Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 24: Recapping Free Agency

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

This episode recaps the team's decisions in free agency, discusses the overall strategy, and profiles the players involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Drive In the Basket. I am Mike. I am here with Tommy. And this is going to be the free agency review episode. This is actually our second take. We recorded this for the first time on I believe Saturday, but neither of us are really happy with the episodes. We're doing it again. So we're just going to talk about really what happened. It was a very, very active offseason, excuse me, very active offseason with regards to the draft and free agency. As of the recording this episode, training camp has already been. begun. Preseason begins on the 11th of December. For those of you aren't familiar with the schedule, the Pistons are playing two games against the Knicks and two games against the Washington Wizards. It will end on the 19th, and that's followed by the regular season beginning on the 22nd of December. I still don't think that the schedule has been released yet, the full schedule. We do know, however, that in a true outrage of outrages, the Pistons are. not playing on Christmas Day, you know, boo-hoo. So anyway, just a couple of further notes before we really get started.

Number one, the Pistons, well, we're going into the off-season right now, and it's not the off-season. We're in training camp right now until the day before the regular season begins, the Pistons can carry up to 20 standard contracts. When the season begins, then they need to be down to 15 standard contracts, plus two-two-way contracts. They're right now at 16, guaranteed MBA contracts. And so somebody will have to go before the beginning of the season. We'll talk about that a bit later.

Another thing, and this could wind up being important for the Pistons, given the preponderance of young players on the roster, and also the fact that quite a few veterans joined the team over the course of free agency. The G-League season is in doubt. Of course, we're still dealing with coronavirus. That's likely to be the case for, unfortunately, nobody likes to hear this. I certainly don't, but not likely to be out of the woods until the spring, and that'll be four months into the NBA season for, yeah, roughly.

You know, who knows what will happen. Either way, the G League, there's been talk about a bubble in Atlanta. It's really unsure. I think it's somewhat unclear if all the teams will be participating. Either way, not having a G League season would be pretty unfortunate for the Pistons. because it's going to be tough to find everybody minutes. You really, I think in most situations, prefer to allow players to play 20, 30 minutes in the G League rather than 10, 5, or in some cases, this happens, zero minutes with the NBA team.

So, moving on to the meat of it, the overall off-season review. Now, this was, to say the least, pretty eventful for the Pistons. I think I can safely say both for Tommy and I that it did not go as we expected. However, we have different opinions on how it went overall. So for my part, not a big fan. I don't think it was terrible, but you don't want it to be said about free agency that you didn't have a terrible free agency period. Of course, I said off-season review.

We already talked about the draft in the last episode. So for the purpose of that, just talking about free agency. So I was, if not confused, just really disappointed by the way that Troy Weaver conducted himself in his first free agency. I think it's clear at this point. He's made very clear what his objectives were. But the way I see it, the idea of a rebuild, the best way to rebuild is going to be, in the vast majority of cases, to develop talents while maintaining maximum flexibility. in terms of the salary cap and in terms of your future contracts and maximizing the impact of that

flexibility. And that flexibility can be capitalized upon toward, for example, taking on bad contracts for cap space. Or maybe you find, you know, and that can be aided by, you know, if you have a bunch of one-year contracts, a new team, which are, you know, the standard fare for a rebuilding team. That's helpful as well. You have other salary to send over in the course of taking on that back contract. And whatever. Basically, very nice as we saw over the summer, excuse me, over the draft. I'm still having trouble thinking about this. This is the first NBA offseason in which the off season was actually in the fall. So we saw in the draft that Troy Weaver got himself a first round pick and a second round pick by taking unwanted contracts

into salary cap space. And that's really nice to have. So I think I think what I would like to see the business do is sign some kind of some veterans to won your contracts because you don't want some veterans on the team in addition to just Rose and Griffin. And then just go from there. You give them the young guys as much playing time as they merit. And then the next year you've got a bunch of money off the books and in the off season from those one year deals. And then you decide where, you know, where to go from there. basically it just gives you options and it gives you the best chance at accumulating further assets and if who knows maybe things go unexpectedly well and then with those contracts off the books

then you're free to pivot into free agency and do something either way instead the person just nuked all the flexibility they had and you know they spent all the cap space they had they gave out two three year contracts for fairly big money in aggregate they also put bear in front of the young players. I mean, I think they're going to have trouble getting enough minutes to go around. And, of course, that assumes that all the players are ready for minutes. The latter, of course, as I said, if there's no G-League season, then it's not like, okay, well, the guys will just play in the G-League and develop there. Because if there's due league season, then they can't. And, you know, there's stuff beyond that, like, you know, stretching a contract during multiple contracts, as it were in this off-season.

It's just completely an utterly bizarre for a team in the first season of a really. rebuild first off season to rebuild. You know, you don't, it's not a huge deal having $4 million in dead space, but you really don't want it. Again, less flexibility. The new players have the potential to add wins, and you don't want that. You don't even want to take that chance for a team that really is going to be looking to build through the draft.

And I'm currently living in fear of a situation in which everything somehow comes together for the pistons, and they become a 30-win team that would be horrible, you know, for the sake of actually building a, you know, potential contender. and yeah, that's just how I feel about the off season. I don't think it was done in the best possible way. I think that we've wanted to build a culture and didn't want the team to be absolutely terrible, but I think it didn't need to be done this way. Now, Tommy, I know you think a little bit differently than I, actually quite a bit differently,

about the way things went. Right. Yeah. So in previous years, when we've talked about what we wanted to see the Pistons do, common thing of course we both won rebuilds and we both kind of envisioned it the same way it was like maximum tanking maximum minutes for the young guys signed veterans to one-year deals and then you look at what we were did so I'm kind of thinking about these moves as a whole and the idea here seems pretty clear they're trying to go for reestablishing a defensive culture or a culture of

hard work and accountability between the guys and they signed a lot of guys who they probably didn't deserve the contracts and the numbers they got, especially in the bigger pickups. But everybody that they signed, they have this reputation of working hard or playing defense, and they're good locker room guys, with the exception to maybe one or two of the cheaper guys. And especially watching Weaver's media availability.

The common theme is always they want to change the culture, and they know that they paid above market value for some of these guys. But it seems like that was their ultimate. goal. It was like their first goal. And I agree, you know, adding dead money for several seasons is irritating, but they seem to make all these moves with specific reasons in mind. And you couldn't say that about some of the pickups of the past where it was, they're just trying to sign the best process possible. So I'm happy about that at least. And I know in the past I've talked about, like, especially when Casey or other people have talked about, you know,

we want to establish a winning culture. I was always, I was never a big fan of that because it always felt like an excuse for the win now moves that were kind of the direct cause of our mediocrity. But here it seems like they're kind of trying to lay a new base. We were talked about emulating the identities of hard work and defensive effort of the best championship piston teams of the past. And I know we've talked about how you can't win championships on defense anymore, but I think there are going to be more moves down the line. Maybe they do end up tanking properly or they get good position in the lottery. They're a great offensive talents in the upcoming drafts.

