Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 240: Trending Upward?

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

This episode recaps the good, the bad, and the context of the last week and a half.

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to another episode of Drive Into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you all are doing great as ever. Coming to you, I suppose, feeling refreshed from what seems like the first decent night of sleep I've had in a very long time, though I did have to sit through an odd dream in which I think I was a sergeant in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and I was upbraided in front of all of the troops by the general for not showering enough and having bad teeth charges that I felt were unjustified, but he wouldn't let me get a word in. Also odd, given that showers hadn't been invented yet,

and neither had modern dentistry. So everybody had bad teeth. George Washington just wore ivory teeth. Anyway, all that aside, though that did actually happen. Let's talk Pistons basketball. So better start to the season than I had expected. Maybe not by much given the schedule, but still six and two, good by any standard.

How am I feeling? You know, pretty good, though I've been feeling good about this season from the beginning. As I've said, my expectations are more on the development side than the winning side, but I felt that this team would probably win in the area of, or a little bit more than it had last season, with the east getting significantly worse, the team being more experienced, et cetera.

you want to hear all about that. You can listen to my preseason episode. About Outlook at this point, definitely, you know, optimistic with some reservations that I'll talk about later, but it's definitely six and two about as good as could reasonably have been hoped for for the beginning of the season. So I might have bitten off a little bit more than I could chew with this episode in that I have a two-page outline for an episode that I want to finish in about 45 minutes. So apologies in advance. if I end up jumping for place to place, I'll try not to do so. All right, so let's start out with what I like so far. So in no particular order, team defense, particularly on the perimeter,

and especially with the Sart Thompson and Ron Holland on the floor. But there was just a very, very high compete level in general. This was the same last season. I think having Holland playing, you know, a larger role probably figures into it to a degree. And having less in the way of defensive liabilities, of course. Tim Hardaway Jr. very much a minus defender. Worked hard, but very much a minus defender. Malik Beasley, you know, much a minus defender, more so, I would say, than Duncan Robinson,

who has his issues, but is smarter and bigger and longer. And just in general, yeah, high-compete level with better players on the floor. And, you know, credit to Trayton for selecting heavily for work ethic and culture. Also, J.B. Baker stuff, of course, you know, really good culture. coach, but yeah, you can see not only defensively, but on offense as well. Though in the NBA, generally, you're going to see if you're looking at who's fully locked in, you're going to see that skew more toward the offense than defense. So there's definitely a lot of buy-in defensively on this team with some good defensive personnel. And we've been seeing results from

that, certainly the Pistons at this point have the third best defense in the league. I'm recording this about maybe an hour before I release it, which is can hopefully be to catch people on the commute home. It's possible if you listen to this after tonight's game against the Nets, game the Pistons, presumably should win pretty handily that the statistic will have changed everything I'm talking about in this episode, in this episode rather. But yeah, overall, just a great defensive start of the season. Some minor caveats to that, I'll go over later, but it's been very good to see exactly what you want to see from any team, but especially, you know, the Detroit basketball mentality.

You always love to see that. again, like I said, in no particular order. But, you know, hey, let's talk, uh, yeah, I was going to say let's talk offense, but that's not necessarily a plus at this point. Uh, speaking of Ron Holland, just inching toward being a better shooter, better NBA player. He's at about 35% right now in Will Volume. Again, very, very early in the season. So the sample size is pretty minute. I believe he went out from 32 to 35% last game just by going one over one, excuse me, one for one. But, you know, you can see just the degree to which the form has improved. Uh, The misses when he has them are largely a pretty minute misses, so to speak.

