Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 219: The Season So Far

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

This episode opines on the season so far, then talks Ron Holland, Ausar Thompson, Jalen Duren, and the question of adding another lead handler to the roster. 

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Driving to the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you're all doing great today, despite yet another loss to the Charlotte Hornets. In the closing stages of a game, unfortunate. Talk about that a little bit later. This is going to be a solo episode. Well, first off, I want to thank Price, Zarek, and Bryce for guesting in the last three episodes. It was really an absolute breath of fresh air to discuss basketball with all of you.

had plans to have a guest on for this episode as well, but I dithered and dilly-dallyed and didn't ask him until it was a little bit too late in the week. So hopefully he'll be on next week. And then instead of looking for another guest on short notice, I decided, you know, hey, maybe you'd like to listen to me interminably, excuse me, interminably ramble on about basketball for 45 minutes. So here we go. And we'd like to also thank those who submitted topics to talk about,

on today's show. There's plenty to talk about, you know, about the Pistons, of course, but it's always helpful to get listener suggestions, and at the very least know that those who suggested them are going to enjoy hearing, hopefully, what I have to say. So, in any case, let's get started with a listener who just kind of asked me to freestyle about the first 20 games of the season. Well, not quite 20, but we're getting close. Pistons are now 7 and 9, so 16 games. It has been an incredible. incredibly condensed schedule. The Pistons have played a lot of games already. By the time November is out, they will have played 22 games in about five weeks,

and then they're only going to have eight in the entire month of December. So it's going to be pretty slow as a result of, yeah. And I can't imagine it has been easy even for a young team to play this many games. And so short a time, these two days between the games against the Bulls and the Horn's, and it's where the only two-day rest that this team has had so far. Good thing it's the beginning of the season because I can only imagine this would be a brutal thing to do in the middle of the season and may even result in some injuries. So in any case, 16 games in, and it's almost kind of a bummer that almost a quarter of the

season is up already. But, yeah, I'll just take this one off the cuff. I really didn't prepare for this question. So 7 and 9, I think is a pretty decent record. I think about 30-35 win pace, which is what I expected from this team. There have definitely been upsides. There have also definitely been downsides, of course. But on the whole, I'd say this is a better start to the season than I expected.

Well, yeah, I mean, the fact that the Pistons are very close to 500 after 16 games is probably a little bit better than I expected, yeah, especially given that the early schedule was pretty brutal. I mean, the Pacers, Cavaliers are the. best team in the league right now at the Celtics who are the second best team in the league i believe pacer's are pretty good even though halliburton's been terrible you know the heat who are with i believe with but with that first game and so yeah lose four games and then the pistons have gone seven and five the rest of the way and have been close in almost every game so i would call this a successful start this season even though like just a few points and one you know in the

in one direction or the other, you know, a few more for the Pistons and a few less for the opposition could have resulted in, goodness, the Bucks game, of course, the Pistons could have won, the Rockets game, the Pistons could have won the Pistons could have won both games against Charlotte. And it's frustrating, on the other hand, I think there are some positives to be taken from the fact that the Pistons have really only gotten blown out in one game and a lot of, you know, and a certain number of the losses have been pretty close. The NICs game was just miserable. That really happens to every team, even though.

best teams a couple times a year. Sometimes the other team is just really on and your team is very off. In terms of who has done well, who has done poorly, been kind of up and down for Kate Cunningham, who is carrying a massive load. I mean, of course, it's the primary handler on the team that really only has two handlers, and the other one is Ivy, who's more of an off guard, so to speak, can do some playmaking, but really isn't the primary guy. I mean, Kate is never on the floor with another honesty goodness handler. And the results have been mixed. There are certain things that he's doing quite well.

His three-point shooting has really come along. He's only at 37%, but that is a figure reduced by a fairly high volume of pull-up threes, which are, of course, going to be more difficult than catch-and-shoots. But the guy's averaging 23 points, about nine assists, and seven rebounds per game. I don't really care about triple doubles. I don't really care of when it goes from a single figure to a double figure. maybe that's, you know, maybe these have just been made,

habituated in a way by the André Drummere's and habituated in another way, I suppose, and that, you know, that not every triple doubles necessarily, excuse me, double double, for example, is particularly good. And the Westbrook years, I mean, you know that not every triple double is particularly good. And you had your Westbrook quadruple doubles where you take points, rebounds, and assists, and add turnovers on top of that. Those are always funny. in any case, Cade has, I think, played well in all those games, though.

But efficiency has been kind of middling. He's largely just struggling around the basket. And, of course, the biggest issue is the turnovers. And he's been worse with those than he has at any point in the past. That's kind of baffling to me. I'm not sure. I mean, last season, he had an assist to turnover of an excess of two. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.