You add those at that point. And one of the things I kind of like is, you know, a lot of people talk about what Miami's done over the past few years. And you know that I'm a big fan of their offense, but there's more to it than that, you know, they've killed some of their flexibility with questionable moves and trading way first rounders and stuff like that. But they've managed to get to the finals last year

in part certainly because of their big market appeal and they got some great free agents. But the Miami Heat culture is a real thing. And combined with excellent coaching from Spolstra, things like conditioning and the effort that they put in, it's one of the reasons that they've achieved what they have achieved. And I think that's kind of what we were trying to go for here. So in that sense, all this seems like a genuine effort to really change that culture. and it seems shaky to me because it's kind of like they're trying to accomplish two things at once. You know, they're not trying to sign the best players available and win as many games as possible.

But a lot of these moves, you know, you could say that some of these guys are going to add wins. You don't want to add so many wins that really hurt your draft position. And even then, you know, your primary objective should still be, you know, lose as many games as possible so that even if you don't win the lottery, you don't get pushed down as far. So there's risk there, but it seems very, very important to Weaver, you know, that they change this culture. And that's kind of what they've done. They've brought in all these guys, even the guys who they picked up in the draft, they're all guys who kind of work hard, defend hard, and very coachable guys. So in that sense, I kind of understand what they're going for here.

their primary objective hasn't been to maintain flexibility or even lose as many games as possible. It's change the culture, reset the culture. And it sounds like such a cliche, you know. There are so many teams who would love to just change their culture. And they talk about that, but this seems like a real plan to actually do it. So that's kind of the way. I mean, you could say that I've kind of rationalized that. But I think it's just the way I've interpreted these moves.

I'd say it's kind of looking on the bright. said. I mean, yeah, it's like I said, I don't think the, I don't think free agency was terrible. I just don't think it was good. I don't think it was done in the optimal fashion. I don't think it was a disaster. Yeah, I just don't, I really don't, I just don't like the way. I don't like the strategy. Yeah, cultures are well and good. And sure, you know, you always, it's great to have the young guys brought up in a good culture, a hardworking culture. Of course, these guys, the young guys, were drafted in part based on their, you know, based on their own, I don't know, say cultural impact, personalities, to put it this way.

They are all hardworking team first guys. You know, great work ethic, you know, just very mature mentality and so on and so forth. I don't know about Savenly actually. I think they can tell you about him, but definitely Stewart Bay and Hayes all fit that profile. I almost feel like Stewart, who's mature beyond his years and just has a great mindset, is almost drafted in part just to be the team dad. down the line. So, I mean, it comes down to these players. I think I said this in the last episode, who I'm sure I will like, and well, I like them on the court. It's a different story,

particularly, I'm saying particularly when it comes to Stewart. I think Hazel maybe a little bit rusty to begin with, and maybe be a little bit raw. I might take him some time, or it might not. And I think Bay will translate pretty well. I don't think he'll be really a high-ceiling player, but I think his game will translate well. But when it comes to Stewart, it's will it translate well or not? That's hard to say. We went over what we will each think he'll have to do to become a good NBA player. Nonetheless, yeah, culture is well and good.

I think it could have been done a lot less expensively and in a way that could have maintained flexibility to a much greater extent. You can go out and have those guys, you know, have some decent, decent veteran presences who will come to your team on either one-year deals or one-year deals with a team option, when your deals with non-guaranteed second-year salary. That's what you're typically looking at through a rebuild. Sure, you might sign some guys to longer-term contracts

if you think they're really worth being at, you know, keeping around after rebuild, like guys who take me a flyer on them. I just, I think it could have, it could have been gone about in a better way. And yeah, it's like you said, you don't want to add wins. And sure, there's been lottery reform, so it's not necessary to be the worst possible team, but there's still as a benefit to being the worst possible team. I mean, not, I'm not saying, okay, let's go out there. just feel the team that's going to be terrible because there are downsides to that.

I don't necessarily agree with the philosophy that it's going to ruin your young players. I think the Sixers are proof that you can come up in a terrible team and still become pretty good player. But if you are the worst team in the league, you are guaranteed to pick, for example, in the top five. I mean, obviously, you don't want to be fifth. It happens. You got less than 50-50 shot at it. But if you are the second worst team, you're guaranteed to pick in the top six. and you know, you're, it's like 80% that you'll pick in the top five.

It is about 50% you're picking the top four and so on and so forth. Like when the Pistons picked seventh this last year, well, seventh was their most likely outcome. So, yeah, they pick seventh, right? Jesus, it's draft is recently that I can't believe I'm forgetting about it. So much stuff has happened since then. So there are still benefits to being one of those worst teams. and you also, you want to be one of the, you really don't, ideally don't want to drop past number four if you're really going for that number one overall pick. And there will be more guys than, you know, there at least, it's a deep draft coming up, 2021.

That's why you saw hardly anybody trade away a 2021 pick, only to Timberwolves, a team of questionable wisdom. And they're really going to be focused this year on not screwing it up and have to look and say, oh, goodness, gracious. We traded away that pick and we're still awful. And, yeah, boo, that would be just, that would be a difficult pill to swallow. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I'm just not a fan of the way you went about it. I mean, I think that's Grant. No, I understand what you're saying.

It's just, I understand, like, it seems like a really dicey thing to try and maintain the balance between, you know, developing these young guys and making sure that you don't hurt your lottery odds too much. but also trying to be competitive. They never say they're trying to win. They always say they're trying to be competitive. And it'll be, I really doubt that they can hold that mentality over a losing effort over a 72 game season. So in that sense, like that's why it's really questionable. And people have looked at it like, what are you doing?

Because they've made moves that you would want to make if you were trying to win. And they've made some of these moves where it's like, well, you want to lose out. So in that sense, yeah, I agree with you. It's not, it's like they're trying to do two things at once. And usually when you do that, you can't do either of them really, really well. So I don't know. It's riskier, but I understand what they're going for. Yeah, that was one of the disappointing.

Thanks for me as I looked at it on the first night of free agency. And I'm like, oh my goodness. So the Pistons trying to have one foot in rebuilding and one foot in trying to compete now, which is, of course, what they have done since 2000. Well, I mean, they were competing in the beginning of 2008-2009 season, but the Pistons until last year had spent every single year trying to win now, trying to rebuild on the fly, quote, unquote, which is generally going to be a disastrous philosophy.

At the very least, it's much less likely to succeed than a true rebuild. And, yeah, there are no guarantees in any rebuild, but we're talking about probabilities here. So, yeah, just the possibility, the possibility of more wins just scares me. And I know, you could say, well, if Blake Griffin, for example, plays well, oh, then you trade him. But it's like, it, the mechanics of that are not quite so easy. I think that a lot has been, I think that a lot has been made of what Zach Lowe said, that I think there's going to be a market for Griffin. Number one, it was an I think, not an I know.

And number two, it was, I don't think it's going to be a great market. You know, they're just going to be some teams that are interested in, oh, what can you do to help us win? But the mechanics of trading a guy who's making his salary are difficult. I mean, there are just not a lot of teams you can look at out there. And also, Griffin is not a plug-in-play player. We've talked about this before. He is a very fit-dependent player. And if he has to share usage with another star player, he's going to be significantly worse.