They're not clanks like they were last year, clanks, bricks, whatever you want to call them. He's not shooting it quite as much as I would like, but he's certainly shooting it. He shot it confidently last season as well, but you can just see the form. There's a great deal less extraneous movement. It's just coming off of his hands much better. And that's a big deal, of course, since Ron Holland, who even improves no further as a driver, which I think is highly unlikely. I'm pretty sure he'll improve there. But even should he just be what he is now, but a reliable shooter, this is a guy who would be a valuable player for the pistons

for a long time. I mean, just take into account that, hey, if you can shoot well and you can defend well, which he does, and you've got a maniacal work ethic, which he has, and a fear of nobody, then that's a solid rotation player who's going to give you good minutes in the regular season and the postseason both. Also worth noting that. But even though he isn't playing a ton of minutes, he is the best transition player on the team in terms of a collection of overall efficiency and points. Because he's leading the team in transition points right now. It accounts for a pretty ridiculous percentage of his total shot attempts in transition. Because he's going to just not shooting right now.

So he's not shooting very, excuse me, attempting many field goals. So, yeah, his proportion of field goals in transition is very high. And he does a good job of it. I mean, the guy runs the floor extremely hard. he's got genuinely good touch in transition. So way to go wrong. That's looking good. Duncan Robinson looking a great deal more comfortable after, you know, a bit of a shaky start.

Like, I don't think it's, I think it's unfair to compare Duncan to Beasley. I mean, Beasley just have one of the great catch and shoot shooting seasons of all time. I think it's worth keeping in minds. And I'm not just saying this because he's not in a team that it's unlikely we would have gotten that Beasley again. And it's pretty rare, virtually unheard of, for somebody to just take a huge leap in season nine. Often you have guys just have amazing seasons, and then regress sort of toward the mean. Duncan Robinson has also had one of the great shooting seasons of all the time. This was really technically in his sophomore season, but really he'd hardly ever play as a rookie.

And he just had an insane, really, what was his first real season in the league, a season in which he was a key starter on a finals team that made at the game. So in any case, yeah, Duncan is a great shooter, and he'd spent his entire career in one system, adjusting to a new system, was going to take time. It seems like he's done so relatively quickly, whatever the case, he's been pretty key on offense is really the only shooter the pistons have right now. And he's attracting gravity, he's hitting tough shots, and really also easy shots he's hitting. And really, that's all you can ask for him. And again, what he can do that Beasley-Cants, the guy is, In my opinion, I've been impressed with this, is significantly better at just knowing when and how to attack off the dribble. And not only that, but to not take just a pull-up jumper like Beasley generally would.

And also to know when to pass the ball and to whom he should pass it. So he does have some assets that even last seasons Beasley did not. Again, no need to necessarily compare the two. But I've been happy with what we've gotten from Duncan, defensive warts and all. Cade Cunningham sort of getting going after a slow start to the season. I think that was inevitable. I think I said that in the last episode. I don't know why I found it necessary to say that I said that in the last episode.

Anyway, yeah, I think just pretty much inevitable. I mean, a player with his degree of talents and his work ethic was going to get back to his usual level. He still got a little bit of, you know, maybe ramping up to do. But it's just how it is in the early season. Some guys start slow. If you want to look at the most notorious slow starter in the last decade for the Pist and just go look at Reggie Bullock.

He was a horrendous starter for like the first several weeks of any given season. He would generally be terrible and then would become really good as a shooter. Anyway, I'm just reminiscing a bit about a not particularly fun to remember time, which thankfully seems a long time ago now. In any events, yeah, a couple of fourth quarter explosions too, which are great. Like you need, if you want to win in the postseason in the NBA, you need at least one of those takeover players. It's a guy who can go out there and score through whatever the defense is going to throw at him.

And I've always thought Kate could be one of those players. And it's worth noting that this is functionally the beginning of his fourth season. He's still got, you know, growth to undergo. And I believe he'll continue to get better. You know, there's always space for improvement for a player who is as skilled as he is. So in any event, just great to see him get going. those two fourth quarters where he really took over were also really nice to see. And just looking at Cade and players like him, it just, it amazes me.

