Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 230: Trade Chatter

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

This episode addresses some common suggested trade targets for the Pistons, and sadly concludes that none of them are viable.    Recorded on 5/24. Correction about the Suns: they've got three picks between now and 2032, though none are their own and all are least-favorables.

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Drive into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you all been doing great these last couple weeks. My goodness, we're already in the conference finals. Playoffs are really flown by. I got to admit, I haven't really been watching all the games since the Pistons went out. But, you know, if you listen to my postseason predictions, you'd know that I totally called this. I'm just kidding.

I didn't. I thought that the Celtics were the team to beat. My feeling was that only injuries could beat them. and it turned out to be a combination of injuries and fourth quarter collapses, though the injuries didn't really help there. We found out after the series that Jalen Brown had been playing in a bussed meniscus in one of his knees. He had a horrible series against the Knicks. Christop's Borzingis, who isn't exactly a picture of health, and his best was dealing with post-viral syndrome, which made it difficult for him to breathe. And of course, Jason Tatum

busted his Achilles in Game 5. That really brought me back immediately. to Brandon Jennings' Achilles' tear back in February of 2015. You know, just if a player pushes off of a foot like that and then just goes down right away clutching his ankle, you got a pretty good idea of what it is. That is a horrible injury. Really sad for Tatum, sad for the league. It's basically unheard of for a player to come back without having lost something.

Margin's a razor thin in the NBA, so if you lose 10% of your athleticism, that tends to be a pretty big deal. Fortunately for Tatum, he's a lot of. not a super athleticism-dependent player, and he's fairly young as far as these things go. So, you know, I don't doubt he'll come back and still be a very good player, but like I said, you always pretty much 100% of the time lose something. It's much worse if you're older. Like Kobe Bryant was first team all-N-BA in the season of his Achilles tear. It happened very

late in the season. He came back and was one of the worst players in the league for his final two seasons. Damian Willard, who tore his Achilles earlier in the postseason, about the same age, is probably finished, very dependent upon his quickness, and at his age with that many NBA miles on his body. I mean, he's going to come back, I believe it'll be 36. Lillard almost certainly finished, and of course, that pretty much killed off the Bucks, whose second best player was Kyle Kuzma, whom I have long believed is wildly overrated, and average six points per game in the playoffs.

Very impressive. in any case, so we were left with a very unexpected four teams in the conference finals. I'd say that the Thunder obviously could have been predicted. They were a fantastic team in the regular season, had the best defense in the league, one of the best offenses, very well-constructed team. It's also scary that they have a ton of draft access to work with at the moment. Fortunately, for the rest of the league, they did not get the 76ers pick, which was top six protected. We'll talk about the draft lottery in a little bit, but just a super well-constructed.

team, their only real weakness, aside from not really having a ton in the way of ball handling outside of Shea, is playoff and experience. And I believe that's why the Nuggets who have a boatload of it, as well as arguably the best player in the world, depending on whether you think that's Yokic or Shea or whoever else, we're able to take them to seven games. I think that a more experienced Thunder team would have knocked them off in five, six maximum. Then you have the Timberwolves who got pretty lucky in facing the Warriors without. Curry. I mean, I think they could easily have lost that series, despite having one of the most physically imposing front courts in the league, could very, very easily have lost that series to a bunch

of shrimps if Curry had been healthy. The Warriors starting lineup averaged six foot four. The Timberwolves, in my opinion, are just not a very impressive team. And then you have the Knicks and the Pacers, the Knicks, I believe are complete frauds. I strongly believe that would have lost a very young Pistons team in round one if Isaiah Stewart had been healthy. Like, I have very, very little doubt of that. And then they went on, again, to play a Celtics team that was really hobbled by injuries and also kind of beat itself. The Pacers played an injury-butchered Buck's team. Again, it was pretty much Janus and nobody, unless you're counting Brooke Lopez. And then, you know, I don't think it was quite the same as the Celtics against the Knicks, but they definitely

had the injury advantage against the Cavs who were, I mean, their starting back court was, I mean, Garland was playing injured, Mitchell was playing injured. That said, I think the Pacers also played a really good series. And the Cavs really have some thinking to do about the playoff future of their midget backcords, both of whom are defensive liabilities. And there's only so much that Mobley is a defensive player the year, and that one's a pretty good defender himself. There's only so much you can do to cover for that.

But in any case, I'm calling the Pacers over the Knicks in five, maybe six, probably Thunder and Five over the Pacers. As I record this, the Timberwolves are destroying the Thunder. But I think you just often see that. That a team that's kind of on the back foot might come back and have one big game, and then they lose the rest of the series. We'll give it to Pacers Nix, though. That has been a very entertaining series so far.

And it was wonderful to see the Knicks choke away a 14-point lead in two minutes. And for Tyrese Halliburton to give them the Reggie Miller choke motion, you know, choke hand motion. And I don't know how many of you were watching back then. This was well before my NBA time. but Reggie Miller was kind of the nemesis of the Knicks in the postseason and once scored six points in like two seconds to erase a Knicks lead at the end of a, if I recall,

a pretty essential playoff game. And then flashed that motion of the Knicks. So a very, very admirable cheek from Halliburton. I like it. In any case, at worst, we'll see a team, well, the Knicks are the only team. Let me rephrase that. The Knicks are the only team left in the conference.