Because the only way in which he can really truly effectively play is if the team plays around him. And also, if he has the ball in his hands as much as humanly possible. Plus, just as a power forward who can only play one position, can flex up to center, can't flex down to small forward and just, you know, he spends a lot of his time and basically locks his team into an archaic form of offense. So I think there will probably be options if he plays well, but it could be could very well play pretty well throughout the course of the season. And the pistons just can't swing a trade because that's difficult. And then I'm sure in that case in the off season, some, you know, there would be teams that are, that will be strikeouts on a max free agents, maybe more max free agents or maybe less, depending on

players take options or not, or excuse me, opt out or not. I guess that meant the same thing. And that might be your best chance to move Griffin, but he could play very well and you're not able to move them this season. And that adds wins. And maybe everything comes together and that adds wins. But I'd like to go back to, you know, you mentioned that, yeah, you want to establish culture and still, you know, be able to play your young guys a lot. They might not be able to play their young guys a lot. You know, they're, at the very least, they're not going to be minutes to go around for all of them. If you want to give minutes to Seku and you want to give minutes to Bay, then, and you're playing behind Griffin and Grant, both of whom will probably be

playing at least 32 minutes a night. Where's Josh Jackson, for example, going to find his minutes. It'll be a little tough for him. And suddenly the pistons have like five or six shooting guards. None of them are particularly good. But are those guys, you know, are the young guys and that crew going to get their minutes? I don't think we need to worry about Killian Hayes at all, obviously. I think they're going to give him as much run as he can. I'm not thrilled about him playing next to Blake Griffin because I don't think that'll be good for his. I don't think that will be the ideal situation for his development playing next to somebody as ball dominant as Griffin.

And it's like I've said before, Griffin, if you take him off the ball, he becomes an exceptionally highly paid spot-up shooter. He's not bad at it, but that's not really what you want. not the Pistons care, but that's just not the way he plays. He is not a good off-ball mover, and he's no longer an effective role man and so on and so forth. If you take him off the ball, then whatever. If he's willing to play that role, great. Nobody cares anymore if the Pistons are going to win. So I will say regardless of the off-season, I am excited to see a Pistons team

that is actually going to be a team, you know, like a team full of players who are working hard, who are playing conscientiously, and are actually looking at, you know, it's like, I don't remember who said this. I think it was Darren McCarty, actually, about Steve Eiserman, who said, you know, these great players, I'm paraphrasing, these great players you're looking at, you know, really filling up the score sheet, but the only statistic Steve Eiserman cared about was wins. And I think the Pistons have a lot of players like that on the roster now.

Guys, all they care about is the wins, like hopefully not this upcoming season, but all they care about is playing in the way that's going to best be fit their team. And after the horrible dark era that was watching Drummond go out and loaf around the court and to try to be the offensive superstar he will never be. And, you know, in the first two years of Reggie Jackson, the unrepentant egotaniac, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a whole bunch of really, really irritating players, Josh Smith, obviously. So I am looking forward to that.

So it's not like I feel terrible and all is lost. I just, I really disapprove of the way Weaver went about this. And I do think it is, you know, him. you know, kind of trying to put one foot over the line. I think, you know, if you're looking at, you know, this is an actual metaphor, then I think he, you know, his, I don't know, if you want to look at two legs, then his groin is more over the line in the rebuild direction. But I really don't like that, that, you know, that one foot is even slightly into the,

into the other area because I just, I think that is lessened. I think that has decreased the effect. effectiveness of this rebuild. Right. All right, anything to add before we move on to the players themselves? Yeah. I mean, looking at, I was watching some of the media availability, and, you know, sometimes it's lip service, but Casey did talk about, you know, he talked to Blake Griffin about, you know, taking on a role as more of a mentor. Blake talked about that as well. And the other thing that Casey said, I don't have the direct quote in front of me, but he said he was going to try to force feed some of these young guys. That's probably talking about Killian Hayes in particular. But

I don't think he's going to put the development of the young guys on the back burner. I think him and Weaver are kind of on the same page in terms of what they want to get done. And I'm sure Weaver recognizes, especially since he's like such a big fan of the draft and young guys. It's not like Stan Van Gunney. He was like the draft picks are an afterthought. It's Weaver really likes to, he's talked about he loves the draft. So I'm sure that Weaver talked to Casey and he's like, look, we need to focus on the development of these young guys. And especially like Blake Griffin's comments, you know, it still remains to be seen.

whether this actually comes into fruition, you know, you have to maintain the egos of some of these, you know, big-name guys, especially how Jeremy Grant said he came here for a bigger role that he probably wasn't going to get in Denver. You know, how do you manage that, plus the development of Seku and Sadiq Bay, you know, both whom, you know, Griffin talked about how Bay already has such a complete game and he's, like, very good for his age. And then Saku, who probably has one of the higher ceilings on the team, you know, managing all that's going to be tough. And, you know, if you can trade Griffin, maybe that becomes a lot easier. But it all remains to be seen. It's going to be really hard to juggle all that. It goes back to, like,

how difficult they've kind of made getting everything done is going to be. But it's something that I have faith, because I know we talked about how Casey really seems to favor his vets. Maybe there's some indication that he's going to move away from that in favor of the long-term plans. for this team. That's something I hope that we see. Yeah, I, one thing, you've, I'm sure I've said this on here before, that Casey shows his veterans all do deference. And that was something that's always really concerned me with respect to his efficacy as a coach and a rebuild. Absolutely.

Yeah. And it was the case in Toronto that really full emphasis was put by Casey on the development of that young crew, Fred Van Vleet, Norman Powell, and Dilan Wright, Oji Annie Novi, Yacobico Pertil, and Pascal Seacum, largely after Maasai got rid of all the veterans, I mean, because Casey,

just had a, I know for Raptors fans, an extremely irritating history of just prioritizing veterans who are often worse than the younger players ahead of whom he was playing, ahead of whom he was playing them.

That said, we saw with the case of Brown that Casey is more than willing to give minutes to a rookie who will compete hard on defense and just play hard in general. Of course, for Brown, it was kind of a matter of, you know, happy circumstances for him, not for the team as a whole team at large. But there was a lot of serendipity there for Brown because there was just nobody. He got in there basically, Kyrie Thomas got injured early,

Gary Thomas, who would have been ahead probably because he could shoot. and the Pistons didn't really have anybody good for the position at the time. And you weren't going to start Langston Galloway. It just kind of ended up that way for Brown. And the more I talk about it, the more I'm thinking, well, this was partially just because that roster was an absolute horrible train wreck. But we know that Casey values guys like that. So it's just, I always shudder a little bit, you know, when I hear things like, you know, do anything while we compete.

I don't like to hear that. I don't know if it's just lip service. I don't know if it just means we're going to try not to be horrible. But I think it's just the experience of having the experience with the Pistons over the past, you know, however many years when they were actually serious about that. Like, oh, we're going to try to rebuild on the fly. and improve the team and make the playoffs. Obviously, that's not the situation now, but just for the sake of whatever.

I just wish things had gone a little bit differently and just the focus was entirely in development. And I just think that culture can be built in ways that we're not this. So let's move on to the player profiles. First will be the Pistons marquee free agent signing. That is Jeremy Grant, 20 million per year for three years. he was for those of you noticed that he actually came to Detroit by way of sign and trade that was just a salary cap maneuver to earn the nuggets a salary cap exception it did not

excuse me a salary cap exception of trade exception I'm not going to go into discussing that because it can it could take a little while and that's just not what we're talking about right now the NBA CDA the collective bargaining agreement is really complicated it makes the NHL's collective bargaining agreement, look like a children's novel. So in any event, so it earns the Nuggets, a trade exception. What the Pistons got out of it beyond goodwill is unclear.

