Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 237: Season Storylines & Media Day Recap

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

This episode goes over some season storylines to watch and recaps media day.

Welcome everybody to drive into the baskets. I'm Mike, your host, and we are on day one, the 2025, 2026 Detroit Pistons preseason. It has been an interesting offseason. Interesting because there really hasn't been an offseason like this since 2016. That was right after the Pistons had lost that competitive sweep against the eventual champion Cleveland Cavaliers. And, you know, for those of you were fans back then. I mean, you think back to that time. All right, Pistons just pulled off a 44 win season, get a young team. And, you know, there's real hope in the air. And it's an offseason, the likes of which Pistons fans hadn't experienced since 2008. They made the playoffs in 2009, but clearly the jig was up on that team. So in any event, it was obviously very, very different in

quality from the off seasons we've been through for a long time. I mean, we'll just leave out that 2019 offseason after the Pistons had gotten obliterated by the Bucks and they had a dead-end roster. In any case, I mean, the 2020 offseason obviously was what it was, like eight-month-long off-season. After which, it was an off-season after which the Pistons had blessedly moved on to a tank and taken that team off of life support. And 2021, you know, of course the tank was on. It was fun.

Pistons ended up in the number on overall pick, one of the greatest sports moments I've ever experienced. 2022 again we're tanking need more talent you know 2023 same thing you know maybe gearing up to compete then the next season which never actually happened uh and then so on and so forth you get what i'm saying it was just a very different character of the off season because the pissons were you know playing basketball still after the regular season ended and they won a couple games which is pretty big deal and also there was nothing in the draft for us to really pay attention to because the business didn't have a first-round pick. So yeah, I'm hoping they are going into a season for the first time in nine years. And of course, we know what happened last time.

Things didn't exactly go well. Thankfully, the conditions that created the possibility of that happening, created the opportunity for that to happen, which are basically not, you know, bad locker room, you know, no effort whatsoever to select a roster that, had character had anything to do with it and a terrible head coach those conditions obviously very much do not exist with this team so wasn't relating it i was just taking one of my typical dips back into piston's history so any events we're going to talk today about some stuff that was set on media day and some potential season storylines and throughout preseason i'll be doing an actual playoff pre excuse me a player previews so let's just kick it off with media day

I suppose. And I'll just take it from, well, bottom to top, so to speak. I'm going to go through, obviously not the whole thing, because there's quite a bit to summarize. Shoutouts to Omari from the Detroit Free Press. I'm basically just going off of his Twitter notes here. Omari, in my opinion, in the best of the beatwriters. And also just the nice dude. Like, it's probably a bit of a tough life as a beat writer at times, having to be on social media, which is often a very hostile place toward beat writers.

who have certain fans who get a little bit unfriendly, you know, just because they dislike the opinions of the beatwriters, and when things are going badly, they're an easy target. So also shout out to Amari, who unlike many a beatwriter, manages to actually maintain a lot of equanimity in the face of that. So, any of that, all that aside, let's get rolling. So start up with Trajan. You had good things to say about Ivy.

And, of course, you take all this with the, you know, a positive spin is being put on it set about extensions you know typical stuff you know we're excited they're both members of the pistons they'll have huge roles whether or not we get deals done uh at this point we've got less than three weeks to get a deal done actually two weeks uh recording this well be posting this on the on the six so two weeks away from the rookie extension deadline and like i've said before i'd be shocked if either them got an extension i mean ivy has as thanks to circumstances outside of his control, been really unable to provide much in the way of data. I mean, of course, he got in season two is at the mercy of a coach who tried to destroy him.

And in season three, you know, only got 30 games before season ending injury. Promising is a rookie, thought it out. But we just need to see more out of him. You know, there's just no point, especially in this financial environment. And where you might have in the previous CBA, just giving him, I don't know, like $20 million a year. That's actually, you know, just as a, okay, we think you'll get there on this a bargain contract. These days, that's a lot less palatable. Like, finances, and I really like this, are a lot more constrained by teams trying not to get,

even into first apron territory before they are ready and have the team that they need, let alone the second apron territory. And I like to reiterate with the aprons, they're not intended to, like, punish teams with big payrolls. Well, depending on your definition of punish. It's not like we're in the second apron, so the rules are coming for us now, and we're going to have to break up the team. The point of the first, the point of both of the aprons is to restrict teams with high payrolls from adding talent and in some ways from keeping talent. Like, let's say, you know, full bird rights and a player. And so you can only offer them a certain amount of money.

Oh, actually, the second apron wouldn't come into that. Never mind. Forget I said that. Sorry, a bit of a COVID brain fog still lingering. Pretty frustrating. but basically you just have limited means to keep players. And like you don't realistically typically see teams just dump a good player to stable to the signal to get below the second apron.

There are often dual concerns when it comes to luxury tax. Like the Celtics, you know, yeah, they ended up, I believe below the second apron at the moment, I believe below the first apron actually, or a little bit above the first apron. I think they're about $8 million still into the tax. Primary motivation for them dumping salary was not to like get out of dreaded second apron territories because they were on course to have a $500 million payroll. A new ownership wasn't really a very big fan of that. So they have drastically reduced their tax payment and also are below the second apron.