Just the conjunction, conjunction, whatever, basically the intersection, put it that way, of, you know, incredible skill, you know, by the common parlance or just by common standards, you know, really good athleticism in size and an amazing brainpower, you know, basketball brain power that come together to, you know, to create a player like Cade, just how much needs to go right, you know, an attitude also, of course, how much needs to go right to, you know, produce one of those extremely rare players who can, you know, play at this high level against insanely hard competition. So in any event, yeah, that's obviously necessity for the Pistons just to have Cade playing well if they're going to want to win a significant number of games this season, especially against

better teams. Yeah, what we're seeing, you know, what we've been seeing more of him is more from him is what you need in the postseason. And it's ultimately all about the postseason. Another random thing, J.B. Bicker staff has decided to abandon having Cade bring the ball up every time and just go back to what he was doing last season, which is to have Cade pass the ball off to somebody else, usually a sard to bring the ball up. And then he gets it back in the half court.

seems to be much better for, well, avoiding turnovers, but also Kate's level of energy. So he's not getting dogged all the way up the floor. And then if it's a good defense, getting dog piled by a couple of defenders once he gets into the half court. So I'd love to know exactly what it was that J.B. felt was a good idea about that strategy. But thankfully, he appears to have abandoned it. You know, about the strategy, yeah, about the strategy of just having Kate bring up the ball.

Well, they've also been facing worse defenses. So there is that the Rockets, and you look at that defense. I mean, like I've said, they are the best suited to cause problems for virtually anybody, just a bunch of long, strong defenders. And it was a big problem for Caden that game, though. The Celtics, pretty well-coached defense, but some decent guys over there too also cause them some trouble. Strong paint scoring, of course.

That's been primarily with the pistons that we've been doing, it was just scoring in the paints, probably at an unsustainable rate because they're far and away above, like the, you know, best paint scoring team of the past decade, like to a pretty ridiculous degree. Again, things can be a little wonky in the early season. But, you know, between Ron and Asara and Duren and, you know, to a degree, Stewart and Cade and other guys, just the Pistons, are almost kind of by necessity at this point, scoring more on the paint because they don't really have a ton of shooting. But, you know, nonetheless, obviously positive you can do that. You just have to

carry it forward at that point. The Cade and Duren two-man game, has been working very well, and yeah, not really a ton to say about that. Cade attracts a good deal of attention. He's an elite pick and roll playmaker, and he has an elite role man to pass two. You know, Duran who sets hard screens, rolls explosively to the basket, one of the best vertical spacers in the league, strong finisher. That's been going very well so far. As for Duren, I have liked that he does look a little bit better on defense,

chiefly in the sense that he's moving laterally better. He seems, as far as I can tell, to have dumped some upper body muscle, maybe toward that end. The amount, I feel like he's added since he had added, rather, since his rookie season. I feel like it should not have been enough to meaningfully slow him down, but kind of like in the arms and shoulders, he looks more like he did as a rookie than he like he did the last two seasons when he was genuinely very, very big. Sorry, pause, whatever. I was carrying a lot of muscle. Still is, obviously, but it had gotten a bit maybe two.

much at that point. Who knows? Whatever the case. He's moving laterally quite a bit better than he did of last season, which is going to be a necessity in any case. So he's better able to keep up with people. It would have been difficult at times last season, two seasons ago, for him to even keep up with centers who were particularly nimble. So generally, he's not actually defending the remiton. The stats there are actually kind of interesting because Stuart is a pretty high-volume rim defender, and Duren's only contesting about maybe less than four shots per game, but I digress. Yeah, he's just, he's just doing better at the basic lateral movement, which isn't a backhanded compliment, just an observation, and that's important because it's

much, much less easy to blow by him. And doing a little bit better on rotations as well. So we'll talk a little bit about that later. So that's what I have liked about the last week and a half. What I have liked less, spacing is terrible, like genuinely to. terrible. The shooting is bad. Duncan has been doing very well. Isaiah has been okay, purely on, you know, spot-up catching shoots, you know, stationary catch-and-shoots, rather. And that's it for league average three-point shooters. Ron would rather drive than shoot. He's an okay shooter, but not necessarily reliable. Yet, Tasarra is very hesitant to shoot and is not shot well. Cade is kind of an exception. I mean, he's shot fine on pull-ups, 30 percent. He's just been