They got the rights to an extremely unremarkable point guard who was drafted five years ago by the Nuggets and will almost certainly never play in the NBA in part because he's just by all indications nowhere near good enough. Whatever. So, Grant's, is 26. He's what I'd call a 3-D and finish player. You know, we all know what 3 and D means.

A guy who can stretch the, you know, well, stretch the 4 is barely an applicable term, given that it's almost unacceptable not to be able to shoot in the NBA at any position these days. But there's a guy who can shoot 3s at a high percentage off-catching shoots. He can play very good defense. He does an excellent defender in the playoffs last year against some good players.

And he's very good at finishing off cuts and passes through open lanes and whatnot. What he is not is a good creator. So he came to Detroit over returning to Denver at the same salary. And by the way, I really, really, really, really strongly doubt that the Nuggets offered him $20 million right off the bat. No, it was surprising he got that salary from the Pistons. Or he was offered that by anybody. I'm almost certain that Denver came in and offered to match it because it made more sense for them to pay, to overpay for Jeremy Grant than to lose him for nothing. because as a team that's already over the cap.

He's trying to compete right now. It was going to be difficult for them to replace him, and it just made more sense to overpay him to keep him. He ultimately went to Detroit instead because he, for the promise of a larger offensive role. Now, this is when it comes in that he's actually, at least at this point in his career, has been really bad at creating for himself.

Like last season, he, in first place, he was unassisted on only 20% of his makes at the rim and 10% of his threes. He shot a very good, 62% effective field goal percentage on assisted shots when he tried to create for himself. That was 44%. Very bad. So he's coming to Detroit. He's going to get his shot at a larger offensive role. It could end up being ugly. But Grant's basically just betting on himself.

I'm sure he would enjoy having an expanded row either way. He was going to be a basically an offensive role player with the Nuggets because they have other guys who are better scorers. So on Detroit's, you know, maybe he'll just enjoy it. But also if he succeeds and develops further, then he's looking at a bigger payday at age 29, which is really going to be, is generally, players, I mean, that's their best last chance to cash in on a huge contract unless you're LeBron James and you functionally never get older. So, but if it doesn't work out, then he's still a pretty darn good 3-indee player. and he's going to get a contract anyway. So it's just, again, Weaver really liked him for, again, for culture reasons. Weaver said he could have played on either of those Pistons championship teams.

He's just a real hardworking guy who really competes on defense and so on and so forth. I don't see how that really made it worthwhile for the Pistons to, you know, effectively spend, you know, counting the Deadman buyout like $23 million a year on him. I don't think that's really worthwhile. I don't care that he's overpaid. It's more just that that cap space has gone. And again, Godad wins, serves no immediate purpose, takes minutes away from younger players. So not a huge fan, especially if you're looking at a guy who is going to be given more offensive responsibility.

You know, it's offensive creation and just offensive share is a zero-sum game. I mean, if you give it to somebody, you're taking it away from somebody else. Griffin's probably already going to be taking a fair share of it. I don't want that taken away from the younger players, particularly Killian Hayes. And what Jeremy Grant's going to want to be doing more of is creating off the dribble. So either way, it projects to be the team starting small forward if, you know, I'm sure most of us are hoping for this. If Blake Griffin gets moved, very likely he moves power forward. So those are my thoughts on Jeremy Grant.

What do you think, Tommy? Yeah, I'm with you. This is the scariest signing for me because it's, out of all the ones that we've made, he probably adds the most wins. And I think we could have gone on without him. I feel like just from what I've seen with Sadiq Bey and, you know, the comments that other players have made about him, I think it would have been fine to start him straight off. But, you know, maybe he's like you said, like a trade piece down the line.

It's another good target for Killian on the perimeter. Maybe that helps, you know, space the floor. It'll make things easier for him. But, yeah, this is a signing I could have gone without. You know, it really hurts our flexibility, like you mentioned. And it makes this whole, you know, trying to lose while remaining competitive, a lot harder. So I'm not a huge fan of this signing. Maybe they really believe in his ability to, you know, contribute to changing the culture of this team.

I know Weaver has a history with him going back, like way past the same. summer. So maybe that's the factor as well. But yeah, no, this is a, this is a confusing pickup from the rebuild standpoint. Yeah, maybe you can trade them in a couple of years. I don't know. It kind of depends on how he plays. It kind of depends on where the salary cap sits. I mean, $23 million is a not insignificant amount of money. I mean, you add together, I mean, well, 20 million, that's 20, did I say 23, whatever, 23 with the buyout, that's not going to apply on or with the stretch of Dwayne Deadman. That's not going to apply, obviously, in a trade. But when you look at, like, Grants and Plumley collectively, you got this first year salary of, you know, of a, of a, of a,

it's not rookie maximum, basically the contract that the likes of Donovan Mitchell or who else is going to get after the expiration of their rookie deals. You know, that's a lot of money. I mean, again, the business doesn't really need the space. It's just to illustrate how much space that is that they could have used on acquiring more means for getting young players, draft picks specifically. So it was possibly assigning to me too. I just don't really see what purpose he serves for the pistons in a rebuild. I think he serves no purpose and it could be counterproductive.

I think that's, again, this is a case where sure, culture guy, cool. You don't have to pay $20 million for a culture guy. You don't even have to pay $8 million for a culture guy. You know, we'll talk about that with Plumley. if you definitely don't need to spend 20. I mean, that's the opportunity cause for picking up grant at that salary was very significant. Again, loss of flexibility, loss of minutes to the younger players, and in the possibility for worse draft position.

And what are the pistons getting in return? It's like, yeah, you have another target on the perimeter. You can pay a lot less money for that. It's just like with plummily, like, yeah, you've got a pick and roll guy for, for, I won't straight too much into him because we're going to talk about it soon, but you get a pick and roll guy for, hey, it's cool. You could have picked up Damien Jones, who's. an excellent pick and roll guy for one quarter of the cost. So yeah, it boils down to sure,

build culture or get guys who do this or that, but you'd never need to spend this much money on them. So not a fan. And maybe I'll be proven wrong by Grant's play. The trouble is that if he's the guy Weaver thinks he is who can really develop much further, then he's going to be adding wins. And again, you really don't want to be a 20 to 30. you know, like a 30-win team this year. You really don't. It's ideal not even to be anywhere near a 30-win team next season because you want your shot at a money bates.

So this was just the signing that I think, aside from the possibility of trading for assets down the road, really just has no real positives at all for me. It's not like absolutely hated. It's just like I don't see any positives and I see a host of potential negatives. So, all right. Moving on from Grant, go on to Plumley, the other, I suppose, significant signing of the offseason.

I know you've got a lot to say about him, Tommy. Why don't you take it away? Yeah, so Plumley's a 30-year-old traditional center, and the reaction to this, you know, we all saw it. It was mostly confusion. We talked about guys, you didn't have to pay this much for. Plumley flits that mold. But Weaver has talked a lot about how he was brought in specifically for the culture and leadership.