But all right, I'm getting really off topic. Just the point is, with Ivy, it wouldn't have made sense, like unless it was shockingly affordable. And with Dern, it's just like, you need to see if you can play defense before there's any point dedicating any significant amount of money to him or certainly dedicating or committing to him a center of the future. because right now his defense is so bad that even if he were a lot more offensively talented than he is, and not be a viable postseason talent, excuse me, viable postseason center. It is very hard, regardless of how good a center is on offense to win with a starting center who is bad defensively.

There are only two examples of teams even reaching the finals with the guy who played their majority of minutes at center as a bad defender. One was Yokic, who, you know, obviously is one of the guys. greatest offensive players, and I mean, almost indisputably the greatest offensive center of all time. And still, it had a defense built around him. Here's the thing with Yokic, he's a very smart defender, incredibly smart player. His issue is just that he's slow. And to a degree, I would imagine just like the incredibly high usage, like super bruising game he has to play on offense, is probably kind of sapping and maybe compounds that a little bit, especially he's a pretty big dude. But Yokic, of course, is as exceptional as they come. And again, not like a defensive

liability in the mental sense. And you construct a defense. around them, you can do pretty well. But also just what he loses, like hardly anybody, pretty much nobody at the position can get as much back on all offense as he can. He's in the league of his own. The other one is Kevin Love in 2018, the Cavs team that didn't really have a particularly difficult route to the finals, and, of course, got swept when they got there by a very good Warriors team, granted.

But he's the only other example in the last 25 years, which is about as far back as I'm really comfortable, pegging my NBA history, though I'm quite certain. and it goes back well before that. You know, the, who was it? I believe it was, I can't remember. Like, the Rockets won twice in the 90s with one of the greatest defensive centers

of all the time, Akima Lozjuan. The Bulls always, pretty much always, had a good defender at center. Their opponents, I can't speak to, but so on and so forth. So in addition to what I've said about, just that was a traditional big when you're bad on offense,

inherently bad on offense, because it's just how traditional centers are, you got to provide that defensive value, but also you just can't go into the playoffs as a bad defensive center, you know, and have your team actually, you know, advance in the postseason. There's also I was thinking today about the fact that you've got teams increasingly going with five shooters because it's just a major asset, and you have teams who have the luxury of, like the Thunder didn't do it, but the Pacers did, of course, you know, the Bucs when,

well, they didn't have five shooters, excuse me, the idea on this. So whatever. It's just the trends throughout the spacing era. It's, you know, like your ideal guy is somebody you can both space the four and defend the rim. But basically, if you're fielding four shooters, your center is presumably going to be the non-shooter. So if you're fielding a non-shooting center, has got to be a good defender. And fielding three, and this is an additional complication, three shooters. If you want to win in the playoffs, is out of the question.

And, of course, how this front office is viewing a Sart Thompson as the future, you know, is this part of the future, excuse me, especially in the context of him still being quite far behind. as a shooter, would also play into that. Because if you want to find a way to accommodate to Sart Thompson, though I question how much you really want to form your rotations around a non-shooter who is not like spectacular on the ball like Yonis is,

and off the ball, you know, as a role man and whatnot, definitely not off the ball as a shooter. If Yonis could shoot, the guy would really have a case for being one of the greatest players. He'd be being the greatest player of all-time conversation. It'd be an impossible cover, but he can't. But you've got to think about that. too because if you're thinking a SAR is not going to be able to shoot and you really want to form a

rotation you know and you really want to accommodate him in your rotation you know all of like the you know the paint and baseline passing in the world is not going to compensate for how much fielding two non-shooters costs in the playoffs so in any case just goes you know this is all to say that I'm completely unsurprised that no extension has happened let me be shocked if there were an extension to happen in the next two weeks again unless it were so incredibly affordable that it was just completely inherently worth the risk. Though these days it's even, you know, tough to dump like a $12 million salary, unless you've got a team like the Nets willing to accommodate it. Trajan also established what has become clear already. And what I believe

would be the case all along, which is that this, not tooting my own horn there, I think this was just the only realistic way the season was going to go, which is that it's all about just seeing where the young players stand. It's something that this organization absolutely needs to establish in order to determine what comes next. you have the players on your team, you feel you need, that they're on the trajectory to be the players that you need. Or maybe guys establish value when you say, okay, we want to flip some of these guys for an established All-Star alongside some picks.

But yeah, the way Trajan said, we felt it was right to stay where we're at and let our young core continue to develop. I'm going to see where these guys can go and what their potential in ceiling is. And right down, we don't know. Yeah. And that's been at the crux of things since the last, you know, since, you know, since the final bell, so to speak, on last season. He also said, not bringing back Beasley, Schroeder, and Hardaway, other teams made

competitive offers. And there were investigations altered their plans, of course. That's a reference to Beasley. And I've seen it asked why Beasley is not with the team. I think I covered this in the last episode, actually. It's just he's still a person of interest in the federal investigation, which means he could be charged, and he is under NBA investigation. He's not signing anywhere until that stuff cleared up.