I mean, this season, he's averaging about four and a half turnovers a game to his about nine assists. So, yeah, that's really close to two to one, but he's just made a lot of really puzzling mistakes for a smart player. So I'd call the turnover is the biggest issue with him. After that, the scoring at the rim, he's had some bad games, he's had some good games. He is carrying an enormous load, though, and that's kind of an issue. I'll talk about that in response to another question a little bit later. The Pistons have had some players really overperform. They've had some players really underperform. Tobias Harris, for example, has largely been Krep. He's had a couple of big games. Tonight he was the best score for the Pistons,

but he is on the whole just not really been doing particularly well. Like I've said in past episodes, I think that we can expect that to move in the right direction as he progresses to the mean because over the last six or seven seasons, he's been remarkably consistent in terms of averaging, I think, about 18 points per game on a pretty good efficiency. And, you know, outside of one, maybe two seasons, he's been pretty reliable from three as well. So you can be sure that he's offering his typical, you know, sort of veteran benefits as well. And, you know, for what it's worth in terms of on-off stats. And on-off is, I mean, we really need a lot more data before you look at on-off.

And you need quite a bit more data as well before you look at team rankings in terms of, you know, rankings. Blah, sorry. I like defensive rating and offensive rating because, I mean, we're kind of getting there to the point at which you can start drawing a little bit from those. but when you're at a point at which one really big game and one really small game can bump you around a few spots and also just your outliers are going to have a little bit of too much of an impact on your overall ranking. Yeah, they're just not super worthwhile, you know, but I'll go over these anyway. And some of them match, you know, match reality quite a bit. Isaiah Stewart has the best on-off on the team, which I think is completely accurate, given whom he's replacing.

We'll talk about Duran a little later too. Man, there are a lot bad things to say about that guy's season so far. You know, Beasley is number two. That also makes sense because he's been scorching hot. No, oddly enough, the Bistons. This is where on off sometimes falls through. Primarily just better on defense with him on the floor, which doesn't fit.

Say what you will about Beasley. I mean, it's been great on offense, but defense has never been his strong suit. That continues to be the case. This season, however, he has really only been kind of average. And where you really start to see the on-off fall apart, is Tobias, who hasn't been good, is number three, and then Fontecchio is number four. So, and additionally, when Cade is like the third worst on off on the team, so I guess just

a little bit of a review of metrics there. If you look at the rankings, I mean, the Pistons, in terms of offense, the Pistons, are surprisingly only 19th, you know, given all the struggles that they've had and the fact that they're playing Ron Holland and not insignificant number of minutes, and the fact that Tobias has been really struggling, you know, 19th. I think is fairly good, and they're just outside of top 10 in terms of defense. So that performance has been a little bit inflated by a few really strong defensive performances against really bad teams.

So I guess all of this is to say that, number one, the data is a little bit hard to really rely on. But number two, I mean, the pistons are, of course, drastically improved over last season. You would expect that. But I think that this team right now, and as always, apologies for the sniffles. and I just realized also that the standings I was looking at, the Pistons were actually 17 games in, 10 and 17. Sorry, I was looking at the basketball reference statistics there, which were not yet updated for tonight's game. But in any events, I mean, the Pistons, you would expect them to be much improved over last season, but I think, you know, the defense has certainly been more than some of its parts,

and we'll see some guys, I believe, start to come back to life, like Tobias Harris in particular, when, you know, as the season goes on, you might see Beasley cool. off a little bit, but on the season, the guy really is, you know, pretty, pretty middling efficiency. Tim Hardaway Jr. has been a surprise in terms of how accurate he's been from three in the fact that he's been a non-bad defender. So, so, you know, basically what all that rambling is to say is that I think the pistons have been, yeah, a little bit more than the sum of their parts overall. This isn't a particularly strong roster. And, you know, especially, you know, for us to give minutes, for example, the Ron Holland. Fontecchio is another player. I think we can count on to improve quite a bit,

just because he has too much of track record as a good shooter to continue, you know, bombing away at, well, he's up to 34%, but he's been incredibly unreliable. And he's basically provided no scoring inside of the arc or very, very little inside of the arc. So that was kind of a rambling, meandering answer. But yeah, yeah, my general freestyle on things is that the pistons are actually playing pretty well, given the personnel on the team. And Bicker staff, I think, is done quite well with the resources available to him on defense. On offense, he's his typical limit itself. He's been a very average coach overall, which is to say in the context of the Pistons,

that he's been the best coach they've had since I've been watching. And, again, like I've said, I can't really speak to the, you know, revolving, rotating door of coaches who were in between Flip Saunders. and Stan Van Gundy, so I can only go by what I've told that none of them were particularly good. So not the coach I necessarily hoped for, but a lot better than the Pistons have had in some time. And I would guess, no, one final thing, the Pistons have been remarkably consistent as far as health goes. It's basically just Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Duren who have missed time. And this team is, well, Fontaguer has missed a couple games too, but he isn't important at the moment.

And this team is kind of shallow. I mean, you can call on Wendell Moore Jr., who has been, you know, better than expected, but he's very much a deep bench player. And Sasser, who has been up and down on limited minutes. And then Paul Reed, who has barely played, which makes sense because he was only ever going to be a third-string guy, but isn't really all that good. So let's say you see a long-term injury, you know, even like six, seven, eight games from Cade. That's going to really hurt the team.