And I was watching his media day availability earlier. and he talked about, he actually said, you know, I'm excited to start this rebuild and contribute. And I think that was the first time I heard somebody actually say rebuild. So it's pretty clear to me that, you know, Weaver brought him in for that specific purpose. And he talked about, to him about, like, you know, this is what we want you to provide. And with that in mind, I guess I kind of maybe, I still don't like the number, but I kind of understand the idea behind giving him a three-year fully guaranteed $25 million contract. track. We were really wanting to buy in. We talked about how ideally you sign veterans to these one year deals, but then maybe they're just looking to the horizon. They're like, well, I got to get

my touches so that I can, you know, secure a place in the league for myself next year. That's not going to be a concern for Plumley. And I honestly, you know, we, I think it was announced that there's a 10% trade kicker. The amount plus that trade kicker, plus, you know, this role that he seems to be taking on as, a leader and a culture guy. I think Weaver wants him for the full three years, and I wouldn't be a surprise that at the end of that, we brought him on again, you know, extended him or signed him

to another deal because it seems like you really want him for his leadership. As far as the player that he is, offensively, he's very much a system player. He kind of relies on effort, timing, and good positioning to score. He's not a high flyer or particularly explosive,

but he's efficient as a role man, which is it is probably a significant part of his appeal on the court, you know, playing with Killian, who's a pick and roll point guard, you know, there's the fit there. But he doesn't have much to offer outside the paint as he lacks outside shooting. That's a real concern to me. You know, I talked a lot about how I really wanted us to bring back Christian Wood. And the huge part of that was, you know, the potential fit that he had as a floor spacing five. Plumley's not going to bring that. It's going to make things probably a lot harder for Hayes. You know, we saw this a little bit with even Griffin and Drummond. You know, Griffin was at his best when he was kind of

posting his way into the paint. And with Drummond, only able to exist there, you know, it makes things a lot harder. If you have that guy who can retreat to the perimeter, maybe that thing makes things a lot easier for Hayes and maybe that really helps his development. So that's one of the reasons I really don't like that. I don't think, especially at the number that we gave up Christian Wood for, I feel like we could have matched that and it would have made sense. But again, this is a culture move and it's a pretty massive overpay. But I think it all boils down to Weaver wants Plumley to be the guy who takes these rookies under his wing and really establishes, you know, that hardworking culture.

Because by all accounts, Plumley is a pretty likable guy and he's respected in the locker room. So that's that. And you see this a little bit on the court. His effort with his movement, passing, and patience are nice. He plays smart, but his relative lack of athleticism really hurts his production. On one hand, it's going to help us lose games, but like I mentioned, it's confusing that Weaver would offer a guy who doesn't have much floor spacing ability or a great catch radius above the rim. It's going to make things that much harder for Killian. Defense has a similar story.

High effort, active hands. He doesn't have the lateral mobility to switch on to much. most perimeter-oriented players. So that's another weakness. I think somebody did ask him, Weaver, that is, about, you know, why go with two traditional centers is like the bulk of your free agent center pickups? And he talked about, well, I think these guys can exist in the NBA right now. So that's a bit of a concern for me.

But at the same time, we talked about how maybe they brought in Isaiah Stewart and picked him up where he was picked up because maybe they believe he can be a spacing five. That's just a bizarre statement that he believes these centers can still play in the NBA. Technically they can still play, but there's an inherent cost to putting him on the floor. Yep. That's trouble. I mean, it's... And then you have a factor in the overpay and then the $3 million in dead cap to stretch dead men.

There's a lack of value on the court, but it just becomes down to the culture thing. And then Plumley, he plays hard on the court. He's just kind of limited by his athletic. Let us him. He runs the floor hard. His fundamentals are solid. He cuts hard to the rim. He focuses on setting good screens. And again, great locker room guy. Decent passer, too. Right, exactly. And I think that he can be something of a mentor for Stewart. Just continuing to instill that mentality of doing your job, which we talked about. He's a very mature young guy. So I don't think that's a huge concern.

I don't think that's, I don't think he needs to be taught that. And other guys can teach him that. Yeah. And then maybe Plumley can. teach Stewart how to pass because I think, I don't know if it was us talking about it or if Stewart talked about it maybe in like an interview, but Stewart needs to learn how to pass out of the paint and Plumlee is a solid passer and he can make a variety of reads. It seems clear that Weaver wants Plumley to stay and maybe help him reach that potential. But I don't know, I don't hate the rationale behind bringing him in. And I guess if you want to lose games signing a traditional center who's not going to space the floor. I mean, maybe that makes

some sense, but I would have rather had him as a backup maybe, and maybe that's his role down the line. But I understand what the idea behind this pickup was. What do you think? It's the same thing as I said earlier. I think you can pay considerably less for a culture guy. Now, Plumley on the court. Not a very good player. I mean, as far as getting paid, he got paid by the Nuggets. You know, he got about $40 million from the Nuggets. So that's a pretty good paycheck. I remember. I was just thinking, I don't want to mention what people said on Twitter because honestly, I don't care, but one of them said, you know, how does Mason Plumlee keep getting paid? And I just got to chuckle out of that. And I think it's a good question.

I think you could get a culture guy. I don't think he has anything offered as a mentor. Not at all. I mean, it's a good culture guy, but the idea in drafting, for example, Stewart and Weaver's philosophy of drafting the person is to get guys who already have that mentality. I don't think it's a mentality you can teach other.

I don't think. I mean, obviously, Drummond is an extreme example. But it's like they brought him Rashid to try to help him in, this was 2013, 2014. And I think we can confidently say that Drummond did not absorb anything of Sheed's mentality, anything, or anything that she could have offered, period. So I don't think it's a matter of mentorship.

I think if you want to teach somebody at a pass out of the post, you have coaches who can do that. Griffin could do that. I mean, he's a much better passer than Plumley is ever likely to be. Also, we talk about ever likely to be. Plumley almost certainly is what he is.

He's 30 years old. Probably not going to learn to shoot. I did have kind of a visceral, you know, just a reaction of visceral irritation at having to watch the pistons field another traditional center. That much is true. Offense is, of course, very important. You know, it's the even most important thing in the NBA. And fielding a center who can't shoot carries with an inherent opportunity cost. It's going to make your offense worse in the vast

majority of situations, you know, even with really good traditional centers, I mean, Gobert, you put him on the floor. He's an excellent interior score, largely when other people help him. But the fact that he can't shoot, it means instant disadvantage on offense. So there's also the matter that you want to bring these young guys up in a modern offense, and you're not really going to get that with the traditional center. We saw that with Christian Wood last year, just how different it looks when you have five guys you can space the four. It's a big deal. You have much more in the way of options.

I'd like to see the young guys be able to do that. And I would also just like to watch an offense like that. So Deadman, for example, up until just bizarre regression last year, was actually a pretty good modern center, a guy who could score pretty well within the arc, who could shoot threes and defend the rim, and it's just a respectable defender. I'd almost rather have kept him. And if you, yeah, he's not good on the pick and rule,

but it's just Plumley doesn't have much to offer on the court. And if you sign a guy like that for one year or even two years, particularly a lower salary, it's like whatever. But you gave him $25 million in the course of three years. And again, there's an opportunity cost to handing out to that contract, less cap space, west flexibility. It's only $8 million, but, you know, that's money. I mean, you can get a late first or certainly a second round pick or two by taking on a bad contract of that size.

But you look at him on the court. I mean, he's a guy, sure, he competes hard, and he's a fairly good passer, and he's a pretty good role man. And that's where his strength end. He has almost no agency as a score. He basically needs to have his offense created for him. He's not particularly, even around the basket, he's not going to take the ball and be likely to do anything with it. He can't shoot. He's not very athletic.