finals that are left in the postseason that has won a championship in the past, and I believe Jimmy Carter was the president at the time. The Thunder have never won, the Pacers have never won, the Timberwolves have never won. Fun fact, just to kind of underline that, though, the two things don't necessarily go together. There is one player in the postseason right now who is won a championship. That's Pascal Seaheacham. And there's only one other player, unless you count PJ Tucker, who obviously, well, the first one, PJ Tucker would fall into the first category as well, because he won a title with the bucks. But obviously, he's a lot. He's a title with the Bucs. But Obviously, he's not playing because he's old and beyond washed and is just there to be a veteran

presence on the bench, like not playing from the bench, but literally sitting on the bench. So if you take guys who are actually playing, O'Ganyubi was technically a champion in 2019, but didn't play a single minute in the postseason, so I'm not counting him. So if you leave those two out, it's just Siakim was won a championship. And Cameron Payne is the only other player who has even been to the finals. That was in 2021 in that similarly fraud sons team, which got to play against an injury butchered Lakers team, the Nuggets without Jamal Murray, and then the Clippers without Kauai, and went on to play the Bucks team that had very narrowly lost to the Nets squad missing

Kyrie Irving and with James Hardin playing on one leg. It's just a shame when injuries play such a role. You know, I understand it is what it is, but yeah, it did just suck. Anyway, all that aside, let's briefly talk about the draft lottery, which turned out very interestingly. And for my part, I was glad for Mavericks fans who were completely tortured this season in a way that sports fans very rarely are by their general manager. So nice to see them kind of get something back after losing a generational player. Is Cooper Flag going to be the equal of Luca unlikely? You know, Luca is very, very special.

But, you know, they got something back. The Spurs managed to be in number two, which is a little bit irritating after they won the Wembe sweepstakes. You know, just two years ago, they jumped as well. The Sixers jumped to number three and got to keep their pick. I have less dislike for the Sixers than I feel like most Pistons fans. There are fans, the fans of the 76ers are a bunch of giant assholes, and they're very proud of it. And I can't help but respect that a little bit. Not just 76ers fans, seems like fans of every Philly sports team.

I remember an old friend telling you. me the saying that, you know, if the Wachovia, you know, excuse me, if assholes could fly, the Wachovia Center would be an airport. Wachovia Center is, I don't know if the Sixers play there. I don't know what it's called now, but that used to be what the Flyers Arena was called. And I can't even remember who got number four at this point, but the Jazz and the Wizards both dropped five spots. So the Pistons are no longer the only team to do that, excuse me.

They probably will remain for quite some time the only team to do it twice in a row. But, you know, it's just the reality of the lottery these days. and say what you will about the lottery odds. Obviously, I think it's gone a little bit too far. It's meant to discourage tanking, but teams are still tanking. So the difference is that the worst teams are no longer really benefiting from it. Of course, we all have the process 76ers to thank for that, or the smoothed out lottery odds.

And that was something voted on by a majority of the NBA Board of Governors because they were pissed off at the Sixers deliberately exploiting the rules. So it is what it is. Fortunately, the Pistons aren't there anymore. Of course, the lottery odds ultimately hurt them, quite a bit. That is what it is. I've seen quite a bit, though, is the draft lottery fixed? Fixing the draft lottery would require an immense amount of collusion between league executives, league front of, excuse me, team front offices and team owners, many of whom when you look at the

team owners and the team front offices would be signing up to completely screw themselves. But in any case, it would be an ever greater number of those people as, you know, managers and assistant general managers and league executives moved on and were replaced and team owners sold. So a greater and greater and greater number of people part of this conspiracy, which would be immensely incendiary if it ever came out because, you know, not only because of what it would mean, but also because it's literally fraud on the state and federal levels. You cannot misrepresent your business model for the sake of making more dollars. you'd see Adam Silver and some league executives probably go to jail.

General managers and assistant general managers I don't know, face some sort of harsh sanctions and I'll lose their jobs. And all team members involved, excuse me, all team owners involved would be forced to sell. This is the sort of thing that you'd have, absolutely have congressional subcommittees about. I mean, Congress and the FBI would absolutely love this. My point is, oh, and also just the fact that the secret were kept at all by so many people who literally were just one admission from one member of this supposed conspiracy away from being in incredible trouble. Yeah, just to come back to, I mean, the odds against this are astronomically long.

This would be like one of the most well-kept conspiracies in the history of the league, and it would be really of questionable benefit to a great deal of the people involved. So probably didn't need to give that long of, you know, my thoughts on the matter. It's just, yes, the odds against what is. happened since lottery reform are somewhat long. It has been improbable for the most part, but the odds against that are far less long than the odds against such a conspiracy existing. So just my two cents. All right, let's move on to, of course, this being a Pistons podcast and Pistons-related stuff. So this is going to be a little bit of a slow off season in terms of things to talk about.

I think I've brought that up before. No draft to really think about. It's almost a point with speculating on whom the Pistons might draft at number 37, because there's just a lot of There's no knowing who's ever going to be, you know, who's going to be available at that point. There's also no knowing if they'll trade up. Who knows, the Pistons have so much youth on the team right now. That, like I've said, if you only just resign Beasley and in Schroeder, then you will have a nine-man rotation full already and, you know, have space for anybody else. That includes major, you know, any of the significant free agents.

Like I said, I think last episode, Kate Cunningham's virtually certain all NBA, birth, which did end up happening, was going to excise $8 million out of the Pistons, uh, 24-ish million, 24 and a half-ish million. So now they're back to about, I believe, 16 and a half or maybe a little bit closer to 17, which doesn't go far in free agency these days in any case, but it would also require that they renounce Dennis Schroeder's early bird rights and let Malik Beasily go. I'll just give a very brief explanation to follow up on that episode. basically at this point the pistons would be choosing like unless you can sign one of schroeder or Beasley with early bird rights which would begin about i believe nine million dollars or is it nine and a half in the first year pretty small MBA salary these days with a hundred and fifty five million dollar cap so unless you could do that and i think that's questionable maybe schroeder but unless you can you're basically trading beasley and schroeder for the privilege of signing somebody on the free agent market assuming you can successfully do that.

I find it very unlikely. I think the Pistons will operate above the cap. Keep Schroeder, keep Easley. I've seen a lot of a potential sign-in trade with Tim Hardaway Jr. Sign-in trades aren't really all that common, particularly within the conference and especially within the division. Maybe you have an easier time sending somebody out west, excuse me, sending Tim Hardaway Jr. out for somebody out West, and Tim Hardaway Jr. would just be matching salary.