Ivy who has been kind of inconsistent, but it's still been very good, you know, as far as expectations go on the year, that's going to hurt real bad. You lose Isaiah Stewart, that's going to hurt real bad, you know, primarily just because of the guys who are behind him. So that's, but assuming good health, I think the pistons will probably, you know, there's more progression than regression to expect. So I'm not like super happy, mostly because I think the coaching could be quite a bit better and you know how, I'm sure how annoying I find not so great coaching, but, you know, I'm moderately satisfied, though I think that better coaching, of course, better player performance could have also, but you can always control the coaching. You can't control what the players do.

I think better coaching could have had the pistons, maybe a 10 wins right now. But, you know, it is what it is, and believe it or not, I've, you know, already come to the point of acceptance that bigger staff is just not a great offensive coach. We knew that, we've seen it now, and that's just how things are going to be. So I suppose I've turned over in. new leaf in that capacity. Certainly compared to last season, which, yeah, I think I mentioned this the last episode. A listener aptly described it as me going progressively more and more insane because of the coaching, though presumably that was the experience or a lot of you as well. It seems like a nightmare looking back, just a very bad dream. So let's go through the other topics I have on hand.

One is you think we could really benefit from another ball handler for Cade. So my opinion on this is yes. It was a little bit questionable that Trayroom Langdon went into this season without a secondary, you know, basically another point guard on the team because, again, Ivy is, you know, his shoes showed, excuse me, some flashes as a rookie when Kay was out near the end of the season, but it was a little bit risky. Sorry, that was a little bit of a hiccup. That's where that pause came from.

So it was a little bit risky coming in with really him as the secondary handler and only him. So that has kind of turned out to be an issue when Kate isn't on the floor. The offense gets a little bit stagnant. It's actually pretty bad. Actually, the pistons are not so great when they don't have both Kate and Ivy on the team. Or excuse me, on the floor. At least they were the last time I looked. So, I mean, there are a couple of complications here.

And we know that he tried to go after Tyos Jones. And I'm curious to know that the plan is to bring him off the bench. Probably, I doubt they would have kicked Ivy out the starting one. lineup, though I think that pairing Tyas and Cade wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. You just bring Tyos off the floor early and bring Cade on. And in that situation, you just stagger the two of them. And I think that would have been a pretty good situation. Even if Ivy were coming off the bench, you still would have played a lot of minutes. So the complication, of course, also is that Cade is never in a situation in which he is on the

floor with another kind of really qualified weed handler. And the pickings were very slim on the free agent market. I mean, the Pistons could have tried to bring back Monti Morris, though. he certainly hasn't been very good this season. And yeah, there just were not very many guys available. And they could have drafted somebody to play that role, but I don't think they really wanted to draft for need. And I imagine, again, that they were hoping for Tyos Jones. I've seen some questions about Dennis Smith Jr. or Markell Fultz.

And I don't think either of them are really ideal in the first place because neither of them can shoot. And that's kind of an issue that introduces some complications of its own. like you're bringing in another ostensible lead handler for the sake of improving the offense, but you're also making things considerably easier on the defense in some ways, and especially when Assar Thompson is back in the mix and playing significant minutes. You're with either of those guys invariably going to have two non-shooters in the floor, are almost in all situations.

So that's painful to the offense on its own. Faults, the injury-proneness isn't a big deal, but the fact is he's just never been very good. So are you really gaining much from bringing him into the picture? Dennis Smith Jr. genuinely one of the few players, like over the past half decade, who is nearly as inefficient as Killian Hayes. The guy is just an awful score. He's a solid guard defender by all means. Well, really a good guard defender, and he's a pretty solid playmaker. But again, the moment you bring a lead handler on the floor, who is just a non-threat to score, you lose a lot. So you could look at trade options like Dennis Schroeder, for example, which might be a little bit expensive. And then you also get to basically kick a guard out of the lineup. Or I suppose you could move Tim Hardaway Jr. up and, you know, dump Fontecchio, for example, and move a Sartonk-Thompson up the power forward.

These are all options. I mean, dump Fontecchio out of the lineup, out of the rotation. And, yeah, I do think that would be helpful because you would have, you could have a handler on the floor at all times, even if Schroeder is kind of a sieve on defense. He's very bad. Yeah. And then in late game scenarios, you either go three guards or maybe you have Ivy off the floor. Like if it's a situation in which you really just don't want the defense to be able to hardcore focus on Cade, which they can do right now.

So yeah, I do think it would be beneficial. You would have to boot somebody out of the rotation, but it's kind of a small price to pay in the situation. The question is, what would the likes of shorter cost? I mean, who knows? Maybe, you know, maybe a few second round picks, I would imagine. The guy puts up nice stats, but he's significantly less than he. his stats because of the defense. So defense would take a hit. Probably the benefits of the offense would be more. But again, comes down to price. But yes, I do think it has turned out to be a pretty

significant gap. And just Kate is carrying too much of a load. And Sasserd, you know, is really the only other guy who can even remotely be called a handler on the team just has his issues as a handler. Chief amongst those, he cannot get past anyone pretty much off the dribble. Well, very few players. and if he does, he's not going to get into the paint. I mean, the guy is just terrible at getting into the paint. And when he gets there, he's a short below-the-room scorer, and that's very difficult, too. So it's just tough for SAS or to really act as a handle in a meaningful way.