terrible for some reason on catching shoots, but he's a constantly on-ball thing. So this is kind of less applicable to him. green has been low volume pretty blah Lavert has never been great and started slow Tobias has started slow obviously Duren doesn't shoot and Reid has maybe taken a couple so basically the spacing

has not been an issue yet for the most part I mean the cavaliers of course are pretty well suited to punish anybody with their defense but you gotta have it I mean you can't just say oh we're just gonna score

and the interior. It's, yeah, I mean, it's the early season. The, you know, the schedule I'll talk about a little bit has been kind of is, has been somewhat kind. And it's just tough to, in today's NBA, unless you have like an overpowering amount of talent, just say we're going to play a different way. And even if you do have that amount of talent, like you're the, you know, the Kyrie, Katie Harden Nets, well, you know, you still got to ideally have the spacing around you. But in that case, you've got, you know, three of the best shot creators in NBA history, and you can do whatever you want. But pistons aren't there at the moment. And you go up against some harsher defenses further end of the season when teams have gotten it together.

I think it'll be more problematic. And so, I don't know, you can't just say, well, the shooting is going to improve. It was necessarily going to get worse when you just gave more minutes to Holland, when Asar was going to have more minutes from the beginning. And you were, you know, taking away Tim Hardaway, Jr., who, sucked on everything but wide open threes, but could pit wide open threes at a very high percentage. It was one of the consequences of, yeah, we're focusing on development rather than on winning as many games as possible. So hopefully Ivy, when he comes back, will help Tobias.

So pretty reasonably progress back to his mean, which is typically in the mid-30s, sometimes higher. But the shooting is an issue right now. And it might be an issue throughout the season, just because the pistons aren't really strong in that area. Hopefully not. hopefully they can be average. Right now, they're kind of in the doldrums of the league as far as shooting goes, perimeter shooting. Keros Levert struggling, and adjustment is probably partly to blame, but spacing is also a significant consideration there.

Levert does the majority of his work going downhill, and he is driving into really bad spacing, into really packed paint. And some of that is just shooting. Some of that is how J.B. coaches where like you do ideally don't want for example to have Isaiah Stewart in a dunker spot when you've already got relatively poor spacing like with the saw on the floor for example and and you have Keras driving into that anyway. So yeah, Keras of his own accord again could just be an adjustment period and of his own accord just hasn't been great but for a player like him playing into really bad

spacing is a problem. I mean it's not great. He's also been a little bit injured which hasn't helped things. But also, Bickerstaff is doing the same thing he did with Ivy last season, Ivy without Kate at least, which is that when Kate is off the floor, it's playmaking by committee. Karris doesn't really get to operate in the pick and roll as much, and I dislike that as well. It's weird, too, because Bickerstaff really used him as a bench handler two seasons ago, as it three seasons ago, you know, to reasonably good effect. So, again, I think you'll see Karras, you know, progress. back toward his mean. The downside of that is you don't necessarily exactly know what you're going

to get out of Caris Levert. You might get a decent three-point shooting season and a decent season from an overall efficiency perspective, or you might get just pretty poor efficiency in shooting both. That happens occasionally. Carras on his career is not the most efficient player by any means. He's had some good seasons and he's had quite a few inefficient seasons as well. granted generally in a larger role than he's going to play for the pistons. But it should be noted that Schroeder was maybe better in terms of being a pure point guard, you know, just an actual honest to goodness pandler, but had his flaws too in terms of not just on defense with his size, which made him pretty exploitable like 6'1, 170 pounds, but also fairly low efficiency interior score himself.

is unreliable from three, so it's not like the Pistons necessarily lost out. Who knows? Hopefully, Ivy being back in the lineup and the Pistons being able to run two of K, Ivy and Levert at all times will ameliorate things a bit. Free throw shooting has sucked. Third to last in the league. Again, some of that is going to kick toward the mean. You know, K to struggle at times.

