because I think his defense is very underappreciated. The last season in which he played center full time was his second season, and he was one of the better defensive pigs in the league, despite aside from Jeremy Grant,

being surrounded largely by average to poor defenders. So, yeah, the guy is a strong run protector, and he is a strong paint defender, and we see it on switches. Like Derek White, occasionally just a player, I guess, who hasn't either hasn't read the scouting report or thinks he can just do it. We'll switch on a Stewart, the guard in particular.

And they'll waste 10 seconds and take a bit. bad shot because they never get by him. And if they do get by him, you know, on that rare occasion, he'll either block them from behind or he will contest a shot to such a degree that is just a bad shot anyway. So he's smart. Nobody works harder. Like Duren's working harder right now, but still not very hard. Nobody works harder than Isaiah Stewart. Some players work as hard. So, yeah, I mean, he has some weaknesses, like defending against vertical spacing, for example. But on the whole, he's just strong defender. And I think if you get him shooting threes, I mean, it's a good value center. And as much as Duren certainly has a higher ceiling,

Isaiah is just so much of a better player on the basis of his defense alone. Yeah. You can really see that like Caden, Ivy, who we should probably get to at some point here, Kate and Ivy have really started to respond really well when Stewart's on the floor. And it feels like they're just barely keeping themselves afloat when we have long stretches of Duran, just giving up bad shot after bad shot after bad shot. Yeah. He just constantly, constantly makes, again, not constantly. He makes a lot of mistakes. And if he's not, he's just generally still playing very minus defense. Yeah.

So it's funny. Like, you even just look at Isaiah Stewart, who at the beginning of possession, kind of will retreat into the pains, provided that the other center is there and just puts his arms out. And it's like, this is a really small thing. But it's like the kind of thing, it's like you're doing, I guess he's not really taking away space at that point. But like even when he is in the interior, not going something, just having his, you know, I guess Duran does that. But it's like even such a thing is just taking up space during his bad at it. And just canceling out space.

So maybe that was a bad example. but yeah it's just it's been very very ugly and I agree with you is if his defense does not substantively improve like really substantively improve I think they probably lose faith in him as the center of the future and and rightly so yeah absolutely because he is only 20 he's in his third season he is very far behind the the defensive acumen of the average third year rotation center he is far behind the you know the defensive acumen of the average rookie at this point not quite much, but yeah, guys who are playing in their third year as centers and still have rotation roles are way, almost without exception, way better than he is. And just to cap it off, yeah,

which is set up a really good offensive centers. Even then, you've got to build a defense around them if you want to be good in the postseason. Like Denver built a defense around Yokic. Yep. So. And the Timberwolves could never, can never make it work with Kat. So here we are. Well, they kind of did last the last season, but that was an odd experiment, we'll say the least. Yeah, it was. I mean, that team was ideal to beat Denver just by wearing down Yokic, after they didn't get them a backup center.

Yep. I mean, DeAndre Jordan's not going to do it for you in the postseason. So it was Aaron Gordon instead, who really shouldn't be playing really that much center. But anyway, yeah, let's move on to Caden Ivy. So we're at about a half hour here, and I don't, I try not to take it past an hour. So we'll see where we go in the next 25 minutes. So, yeah, why don't we start with Ivy? Yes.

I know you have a high opinion. of what he has done so far. I do. I've been very, very pleased with what I've seen from Ivy. It feels like a lot of what we've talked about is starting to come together. And just you can tell he's playing with confidence. He's playing like he knows what to do.

And if that's the biggest takeaway we have from this season, regardless of ultimate positioning in, league standing or what other assets we might acquire at a trade deadline or lottery results. I would say this season has been at least a moderate to great success because the way Ivy has played has really been, I mean, it could be a hot start, of course. I'm going to couch that here. It very well could just be a hot start. This happens all the time in the NBA. But I feel like the way that he's playing, though, has been so within himself. It hasn't been him trying to do a lot where he's overdribbling, trying to make crazy reads,

trying to force a lot of things. He's, you know, let Cade take over at stretches and be playing off ball, catching balls, and shooting them, making a lot of threes, of course. And I just loved his ability to drive to the basket. it. And see, I did it again. And that's where, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh, he's been a lot better. And that's been great. He's been awesome. Yeah, I think he's been very good. At this point, he's averaging about 21 points per game on 58.5% true shooting, very solid numbers. So completely, yeah, I agree with what you said on all, just in general on offense. He had the perimeter shot. The form is

much more under control, much more compact, and he's very comfortable shooting him. Don't think he'll stay at, you know, mid-40s where he is right now. But, I mean, if he does great, but he's at 43% right now, we'll see. I think, but he's been pretty dependable. Even high 30s would be great. He's really, again, yeah, he's been the second best shooter on the team at this point behind Tim Hardaway Jr. So anyway, no need to speculate.