So, yeah, major weakness in the team, and I think Trajan Langdon, if the price is right, again, it's the price is right. You know, for example, if he really thinks the Pistons could make a playoff push or play-in push in a really weak Eastern conference, you might see that come at the deadline, or if there's just a good opportunity presents itself. But a team in this position does not buy at a high price. Obviously, first-round picks are off the table.

That's needless to say. But, you know, if it can be done for kind of some cheap seconds, then cool. That said, Schroeder is only on a one-year deal also. So he'd most likely be a rental, and that should decrease the price further. I don't think playoff teams are going to be particularly interested in them. They haven't been of late. know that the nets are willing to sell. I've seen questions about Cam Thomas, who is apparently on the block as well.

Cam Thomas, I'm not a big fan. I'd prefer Ivy over him. Cam Thomas is really just kind of a black hole gunner who is bad on defense and doesn't really necessarily even make his team better because, you know, he just takes the ball and takes and often makes difficult shots, but it doesn't lend much to the offense aside from that. doesn't really break down defenses too well. And in every year he's played, including this season,

the Nets have been very substantially better with him, well, aside from his sophomore season. In the last two seasons, when he's had a big role, and certainly in his rookie season where his role really wasn't quite as much, as I recall, yeah, substantially less. The Nets have been quite a bit worse with him on the floor. And also, he's going to be expensive. So expensive to trade for and expensive to, you know, pay more.

from what he's expecting for an extension, presumably. Oh, sorry, not an extension. It would be actually because this is his fourth season. It would just be, you know, an off-season contract as a restricted free agent. Ron Holland, you know, hasn't seen this as well. I've gotten this question. You know, why would you want Ron Holland to be out of the rotation? You know, hasn't he earned his minutes?

I would say no, decisively no. And the stats back that up, even though, you know, I kind of poo-pooed on off numbers. I mean, in some cases, there's the thing with on-off numbers in this situation, is that they're the same thing as certain other metrics. Like, you can use them to confirm what you already know to be the case. And with Ron Holland, the issue is that the cost on offense is very high. J.B. Baker stuff has made that worse by just using them chiefly as a perimeter shooter. When Isaiah Stewart is in the floor, and Isaiah could and hopefully will be more on the perimeter, while Holland be used as more of a screener and a roller.

And instead, it just makes it even harder by using. Stewart is kind of more of a pain cloggerence, and Holland is a complete spacing liability, whom defenses are more than happy to leave open. But, I mean, there's just not a great deal that Holland can do at this point, and that's not a criticism of him. I would be shocked if he were in the plans to actually be in the rotation this season. I think it's overwhelmingly likely that the minutes he has been played so far would have gone to Osar Thompson if a SAR had been available. Ron is a dogged defender, you know, definitely a plus defender. at this stage, moves his feet very well, gets her on screens very well,

sticks with guys and works hard and clearly likes playing defense. He's a great hustle guy. You know, we knew that his motor was great from his time in the G-League, and it's exactly as advertised. But on offense, he can't shoot, which is going to hurt pretty badly in the first place. He can't really drive in the half-court, which is not a surprise. He had his issues with the G-League last season, scoring in the half-court off the drive, and he can't really do anything else.

in the half court just beyond attacking into open lanes, which he's often not going to get, especially because his defender is going to be sagged off and then he's attacking into the pact paint. So Holland's certainly worked hard, very hard, and there's nobody, I think there's absolutely no cause to deny that. But the pistons have been massively worse with him on the floor. And that's just, you know, I'd say the largest part just because his offense is terrible. hurts the offense, you know, statistically speaking. And again, this just confirms that we already know. Nobody hurts the offense in this team more than Ron Holland does. And even if you were a better defender, he's so raw on offense that there would be absolutely no way for his defense to make up for it.

You know, you just don't, you can't do that with guys in the league right now. I've been, I mean, I'm not saying anything you don't already know. Asar Thompson is going to hurt less, even if he can't shoot because he has a lot more to offer than Ron off the ball. Or rather, yeah, off the ball. Or rather, yeah, off the ball, like it's, and on the ball, for that matter. Ron is just very raw, and I think we see him sent to the G League. And for those who would say, well, he was already in the G League and averaged like 20 points per game, it's a different story here. Well, number one, it's not like he did everything anybody could do in the G League. He struggled in the half court. He was very strong in transition, and he's been good in transition in the NBA, but he really struggled in the half court there.

He's got a lot of work to do in the half court. And he wasn't, like, awful in the half court in the G League, but he was not good. Again, the same issues he has in the NBA right now. It needs to refine his finishing quite a bit and needs to refine his shooting quite a bit. And I would imagine maybe they've been having him take this many shots just to try to improve his poise at the NBA level, you know, get him settled in with this new form.