And, of course, the Pistons would be sending out an asset or two or whatever alongside him. And it would have to be to a team that's nowhere near the key. apron because the first apron rather or it doesn't care about the fact that it will be hard capped at the first apron which is one of the consequences of a sign-in trade just to correct something I've seen put up as a barrier the little bit of a misunderstanding here yes sign-in trades have to be three seasons but you can have the second and third season be completely non-guaranteed so those seasons are effectively a move point but sign-in trades are uncommon and so I wouldn't count on that happening So after the Pistons, you know, in this scenario, if they were to sign Beasley and sign Schroeder,

they would have the biannual exception of $5 million, which is chump change in today's league. Used to be significance, but now is rarely even used ever. You know, teams above the first apron don't have access to it. A team is below the first apron, just rarely even bother. So they'd have the biannual exception and the minimum exception, which just allows you to sign players to minimum contracts. So like I've said, I think it could be a quiet off-season, but you never know. But there's not much to talk about with the draft.

I'm not trying. I feel like, okay, I'm not saying that I want that material. But, and I was just kind of saying, you know, it's helpful to see what people are talking about and, you know, and use that for subject material. Again, also very helpful when I hear from some of you about things you'd like to hear me amelessly monologue about. So, but yeah, it's a bit of a bummer, no draft. probably a very spare or sparse rather a summer league team and you know we'll see but there's always

plenty to talk about it's just uh will be quite a bit less eventful summer than it has been in recent years i think the last time it was this uneventful was 2018 when the piston summer league team it was headlines by uh henry ellens and bruce brown and kairie thomas that was uh I mean, it did pretty well, but man, was that offseason boring. And that was back in the mediocrity, excuse me, mediocrity days and the Pistons had just fielded, you know, they were fielding another roster that was very likely to be very mediocre. So different times. And one final thing.

So I've seen some misconceptions about the second apron. Both of the aprons, neither of them are meant to punish anybody. I mean, the NBA doesn't want to discourage spending. What they're meant to do is enforce parity by making it more difficult for big. spenders to add talent to their team. You know, less exceptions, more restrictions on trades. And if you're above the second apron for three out of the last four years, your first round pick gets moved to the end of the rounds, which is the only kind of punishment rather than restriction. But that, too, is just meant to make your first round pick less valuable if you're

going to trade it. And practice, you know, first apron, excuse me, second apron, repeat offenders probably don't even have a second round draft pick in the upcoming season. So it's a bit of a moot point. But anyway, like I saw a lot of speculation, you know, largely on social media last year that, oh, there's the second apron teams that are going to dump like good players to get below it. That doesn't happen because at that point, I mean, just the benefits from dropping below the second apron, benefits and flexibility, are not going to come anywhere near to replacing for these teams, which are often fairly shallow, the loss of a genuinely good rotation player, even a genuinely solid rotation player. So, yeah, the incentives, basically the incentive is to not cross in second apron territory, but for a lot of teams that's just necessary in order to feel the contender. So it's less that teams want to completely avoid it and more that they want to avoid it until they feel they have a roster that is capable winning a championship.

And that was one of the chief reasons why last season you saw some role players, you know, some solid role players. I don't know, Gary Trent Jr. comes to mind. find much smaller contracts than he would have expected, because teams were very wary of getting into second apron territory before they were ready to compete, before they were really ready to contend. So I wouldn't expect that to happen this season either. I mean, I think the Pistons, of course, going into last season with a ton of salary cap space and an open willingness to absorb contracts in exchange for assets. And the only opportunity they found was Tim Hardaway

Jr. from a Maverick's team that just wanted to be far enough below the first apron to use the full non-tax payer mid-level exception to keep Derek Jones Jr., which didn't end up actually happening. They pivoted to Najee Marshall instead. Yeah, teams aren't just going to dump salary, dump good players for no reason when they're trying to contend when they won't be able to replace those players. And again, dropping below the second apron just doesn't get you very much. The Nuggets did it with Reggie Jackson. I don't know if they were above the second apron, but they dumped Reggie Jackson so that they could use the taxpayer made a level exception because they desperately needed a backup center. I don't know how that need translated into

them signing Dario Sarich, who is a pylon on defense, even in the regular season, certainly in the postseason, when he's healthy, which is rarely. But anyway, yeah, I just, I wouldn't expect that this summer. It's just, you know, and there aren't any second apron teams who are just hoping to you know, tank and lose salary. Generally, teams that are well above the second apron, again, are very depleted of draft assets in the first place. Moving on, so we have this summer the usual bevy of speculation on, oh, whom might the pistons trade for.

So I'm just going to run down the list. I think this is just an interesting thought exercise and also just give some insight into where things stand in the NBA right now, and maybe on the players themselves. So start with Janus, because, of course, the Bucks with one. Willard outs are not going to win a championship with this iteration of the roster. So whether or not they keep Janus will depend in part on whether or not he wants to stay. He only has two seasons, excuse me, two seasons left on his contract. So if Janice just kind of says, well, you trade me now or I'm just going to leave in two seasons, maybe they do it.

But there are some complications for the bucks that are going to limit the number of potential suitors. Well, one main complication, which is that they don't own. they have no control over their picks through 2030. So for the next six drafts, including this one, they owe either their picks outrights or they owe swaps. So it is pretty much pointless to tank when you have no control of your own picks. It's completely pointless. You get nothing out of it.

It's not kind of the situation where it's like, oh, well, it's better to be bad than be stuck in the middle. It's only better to be bad than to be stuck in the middle if you are losing for a purpose, you know, for the sake of lottery odds. So, you know, you lose Janus suddenly, you know, and you don't get like good roster players back. And I'm not, then they can't just trade Janus for a bevy of first round picks from a team that's likely to place high in the league because what does that really get

you? I mean, your chances of getting an impact player of any ilk late in the first are very low. Wait in the first, you're pretty happy if you get a solid role player. That's a good return on a late first round pick. you occasionally find somebody late in the round who's quite good, like the aforementioned Pascal Seacum, who I believe was 28th or something like that. He was picked in the same draft as Pistons legend Henry Ellenson.