Yeah, he's not going to play above the rim particularly well. On defense, he can't switch. So, I think there's a reason that these lumbering traditional centers are now almost entirely out of the league. It's like it's, in part because they can't shoot, which is painful on that end. But also the NBA meta is just all about getting advantageous matchups. So you run a guy who can't switch. You just run a pick, you get your guard switched on to him, and then your guard blows past him. And that's the really very, very, very good first step in breaking down the defense.

So I just, I don't see really any upside of this. Again, it's not a huge deal. It's only $8 million. And the piston simply, again, it's more, it's for me, it's less of an issue that they overpaid plummet than the fact that they spent this cap space in that manner at all. But I just don't really see any positives. and I don't want him here in two years. I don't want it to be a steer for the third season because that means he's taking up a roster space

and he's probably taking up, he's taking up minutes, he's taking up cap space, and I just don't see any reason why that's, it's just the culture isn't worth that amount of money. I think you could have gotten a guy to help with culture for considerably less than that. Like you said, crap fit with Griffin's too. I don't think it's a big deal, but it's ugly.

Griffin's best fit at center is a guy who can space the floor. Yeah. It's a reason, Griffin... That's not the worst thing. Yeah, if you want to lose games, it's not the worst thing. But the best thing I can say about the Plumley signing is that it wasn't bad. That is the best thing... Not that it wasn't bad.

It wasn't awful. It would have been awful if it were twice the salary. In this case, I think it's just bad. I don't really know how it's going to go for Isaiah Stewart. You know, if he's going to be good enough for minutes right away, you got to look for as well. Whatever for him. I don't think he's really much of a consideration. But there's just nothing I like about it.

the signing like nothing so i think it was bad idea it that what probably upset me the most when it was announced was that it undermined a bit of my confidence in weaver because it's like what on earth are you doing on day one of free agency and in season off season one of a rebuild why are you signing a traditional center to a contract a multi-year cut three-year contract at a salary he doesn't deserve so i i don't really see any positives to it again culture Yay, that's helpful. But 25 million and three years, no thanks. So, yeah, that's how I feel about it. I just, I really, I really don't like it at all. I don't think it's a disaster. I just really, really don't like it at all. As far as the notion of trading him down the line,

traditional centers are not valuable on the trade market. They are not valuable on the free agent market either, you know, barring a few exceptions. The free agent to traditional centers are just not valuable in the NBA now. It's just so nice to have a guy who can stretch the floor on offense. Again, that's just your average traditional center is just by virtue of being unable to shoot and unable to create offense, but going to be an offensive negative. So good luck. If you want to trade a guy who, you know, counting his trade kicker in year three, will cost more than $9 million against the cap when you see teams having trouble dumping traditional centers you were paid 50, 60% that much.

And Plumley just doesn't have a very valuable skill set at all. He just doesn't. On the open market, yeah, his skill set is completely unremarkable. So, anything else to add about Plumley? No, I think that's covered it. All right. Moving on to Dilan Wrights, brought over a way of trade with the Thunder for Trevor Arisa, who is now officially the most traded player

in the history of the NBA. In any event, not much to say about right. It's a pretty unremarkable player, solid, I suppose, but unremarkable. He's close to 29 years old, decent overall combo guard, probably a little bit overpaid, but who cares, I guess. He's paid less than a Riza. He's not particularly good at anything. He's a decent shooter on low volume, a three-point shooter on low volume.

He scores fairly well in the restricted area, but he's not good at attacking the basket himself. He is a decent defender, but nothing special. He's a fairly good passer, and he's safely. He doesn't turn over the ball a lot. He's one of cases young guys in Toronto. So, you know, he's probably Rose insurance. And I suspect that Rose, I think the Pistons would trade him now if they could

because I just don't think he serves any further purpose on the team. I think that while the old regime really liked him, just for his presence, I don't think Weaver really shares that. I don't think weaver is really a huge fan of him. Not that I don't think Weaver likes, and this is all just speculation. But like the old regime, for example, at the trade deadline, they set the price of a lottery pick, which was very, very unlikely to happen. It was along the mental lines of we're willing to trade him,

but we're also perfectly fine keeping him. So we're going to set a high price. But Rose, I don't think is really long for this team with the piston. could trade him because he's just the sort of really high usage bench flame throw point guard who is just going to take usage and minutes away from younger players and force the offense to play around him. So he's also, you can't count on his health. He was, I think it's easy to forget that because the season just ended for the piston

shortly afterward, he was going to be out for the rest of the season. He was on course to play another 50 game campaign. Anyway, I digress. Wright is just, he's solid but unremarkable. And where are we play right now? Hard to say. Maybe he'll start a shooting guard. I don't know.

He's pretty much just there. I don't have anything further to say about him. He's not bad, but he's not good at least thus far in his career. You got any thoughts about Mr. Dillon Wright? No, I think you covered it. Exactly what you said. The first thing I thought was Rose insurance just in case he goes down. you have a backup point guard there.

Yeah. So, all right. Moving on to what I believe is the only other really interesting signing of this offseason. That is Josh Jackson. I know you've done quite a bit of research on him. So why don't you tell us what you know? Yeah, so initially I wasn't a fan of this pickup. And I'm still not a huge fan of it now.

But it was interesting because it didn't fit what we've come to expect from Weaver. You know, the indications have always been. that Troy likes. He's high effort, high character guys, and Jackson is neither of those. He's had serious issues off the court and on the court. He plays a very casual, almost, I mean, maybe this is an overstatement, but almost lacks a days ago. He just doesn't play with effort. And then you look at his stats, and there isn't much there either. You know, after he got traded to Memphis last year, he spent 26 games in the G League before getting called back up. And eventually he earned a spot in the Grizzlies' rotation. And his averages last year,

they aren't very good either. He finished the season. and shooting 44% on field goals, just under 32% from three, and average nine points off the bench. Defensively, I mean, yeah, defensively, he's capable. He can move really well. He showed good lateral mobility, excuse me, coming into the league. He's very athletic, you know, the tools are there, but it's always come down to the effort with him. And he figures maybe to be like the off the bench, too, behind, I think it's going to be Svi. But yeah, the real intrigue with me, or for me, with this signing, is that Josh Jackson could be a good indicator of whether Weaver's culture moves will work.

Most of the remaining guys are known for being like these high effort guys who play hard. And if we can see, if we see that they can influence Jackson, like maybe if we see that he starts to run the floor harder, attack the rim more, make use of his natural talent, he's probably one of the highest potential guys on the roster right now. he had a short stretch of games on the tail end of his Grizzlies tenure where he was scoring well and really driving hard to the rim and that's what I'll be looking to see if he brings this year. It's a low-risk pickup. He was brought in, I think, with a room exception, and you understand how all that works far better than I do. But it's definitely going to be interesting to see if we can make anything of him. I think if he doesn't make progress within a year, you know, he probably fades into the background, but it really is interesting that they brought in this guy who bucks the

trend of guys who just, you know, don't fit Weaver's mold. And I think it's really intriguing. You know, maybe this is our first shot at seeing if the culture thing is for real. Yeah, I don't really have much to add to what you've already said. I think that Jackson is exactly the sort of signing that rebuilding team should make a guy with potential upside who can be had at a cheap price, a reclamation project. So a guy who, if he works out, you know, fantastic. If not really, all you've lost is a pretty small amount of cap space. This is exactly the sort of thing you want to be using your open cap space on as a rebuilding team. So, yep, we hope he gets it together. If so, great. It would be a nice story, too. He's a hometown boy. And if he doesn't,

then he's off the team at the end of the year and the pissers just eat the dead cap or they kick him over to another team for really nothing but salary relief. Either way, it's really a No downside move. Okay, so Tommy actually had to depart unexpectedly. I'm just going to finish up the last segment of this on my own. There's really not much else to talk about. More just the minor signings and acquisitions the Pistons made over the course of, well, the offseason. So first is Jaliel Okleafour.