He's been learning from Vett Vinson, which, you know, looks decent. Could use some work, but looks decent. The misses are pretty bad, though. But in the G-League, instead of just having him in this nightmarish G-League ignores, system on a horrible team. You would have him working under the ages of the development staff on the things that he needs to work on. And of course, all that would be prioritized. You know, he would be the priority item in the G League for the Pistons. I think Bobby Clintonman will end up there

as well. He's yet to make his debut because of a lower body injury. But I'd be very surprised to see him play minutes in the NBA right now. As good as he looked in Summer League, that's just summer league. NBA is an entirely different beast. So as fun as it has been to watch how Holland, his motor, you know, is awesome in particular. I'll be relieved to see him, well, very, very likely go down to the G League because, again, as fun as it is to watch him, except when he's taking threes, he just, he's very painful to the offense. Again, for reasons that are not his fault, he's just not ready. He's a project. Trey Jim Langdon, no doubt, very aware that the guy is not really going to be able to play in the NBA until he can shoot. He said that openly,

we're betting on Fred Vincent. Changes when Asar Thompson comes in. So Asar, you compare him to Ron, he's a much smarter player. He has much more functional athleticism. Ron's a good athlete, but Asar is a very elite athlete at the NBA level. He's better as a defender, just kind of smarter that way. But again, I was talking more on offense. You can just use him in more creative ways. You know, his athleticism allows him to be a decent role man.

He's actually pretty good at catching and attacking off the catch if his defender was discombobulated, you know, if his defender is really still rotating. Asar can blow past him and elevate pretty far away from the rim and generally score before any rim protection can get there. Already mentioned his passing, he's a good connected passer. Who knows what progress he's made on the ball. His handle was pretty poor last season, just a very high handle. Hopefully he's made some improvements in that capacity. I mean, the most hopeful improvement, of course, is the shooting. But I think that expecting him to improve from a guy who had more airballs than made threes last season is just a lot to hope for,

even if the Bistons have probably the best shooting coach in the business. But he's just much more well-equipped than Ron Holland to contribute on offense right now. Now, as far as the changes to the rotation, I think he's likely to come off the bench. Tim Hardaway Jr., he's struggling in his last two games before that. He was a very good play finisher. Malik Beasley in his time in the starting lineup was a very good play finisher. And you want play finishing, we're talking from the perimeter, of course. And you want guys who can end possessions with a.

high percentage shot from the perimeter, and both of those guys can do that. And you lose quite a bit in the way of potential play actions if you don't have that in your lineup. I mean, Kate has been good, has been quite good on catching shoots, but he's likely to be the guy who's passing the ball. Ivy's been actually quite good on catching shoots as well, but oddly enough, he just doesn't take many of them, and he's no Tim Hardaway, Jr. or Malik Beasley, who can also make tough shots off the move, off the catch. And, I mean, Darn, of course, is not making any threes. Tobias is usually a good spot-up guy, and I think he will be this season, but having guys who can kind of blitz around off-ball screens and take a difficult three off the move, or just shoot

them, you know, the catch-and-shoe at a higher percentage. That's a lot to lose, especially if you're replacing that with a guy who can't shoot. You know, the benefit on defense is not going to outweigh the cost of the offense. So I think he comes off the bench, probably plays a lot of his minutes with Stewart, whom we've seen a little bit more fading out to the perimeter, which he didn't at all, like the first five or six games. We've seen Bickerstav running a little bit more on those actions. Is that preparation for a SAR returning? Who knows? Hopefully, because what you can do in the situation with the SAR,

and like I've said, this is a Band-Aid rather than a solution, but it's better than no Band-Aid at all, is play Stewart in more of a perimeter role, and use the SAR as your role, man. So it does have complications, like any good coach on the other side is just going to assign a center to his SAR and back him off into the paint. then ASSAR is going to be up against a considerably larger defender. Spacing is still going to be an issue.

But, well, if you're operating him in a pick and roll, you have a little bit more there. The guy can't just sag off. You know, can't sag off completely. I'll put it that way. And of course, Stuart kind of struggles to do anything off the ball. So, you know, exploiting a smaller defender like Assar's counterpart at the position. It's kind of out of the question. But ASAR can do a decent job off the roll.

I mean, his athleticism will serve him there. and it will also on plays in which he is running the pick and roll, prevent, yeah, the other team's center, whoever's defending him from just completely ignoring him on the perimeter. So that will require Stewart to be used in more of a perimeter shooting role. You know, probably some plays in which he'll still set highway screens and whatnot, but that'll require an adjustment. You do not want to play a Sart Thompson with J. Lindurin.

It's just two non-spacers makes things significantly more difficult. And Ron Holland is largely, not that this matters, because Stewart hasn't been shooting, but Holland has largely been kept away from Duren. Again, it doesn't really matter if Stewart's not shooting the ball, but it's been noticeable. And I think the Stewart is just, you know, better at, in some ways, just better at providing value off the ball at this point than Duren is too. Duren's pretty much just a role man. And if he gets the ball around the basket, he meets a good score. But he's not really providing any.