Anyway, that's just funny to think back on, or maybe not quite funny for those of us who are actually around to deal with that very bad draft pick. But anyway, I digress. So, yeah, if you're Milwaukee, basically, you either need back some very good, you know, like young prospects, or you need some players who are going to help you continue to win in the now because just tanking without picks,

it's a great way to destroy your fan base and just lose a crap load of money. And most teams just aren't up for that. The Nets did it in the aftermath of that horrible, horrible Celtics trade that got the Celtics to picks that became Tatum and Brown. You know, they just ate it. and that was what it was, but the vast, you know, they had no choice. I mean, it wasn't like they were deliberately signing themselves up for that situation, which the bucks would be in this case.

So let's first talk about the Pistons. So the Pistons at this point, it's like they're, in terms of making a big trade, they're very much stuck in the middle because their youth don't really have a ton of trade value right now. Like another year, hopefully more developments, like I've said, might not only give you, it could give you two things. I mean, it could give you the opportunity to find that you can homegrow the players that you need, or at least one of them. Also, as the youth develop, as they hopefully develop and have good seasons, that increases their trade value. So it would be very difficult for the Pistons to make a compelling offer to the Bucks in the first place because they just don't have

that sort of slam dunk, high ceiling talent that the Bucks would be looking for. I mean, of course, there's Cade who is not being traded, so it's a moot point. So aside from Cade, you just don't really have much of that. And so let's say you were able to make a trade by completely depleting the cupboard. The issue with Janus, and this is going to be an issue for a lot of teams, if they're interested in him, is that you need to build a play around Janus team. Basically, you need to surround him with shooters at all times. You see the bucks. They have Lopez starting and Portis backing him up. You need to space the floor around Janus in the postseason, or he becomes vulnerable because of the opposition, he can just pack the pain against him and throw double teams at him

constantly and he's not able to punish because even his center is not able to space the floor and the center is just kind of hanging out in the paint too and the interior is clogged. Then Janus loses a lot of effectiveness because he's got to attack into a packed paint and also he can't take advantage of the gravity that he attracts the setup teammates. So if you're going to trade for Janus, you best be certain that you are able to build the right team around him and the Pissons would be depleting the cupboard for the sake of even if they could do it for the sake of bringing on Janus and not having. a team you could build around him. You're not just going to run Cade Janus pick and rolls and win a championship, you know, with a, but they completely inadequate supporting cast. I mean, if it were that easy, any number of teams would do something like that. The bucks would do it for that matter. So completely implausible trade for the pistons. And also, I mean, I think it's kind of a doubtful thing. I mean, Janus is a playoff follower. He's not as effective in the postseason as he is in the regular season. I think the Janus model in general is of dubious effectiveness. They won a title.

But again, that title had a gigantic asterisk next to it. The fact that the Bucks were there, the fact that the sons were there, had a gigantic asterisk next to it. I think the clippers of the Lakers could easily have ended up in those finals if they had just been healthy and not been missing key players. I should remind that that was the same Lakers team that had won the championship the year before. But when you're ultimately missing both Anthony Davis and LeBron,

you're not going to win in the postseason. I mean, it's not just, oh, you know, somebody got injured. It's like your two best players are out, the players around whom the entire team is built. And then they went and made that ridiculous Westbrook trade in that offseason. And that was really that for that iteration of the Lakers being a real championship contender. But in any case, I don't even remember how I go. Oh, yeah. So it's questionable.

I mean, so many things have gone wrong for the bucks with the honest model. Like 2019 take, for example. they lost basically because Eric Bledsoe completely lost his shot. And so the Raptors were just able to throw, you know, the three-headed monster of Seacum, Kauai, and Gassal at Janus constantly. And that was that. In 2021, his supporting cast, excuse me, 2020, a supporting cast had issues with the same, but it was pretty much the same result.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, it's probably a moot point for the pistons, but that does complicate things. And just the, even if you believe in the play around Janus model, which again is a requirement, he's got to be, you know, the primary interior guy to do his work. Even if you believe in that, you have to be able to build around him. And let's say you're the rockets. Well, you really can't play with Shangoon unless Shangoon learns to shoot threes. But also Shangoon is a guy who really operates primarily in the interior.

So the fit there is very bad. Can't playing with Amman Thompson. He's Thompson can't shoot. And it's not like you're going to use Thompson as the role man with Janus out there. And no, it is not worth using Janus as center. I mean, Janus is a decent rim protector, and he is one of the greatest interior roaming help defenders of all time. It is an absolute waste to play him at center on defense. So now that's not going to work out.

So, yeah, with the Rockets, you have to pretty substantially revamp your roster. And I've seen the Spurs listed as a primary candidate. It's just like I hate the fit with Wembe, who is a game-changing interior defender on his own. I mean, you're going to have some overlap there that is not going to. of your one plus one equals two thing. You already have Dyeron Fox. There's only so much ball to go around. You don't want Wembe hanging out in the corner, you know, spacing the floor for Janus, really in any situation. They're probably the most likely, but again, entirely possible that the bucks just take him. I think the, excuse me, keep him. I think your likelihood as scenario

will include New Orleans. You know, if there is a trade, will include New Orleans in some capacity because they own swap rights on the bucks for the next two seasons, and if you can get those back, well, it's possible that the Pelicans will also be terrible. So who knows, maybe if the Bucks were to just make a trade and you have those swaps and you don't really lose much in the way of draft position. But it doesn't make sense for the Pistons,