And I feel keep that up. But, yeah, he's been good from the parameter, which is huge. because that makes him, you know, a pretty difficult guard. Yep. And he, yeah, has been playing much more under control. He, you know, as a playmaker, he's not being used quite as much as I would like. But he's definitely, I feel like doing a better job of finding the open player. And then on defense, I don't think he's ever going to add value on defense,

but it used to be that he subtracted a lot of value on defense. And right now, I would say he's in the realm of even, which is fine. and monumental progress for him. Yes. Yeah, he was literally getting turned around as a rookie, and it didn't get much better as a sophomore. Like there were plays when he would end up spinning as a rookie. Yeah, it's not.

So, yeah, that's been great. Because, again, we don't need him to be a good defender. That would be very nice. And he does have the athleticism to make plays in the defensive end. So it turns out that making him play behind Killian Hayes for 30 games to work. Yeah, right. don't even go there. Yeah.

I don't even want to think about that again. Yeah. Just had to slip that in there one last time. Okay, I'll stop. Yeah. Stop joking about it. Yeah, great. Yeah, he, yeah, it's not an ideal situation when you're playing against your own coach.

So, yeah, that was, yeah, I mean, his rookie season, yeah, sophomore season was basically white, it was basically, they had to give him a mulligan on that because, yeah. So yeah, I've been happy with it. He's been playing a very mature and pretty well-rounded game. So he's been a major plus. Now, Cade, I feel like, is more of a mixed bag. On paper, he looks very good. You know, one game inflated his efficiency a little bit.

But scoring-wise, I mean, he's been pretty strong, you know, 47% in the field, 40% from 3. And still not get into the line a ton, but I believe more than he used to, about four attempts per game, seven and a half assists. And they get some out to about the same. close to the same efficiency as Ivy. But the stats are deceptive because I feel like, well, number one, the turnover is out of control. Oh, yeah. You know, and that's been a persistent issue, but this season, they've been very bad so far because he just dribbles into bad areas. I feel like overly hunting shots and just loses the ball. And it's not just that. He makes a lot of mistakes on defense,

especially in the way of ball watching and leaving his man open. So he subtracts a lot of points there. he's been hideously bad in the fourth quarter. And so I feel like he's, I feel like Ivy has been the best player on offense for the pistons, like a fair amount better than Cade. And offense and defense combined, I would say he's been better by sort of a not insignificant margin. Oh, absolutely.

I think that while Cade is not playing horribly, and it's been very much a one step, or sorry, two steps forward, one step back with Cade on the floor for stretches where it feels like when he's on, he lights out. It's like, oh, no, there's nothing this team can do to stop him. And then he's blocking shots, causing some issues on defense, making good reads. And then there's the other aspect, especially on defense, I've been pretty disappointed as defensive effort so far in the last five games at least. I felt like he's been in particular, very prone to a lot of just basic gaffes and mental errors.

And I do wonder if it's not like a conditioning thing. If we are seeing that slow start, you know how he had that reputation a little bit, the last three seasons of being a slow starter? I wonder if we're seeing a bit of that, where instead of it being like complete game, where he's a non-factor at sort of petering out at the fourth quarter. And he might end up playing himself into better conditioning as the season wears on. I think it's some of it is poise and decision-making. He's talked about how he needed to put a lot of work into his conditioning.

He talked about that, I believe, in the off-season. And I feel like he does look like he still has the energy to play defense in the fourth quarter, which is positive, which is different from last season. For example, in that game against the Celtics, he just stopped playing defense in the fourth quarter and overtime because he had nothing left. You need to preserve it for offense. That should not be the case for a player of his age. You know, when it's LeBron James and he's in mid to late 30s or in his early 40s,

you kind of excuse that. And Kate's not giving you LeBron offense. Oh, hell no. Hardly anybody does, anybody does. And arguably nobody ever has, at least in terms of, you know, the sheer number of games and points and whatnot. It's always been interesting to me that Jordan was so awesome. but he basically gave up five and a half seasons because he didn't feel like playing basketball

between his first happens in the second absence, but four and a half or five and a half, something like that. But yeah, it's just like you look at the Cavaliers game when he could not be stopped in terms of his shooting, but he turned the ball over nine times. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like the scoring has been good.