Stewart's just a much smarter player, much more hardworking player too. So, yeah, when Assar comes back, I'd expect Ron Holland. to lose all of his minutes. And I think beyond that, Assar, until there are inevitably going to be some absences from injuries, I hope not. But it's extremely likely that there will be just because of the nature of the NBA. So Asar, I think, will take a certain chunk of Fantaccio's minutes. And, you know, Fantecchio would probably get those back when, you know, when there are injuries

elsewhere in the rotation. So looking forward to Isar coming back in any case, even if you just replace Holland with him, that's just a significant boost. Also, he's just fun to watch. And, well, hopefully this season, you know, his new coach will not just be gluing him to, like, the worst place on the floor for him to be. Also, it looks like he's put on significant bulk. He's a super hard worker, so hopefully he's improved certain areas of his game, hopefully shooting foremost amongst them, and we'll see.

Finally, the biggest disappointment on the team this season, Jalen Duren. So I've said many times that I felt this season was going to really be the bell weather for just the judge if Jalen Duren could be the center of the future for this team that last season really muddied the waters because we just don't he'd stop trying on defense so we don't really know what he was on defense and as a traditional big you've got a lot less leeway in terms of your defense you have relatively low ceiling on offense this is just not all that much you can do you can't shoot the ball you're going to be operating around the basket most likely you're not really capable of creating all that much but even just the fact that you can't space the floor

and you can't take threes is you know there's a i've referred to them as two different things there they they both come from the same problem but spacing the floor i mean it means that guys if you can't do that i mean obviously guys are not going to be defending you with the three point line so there's less spacing in the interior to attack open lanes but also just the ability to shoot threes is the ability to take a very high percentage shot threes are a very efficient shot if you can make them so those are just the two things there obviously that are problems with traditional bigs so the fact that you're providing significantly less value on offense than non-traditional bigs. And of course, this wasn't the issue like 10 years ago. And it's why when you, you know, like saw the draft profile on Andre Drummond,

it's like, wow, this guy is such potential. He could be a top five center in the league. Well, that was back when being a traditional big and not being able to shoot was not nearly as much of an issue on offense. When the spacing era came along and you've got centers who can do a lot of centers who can do a great deal, excuse me, more than that, you know, that things become relative. you can't do those things, then you're worth significantly less. So if you are a traditional big, because your potential for contributing on offense is so much less, you have to be good on defense. I mean, this is really non-negotiable in order to provide good value,

especially as a starting center, and especially, you know, if you want to be the starting center for a good team, and certainly especially if you're going to get paid a significant amount of money. And, you know, Duren hasn't been, let's just say this about Duran. and I'll break it down into categories. I mean, the Pistons, of course, would be hugely worse without him on the floor. There are four reasons for that.

Number one is just that Isaiah Stewart has been drastically better. He's been great on defense. You know, he does all the things, you know, off the ball on offense. You know, everything, not all the things. I mean, he does, we'll put it this way. He does, like, literally everything he can do on the ball on offense. I mean, he's an incredibly hard worker. He's a smart player, even if he's not the greatest score.

And, you know, he's just been, aside from the scoring, because he's just not being used very much, you know, certainly not as much as he had been in his first three seasons. I mean, he's been a lot better than Durran on offense. We'll put it that way, just because of the things, you know, he does off the ball in the interior and just his incredible work ethic. Reason number two is that Bakerstaff just doesn't use his centers as much as the average coach.

I mean, Duren's usage and stewards as well has gone significantly down. He just doesn't get the ball as much. You know, less actions or run in which he's involved. It's kind of weird because he has a strong role man. He just really hasn't used all too much in that capacity. So his offensive impact is less than it could be. And I'll say this about Duran. I mean, he made a ton of progress on offense between his rookie and his sophomore year.

He's still a traditional big. But his touch around the basket is actually, I would say, pretty darn good. And he can do some stuff that he hasn't really manifested. this season like, you know, attacking some opposing bigs off the dribble. And again, that's a matter of his usage. That we did that chiefly in transition. And he really hasn't been given the opportunity, for example, to be switched on a mismatches down low because he can attack those as well. So those are two reasons. But there are the two minor reasons out of the four on this list. The other two are, well, the part about Stewart being much better. Well, that's a segment of just Stewart doing pretty

particularly well this season. On defense, of course, I didn't mention, but of course, on defense, for the most part, he's been excellent, you know, playing at his highest level on defense, and he was already pretty darn good in his first three seasons. Well, at power forward, he was less good because he wasn't suited to it, but at center, he's been, as a rookie, he was, you know, he was pretty good. As a second-year center, he was one of the better defensive centers in the league, and he's playing at really his peak defensively this season. So the other two reasons are number one that Duren's defense sucks. His, I mean, his, decision making and his processing are just terrible.