so I'll just leave it at that. Speaking of the Pelicans, Zion Williamson, one of the biggest wastes of talent in the NBA in a very long time, I'd say the reigning waste of talent in terms of players who actually play is DeAndre Aiton, who has a ton of talent, but doesn't really seem to care all that much about basketball. Certainly not a hard worker, no killer instinct or desire to take over games. Yeah, I mean, I think if the guy tried, he's certainly an above-average defender, and he's a talented score who certainly has shooting upside, but has never bothered learning to take three,

you know, learning to shoot threes or at the very least, you know, been willing to attempt them. Yeah, a huge waste of talent. but for leaving him out and going with all players, not just those who are routinely on the floor, it would easily be Zion, who, you know, you see him, for example, in his second season, I believe, when he played for the lion's share of the season

and was one of the greatest restraint. I mean, he was putting up unprecedented numbers in the restricted area in terms of volume and accuracy. I mean, the guy is an incredible talent when he's healthy. He has a combination of good basketball IQ, excellent touch at the rim, and a ridiculous body. Like, this body is genuinely ludicry.

Chris. It's got this combination of, you know, explosiveness, decent leaping ability, you know, just bounciness in general agility and strength and just people bounce off you. That, however, was inevitably going to lend itself to injury. I mean, his body was, you know, just the, what made him special physically was going to always make him prone to injury. So it was very important that he come into the league and do everything that he could to stay as healthy as possible, you know, early on in his career. You know, stay at, you know, stay at. you know, and included amongst that is stay at the healthiest weight you possibly can. So reduce the wear and tear on your body.

And I think even if he had done that, he would have started a breakdown by his late 20s because that body is not going to hold up. I mean, feet, ankles, knees, to a lesser extent, hips. I mean, that body was just asking for lower body problems. Just as what it is. In the events, he did not even put forth that effort early on. The injuries started very early. I mean, the first injury was kind of more just a freak thing.

But, and who knows, maybe do everything right. and things still go wrong, though I think he's certainly made it worse. And at this point, when you have a player, even a player who doesn't have Zion's physique, who is getting injured this much this early on, it is extremely unlikely that it's going to get better. And it's entirely possible that not only is it going to get worse, but the player is going to begin to lose athleticism because of the constant injuries. So Zion has played less than half of his potential NBA games, and though he has a tremendous talent, I mean, your first and most fundamental,

availability is availability. You have to be able to actually be on the court to provide value. When you are not on the court, not only you're not providing value, but you're levying the opportunity cost of the team not having had somebody who was actually going to play. You also have additional things like a player being in and out of the lineup, which is disruptive. And, yeah, Zion's trade value by many accounts is not very high because, I mean, he has been a massive disappointment because he just cannot stay healthy. The Pelicans have made the playoffs twice since he was drafted. He was injured both times. He's yet to play a single postseason minute. And yeah, I mean, do you really want to give up assets for a guy who is extremely likely to

continue being one of the least healthy players in the NBA? I mean, at this point, I think it's basically just Robert, excuse me, Robert Williams, and then Zion, and Robert Williams, very good defensive player who just can't stay healthy. A point was to trade for him as well. you're not going to plan make any of your plans around having Robert Williams healthy and the same thing would be true of Zion so are you going to trade for him if you're the pistons? I think that's a very poor idea because you just it'd be like trading except worse than this actually. It'd be like splurging like a crap load of your savings on a Ferrari that you know is extremely breakdown prone and spends most of its time in a shop getting repaired. I mean, not particularly smart, especially if afterward you're going to be supposed to be. surprise that it spends most of its time in the shop being repaired because it keeps breaking down.

It's worse in basketball because there is no collective bargaining agreement, restricting you in terms of the purchase of cars. I mean, I guess the opportunity, I mean, I guess you do have the cost of, you know, some of your savings, but it's a little bit different from draft picks. Also, you can replace all the components in a car. You can't exactly do that with a human, or at least not yet. So, yeah, I'd say Zion is a very, would be a very poor idea for the pistons, especially because at this point, it's not like they need.

to take a swing. And this is still a developing team, which, you know, which has youth who could end up having very considerable ceilings. Moving on. Oh, Zion, who knows, maybe you see a trade where he's going over to the bucks in exchange for Janus's salary matching, but I think it's unlikely because the pelicans are in exceedingly poor shape right now with Dejante Murray suffering one of the aforementioned Achilles injuries. Who knows how he's going to come back looking? He's likely to be out for much or, you know, for much of next season. It's often a year recovery from an Achilles injury. And C.J. McCollum is getting older. They traded away Ingram. I mean, you have Trey Murphy, but he's still largely an offball player, et cetera, et cetera. So why bother if you're

the pelicans being interested in Janus, if you're not even going to compete? And again, that would just really get back for the bucks, their swaps. And if the pelicans are going to suck anyway, then not having the next two years is not as big of a deal, I guess. So, that's just something to put into the picture. But who knows? Maybe Zion ends up being healthy. And the pelicans are a middling team. And the bucks, if they've traded away, Janus, suck. And they haven't gotten back what they needed.

They suck. And they end up placing near the bottom of the league. And, uh, nope, sorry. Now the pelicans get your pick. And you get, uh, you get the worst pick out of the two. Uh, moving on, Michael Porter, Jr. Uh, I would have no interest in having Michael Porter Jr. on this team. I think that the idea of Michael Porter, Jr. is actually quite a bit better than, uh,

the reality of Michael Porter Jr., uh, who, is a very one-dimensional player, is best kept in a very narrow role, because when he's asked to create offense for himself or for others, he often just falls flat in his face. I've watched him play a few times in person, well, even on TV, I get a kick out of it, because he'll just take the stupidest shots, like pull up long two, you know, pull up fade away long twos through heavy coverage, because he's an idiot. So he's in really the ideal situation in Denver, where he's playing next to the best offense of big of all time,