Just, you know, a sorrow, unfortunately, is still pretty bad. And, yeah, just leave it. a lot of points at the free throw line, which hopefully does not continue. Fowling. So this actually figures into the paint defense, which for the Pistons has been very strong so far. The Pistons commit the most fouls and give up the most free throws per game, a whopping 33, 12 more than the number one team, which is the clippers per game. That is a lot of points to give up the free throw line, especially against what thus far has been largely a collection of poor offenses. So that's something that plays in, of course. I mean, some of it is that they're very

physical defenders. Some of it is that there's a lot of youth on the team. Whatever it is, you know, the better your opponent gets, the better, you know, the more you're going to foul, probably. You know, they play very physical interior defense and that can produce good results, certainly, in terms of protecting the paint. But if you're fouling a lot in the the process, then the fact that your number one on points in the paints becomes a little bit artificial. If you're just giving up a crap load of free throws, which are going to be shot at far higher efficiency and more or less you get foul when you're trying to, you know, attack the rim, then sure, they're not points in the paint, but they are points. So something that the pistons

have to work on. Also, for goodness sake, I do not want to see these games be constant parades. The foul line. It's so boring. And the NBA has to do something about this. I don't know. know what gets it into the heads of Adam Silver in the competition committee that fans want to see a constant parade at the free throw line. I feel like, I don't know, maybe Houston fans with Hardin, who was getting legitimately fouled, he was good at drawing them or whatever, enjoyed seeing him shoot an obscene amount of free throws per game. I couldn't tell you. But I would imagine that if you ask the vast majority of fans, they would say, no, we don't like tic-tack fouls or, you know, a bazillion fouls being called every game, but it continues anyway.

Anyway, and the final thing I don't like, which is going to play into the next section here, is the easy opposition and the lack of data as a result. Now, this is not a butt, you know, as my mother would put it, you know, and not but. The pistons are 8 and 2, which is great. And they have been facing kind of an obliging schedule, which I know I said throughout much of last season, too. Last season's run of luck in terms of injuries to the opposition was wildly improbable. that, you know, happening again. But so some considerations about how things have gone so far. Number one, limited sample size, eight games,

which is further muddled by the fact that the early season is often very, very wonky in the NBA before teams really settle in and adapt to each other. So that does mess with the data a bit. The fact that the schedule has been very easy for the most part, outside of Cleveland's and Houston, one of which went well for the Pistons and the other one very poorly. Chicago, they didn't play a particularly good game. I don't know if I buy them either.

I'll talk about that a little bit, but the strength of schedule is muddling the data a little bit further. So the Pistons has been benefiting from some very obliging circumstances. Like they have phased very little in the way of good offenses. Like, you know, Houston is a good offense. Of course, they were still in kind of, you know, the risk of sounding like I'm overly qualifying this, still in the midst of some early season struggles that they have now rectified and one of the best offenses in the league. The number one offense in the league, actually.

And, you know, Chicago's got a top ten offense now. You look aside from that. I mean, the Celtics are in the middle. And the magic, the grizzlies, the jazz, even the cavaliers, and the Mavericks are all in the bottom eight. Maverick's Dead West, which they were there even with Anthony Davis. So, you know, this isn't me saying, oh, well, you know, look, this is all meaningless what's been happening. It's just that, you know, it's partially just my fixation upon data, but partially it's the early season. Things have been what they are often in the early season. And we really haven't seen yet the Pistons go up

against adversity, not very much of it. So for me, it's just kind of, I'd like to see more of where the team stands. And it's also, you know, because, you know, like I said, just the data isn't so great so far in terms of really getting an idea of that. And that's so much of what this season is about is, you know, where does this team stand? Obviously, I'm not going to be one, you know, the one making the decisions at the end, but I still want to know. also of course honestly you know i find the games considerably more entertaining if they're against

the challenging opponent rather than against you know teams that are injury butchered and or just kind of bad and so i mean we can look at for example like well i don't want to get into that i was about to talk about teams the pistons have faced up the middle but then it'll just sound like i'm crapping on duron and that's not uh it's not something i want to do just you can just say the pistons even even in that pretty much you know for example going up against front lines. They've been fortunate to go up against weak front lines. They've also just gone up against bad offenses in general. Not many good defenses either. So it doesn't matter. Bailey, it's almost kind of like extended preseason this early for a lot of teams.