Like, they've genuinely been awful. Pistons are a drastically worse defensive team on the floor with him for that reason. I mean, in center is the position that is invariably going to have the biggest impact upon overall defense. I mean, you saw it, like, it was at its worst against the Bulls and at its worst as saying something because he's had some real stinkers this year already, where he just made mistake after mistake after mistake. and it was just incredibly bad. Like you don't often see an NBA center played as badly on defense. And it's, you know, it's kind of scary because his defense will,

well, number one, need to monumentally improve in order for him to be a viable starting center in this league going forward for the Pistons or anybody else, but preferably for the Pistons. At this point, his defense is so bad that he really wouldn't even be much of a viable backup. Now, one reason his defense is so bad, you know, aside from just the processing and, you know, the decision making, which again, have been brutal, like really brutal. I know it's often pointed out that he's, well, was that he's only 20. He's now 21 as of like a couple days ago. Well, three days. I think it will be when I

post this episode. But here's the fact. And yeah, he did come in very young and he did reclassify out of high school and we'd play three years. And he would be in his second year in the NBA right now if he hadn't done that. But most rookie centers, especially traditional bigs, again, because teams when they draft them know that these guys have got to be good on defense, unless they're complete projects. Like, I don't know, Kai Jones, for example, was pretty much a traditional big coming in, but was drafted as a project center. It turned out to be completely nuts. So we really don't know if he's good in the league or not, though I think he's doing okay this season, if I remember correctly. but the average center drafted in the first round, again, especially traditional Biggs, is much more NBA ready than Duren is now, as a defender.

And Duren is drastically behind the curve in terms of 30-year rotation centers. The average 30-year rotation center whose defense is as bad as his, well, I mean, they're not a rotation center. They're just not playing because they provide horrible value. But anyway, you know, even just looking beyond that factor, and this is issue number four, that exacerbates the situation is that his work ethic continues to suck. I mean, there's a noticeable difference between when he is actually trying his hardest, which any traditional center needs to be able to do. I mean, the four things you have to do is traditional center in this league.

Be good on defense, or at least solid on defense. You know, if you're a backup, you know, just decent on defense. You have to be a good rebounder, which Durand does. You have to be a good finisher with Jordan, excuse me, which Durand does. The defender part, obviously, he does not. and also you need to be a really hard worker. You need to do these things to make up for the fact that you can't shoot. And Duren, of course, is not a hard worker at all.

There is, you know, of course, another Pist and Center in the recent past who also, you know, flunked on two of those four factors. Defense was one of them for him because he didn't try either, you know? But, I mean, you know, the poor effort is a problem for multiple reasons. Number one, it makes him considerably worse. On defense, when he tries hard, and like we saw this in the Lakers game, then he is merely a poor defender. which is not good enough still. He's got to be better than that. But he's merely a poor defender

versus an absolutely terrible one, which he was throughout the vast majority of last season and throughout much of this season. You know, it's an issue because he gets worse on offense as well, though he cares a lot more on offense than on defense. It's also an issue for his future. I mean, but with his work ethic issue, he's going into year three. And yes, he's still a young player, but these are extremely rare. You don't see guys come into the league often who just decide that they don't feel like trying on one end of the floor or the other. It's very, rare. I mean, the fact that the Pistons have another example in the recent past, well, you know, four years ago, almost five being the recent past. It doesn't mean that this isn't common. It's not

common. You know, it's just the fact that the Pistons ended up with two of these guys, of course, at the same position or the same archetype. And it makes it very perilous to think about attributing a long-term role or long-term money, significant money, to this sort of player, because their level of effort is brutally conditional. And in Durand, well, the other guy I'm talking about is obviously Drummond. In Durand's case, here's the difference between them. And I know I've said many times I won't talk about Drummond. That's primarily to keep me from ranting about him

because he's one of my least favorite pistons I've ever watched. But the difference between Durran and Drummond is that when Drummond actually really tried, I mean, I think if he had been a guy who had a good mentality and played at full efforts, I mean, the guy could have, you know, gotten, I don't know if he ever would have made an all-defensive team. Now, maybe you could have back then. He was a genuinely strong defender who was good at defending the rim, who could defend on switches. I mean, he was genuinely good. I got ambiguously so in his last few seasons with the pistons, when we would actually see him really try.

Versus Duren, when he really tries at this point, is just poor rather than terrible. And there's no way of knowing at this point if he'll ever develop the defensive process. doesn't necessary to even be a solid defender at the NBA level. But also, you have to think that, you know, when this guy decides that he doesn't feel like working hard, which has happened plenty of times already, he's really bad, so was Drummond. And so you really want to think of this guy as your center of the future when you are not even certain that he's going to take the game seriously enough, that he's going to have the right attitude to go in and put in the work on a nightly basis.

He didn't last season, and he hasn't for most of this season either. And again, he was, I mean, he's been painful to watch all season. There's been virtually nothing in the way of redeeming qualities for him. I mean, just being good at rebounding isn't enough. The fact that he is a high field goal percentage, which is, you know, partly the, a function of just him only taking very easy shots. Again, that comes down to coaching, but nonetheless, it is nowhere near enough. I mean, his defense is just so, so, so bad.