who draws a crap load of gravity and gets him an enormous amount of open threes. And simultaneously, Porter's onus to create offense is not very high. He can be kept in a very limited role. So he's probably in Denver in the best situation you'll find for him. Even then, I mean,

like you add to those, the aforementioned weaknesses the fact that, I mean, he has defensive potential and sometimes he's good on defense when he tries. But his motor sucks. He's often just not engaged. So you have a player, you could also argue that he's a ticking injury time bomb with those back issues. Who knows? It was a terrible contract. I mean, Tim Connolly, who's now the GM,

the president of basketball operations or whatever for the Timberwolves, really did the Timberwolves a favor by signing Michael Porter Jr. to a max contract after one good season. So, yeah, I would just have no interest in having him in the pistons at all. I think he'll be worse, maybe significantly worse on offense away from the nuggets. And he's, again, just kind of dumb, has a poor motor. Definitely a terrible culture fit here. I'd be very disinterested. Devin Booker, I don't think the Pissons really have the means to trade for right now

without sending over Cade. The sons are in bad shape. They're the only team, actually. That's in worse draft shape than the Bucks because they don't own their picks until through 2031. So they have one pick that's the least favorable of a collection of three teams in 2026, I believe. That includes Cleveland,

so very, very likely to fall at the end of the first round, or late in the first round. It just makes no sense for them to trade Booker for anything, but other guys who can help them win and hopefully be respectable right now. And that's just going to be tough. And from what Ishby has said, he just wants to keep Booker,

period, and Booker has said that he wants to stay there period. So, deeply unlikely. And again, right now, it's like just the Pistons youth don't have the value that they might have in a year. Jabari Smith, Jr., speaking of players whom the perception doesn't really fit the facts, Jabari Smith Jr. is very far, you know, really just personifies that. There seems to be this colloquial notion that he's a good 3-and-D guy. That's not accurate. So some background, Jabari Smith, Jr., when he was coming into the league, the major question marks surrounded his ability to create any offense at all. Like, his handle was really bad.

He was a bad passer. He couldn't really create anything for himself. He struggled around the rim from on the drive when he actually managed to get there, which wasn't often. But he was a candidate for a normal overall pick and was the odds-on-favor-favorite until draft night to be the number-one overall pick. Because, you know, in part because of the perception that, you know what, at worst, this guy is still going to be a high level three and D guy.

You know, who can guard at least three positions. And at Auburn was able to make threes at a high percentage, even through close coverage. And so it's like, okay, at the very least, this guy will be an elite three-point shooter and a strong defender. He has fallen well short, even of that projection, like far, you know, well short of his expected floor. Because, you know, he's a pretty solid defender, but nothing special. And on offense, he's just awful. I mean, not awful, but he's pretty bad and extremely limited. Like all of the concerns about his ability to create offense, especially for himself, though he's still a pretty poor pass or two, have come true.

His handle is terrible. It's too bad for him to, I mean, he's not even able to back down smaller players in the post because his handle is so bad. He can't create any offense for himself. I mean, realistically, the offense that he would have been able to create for himself, like his offensive ceiling would have come from. taking pull-up twos. And it seemed like he might have the touch, but hasn't been able to do that. Certainly can't attack off the drive. And even as a spot-up three-point shooter, he is nothing special.

Like, he is around average just as a shooter on open and wide-open spot-up threes. So, and that's pretty much all he can do on offense. You can't even really attack close-outs. So, I mean, he can. He's just not good at it by any means. Decent in transition, but in the half-court, he's very limited. much like Isaiah Stewart was. He doesn't have quite the same at Power Forward.

Excuse me, Isaiah Stewart at Power Forward. He doesn't have quite the same poor mobility as Stewart does at that position, but it's not a great deal better. So, yeah, really all he can do is shoot wide open spot open and wide open. If you want to use the NBA's definition of open his closest defender, four to six feet and wide open more than six feet, then, yeah, he just doesn't have much to offer. and these days, like with the just minimum standard

and just for NBA players in terms of skill set going up and up and up, just a guy, a shooting specialist who can't even attack closeouts, that's kind of a problem, but he's not even really a shooting specialist because the guy can really only shoot open threes. Doesn't really shoot off the move, not really a pull-up threat, just a guy who can spot up and just is in terms of, by today's standard, offers very little on offense. And also, as a matter for the Rockets,

unless they're highly unlikely to extend him this summer unless it's in an extremely affordable rate. But for them, it's like it benefits them more to give him another year and see if he can come somewhere close to, just build value, whether, you know, if that's to continue to play for the Rockets or in a larger trade, then to sell low on him. So are the pistons going to, it's not worth them spending significant assets on him because he's almost at reclamation project value at this point on offense. not quite there, but you've got to hope that he improves quite a bit. And they're not going to get him for cheap. So scratch that one off the list, too, in my opinion. I should note that I don't really talk about the trade situations I find to be probable because you just never know who is available and for what cost.

So I'm just going through what I think about potential trade targets I've seen brought up. Jaron Jackson Jr., very good defender, you know, definitely very, you know, solid guy on offense, one of the big three of a Memphis squad that, is almost certainly a dead end at this point, especially with John Morant's pretty persistently injured and having kind of lost the step in terms of his athleticism. So nonetheless, the Grizzlies cleared cap space by spending a first-run pick to dump Marcus Smart in order to do what's called to renegotiate and extend for Jaron Jackson Jr. in order to get him more minutes. He's on a bargain contract. You can only extend a player at 140% of his previous salary in the final year of his

his current contract. So that was not going to be much. I mean, they could wait until next off season. But generally don't want to leave that to chance. So if you have the cap space, you can renegotiate upward. The final, I don't know if you can do it the final two years, but certainly the final year of a player's contract using that cap space. And then you can give him the extension up to 140% based on that salary instead.