Just like Jackson, he is a former high draft pick. He was number three in 2015. Jackson was number four in 2017. Ocalfour will be about 25 at the start of the season. A pretty good interior score. Also a turnover prone ball stopper who can't pass, can't shoot, and plays bad defense. Two years on the minimum deal. Unclear what the guarantees are on the second year.

Just like Jackson, he's a reclamation project. And, you know, maybe he plays his way into becoming a decent player, in which case, either he's trade bait or he stays in the team. Obviously, those are the two options. If not, then, you know, the Pistons, if they want to cut ties early, just dump him and just, you know, eat what's a very small cap hit next year. I don't really like this one quite as much as I like the Jackson signing. Okafore is number one, at least how he is right now, is a traditional center,

and just his upside is considerably lower. And I just don't really see that there's a ton of upside there. It's not a big deal, though. You know, this is just, oh, it's really costing the Pistons, is a roster spot in a small amount of cap space. Of course, that's cap space. Well, actually, no. I was going to say it's cap space that could have been used to avoid having to stretch Smith,

but actually I'm pretty sure this was some of the minimum exception after the Pistons already at the cap. So, yeah, this is really just, it's for all intents and purposes of no-cost signing for the Pistons. I just, I don't really like Ocifor all that much. I've never really liked his game. I don't really think he has much to offer to the Pistons, even if he improves as a player. And, you know, goodness forbid, maybe he'll end up ahead of stewards, though I'd like to think that the two of them will get an equal shot those minutes behind Mason Plumley.

Goodness, just talking about that center rotation makes me feel bad because that's three traditional centers. But anyway, obviously it's not a big deal that it's three traditional centers in that the Pistons aren't trying to win. It's just, you know, ugly. So I don't really feel much either way about this signing. I mean, I really could have done without it, you know, but it's just not a big deal. So we'll see.

Rodney McGruder, he came over in the Kennard trade as salary filler. He's being paid $5 million against the cap this year and a fully non-guaranteed $5 million next year. 29 years old, unreliable, streaky shooter, provides nothing else on offense outside of unreliable, streaky three-point shooting. And he's a bad defender. Given that the Pistons are at 16 contracts right now, I would say he is certainly the likeliest to be waived. But we'll see. David is Servetus, who recently signed a three-year contract, two years guaranteed. So he is the ultimate product of the John Luehler trade, the John Moore, well, wasn't a cap dump.

It was a cap dump from the bucks onto the pistons, which netted the pistons. Tony Snell, who was thought at the time, to be, okay, well, you know, we have a half-decent small forward, and that didn't turn out to be the case. and the number 30 pick. So Snell was bad, and we'll just trace the ultimate, the ultimate branch of this trade, excuse me, the ultimate outcome of this trade just for fun. So Snell was bad.

I mean, despite shooting 40% from three, he was just, he was, it completes, the guy has an unbelievable dependency for disappearance in offense. I mean, it's been the case throughout his entire NBA career. And it definitely happened with the pistons. He was bad for Detroit last year. You know, that ultimately didn't end up mattering, but, you know, he was. And the number 30 pick, the Pistons traded that away for three, excuse me, for cash and for second round picks.

They, I believe, expended three of those second round picks on moving up to take Servetus, which left them with Portland's 2021 second round pick. They used some of that cash to buy Jordan Bone from the Sixers. Bone, of course, is gone. And then they used that 2021 second round pick as part of the trade for Carnard when they sent over four picks, four second round picks. Three of those were Detroit's 24, 2024 through 2026, and the fourth was Portland's 2021. So basically where we're left is the dump lure. or, you know, whatever, Milwaukee gets to some cap relief, which they got from stretching and waving lure.

That ironic, you know, of course. We're talking plenty about stretching and waving here. So ultimately what the pistons got was David iservetus and $2.9 million per year over the next five years of Duane Deadman's stretched contract, of course, and Snell was traded to Atlanta for Deadman, who was subsequently stretched and waived. for those who do aren't aware of why that happens. So when you're waving and stretching, the remaining cap hit is stretched across double the remaining years of the contract plus one. So Snell, if the business had stretched him, they would have had to apply his hit across the course of three years equally. Now, Dedman had one year at 13 million and then an additional year in which I believe only, there's only a small amount guaranteed.

I don't remember the exact number. But because there was a second year to begin with, for the purposes of the stretch provision, they were able to stretch that $13 million plus, you know, whatever small amount for the second year over the course of five seasons instead of three. So it just allowed them more cap space by way of stretching a contract than the Pistons would have had if they had just, if they had done that with Snell instead. So in any events, where that trade left, the Pist's business. was with $2.9 million of debt cap in each of the next five seasons, and Deavidus Servetus.

So what is Servetus? I would say probably his best case scenario is somewhere around what we're seeing from Svea, Kailuk, which is, for the most part, a guy who can shoot three at a high percentage, both from the spot-up and firing them immediately after navigating around a screen, receiving a handoff. So, you know, if you can do that, great. You know, if you are able to do that, then you will have a job in the NBA that is a very marketable skill, just the skill to run around screens and shoot right away. You know, that's a very difficult way to defend. And it's just, it's a very useful skill to have. You're probably not going to get paid a ton just for having that skill. But, you know, you'll always have utility. And if that's

what he turns out to be, then, you know, the pistons, you know, great. You can always use more guys like that. If you don't want him, you can pass him on for a very modest return or as part of a larger trade. So, you know, there are always the questions, of course, is, you know, does he really have much to offer at the NBA level to the Pistons primarily select him as, you know, sort of a slightly corrupt move because he is represented by the son of Arntellem. Artelma, is the vice chairman of the Pistons? You know, was that the reason why he was selected? who knows. I think it's kind of a moot point at this stage. It would be annoying to find out that that really gave him a leg up, you know, that the Pistons went to that effort to select him when he really wasn't all that great. That would actually be really irritating to find out. I don't know if he would ever find that out. But either way, he's here and hopefully he's got something to offer.

Moving on to Musa, I still can't pronounce his first name properly. Whatever the case, 22 years old, about $2 million. against the cap this year, team option next year. He's got raw talent, you know, some raw talent, rather. I don't think he's really got particularly high upside, but good size. He's a very good shoot at the G-League level, terrible at the NBA level. And he's a lot like Mikey look in his mentality.

He is certainly not at all lacking for confidence, and that's a good quality if you're actually good at your job, if you're good at shooting. I mean, with the guy like Musa, of course, if he goes on the floor in the NBA and is just chucking the ball, he's going to get yanked real quick. But he's, you know, ultimately people ask, I think, I'm sure people wonder, you know, why was Brown traded away from Musa in the second round pick?