When it comes to Hartaway Jr., competitive offer, was a one-year veteran's minimum. It was more just that Hardaway was a good veteran last year, and there was no real, excuse me, he was a good veteran presence last year. He was a very pronounced minus on the court. There's just no space for him in the rotation at this point. There's no reason for him to stay, even if the past ins have been of a mind to bring him back when he can go and, you know, play minutes in Denver. And Schroeder, it's like he got the same salary. that's what Verde did. Seems like Langdon just wanted to go bigger.

You look at the lineup this year, the shortest player projected me in the rotation is Ivy, like 6'4, like a 6'9 and a half wingspan. So the pistons are going to be fielding some big lineups. Of course, at Power Forward, that's a bit of a different story when it comes to guys past Tobias, but we'll try to talk about that a little bit later. Baker stuff, again, yeah, about adding size.

We can play five guys who are 6-8 or teller if we want to and be fast and able to trap more and switch defensively. Not with Duren on the court, but with Stewart, without a doubt, Reed, pretty good switcher as well. And J.B. also about, they kind of contradicted Langdon a little bit when he said, when he talked about, you know, the vats probably shorter and Tim Hardoa Jr., obviously, because they want to bring Beasley back. His, we're appreciative of all the things they did to help us grow.

The business of basketball dictates that change happen, which is, without a doubt, a more honest answer than Langdon put out there. You know, says he wants to see Ivy and a son. more on the floor, probably the fastest pairing on wings who are fine in the league, definitely in the running. That Asar has made progress on the ball, I hope so, because if he hasn't made progress as a shooter, and then that's really going to be a necessity.

Here's the thing about Asar against, like, blah defenses and bad defenses. He did fine. Against good defenses, his effective field goal percentage dropped into the 40s, which is treadful for any player, but especially terrible for a guy who is largely just, you know, attacking in transition and doing baseline cuts and getting putbacks. So Pistons need more out of him on offense. Somehow, just more on-ball juice is not going to be a replacement for playing, you know,

being able to shoot just because it costs a lot in terms that can't do things and can get punished for not being able to do those things. But that'll be important. But healthy off-season. And that's another thing Biggerstap mentioned. And that's, of course, a big deal. He was not really able to do as much on-court stuff less. summer. Is that responsible for the gap offensively between he and his twin brother? Maybe a little bit.

It's just worth mentioning that, I mean, Eman went forth above a czar for a reason. He's further ahead offensively. He's also a little bit better of an athlete, measurably. In terms of measurable athleticism, I think it was done at P3. Wait, it's a P3. I can't remember. Some place in California that tests this stuff. He's a little bit more athletic than a czar. But also just far ahead of him at this point as a ball handler and that's significantly ahead and that's been the case since OTE. So hopefully Asar can catch up. It's just amen in terms of just his ability to handle and especially his ability to be creative at the rim and score through contact. It's always been significantly ahead of ASAR. So hopefully he's made up a little bit of that ground.

Isaiah Stewart said Baker staff and the coaching staff has talked to him about taking more threes. Awesome. Please do. That's critical. I love Isaiah Stewart. You all know that. That three point, he is limited inherently on offense by the fact that he's very groundbound. He's not explosive at all. He is not able to vertically space the floor. He scores below the rim. There are additional complications like his hands, just not being all that great. But that's less of a concern. But he's just not really a role man. And his touch around the rim is just kind of average. And it would need to be genuinely good to kind of make up for the fact that he is always scoring from beneath the rim. Again, not a lot of threats, et cetera, et cetera. So in order to provide non-negative value on offense, he's got to show. shoot. Not only that, but shooting more just significantly expands the degree of options open to the pistons, even if he is unable to serve as a role man. He gets a five-out offense is just very difficult to defend. So you get five shooters in the floor out there. Awesome. Also, like, yeah, he sucked. I've seen some confusion about, well, he's sucked as a spacer at Power Forward. You know, why is it any different in Center? It's because of who's guarding you. Like, at Power Forward,

he just fell significantly below the talent floor. These days, I mean, we're no longer in the days in which it's okay to just be able to hit spot-up threes. I mean, you've got to be able to attack close-outs, make the right pass-off close-outs, you know, have some ability to, you know, attack off the dribble even if it's not creating offense. Ideally, you're able to punish opponents for going really small on you, too, but, you know, that's not really a must. And all Isaiah could do was really just shoot wide open, StanSill spot-up threes and also his mobility for power forward in terms of, like, the spacing issue is that opponents could leave him open.

and be fairly certain that they could recover and get back to him because he was not going to move very far. Just his half-court mobility on the run. On offense, it's pretty poor. It's actually bad. He was the slowest guy by a significant margin to see big minutes of power forward in the season he played there. At center, it's a different story because now you're setting a screen, like for Cade Cunningham, for example, ideally, or Ivy or whoever else. And especially with Cade, it's like, okay, well, now the center has, Two choices. You know, Isaiah Stewart sets a hard screen, and now, you know, presumably Cade's a little bit