So the calculus would have been a little bit different. Not calculus, the math would have been a little bit different. if he had made all-MBA because then he's, yeah, just would have been eligible for a larger extension, but he did not. So, I mean, they plan on keeping him. And, you know, because, I mean, the season, even by the time they had traded away Marcus Smart to clear that cap space the season wasn't going so great. And, yeah, would I like to have him on the pistons? Absolutely.

I've, would he be a good fit with the Pistons current starting center? No, and I'm not talking about that from the standpoints of, like, would the fit be good? Because it's like you put Jaron Jackson Jr. power for it. He can fit with just about anybody provided. The shooting is there. It's that he's kind of wasted on J.1 Duren because, here, I'm just going to go into the traditional center spiel one more time. I think I did a last episode. So traditional bigs are very limited on offense inherently compared.

to the average non-traditional big who was able to shoot and create offense. And so basically, like I had thought in the late 2010s that traditional centers might go extinct altogether. They stayed as a very, is a much smaller subcategory. That is, you know, anybody who is in a very significant role, that subcategory was guys who could provide positive value on defense, like significant positive value for the most part, because that's, you know, being very limited on an offense, that's where they're going to need to find a lot of their defense, a lot of their value on the court. So Duran, I think the mistake shouldn't be made of conflating good on offense for a traditional big with good on offense. He is the former.

He is not the latter. His offensive stealing is still relative to a lot of other centers in the league, to the non-traditional centers of the league, quite low. That's not a shot at him. It's just the reality of his skill set. He still can't really shoot, can't really create offense. And, you know, as you saw in the NICS series, it's extremely reliant upon his teammates to do those things for him. because he was made a non-factor for long stretches simply because the Knicks took away the pick and roll. So typically, I mean, if you want Jaron Jackson Jr. on the floor to compensate for somebody,

it's not going to be Duren. It's going to be, you know, more skilled offensive center who is providing a lot more on offense. And, I mean, Duren has his own major struggles on defense. So maybe this guy will be, you know, maybe that guy's that bad, but he's still providing more offense, you know, a lot more offensive value. And then you have Jaron Jackson Jr. on the floor to kind of help out. but he's kind of wasted next to Duren. I mean, it's more just the issue with Duren. He needs to provide his own defensive value

and a great deal more of it than he provides right now. But, yeah, it's, again, comes down to the Pistons, not really having a ton of pieces with major trade value at the moment, which could very much change next year. But also, I don't think the Grizzlies are ready to wave the white flag. And the final one I've seen is Drew Holiday. This, I think, largely comes of Bill Simmons putting out this trade idea. of dumping Poliday to the Pistons.

Pretty typical Bill Simmons trade idea of, you know, another team completely goes against its own interest for the sake of helping out the Celtics. Drew Holiday is under contract for three more seasons. It's upwards of $30 million. And he is in decline, particularly on offense. He's in decline. And he's presumably going to continue decline, period. Definitely not a guy who's on the timeline for the Pistons.

Yeah, a good defender. Certainly, still a very strong defense. Fender, but not on the timeline. It's likely to continue getting worse. The contract is bad. And also a guy who's just going to stand right in the way of Ivy, which doesn't really make much sense, unless you want to have like a $30 million something backup point guard. So don't see that happening. And then just the final subject. And again, I just want to reiterate my point in doing the segment is not just to, you know, poo-poo all these trade ideas, is just to go through some of the potential candidates I've seen brought up and give my thoughts on it.

So finally, is anybody on the roster untouchable in trades? I would say only Cade Cunningham because, I mean, obviously you find a guy who's, you know, likely superstar lead creator. I mean, that's the most important piece for any championship team. You're very unlikely to get back a better player than Cade Cunningham in a trade. So only Cade, you know, just going down the rest of the list, I've seen a lot of questions. Should Asar Thompson be untouchable? I'd say the answer right now is no. Yes, very high defensive ceiling, but perimeter player's ability to really affect the game on defense

is considerably less than it would be for a center. Also, for a center, you don't necessarily care quite as much that you can't shoot. With a perimeter player, it hurts a lot more. So yes, the SAR is going to probably provide a great deal of defensive value, but that value is capped, just at what one guy can do, especially in today's league. where it's just so much easier to get a player switched onto a weaker defender. But also, of course, very much of relevance is that as long as he can't shoot, he's going to lose a lot. I mean, the defensive value he adds, just from overall value, a lot of it's going to be subtracted, but the fact that he is going to inevitably come with a cost on defense, particularly in the postseason.

You know, just to reiterate, cannot participate in three-point offense, which is highly efficient, cannot finish plays from the perimeter and is treated as the defensive liability, excuse me, offensive liability, his spacing liability, excuse me, he is by defenses. So it's a very significant opportunity cost coupled with an actual cost of the offense. So if a SAR wants to shoot, like I've said, the guy could start for any championship team. If he's unable to shoot, who knows really what his future is, but is the guy going to be like a highly valuable player if he can't shoot? Extremely unlikely. And I would say the same of his brother if he doesn't learn to shoot because it's like if you want to make this work in the postseason

is a non-shooter there's only really one situation where it's going to work in a viable way which is that you are good enough to have a team built around you and that's really tries to compensate for the fact that you can't shoot you know yannis for example jimmy butler a little bit less so but really the only other example i can think of in recent years for all that ben simmons is pilloried I think rightly so for how his tenure in Philadelphia ended. Should be noted that the guy previous to that was an all-N-B-A player who was pretty darn strong on the drive. You know, it was definitely strong on the drive and, you know, getting to the rim scoring there, good passer. But nonetheless was, you know, Am was an elite defender.