You know, I couldn't tell you exactly whether Musa or the second round pick was the bigger gets. Here's the thing with Brown. He was, even though he had made significant strides between his rookie and sophomore years, he was still not a good NBA player on a good NBA team last year. he probably would not have seen many minutes, if any. Brown, sure, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, as, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, as a, you know, it's, you know, I, it's, you know, I really like players like that. As far as his actual contribution wants, the guy was a pretty good defender, but not an elite defender. he was a bad shooter, notwithstanding his improvement in three-point percentage. The guy could hit threes from the corners if he was left absolutely wide open.

And he did so on low volume. Given the ball above the break, he was pretty hopeless. I think it was 22%. So that more or less made him a space in liability immediately. He could handle the ball to a degree. He was a decent passer. Didn't have very good vision. And it was terrible on the drive, like horrible on the drive.

And just this is very, very, very bad at scoring off the defensive. dribble. So you've got a guy who is a decent defender, but he's an offensive liability. James Edwards said that he also did not have a very good mini camp. The Pistons had sort of a mini training camp in September. And I'm guessing that means that his offense hadn't improved. And when you've got a guy like that, Brown is 24. And he's always had some issues on the offensive end of things. So I'm guessing Weaver just didn't really see much upside there and one of the roster spot. So as far as Musa, yeah, who knows?

Could turn out to be valuable, could turn out not to be valuable. Just like with Servetus, if he can get that skill to shoot three is a high percentage on the move and from the spot up, then they'll have value in the NBA, whether that'll be at the Pistons or not as anybody's guess. I don't know where he'll find minutes this year, though. And finally, when it comes to guaranteed standard contracts, our last one is Wayne Ellington. Those of you who have been around for a couple years at least, or remember Wayne Ellington, he came to the Pistons as a free agent and he was bought out in the early stages of 2019.

And the Pistons picked him up and he ended up playing a pretty significant role for them down the stretch as they motored toward that absolutely terrible series against the bucks that ultimately ended their season. So Ellington was brought on on the veteran minimum. for one year. He's a shooter and a locker in presence. Now, it should be noted the Pistons actually did lose quite a bit of shooting between last year and this year. So it's helpful by, you know, by all accounts I've read, he was brought on, you know, his shooting was considered valuable, particularly next to Killian Hayes. The Pistons did lose Tony Snow, Luke and Ard. They lost Galloway. Those are three of their best three-point shooters last year. And so, I believe, well,

Talk about Galloway. Ellington effectively replaced Galloway. There was talk that, you know, prior to we were taking the reins, that Galloway might be kept around just because the team, apparently the front office really liked his professionalism and just thought he was a very, very steady veteran presence. And, you know, he was actually for the first time in his career, just sucks to say, because he was a three-point specialist.

For the very first time in his career, was actually a good three-point shooter last year. So I was a little surprised to see him replace, by Ellington. Ellington, who also is very well thought of as a locker room presence, apparently just a super nice guy. So my only concern at Ellington is that he's actually going to get minutes in what's already a pretty crowded field where you've got, it's just going to be tough to find minutes for all

the young guys as it is. And by all the young guys, I'm only referring here to, to Saku, to Bay and to Jackson. Of course, the Stewart is not going to really, you know, he's not going to be playing on the wing. but the number of minutes to go around, you know, it's going to be a fairly full rotation. As I said, that was an issue with the grant signing is that you're kicking in 32 minutes at small power forward and power forward. So that's what I would estimate anyway, probably grant 32 to 34 minutes. So if Ellington gets minutes, then it's going to be taking away from one of the younger players. That could also be Svi.

I don't know if music will even get a chance. I don't know if Servitas will get a chance. what will to be done. But I think it's like, yay, you know, maybe his shooting, if in the Lou shooting from anybody else, then it can help Hayes. But again, like Svee was one of the best shooters, you know, just in terms of pure three-point shooting was one of the best shooters in the league last year. I'd like to see him get minutes at shooting guard. Jackson's got to find him similar whether or not he can shoot as anybody's guess. So, yeah, Ellington on paper, you know, yay, good locker room presence. If he's actually going to get more than like five or six minutes a game,

then I don't. And honestly, if you're going to play a guy that little, you just really usually don't play him at all. But if he's going to get significant minutes, I don't think that that would be the greatest idea. And I think Casey is very different to his veterans. If He's there, he's probably going to get those minutes. So, all right, a couple more. Lewis King was brought back on, on a two-way contract. He had been, the Pistons hadn't given a qualifying offer. He had been on a two-way contract. He hadn't given a qualifying offer. and then they just signed him to another two-way contract. So he's a very raw wing with good potential.

I'm glad they're going to keep him. And the other two-way contract slot will be taken up by a seven-le. So two guys are pretty good upside, I think. There were also some changes made for the upcoming season as to how two-way contracts function prior to the upcoming season. It had been that players in two-way contracts could only spend 45 days with their NBA team. Those days would include practice and travel. And now it has been amended such that players in two-way deals can spend up to 50 games, or up to and including 50 games with their NBA teams.

And, of course, two-way contracts can always be upgraded into standard NBA deals. I mean, I doubt that it'll turn out to be a consideration for the Pistons this year. Just, you know, it's always an option. So the final name to speak on is Leangelo Ball. Now, many of you know that Leangelo has two brothers in the NBA. One is Lamello, who was drafted number three overall to the Charlotte Hornets and the recent draft. It was pretty hyped, though. That was in part just because the 2020 NBA draft class was pretty weak, at least as far as high caliber talent went, or at least looking into it, rather.

You never know how these things will turn out. And the other is Lonzo Ball, who plays for the New Orleans Hornets was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers, number two in 2017. It was also pretty hyped and has developed into a. an above average starter. He'll never be a star, and he never really justified to hide, but he's a solid player. Now, Leangelo, to put it simply, is just nowhere near as good at basketball as his brothers. He is not the scapegrace never do well shoplifting brother. Some of you remember, he got arrested in China for shoplifting a couple years ago. But yeah, he's not just that brother who just had issues with attitude and never got off the ground and is being given his chance.

he just has nowhere near the amount of talent that his brothers have. That's why he wasn't drafted. And I don't recall, over hearing that teams really even gave him any consideration to be drafted, even in the second round when he went in, which I believe was in 2018. So why did the piston sign him? I don't really know.

It's not a, I mean, it's not a big deal. He was assigned to a one year fully non-guaranteed contract, and unless he has just made enormous, like enormous leaps and ability. over the last like eight or nine months, then I would say he'll be competing for a roster spot in name only. That is, he has virtually no chance of getting one. I've heard it said that the Piston signed him primarily just to redirect him to the G League. And maybe that's the case, and maybe he's got something to offer that he hasn't shown yet. For my part, I don't even know if he has what it takes to succeed in the G League,

because though the G League is an enormous step below the NBA, it is still a very competitive league. and is he good enough to succeed there? It's anybody's guess. Either way, it's really a no risk signing for the Pistons, but I wouldn't, I would caution against anybody hoping or expecting that Leangelo will suddenly find his talent and become anywhere near on the level of Lamello, who we haven't seen, but, or Alonzo. I just, I don't think he has that in him. And, you know, I think much was made out of a story that really didn't have much to it.

So that'll be it for today's episode. as noted, we've got Pistons preseason kicking off on Friday the 11th against the Knicks. Definitely very excited for that one. As always, thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time.