ahead of his defender, and now the center has two choices. He can, you know, back off and, you know, defend the path of the rim, and thereby leave Isaiah Stewart wide open, or he can stay with Stewart and let Cade get into the interior, at the very least, even if he's not able to get to the rim, because somebody comes to help, and somebody else is open, and that completely unhinges the defense. And it's like, well, you know, opponents are just going to leave Isaiah open and you can't effectively space the floor. That's not true. I mean, if Isaiah Stewart is shooting 38% like he did in the, you know, two seasons ago, it's like, okay, you're leaving a 38% shooter wide open to consistently take wide open threes. I mean, that's mathematically speaking a very good outcome to a possession if you can keep that percentage up. And then in the postseason, it just gives you a lot more options because, let's say you're up against traditional big, then,

you're able to pull that guy out to the perimeter. Again, he's either more odds at the perimeter or you're getting more open threes. You also, whether postseason or otherwise, allow Kade the ability to attack mismatches. If you can get him one-on-one against any number of guys he's able to just bludgeon on the weight of the rim or post-up or whatever else. Then the opponent, and you've got four shooters out there with him. Then the opponent, again, has the rim protector, especially if he's on his way to the room, has two choices.

you know, either leave the center open and protect the rim or, you know, be out in the perimeter defending and not come and help, and then he gets scored on. So that just creates kind of a match of nightmare that Kate is very equipped to exploit. So that's important. It was kind of frustrating that he wasn't shooting him last year because he just, he needs to shoot in order to barely provide value on offense. So Stu said I shot almost 40% from three, two seasons ago, it's a weapon. I look forward to bringing this back. Awesome. Cool. I mean, I've heard it said. I can't remember whom. So this may not actually be good information. Take it with a grain of salt. I think it was said, but I think this was said by a reliable source that he just preferred to be more of a downlow big. That's a situation in which the coaching staff has to just say too bad. And whatever, Stewart will do whatever it takes to help the team win. I have no doubt that you can tell them to do pretty much anything and he'll do it. as long as it increases his team's chances of winning. You know, Cade had the usual bevy of, you know, leadership stuff to say.

You know, it's all about a team getting better. We're really hungry. We've worked hard during the summer and so on and so forth. I'll just reiterate what I've said many times. I mean, it's really great for your best player to also be a leader. He mentions Carmelo here that he did. A couple of works that workouts with Mello. Mello is an example on the other end of the spectrum of the best player on your team,

being not even the slightest bit of a leader whatsoever. That's a problem when that's the case, and it's also a big asset, when your best player has a great deal of leadership ability, which has been the case with Cade since he was a rookie. It was the case for Cade at Oklahoma State and is intense upon, again, doing what's best for his team rather than being like Carmelo, and I think it was Chonzie, to put it this way, that he just wanted to get his 30 points a game.

Yeah, Mello, I think, you know, for all yeah, that he's in the Hall of Fame, big waste of talent, a guy who could have done so much better if he'd played a more conscientious team first game, and he can tell the guy wishes he'd been drafted by Detroit. And I don't know if he said this, but I would bet that, I mean, not only would he have had a greater chance of winning a championship, obviously coming out of that team in 2003. But you've got to wonder if he thinks that he might have shaped up a little bit differently with a group of guys who would have taken him hardcore to task. I mean, even without cheat, and I think the trade still would have happened because Larry Brown hated rookies.

But even without sheet, it's like, you know, Rip and Chauncey and Ben Wallace, Tasholm was kind of quieter, but those three, you know, who were the top dogs in the team were not about to put up with any BS. And that was a team first team, needless to say. Duncan Robinson, you know, just said nice things about the team environment. The group is very close, excited to reunite with Leverth. They played at Michigan together. Daren and Stewart set hard screens, very willing screeners. Agree, Jade and Ivy with noticeably bigger arms, hopefully a stronger car as well.

That's maybe the most critical thing. Once to take on more of a playmaker role, here's the thing last year that Bigger staff didn't really trust Ivy all that much. I think he was just getting into the points of getting the offense down and trusting Ivy more as an on-ball creator and Playmaker when Ivy got injured. I don't buy Ivy as a primary handler. And I think that's, he's just more of kind of like a driving kick guy. You know, you can think about dudes like the difference between like Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul

floor general versus just a guy who doesn't make, how I've seen it put well, system passes, just this driving kick. And that's helpful, but not really weed handler material. But he said when he watched Dennis Schroeder, you know, as he put it, dissecting the defense and making the right reads. and hopefully you can improve from there. It's just this is an increasingly more common skill. Like basically, all of your high volume scores outside of center and even at center a lot of the time

are averaging like five plus assists per game. This league has gone drastically away from not all of them. Like Camp Thomas obviously is not like that, and that's one of the reasons he's not really very coveted. But it's just a mandatory skill at this point. We are far away from the day when it was really your point guard doing the vast majority of the playmaking. It's just another way in which the talent floor has raised.

isn't dramatically. Ivy said working on improving his mid-range and three-point shots. Hopefully by mid-range. Nope, he said pull-up jumper. So pull-up twos. Yeah, I mean, if you can hit them, you know, at least in the high 40s, great. Hardly anybody can. More important for him, I think, to have more of a bag in the paint. Now, just a better floater, for example. Tobias just talking about being a relentless do-gooder. And I'm joking because I've always looked at Tobias as just a model sportsman. Play's hard, plays for his team, very active in the community. You know, just a great dude by every account I've ever heard.