The three-point shooting has been very encouraging. 40% on seven attempts per game, you know, on a somewhat difficult shot diet with a decent amount of pull-ups are on screens. Though I have to admit, I hate pull-up threes. I don't hate that the Pistons are shooting them. I just feel like the pull-up three is such a... I'm not being a curmudgeon, like stop taking pull-up threes,

but it's like such a boring way to end of possession. It's different around a screen, but guys who just take stepbacks, it's like this is so boring. And everybody can do it now, it feels like... Yeah. Anyway, I digress. But, yeah, between the turnovers and the defense,

I feel like he subtracts a lot. from what he has done as a score. And I don't think he looks to pass enough either. I think he's looking too much for his own shot. I agree with that pretty significantly. It feels like he's been hunting. Like you were saying, very much, Elmer Fudd, where's my rabbit?

And it doesn't always work. And I was saying this earlier, I especially have noticed that he gets really in trouble around double teams. and I feel like that's a huge thing that he has to correct for if he wants to make that next step because right now he can definitely shore up some of the decision-making things and work on the conditioning more and I think there's still plenty of room for him to improve as a player at least realistically and we're still getting a pretty good player nonetheless in that regard

but that if he wants to take that next step to being a top 15 player who's fighting for all NBA nods and being able to captain the ship into the playoffs with some reasonable degree of certainty, you got to be able to handle the pressure. You've got to be able to handle defenses throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you. And that's not really in his wheelhouse at the moment. It has to be kind of ideal for him, and he's really good when it's in the idealized circumstance. But if it isn't, it gets ugly. Yeah. Yeah, he needs to know when to get rid of the ball. Basically how it is.

So, all right, moving on from Cade. Yeah, we got about 15 minutes left. Let's talk. Let me just go down the list. Sure. Whateverly, the list I'm looking at right now. You know, it's just, I just have the roster pulled up for stats, of course. Number three, score on the team in terms of points per game.

I don't think it's out of the question that it would have been Duren in this position. He's averaging eight and a half. Stewart's averaging three and a half just because the usage is so comically we'll over them both. Yeah. So, but in this case, Tim Hardaway, Jr. So he's been unsustainably good on, like, 53% from three that's, that's not going to hold.

Nope. I mean, if he's at 40% on what is a pretty difficult shot, relatively difficult shot diet, I'll be happy. And that's really what the pistons need out of him, because he's pretty useless if he's not hitting his threes. He can't really do anything within the arc. He doesn't rebound the ball, pretty much period. And he's not a passer. So, yeah, he's just got to hit those difficult threes because, and also his defense is pretty poor.

Like, to the extent that I was a little upset that he was left on the floor against the Celtics because he wasn't having a good shooting game and he made mistakes. Yeah, in the late game. Yeah, I guess we didn't get to talk about, about Bakerstaff's rotation management, which I feel has been kind of a mixed bag. But, you know, he's given all the credit, he's shooting a shot. He's doing really well there. I'm not sure if he's provided necessarily positive value given his defense and his weaknesses elsewhere, but maybe he's in that territory. You know, with how well he's shooting his threes, I'd say he's an even territory, which I think is about as good as we can expect out of him. Yeah, sort of said this at least somewhere online at some point.

But I've been watching Tim Hardaway Jr. for a long time because I was really into Michigan basketball when he was playing there. And I watched him. 11 years ago, do you believe that? Don't age me. Oh, God. Oh, God. Yeah, I know.

But there were some great moments and memories there. B-line era, let's go. But anyways, I watched him in the NBA for a long time. And my general conclusion on him is that he is a very consistently inconsistent player with very high highs and very low lows. And you sort of have to just ride the overall sort of spectrum with him. And there will be times where everything's, going in and he looks like a great rotation player in the NBA and there will be times where

nothing's going in and you wonder how he has a job. We're at the top end of that at the moment and that's great. I mean, I'm not going to be upset at that, but realistically, this is going to fall pretty meteorically at some point and then he'll rebound. And that's sort of his general MO as a player is that he lives and dies by being a lights out difficult shot maker and take her. Yeah. Yeah, he is pretty high up there in the league in terms of charges draw at this point. Excuse me, charges drawn. He's actually, but that's meaningless because he's drawn two charges. It's number one. It's number one is three. But, you know, he's made some savvy defensive plays. He knows how to, you know, to take a bump, so to speak. Yeah, he's not a dumb player.