I think Chicago's definitely going to run into that. That'll be my guess anyway. But it's basically for me, it's like, sure, you know, things are looking good so far. It's good that the Pistons are building up a buffer. It's been enjoyable to watch. And I hope it continues. and I anticipate we might see more of the issues with this roster come up once the schedule gets a little bit more difficult. But definitely plenty of positive so far. Speaking of building a buffer, the Pistons are not going to begin facing any real contenders unless you consider like Chicago or Milwaukee or Philly to be contenders. And I think that's borderline. Well, with Chicago, you know, it's drastically too early to say that Milwaukee got significantly worse.

Philly got significantly worse. And in any case, so unless you're kind of those teams, the Pistons won't start facing actual honest to goodness contenders until the end of December until they play against the Lakers. And then the Clippers, and that's when things get tough. January is tough. February is tough. And so it would be good for the Pistons to build up a bit of a buffer because, you know, again, this still young team with an imperfect roster.

That's just really very focused on development. once again it's not meant to be an ironclad roster that was not the priority and yeah at that point we'll get to you know this team will be fully settled in and we'll get to really see what they're made of not to say that everything before then is insignificant you're mostly just hearing my irritation with the schedule makers it's a combination of that and the fact that the east is so weak you know with you know Boston having gotten worse Indiana being a lot worse well Boston a lot worse too, Milwaukee worse. And Embed, it's sad to see how Embed looks. The guy was such an, say what you will about, you know, that was the guy foulbader, who knows, you know, that's up to you. I think

he runs his fouls. I mean, he's one of the most offense, he's one of the most talented two-way bigs in NBA history. But you see, some guys are just more injury prone. You can have the likes of Drummond, who is a very high-flying, you know, athletic big, who'd never got to. You know, injured and I don't doubt that Embed puts a whole lot of effort into his physical health but gets injured anyway. It's just how it is. You look back to a guy like Brandon Roy. Some guys just have certainly absolutely won the genetic lottery and having the physical talent to play in the NBA, but have lost it kind of on an additional level in that they just can't stay healthy. So in any event, just kind of going back to the sustainability in light of the schedule is this sort of

no spacing, paint scoring really valuable against good teams, especially when they kind of settle down and, you know, and you figure out other teams what they're doing over, you know, over time and, you know, and adapt accordingly. That can take a bit of time. And yeah, so when the quality of the competition increases and when the pistons are more of a known quantity and most importantly in the postseason, is that going to work? You know, of course, if the shooting sucks this season that will be addressed. You hope that Jadenavi comes back and helps. And some guys will improve, like Tobias will improve, but that's about where it ends, unless you're hoping that Malik Beasley is coming back to the team. And who knows if that'll happen,

not really worth thinking about. So in any case, yeah, just looking forward to better opposition, not just for the data, but also for the team to grow. You know, as much as I'm sure beating up on, you know, kind of, again, I don't want to sound like I'm completely, you know, gain saying that, you know, what this team has accomplished so far, but, you know, you're going to grow more from playing against teams that challenge you. This, oh yeah, this was supposed to go into the part I don't like category and somehow got dropped into the considerations category. Kate is having a lot of trouble when he gets blitzed on the pick and roll. I saw this data as of two games ago. this comes from second spectrum, which gives like the most detailed NBA data, and you can't even get access to it unless you're some sort of basketball organization. I think they define it.