Saara said he's worked on ball handling, shooting and playmaking. Shooting's going to be the swing skill there. I continue to think that Asar is, I mean, it's going to be tough for him to really be, you know, but a really good contributor to a playoff team. If the shooting doesn't come along, it's just such a weakness today. And he just doesn't have the absolutely elite on-ball juice that literally, like, one guy, Janice, or two, if you include, John Morant, who kind of vacillates around. Yeah, I've already talked about that in this episode.

It says he wants to be more aggressive and cool. Any improvement helps. Sara and Holland talking about being the 9-to-5 defense is, Holland's number nine now. And Holland, or wait, that was Assar saying that. Also, Asar said he bulked up a little bit. So Asar, I think, was close to 220 last year. And if he's bigger than that, I mean, this is, this tosses the guy into power forward territory. Power forward, you know, the average power forward these days is not huge. I mean, some of them are. You got some guys who are on the taller side. You also got plenty of guys who are in the 6-7-6-8 range. and the difference, for example, Braun Holland to some reason, I don't know why based on his combine measurements, unless he grew, is listed at 6-8.

He probably, I think right now weighs 2.15, which means he'd be giving up 15, 20 pounds in the average power forward, which is not ideal. Assar, who is, plays listed at 6-7, I think 6.5, without shoes, is in the 7-foot wing span and extremely athletic at like 225. I mean, that's very viable size to be playing power forward, especially because the athleticism is going to help you a bit. And also on defense, just the fact that he's extremely smart is helpful. So look for him to get some minutes there. Jalen Duren, and also want to answer the question of why do I hate Jalen Dern so much? I don't hate Jailen Dern at all. I really had a certain degree of sports contempt for him back when he was being incredibly lazy.

But for the last two-thirds of last season, he was playing hard and playing for his team. and I'll never dislike a player who does that, whether or not they have the talent to succeed in the NBA is a different story, but if they just don't have the talent, then, but they're giving their all for their team. I might find them frustrating to watch, but I'm not going to dislike them.

I did dislike the likes of Killian Hayes, who just thought he was a very special snowflake, who, despite the entreaties of two different coaching staffs and the complete and utter unimutable realities of the NBA, just thought, I shouldn't have to drive into contact. It's like, there you are hurting your team by being a total wuss

and refusing to do something that literally everybody else in the team does. But that's a different story. So Duran talks about, you know, feels like mobility-wise has gotten to a better place. And reaction times, I'm kind of believe that when I see it.

But mobility, if he can get back some of his lateral mobility, that would be great. I'm sure I harp on this, but his lateral mobility when he came into the league was decent enough. You go back and watch some of his defense from his first week in the league. You can move laterally just fine. He was never going to be an elite switch defender, but he was respectable enough.

Of course, you want better than respectable. Respectable is fine. It means you're not a liability. He's always going to be better in drop. But again, if you can do a decent job of it, then you're not going to be attacked. You're not going to be a liability. Well, if they can try to attack you, but it's not going to produce the same results. From like a little bit into his second season, after his anchor,

injuries, which I think may have been the cause, his lot of mobility got nuked, and he's been completely unswitchable since then. A bigger staff had to protect him and drop at all times. Last season, you know, like after the early stages when I think he'd maybe try to switch a little bit, he just went into full protection and drop, and that's expensive defensively, and makes providing good defensive value very difficult. Now, can he get back to that? Pretty rare to make that kind of recovery. I hope he can. I hope Doren succeeds. That would be a big thing for this team, whether he can or not. I think the probability of that is different. but, you know, if he's managed to get that lateral mobility back, great.

You know, might he have lost it because he put on a lot of muscle? Unlikely. Even if he put on 15 pounds over his listed weight as a rookie of 250. I mean, adding like 6% to your body weight is not going to destroy your lateral mobility. It just doesn't work that way. Worked with Sheed. No, that's cool. Glad to hear it.

You know, hope to see Duren's level of effort persist throughout the season. Chaz Lanier just talked about the food. I don't know those of you who live in Detroit, but know drastically more about that than I do. Holland on the 9 to 5 defense. Like, yeah, having, I think, Saar is obviously an elite defender. Holland has, you know, high-level defensive potential.

That's a big deal to have two kind of long, rangy wings who can play really good defense. That would be, and it's great to have you. Look at Houston and see what they can do with A-Man and Taris. That's very disruptive. Wangton and Levert. Not really much of anything. there. And that's it for Media Day. So let's talk about some storylines. And I was going to talk about

some scenarios for records. Let's see how much time I have. I'm going to be making an effort to keep these episodes shorter than they've typically been. Holy crap, it's already been 33 minutes or something like that before I cut out the periods of silence. In any event, I'll go on no particular order here. Back of Power Forward, seeing that brought up is a persisting concern. Pistons could have brought on another Power Forward. I mean, it got to. think that Trey Liles would have taken any opportunity to play with an NBA team. He's now playing in Spain. So they could have done it, opted not to do it.

Apparently, it's going to be, according to Biggerstaff, sort of a by-committee thing. I think you'll see how in minutes there. Again, at like 215 pounds, not super ideal in the position, but Power Forward is not the land of hulking guys anymore like it was 10 years ago. I mean, they're often shorter, and you see a lot of lineups where teams go small and Power Forward. Granted, this is Miami, and Spolster as a wizard, but Duncan Robinson played a fair number of minutes of power forward last season. So that's just an example. Again, I think Qasar is probably going to see a lot of his minutes of back up power forward.