Like, you know, genuinely could defend four and a half positions. So, you know, point guard through power forward and then some of the smaller centers. even so and even in a league that was you know that just continues to be more and more predatory on weaknesses even he was just nowhere near good enough to build a team around you know to just say okay well you're so good on the drive that we're just going to build a team around that skill it's extremely rare to have a player like that and again like i've like i talked about with yonis earlier in the episode that still comes with weaknesses and you know it was so in this case it was more i mean yonis if he could shoot. He tries if he could shoot would be one of the greatest players of all time because it would be

an impossible cover. Ben Simmons just refused to shoot, period. Guy was just a baby. You know, really everything I, the kind of professional athlete, I think, is worthy of nothing but contempt. So I'm not talking about, like, the report of mental health struggles. I'm talking about how we acted on the team itself, you know, just refusing to shoot and being incredibly self-centered. A team desperately needed him to do that because it wasn't going to work otherwise. Joel Embed started spotting up more on the perimeter, like one of the greatest interior scorers ever for the sake of accommodating Ben Simmons. It's like this kind of stuff just can't happen. So Amen is well removed from that at the moment from like the Janus level.

I don't know if he'll ever get there. Hussard, unfortunately, is significantly below his brother in terms of handling and touch at the rim. So I don't think he'll ever get there, and that's no knock against him. It would just take a spectacular improvement. And again, hardly anybody in the league, like, exceedingly few exceptions is actually capable of playing that rule and having a team built around him like that. So if a SAR can shoot and improve, you know,

especially if you can improve his handle, maybe you have an all-star player there. The odds, I still have faith that he can get a shot together. And so he'll be able to work harder at stuff this off-season. Great. I mean, he was dealing with the Klotz last off-season, didn't really presumably have much of an off-season. But would, is it something where it's like, yeah, we should totally bet on that? And I mean, as a rookie, he had more air balls than made threes.

And they just barely didn't have him shoot much at all in this past season, which wasn't really a very positive commentary on where his jump shooting stands. So should he be untouchable? I would say no. And I'd just like to reiterate that his ability to provide value at the NBA level is going to be severely hindered if he never wins to shoot. So pretty much just Cade. I'd like to think that Isaiah Stewart is untouchable in a way,

not in the typical way of, oh, you know, you just don't trade Isaiah Stewart. I would just, I think it's likely that Isaiah Stewart's value to this particular team will not be outstripped by what another team is willing to trade for him. So, but that's also, so not untouchable in a trade. It's just like, I don't anticipate another team offering enough to make it worthwhile for the business to trade him, not to say he's a game. name-changing player. But I think in most trade scenarios, you're just going to find it.

It makes more sense for the pistons to keep him. But I also just love Isaiah Stewart, you know, what's not to love. And finally, and again, I don't know if I'm repeating myself, but as far as the talk of signing a backup power forward, I know that's a lot just because Tobias Harris was really the only power forward-sized guy in the roster. Fantecchio is beefier than Holland's, not really so much more so than a SAR. actually and is like an inch taller than him, you know, but can play some power forward. I think Asar, again, his shooting is always going to be a factor on offense, whether regardless

of what position he's playing at. You know, add that athleticism into the mix, and I think he'll, especially if he continues to bulk up, we'll be able to play some power forward minutes. But, yeah, Tobias, you know, a couple things. Yeah, he didn't end up playing a lot of minutes in the playoffs. That wasn't entirely just because he was the only power forward-sized guy out there. And New York's front court really wasn't that big. I mean, Bridges is around 6-6.

Andy Noby's beefy, but he's around 6-6. Josh Hart, of course. I was playing shooting guard as about, I think, 6-4, maybe 6-5. Now, the reason Tobias was in the floor so much was that he had to match up against Carl Anthony Towns. He had to match up against Carl Anthony Towns because Duran didn't have even the slightest hope of not getting lit up by him.

So that's why he was on the floor so much. But just to go back to what I've said before, the issue with just signing back of Power Forward, number one, the cap space. If you want to keep Beasley and Schroeder, you probably have to operate as an above-the-cap team. And it's entirely possible that if you don't, and if you decide to go for somebody else, you're giving up one for two, so to speak. But barring that, if you do resign to both of them, number one, you have very, very little

in the way of flexibility to do anything the largest salary you can offer. I mean, unless you can swing a sign-in trade is going to be $5 million a year, roughly, for two years. with the biannual exception. But even if you can swing a sign-in-trade, it's like you already have nine guys in the rotation. Unlikely, we'll see another 10-man rotation. It's pretty rare. Just reiterate, Bakerstaff often one with eight in his two postseason years

in Cleveland in his final two years there. And it's just very, very rare for a team to run that many players. So I think you'll see the pistons down to nine next season on the average night. And you can look at guys where it's like, oh, well, you know, we have enough cap space. You know, Torium Prince was, I believe on a minimum contract this season. Well, it's like you have guys like that who may not be very well sought after,

but are solid role players. You have the decision of going to the Pistons and probably playing few minutes because the Pistons, Tobias is going to get his share of minutes and the Pistons want to get them to Asar in Holland as well. So come to the Pistons and play 10th man and don't really play, you know, very many minutes or go to another team for the same salary and get a lot more minutes. That's a very, very easy decision for a play. player. These guys want to play. They want to compete. Even for the likes of Tori and Prince,

who are unlikely to play their way into higher salary, I mean, you're an NBA player. You want to play. So, you know, I think you might just see the Pistons hope that Fontacchio was able to pick it up next season. He had a very bad season, you know, not very bad, but certainly extremely disappointing season after, I mean, even just jazz, Utah jazz, Fonacchio would have been very nice to have. And again, then the upcoming season will be 10th man. It's not just as easy is saying, oh, just upgrade on him because he's kind of bad salary at this point. And I don't know, maybe second round picks will get you somewhere. But again, this guy's going to be 10th man in the rotation. So do you really want to spend a lot on him? So is the roster next season going to be perfect?

Probably not. We'll probably continue to have some holes. But this team is just going to continue to a great deal just continues to depend upon the youth developing. And I think, you know, whether or not they can do that and, you know, how much of that we see is going to really be one of the chief storylines next season. Anyway, that'll be it for this episode. As always, I want to thank you for listening. I hope you're all doing great. I'll catch you in the next episode.