But Cade's points per possession on the pick and roll was 1.06, which is very solid when he was not blitzed versus 0.45 when he was blitzed, I think double teamed in the pick and roll. And he's being blitzed at that point, more than anyone not named Luca, who is just an amazing player, obviously, who basically retains the same points per possession of the pick and roll when he gets blitzed, when he doesn't. And Booker, who's just handling the ball a ton in Phoenix and has no help in that capacity. So, again, Cade's Young, one of these things to work on, though. We saw it happen to him with the Knicks and the playoffs, and it's just something he's got to

work on because, again, you go into the postseason, you're always facing good teams. Those teams are always going to attack your weaknesses, and the deeper you go, the better they get. So thankfully, plenty of time. He is not a story that's been totally written yet by any means. All right. Moving on to other notes, Isaac Jones, who was claimed yesterday, his way by the Sacramento King, is a power forward who's pretty strong and is nothing proven as a shooter and has very few NBA minutes.

No idea what that's about. He is on a fully non-guaranteed contract. It's same as it was with Paul Reed last season. He gets his cap hit grows by the game, his salary, you know, his yearly salary divided by 82. He's guaranteed like anybody else, fully guaranteed. All non-guaranteed salaries become guaranteed in the middle of January. And so it's, yeah, I mean, the Pistons could just stick with him for a day and then wave him, and there would be no repercussions there.

I mean, even if you were guaranteed, they could waive him. They'd just be stuck paying him, you know, in addition to. whoever took his place, but I'm just curious what they're seeing him. That's all. And Isaiah Stewart at Power Forward. It's two games against not so great teams. This is something where the quality of the competition really does matter because Isaiah against good defense is the fact that he can really do very, very little, but shoot wide open threes is a problem. Also, he's not really an offball mover who can effectively space the floor by actually getting himself open. And you just, on defense, you just taken away from him at center where he's an elite defender

versus just, you know, good at some things and not as good at others at power forward, above average, but not elite. So, yeah, like I said, I doubt it's something that at the front office has any intention to sticking with, but with Tobias out, your other option is basically a SAR or Ron, and I guess they consider that less than preferable, you know, especially putting them up against Jaron Jackson Jr. and Lory Markening. There's only kind of so much you can do when the guy's considerably taller than you are. And also just obviously good players.

Other worthies of note league wide, Chaunty Billups, that'd be really sad if the charges against him are true. I think I talked about that last week. Whatever. And just if he did it, he did it, and that's a shame. Chicago, who continued to be a good team in the win-loss column, six and one at this point. I don't buy this team. I don't think the giddy avalanche is going to, you know, is going to continue how it's been.

He's been, I think, far too good for it to be sustainable. They've got Jalen Smith and Vujavich holding down the fort defensively. Vuchovitch in particular is terrible as a defender. Butchievich himself has been just shooting at an unsustainable rate. I mean, you've got 60% from the field, almost, and almost 50% from three. Unlike would he continue. Just everything is going right for that team right now. I mean, they're shooting 40% from three, you know, between, you know,

like everybody from Trey Jones down to even Jalen Smith is okay. The only guy in a team not shooting well is Kevin Herder, and typically everybody, you know, typically that's the only thing he's good at. but you've just you've got a lot going right at one time this team just doesn't really have a ton of talents it's got billy donovan who is about as mediocre as you can probably you know possibly get probably worse than mediocre really and yeah this stuff just you just don't i don't see this being sustainable you know they played also their schedule um you know as aside from one game against the nicks who are actually playing with a full roster

So I'll, you know, credit there. And the Pistons. I know they beat the Pistons because the Pistons virtually did everything wrong in the first half. You know, the Magic who are still having major issues and scored 98 points in that game because their offense is crap. And Jamal Mosley is just doing a really bad job of coaching it. And the Hawks without Trey and the Kings who suck and the Sixers who are, you know, in the East a decent team, but not that great. Anyway, I think this is a team that's going to get hit pretty hard in the face with regards. And speaking of the magic, yeah, got to fire your coach, but also, like I've been saying,

I mean, your roster construction where your two lead handlers are two bigs who don't really shoot too well, but also just are not really viable kind of true lead playmakers is kind of a problem. Yeah, the NBA is always, you know, it's just getting taller and taller and is more and more emphasis on size, but there's still a lot of value and I hope it always stays this way of having a guy who can truly lead your offense, and they don't have one of those. Also, just not a Paolo van. Yeah, I think the guy is, it's Franz, who's been the better player of the two for, you know, their entire time playing together.