And I hope to goodness we don't see Isaiah Stewart there because it's just terrible position for him. You know, it's just a waste of what is far better defense at center and sees just an offensive liability. But, yeah, I mean, you might see some lineups where Cade plays up the lineup. I just don't think it's as much of a concern as I've seen it. You know, as I've seen, you know, the concern, like, oh, my goodness, we don't have a backup power forward. Javante Green, oddly enough, at 6'4 has played quite a bit of power forward. Whether or not he's done it well is a different story.

I couldn't tell you about that. Not really very familiar with his body of work. But you even have guys like Keras Lever at 6'6 who can see some time there. Again, there's a lot of flexibility at power forward. Now, if you're going up against the likes of Julius Rand, you know, who's 6-9 and Hulking or Janus, who is, you know, really needs no explanation. You probably want somebody a little bit larger there, but I'd be curious to see what ASAR can do.

Either that, you know, make the flexibility decision of starting Stewart at center. You put Tobias on Miles Turner, and Stu is one of the best Janus stoppers in the league, like one of the very best. Another one, how much leeway will Jade and Ivy get? Like I said, Baker staff didn't really trust Ivy at all that much. last season. I mean, at the beginning of the season, he was used a lot on kind of like attack and catching off the move and scoring sets, which gradually went away for reasons they don't understand. When he was on with the second unit and K was off the floor, it was really immediately playmaking

by committee rather than Ivy leading the offense. Again, I don't think Ivy's really ever going to be an ideal lead handler, but that was interesting. So it's like, is Ivy going to get more latitude, his Bigger Staff willing to give him that? I think part of it last season was that Bigger Staff really didn't get the offense, really set until around the new year, just when Ivy was taking off and then of course Ivy was done for the season. So who knows how it would have made, you know, how it would have looked. Mentioned Asar's ability to provide better offense. And anyway, if that's off the ball, great, if he can just provide more of something, of course, the utility of that is going to be inversely proportional with the quality of the offense he's facing,

the defense he's facing rather, because the best defenses are just able to punish him much more easily. He's a more predictable player. They've got better defenders, probably better coached. And then he kind of just gets taken off the board. You know, if he's improved enough to make more of a dent in that negative value, that also comes from being a spacing liability, that's pretty big deal. Jalen Duren, I've mentioned and talked about ad nauseum, can he make a leap defensively? Can he sustain consistent effort throughout the season? Of course, that's a big deal.

And even if they sign him to an extension, which, of course, would take a huge offensive leap, a defensive leap, excuse me. Then, you know, that's going to be a worry. He's not Drummond, obviously, but Drummond, the first season he really took off was the first season of his new contract. It doesn't typically happen in the NBA. You typically don't have guys just put forth crappy effort. You know, it's a good way to find yourself out of the league,

but also these are competitors who want to win. Also want to get paid, of course. But Duren's leap needs to be in the area of defensive acumen. I mean, he just needs to get smarter. Like the ability to make the right reads decisions and reactions on a split second basis at the most difficult defensive position against the best players in the world and offenses that are rendered down to a science

and will attack you if you're weak. well, the attack you if you're weak part is less important, but all the rest of it, that's a skill. Some guys have it in spades, and that allows, you know, not really very athletic guys like Draymond Green, for example, to be elite defenders. And most guys are average, and then you have some guys just don't really have it. And the question about during coming into the league, especially after his working season, how much of his struggles, though he was more just kind of like a poor and robbed defender back then, but it's like you hope that, you know, what, you know, the guys,

In his defense were more just lack of seasoning than lack of acumen. Now seems more likely to be the latter rather than the former. If he can make that, it would be great. It would be something to watch, I think, if he's still really struggling by the deadline. Because the guy got, I mean, he was fine against bad defenses. He was less fine against decent defenses, and he was a major liability against good defenses. And you just, you can't have good offenses, rather. Not good.

Yeah. Bad offenses, okay, offenses and, you know, good offenses. So against good offenses, you. Yeah, he was such a huge problem. He just got run over. So got to be able to do that. And, you know, he's talked about improvements offensively. He still seems, based on what he said in the press conference, to be on media day,

to be more focused on offense than I would like. I mean, defense is really where it's at for his player archetype. The probability of any traditional center kind of breaking through the traditional center ceiling is low. I mean, so much of what makes these guys what they are is natural, kind of native talents. That's why when you see people say, for example, oh, Scoot's going to be mentored offensively by Damien Willard and defensively by Drew Holliday. It's like you can't just go in and teach these things. Like you can't just, I mean, Lillard has a brilliant mind offensively and just had just a great body for it too. and Holiday had great body for defense and a great defensive mind.