And, like, the Bulls game, again, was his primary stinker of the year so far. And you'd think that after that sort of terrible performance, he'd have really want to brought it, bringing it, excuse me, against the Hornets. But he didn't. He got outplayed by Diabate, who was a two-way player, who clearly just wanted it more in a way that all traditional centers need to want it, again, to make up with the fact that they're very limited on offense,

but Duren does not. He played more defense. It was more bad defense, excuse me, it was just less bad. I mean, I remember one play in the fourth, and basically he just outright decided he didn't want to play defense. Whenello was moving toward the basket, Duren could easily have moved more quickly, laterally, but you just, you know, put forth a lackadaisical effort. You know, so you have a young,

talented, highly athletic center with a very subpar work ethic. We've seen that before recently. And again, the difference is that whereas Drummond was a very strong defender when he tried and was already a serviceable if still raw defender in year three, which is the first, you know, the first Van Gundy year, Dern is a traditional center with subparate defense, even on the rare occasion when he plays at full tilt. That is just not a winning player. Yes, he's young. It's very rare for a guy who sucks this much on defense to really pick it up as he gets older. Again, this is year three, and his processing is remarkably bad. Even outside of, even if work ethic was not a consideration at this point, it's basically impossible for him to be a plus player because his defense is so bad.

So it sucks. It really sucks because if Duren were just able to be a solid defender, more preferably an above average defender and is used properly on offense, I mean, that's a good player. And, you know, it's not quite as good a player if he's not a strong defender. I mean, if he were a strong defender at this point, then you'd be thinking about throwing a lot of money at him in the offseason because he's already made a ton of offensive progress. Again, traditional center, ultimately limited. But I'd say amongst traditional centers on offense, he's very much on the top, you know, on the high end. So in terms of just what he can do, again, as a traditional big. But it's just so necessary that traditional bigs give you good value on defense that, yeah, I'm repeating

myself at this point. But it's a real shame. And I think he'll get the whole season, of course, that out they're going to dump him at the deadline. But I'm just less and less and less confident that he's ever going to actually get it together, both in terms of just going out and playing the game with good effort, which again, almost every player in the league does as a matter of course. just doesn't even think about it. It's just how they do it every night. And also just, I mean, goodness, just his ability to make the right decisions. Just terrible. And if he can't pick that up, then all the effort in the world isn't going to make a difference. And yeah, it's just awful. So I don't have anything else to do, but repeat myself on that count. It's just, it's been a major

disappointment because I was hoping that we'd find that more seasoning was going to make him, you know, better processor on defense. I remember saying this after his rookie season. Like, you know, the hope, and also last season, like, the hope is just that he remains raw and that he's the kind of guy who's going to get smarter on defense with experience, and I thought that was the case. Then you have other guys like James Wiseman and Marvin Bagley who are just always going to suck on defense because their ability to process the game defensively in a game in which

you are playing against the best players in the world, and you're playing the most complex defensive position as the primary interior defender. and you have to be able to make the, you know, these split-second reads and decisions on a regular basis. Not everybody can do that. Bagley can't. Wiseman can't. And it's looking entirely possible that Duren can't. So in any case, oh, right, I did make a video.

Actually, my first video ever analyzing his performance against the Bulls, you know, check it out on Twitter. I'm at to the basketball. If you're interested, you've basically just heard me completely. excoriate his effort, so it's not pretty. It's just going to actively show you the ways in which he's screwed up. All right. Well, on that not so uplifting note, you know, I'll just finish by saying, yeah, Duren has sucked.

There have been other things in the season that haven't gone wrong. I actually think it's going pretty well so far in terms of just where the pistons are performing on an overall basis. And I think there are areas of potential improvement in which the players, again, like Tobias and Fontechio, excuse you. me. I've been talking for a little bit too long. Starting to trip over my words, but guys whom I think we can probably rely on to improve, we might see Beasley regress a little bit. We might see Tim Hardaway Jr. regress a little bit.

But I think there are more ways, there's more room for this team to improve than it is likely to regress. So I think it's been a pretty solid start to the season. Could have been better. I mean, could look at the Pistons being 10 and 7 right now. But this is a developmental year, remains a developmental year. and so if the Pistons are able to make a play-end push and what is a certainly very weak conference at the moment, that'll just be icing on the cake. But the bellwether, I believe, continues to be the development of the youth. You know, we've seen, well, Dern we haven't.

We've seen Cade have, you know, I think a promising start of the season with some, you know, some rough patches. But he's definitely, I think on the whole, been pretty good on defense. he's improved quite a bit on the ball, even if off the ball, he's still, his chief sin is that he falls asleep and leaves guys open at 3.1. But I'd say he's been a lot better on defense than he was last season. Ivy has made quite a bit of progress in his own way, even if he still remains somewhat raw. We'll see how his SAR looks. You know, Ron Holland, we can see flashes. He's just got to be able to shoot, even if he just learns to be a, you know, a reliable shooter.

It never makes any progress off the drive. It would be disappointing for number five, even in a, you know, in a pretty poor draft, but that's a long-term NBA rotation player, especially with his motor. And, you know, his motor is defensive ability. If he can just shoot the ball, then he'll stay in the NBA for a long time. So, yeah, this is just to say that it's definitely, by no means, all negatives. I mean, there have certainly been things that have been going well so far. And there's plenty of potential for things to, you know, additional things to go right as the season rolls on. So, in any case, that'll be it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed the listen.

Hope you're all doing great. to watch you in next week's episode.