It's just that there isn't a lot of, like, defensive skill. but he's always been pretty heady at making good decisions on the basketball court. It's just that what he's actually capable of doing. Well, what he's capable of doing isn't very good. His reaction time is not anything to be desired on that end. No. Next up on the list has been, oh, rightly a whipping boy, is Tobias Harris. He kind of got things going a bit against the Sixers tonight, though a lot of them were bunnies.

But, yeah, it's been mired in a completely, brutal stump, brutal slump, excuse me. And the shot selection has been bad. Granted, he's just not hitting his three. He's even worse than Cade in the fourth quarter prior to the night. Yep. And, but I have to say about Tobias, I mean, generally when you talk about a player's performance and it's very abeyrant,

you talk about how it's going to be a regression of the mean. I feel like with Tobias, who has averaged about 18 points per game on 58% true shooting over the last six seasons, we're going to look at a progression of the mean. It's very, very unlikely he's going to stay this bad over the long term. So, well, he has been very frustrating. I think we're going to see some better out of him. He's also been a basically the team's best rebounder. I mean, Duren is, well, not the best.

But, I mean, there have been games who's been better than Duren. He's been the team's second best. Well, whatever. He's been a good rebounder. That's basically all he's done well at this point, though. You know, his defense has been sort of below average. He's been out of sorts, and I feel like you can look at him and see that he's feeling angry at himself. Yeah, I mean, he's a pretty well-rounded.

player when things are going good. And there is some consistency issues right now, but he's the type of guy that I'm not that worried about because kind of throughout his career, he's been able to respond pretty well. And I think as long as we're like a regular season focused team and we're not trying to utilize him in pressure situations in the postseason, it's very much a good thing that he's on the team rather than not based off of who else was out there in the market. Yeah. Yeah, two years, 26 million is, I mean, 10 years ago, that would have been a King's Ransom these days, and especially for a team like the Pistons who actually went into the season

with cap space, which is extremely rare. Yeah, 26 million. Now, the number isn't really all that super importance. And also that's like something like a little over 20% of the cap. So in any case, yeah, I don't know. think he'll get better. It's just been, it's been rough so far, without a doubt. Very rough. Very, very, very rough. All right, so moving on to Malik Beasley, I feel like it's pretty straightforward. It's just been a strong shooter out of one game, you know, outside of that one game against the heat when he was very bad and made one out of his 15 shots or something like that.

But for the most part, is outside of that had been succeeding very well from three on a very difficult shot diet. Basically similar to Tim Hardaway Jr., just providing good shooting, good spacing, good play finishing, and not, not, not, much else, though he's been less bad on defense than I expected, given his history. Yeah, I think that's the biggest difference for me is that Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley are quote-unquote good three-point shooters in a way that succeeds off ball, whereas the guys we had last season succeeded on ball as three-point shooters. And obviously, very dysfunctional roster, dysfunctional coaching. I mean, we could go up and down the list.

There are so many problems with last year's team. I mean, it's one of the worst teams on NBA history. So it's not a difficult process. It's more so just time-consuming and we should move on. But point being... What did you mean? Just first, what did you mean by on-ball three-point shooters? Well, I feel like Bogdanovich and Burks took a lot of, you know, took a lot of off-ball threes as well.

They sure did, but the issue is that they also likes to have the ball in their hand to, do a lot of offense. That is true. Absolutely agree with you. So it's sort of created a situation where there was a lot of pressure for who had the ball and it just, I think it really messed up offensive chemistry and flow because there's so many guys eager to take the ball off court or to at least do something in the half court. And at least how we're set up right now is that essentially Caden Ivy basically are taking shifts or taking turns, um, driving. driving the ball, making decisions, and then the other guys sort of fit in around that, which it's not necessarily the best offensive scheme, but it's a sure sight better than

where we have been. And these guys Beasley and Hardweight in particular are quite good at just being cods in the machine, so to speak. And although I definitely expect a regression out of both of their shooting percentages, especially Tim's, it's going to be. a net positive, I think, for Caden Ivy to play with this type of role player than the role players we previously had. Oh, yes, I completely agree. Role players, that brings us on to Fontecio, who has been kind of disappointing so far, I'd say very disappointing. We just don't see much of the really strong role player he was for the Pistons and, you know, limited number of games last season. Could be down to usage, because he's not really being allowed to be on the ball at all.

and he's not really being put into a position where he can catch and, you know, and pump and close out, which he was good at. But we haven't really even seen him run the floor well in transition, which was the strength of his last season. The shooting hasn't really been there, his rebounding hasn't been there. And it's just been disappointing. Yeah. He did get to playing five-on-five late because of his surgery, beginning of September. And he just looks like such a different player. I feel like the shooting is going to come along because he has too long of a history.