You can't just teach these things. So typically when a guy gets into the NBA, he's not far away from what he's going to be. I mean, you really see those talents having manifested themselves to a great degree already. So if a guy comes in just not shooting at all, and this is not an equivalency to, there's no equivalency in the cases of Horford and Lopez and whatnot,

guys who were skilled offensive bigs in college and, you know, it had that upside. is very, very rare to see a guy come in and bust through the traditional big ceiling and be able to suddenly create offense or shoot. There is exactly one guy in the last 10 years. I'm using the last 10 years because before that hardly enters any shooters, or excuse me, any center shot. He looked at Myers-Lennard, who was a unicorn because he, you know, in 2014, 2015, because he was a center who hit one three a game at 40%. So not quite as applicable back then because none of them were shooting. but since the advent of the spacing era,

I mean the number of guys who, not none of them, but very few of them were shooting. It was just not a requirement. And yeah, it was just not really an asset that was tapped at the time. But in the last 10 years, you know, since the beginning of the spacing era, which I date to 2015, there is one guy who came into the league as a traditional center and has become a reliable shooter, you know,

and a guy whom it makes sense to have shoot threes, that's bam out of bio. And he became a reliable shooter in season, number eight. So if Doran can develop a reliable jump shot, that is not only at a good percentage, but it just makes sense for the offense to have him operating on the perimeter rather than the interior where his primary skills are always going to lie as a role man and a finisher and a vertical spacer, you know, whether that's in the role or otherwise. I mean, if you can do that, great. I wouldn't rate the likelihood as high. And I think the notion that he has been given the green light was kind of a joke,

is afterward he said no for real. I'm actually doing such and such. And I've also seen talk about, oh, we just need him to develop a mid-range jumper. Like mid-range offense is so difficult to make efficient. Beyond that, there's an opportunity cost in having a center tick those shots, which is that he's not around the basket, whether it's clearing out space or just being open for much, much higher percentage opportunities. Like drastically higher percentage, like we're talking.

For the average guy who's shooting mid-range, I mean, very few guys are even, able to make it work for, you know, in the mid-40s. And finishing around the rim for a center, you're going to be 20% better than that, unless you're drummins. Sorry, I can't resist. And hardly any, I mean, mid-range offense for centers is virtually dead. If you look at the number of guys who attempted two mid-range jumpers, centers last year,

it was, you know, like four All-Star caliber players and DeAndre Aden, who was still quite talented offensively, even though he's a total waste of talent. And then if you expand it to one and a half, you add a guy who has been an all-star twice on the basis, pretty much exclusively of his offense, as Vujavich, and then the aforementioned greatest offensive center in the history of the NBA. It's, and out of all of those guys, I think one was actually efficient for mid-range last year. So are they going to be having Duran take mid-range jumpers? It's pretty much, that's a dead art among centers. The only, case in which it would make sense for him to take them is, you know, pull-ups off the pick-and-roll.

Very tough to make those efficient. You're not going to be spotting up Duren, you know, to take jumpers from, you know, the top of the key. That just makes no sense. It's, you can do far, there's so much you can do, the things we could do with him, you know, having actions you can run with him that are always going to make drastically more sense than having him do that. But again, the defense is so much more important. Duren is already more than good enough for a traditional big on offense. Now he needs to be good enough for a traditional big on defense. Holland's shooting, I'm confident. So the issue wasn't that his stroke was bad. Like I have three categories of players coming into the league. You've got good mechanics, bad percentage, Jalen Brown.

Kind of like okay mechanics, bad percentage. That's Holland. And then bad mechanics, bad percentage. That sadly is the Thompson twins, where you just see a lot of bricks and just bad form. Holland's form is okay. I mean, he did have a lot of clanks, but very correctable stuff. He has said that it was his lower body strength. That was the issue. Certainly, Summer League, albeit low volume, was encouraging. I think he'll be at least at 34% sure this season, maybe even get up to 36, 37%. I mean, working with the best shooting coach in the game is going to be helpful. Also, of course, Holland is an extremely hard worker. Some guys work hard out. It doesn't matter. But I'd be shocked if Harlem is one of those guys. And if you can shoot, it becomes a drastically more effective offensive player. So not only is he not a spacing liability, and he was left open constantly to take threes and not do well on them. Now he's able to take that very efficient shot and finish plays from the perimeter. And like the very efficient, what I mean is that for guys who can shoot them,

threes are a highly efficient shot. That's why they're prioritized so much. When you look at half court points per possession being, well, I think highest of all time last season, or highest in a long time, at least I can. can't speak to like the 80s or whatnot, though. That'd be shocked if they got up to one point per possession in the 80s, given how few threes were being attempted. You know, that's 33.3% from three is getting you up to that threshold.

You know, if you're hitting your threes at 36%, then you're well above that threshold. And it's all about the math in the NBA these days. You got to keep up. That's why all offenses look so similar for the most part is that wide open threes are just incredibly efficient shots. So beyond that, you know, if you have to close out on Holland, he's, he's, He's very athletic. He's going to have a good time, you know, a really good shot of getting to the rim. And we see his upside at the rim and transition. I think he'll be able to convert that to a degree into the half court as well. And he's no longer, if he can shoot, going to be sagged off on. He's again, you sag off on him. He's just going to shoot the ball. And if you don't sag off on him, he has a much better shot at getting past you. So I think we'll see Holland take a significant leap offensively. It might not happen early in the season, but I think we will see it during the season. Stewart's role offensively I had written down here. I've already gone over that.

Just need the guy shooting more threes. Need to have him used really that shooting effectively by bigger staff. Again, whether that's pick and pops, spacing the floor while Kate attacks one-on-one, just shooting threes in general, you know, just allowing the team to take advantage of a five-out offense. Or providing some minor compensation for a SAR not being able to shoot. Zarr will still have trouble as a role man because they'll just slap their center on him. And the smaller player on Stewart, and regrettably is not really able to do much off the dribble. He's not going to be able to punish that matchup. But unless it's down low, I guess you can make that case.

But, yeah, you put your center on a SAR, and then his job as a role man becomes quite a bit more difficult. Now, yeah, I mean, even if he's added more on-ball juice, you're going to be attacking a sagged off center into a pack paint. But still, better to have four shooters around him than three shooters. You know, for the most part, against bad defenses, you know, that's you're fine but the better the defense gets you know the more helpful that will be size already gone over already big lineups you know the pistons will certainly have access to lineups in which every

player will be six eight or uh excuse me six six or taller uh you know jen ivy's the only projective rotation player who falls below that threshold and he's by no means small and it's pretty beefy but every whittal bit in the NBA helps it is just kind of it's like fractions of fractions and fractions of an advantage. Every little bit helps. That's why the league is trending so much toward, you know, taller players. This is why smaller players are getting increasingly squeezed out unless they get a lot of on-ball juice.

Because if you're a bigger player, you are less susceptible to being attacked as, you know, as a seismic match. And you can also, you know, provide the ability for your team to generate seismic matches as well. And then on that subject, most importantly, can Marcus Sasser achieve his potential? And that's a joke. Sasser, I mean, you got to like the guy. He's a hard worker. You know, very hard worker and clearly a team guy. But just going back to his size, I mean, those situations in which you see like Josh Giddy attacking him and he can work as hard as he wants and he does work hard on defense, but it's just there's nothing you can do. It's just the size is a disadvantage. But I've talked about that more than enough,

and it's not an important subject for the pistons anyway. I guess I'd add to that. Is there going to be enough shooting? Karas Levert is a bit of a shaky shooter. He's actually better than Dennis Schroeder, who did well in the postseason, but for the most part is a pretty unreliable shooter from the perimeter. And he does have more juice attacking downhill.

He's not quite as good of a playmaker, but he is quite a bit better at attacking the rim as something that Schroeder is just not good at. But, you know, is the shooting going to be there? Like, can Holland improve? Can Leverett be reliable? Can Tobias get closer to his career baseline? I think the answer to that is yes.

He started really bad, you know, last season, like really bad. And for a guy who'd been so consistent throughout his career, that wasn't going to last. He got better over the course of the season, of course. Stewart, you know, the shooting there will help. You need to have adequate spacing. Tim Hardaway, Jr. was a minus overall. But, you know, he could hit his wide open threes. very good percentage. Beasley, of course, had one of the greatest catch and shoot

seasons ever. So, you know, can Ivy shoot? Like, yeah, he shot a good percentage last season, but on relatively low volume. And as somebody, you know, you know who you are if you're listening to this and I'll credit you for this one since I didn't notice it is, you know, you take away a small number of his threes, has made threes last season and he drops to a much, you know, significantly worse percentage. So, yeah, can Ivey shoot? Can can Leverch shoot? Can Duncan Robinson and come close to replacing what Beasley did, and I think the answer to that is probably because he's a fantastic shooter.

But can Tobias shoot, can Holland shoot, can Isaiah Stewart shoot, can all these guys basically shoot at a good enough percentage for the pistons to keep up? And that's why you've got to be hitting these wide-open threes. And, you know, can a SAR shoot? That would be fantastic. I guess you can go with Dern as well,

but I'm not expecting that. But you just got to have adequate spacing, like guys who are not getting wide open to clog the paints and are just free to bomb away because they're not hitting it and also just not being able to convert on your wide open threes, which is just an absolutely integral factor in keeping up on offense with teams that can. So that's pretty much the size of what I had written down. I mean, you could look at the coaching as well. I'd like J.B. Bickerstaff to be a little bit more dynamic.

Maybe you'll be willing to do that with the somewhat more seasoned team. But you never know with Bickerstaff. I mean, he's a really good locker room guy. he's a good defensive guy on offense. It's occasionally hit or miss. That's going to be a bigger issue in the playoffs. And, you know, I continue to think that if the Pistons win a championship, then, you know, I think things are, well, we'll find out what direction they're heading in,

but I'm hopeful. It'll be another coach who gets them there. It's just coaching matters a lot more on the postseason. But that's neither here nor there heading into the regular season. And then a final factor, of course, health. That is a huge factor. for any team. Whether it's just missing some guys for a short amount of time or being butchered like the Sixers were last season and going in the next season. In fact, you never know

with Paul George. Ambide is not looking good and Jared McCain managed to tear a ligament or tendon. I can't remember which in his thumb. It's rough. I mean, injuries can really undo your season. You just hope, you know, you just get durable guys on your team and you hope that they stay as healthy as possible. Being a younger team, of course, does help things. All right. So that'll be it for this episode. We'll be back in the next one with some preseason impressions and some more extensive player previews. So as always, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. I'll be doing great. I'll catch you in the next episode.