But it's been a slow start. very slow start. It has been and I feel like part of that's the injury that he's recovering from that I know from years of watching sports that the late off season in particular is a very crucial time for players to be ready and in game shape especially at the start of seasons and if you miss that it's a significant blow to your season because you sort of have to create the role for yourself on the team because it's always a different team. Every season's a different team. And you sort of have to create the role for yourself within that team, that new team context that you missed out on. And I'd say that that's potentially a factor. And it's also just he's a lot less leaned on than he was

last season, and I wonder if they'll change that if we continue to see struggles from Tobias, or if Beasley or especially Hardaway regress significantly in their shooting percentages, so then we might bump Fetecchio up to starting. It's possible. I think they would like to avoid playing Beasley and Hardaway together as much as they can because there's a lot of overlap and some pretty poor defense. But I agree on paper. Fonteke were who he was.

last season. I agree that you just make it work. So it finally brings us to Ron Holland. And for me, there's not a ton to talk about beyond what I've already said, that he's just kind of being put into somewhat bad position because he's very unready for the NBA. He's just raw overall and has virtually nothing to offer on the half court, which is not a surprise. It doesn't mean anything about his long-term upside. It's just where he was when he got drafted and not much has changed in the last four months. So I'm kind of his energy is fun. His defense is fun. But I kind of dislike seeing him out there because he really disrupts stuff in the half court on offense.

Quick question. Who would you rather see play? I mean, I'm fine with them playing an eight-man rotation. It's not really all that much out of the ordinary. But yeah, so I don't think he's out there playing by need. But I agree there are not really any other options at the moment unless you want to play like Wendell Moore or something, which would really not be ideal, or one of the two-way guys,

which is really not be ideal. Yeah. Yeah, he does. Diaz made the pistons worse than any other player, and the guy is sporting a minus 12 and a half net rating, which is far worse than anybody else. Even Duren, who's number two. And again, net rating is after five games.

I mean, we're getting to that. I think you probably get to about 10 games before it really smooths out, and you really feel like it's meaning anything. But I feel like in this circumstance, it's probably pretty accurate, because while he does offer stuff on offense, on offense, it's like he's a nothing in the half court. Yeah, he's right now.

Even worse than-it-old. It looked very different than ASR was last year in the half-court. I'd say significantly. And again, not saying bad pick guy is screwed, he could look very different in a year. Oh, yeah. It's very rare for guys to make significant progress like he needs to make on offense during a season. And especially coming from the nightmare context that was the last season, RIP, shuts out. Awful.

to the G-League Ignite from, I think he was a prep school player to G-League Ignite to NBA. Like, that is an absolutely crazy progression of difficulty for a player to undergo. And it's just, it's going to be very much a redshirt type year where you just hope he's healthy. You hope that he's doing a lot of good habits in the gym and off the court and developing himself that way. so that way he can continue to make strides and be ready for an increased role going forward. Yeah, I think he's a guy you're going to see make strides in the offseason, is what you typically see, what you hope to see anyway. And I agree.

Sauer was just a much smarter, a more well-rounded player. He was about a year and a half older, for what it's worth. Oh, I mean, they're very, very different prospects. Yeah. All right. Well, we got just about out of time here. I did look up the on-off, or at least the net ratings here. Yeah.

And this is a little bit skewed by tonight when he was a plus 20. But Isaiah Stewart is far and away in the lead at this point with a plus 11.4 net rating. Fontecio is number two with 2.4. So again, it's so early that net ratings don't really mean all that much. I mean, you really want a lot more games so that you got a lot more data before you're really going to see how things are going. Yeah. Stuart also has a 9.5% usage rating, which is hilarious. That's comically low. So, yeah, and so does, I mean, Duran is extremely low, too. He was at, you know, literally, well, 18% versus 12 this year.

So, all right. Anyway, any closing thoughts? You know, I think the record is probably about what I expected them to have with this really difficult opening. I feel ultimately fairly encouraged overall, if only because if we see Ivy making stuff and we see him and Cade really start to find some chemistry together, that would solve a lot of questions for this team going forward in a way that we just haven't had through the very unfortunate Troy Weaver era. Yeah. Yeah.

I think there are definitely positives, you know, to take out so far. It was a very difficult start to the season. Opposition-wise, this is a young team. This is a team that saw significant turnover. So it was a relief to get a win tonight and just looking forward to seeing what they look like when they settle on a bit more. In any case, that'll be it for this episode. Thank you, Price for joining. And as always, folks, want to thank you all for listening.

I hope you doing great. Catch you in next week's episode.