Franz, who has always been a major positive impact player for that team, whereas Bancaro has been, has ranged from somewhat to very negative, at least if you're looking at on-off, and these are two guys in the same situation, you know, with some minor variances for injuries. and whatnot. And, you know, I think he's just a guy who needs to operate on the ball and is not good enough to have operating constantly on the ball. It does not provide much off ball value. It has a crappy shot profile that he loves. If he could just improve upon the shot profile, it would make a significant difference for him. But yeah, and in Orlando, after being one of the worst, the second worst shooting team of the perimeter shooting team of the last decade just continues

to not be good at that this season. That's, oh, weakness of the roster. At least last I looked, yeah, they're shooting 33.3%. This is where the early season is wonky, is that that would have been the worst, I think that would have been the worst market very close to it in regular season last year. And there are five teams worse than that right now. You know, the Pacers are shooting 30.9%. You know, these are things that gravitate toward the mean.

Like the 14th. Yeah, I mean, once you get to, you know, 14. It's about where league average was last season. But yeah, so I don't like the team construction. I don't really like Boncare all that much, but also their coach is going to get fired. And unless things dramatically improve, and I think we'll be the first to go this season. And, okay, so I'll take a listener request here, which is a challenge to me to just say nice things about Durham without a single qualifier. Okay, we'll do it. Yeah. I mean, obviously, just to clarify, I mean, I think I have talked about his strengths in the past. They're just always in the context of not being good enough unless his defense takes a big leap. And, you know, that's how I still feel and remains to be seen about his defense. So, you know, that will be before the challenge begins. So let's, but that's basically just by way of saying when it sounds like I don't talk about his positive qualities much. That's probably why. but also let's get going and no this is not going to be difficult for me to do because i don't dislike

durn at all now that he plays hard and plays for his team and i'm pulling for him to succeed that would be a big deal for the pistons so let's see starting from the beginning a strong finisher with good footwork good poise doesn't get rushed it just has good touch around the rim he has good hands just in terms of catching the ball and the ability to, you know, keep it above his shoulders and, you know, and dunk when he gets it around the basket, it gets to the right time. Elite roll man just sets great screens, rolls hard of the basket, excellent vertical spacer, one of the best in the league with just a great catch radius. Those are big deal. You know, they're all a big deal for a guy like Cade who lives in the high pick and roll. He is able to attack some opposing centers off the

dribble, especially you have situations, you know, especially when he's facing, you know, a weaker front line. Not only can he attack them more effectively, but they've got to send somebody to help and that opens up a teammate in the corner. And in that situation, you know, he's, he's got solid passing vision. You know, he's a solid passer. And he'll find somebody open on the perimeter, typically on the near side. He's also just generally a willing passer overall, who's, who, again, is willing, and that's a big deal and is also able to look around. and, you know, if he gets the ball in a certain position, and there's just no roots of the basket, look around and make the right pass,

you know, make a pass, which you'd be surprised. A lot of centers don't do that. So he, at least as of, you know, partway through last season, just continues to have a good encore work ethic. You know, he plays tough. He doesn't back down. You know, the guy is, you know, much like Stewart, if not quite as much, because nobody is more like this than Stewart.

Whatever. He doesn't back down. He'll mix it up with guys who, you know, who challenge him, challenge his teammates. And, yeah, overall, it's just been doing a great job so far of finishing around the rim and, you know, attacking who he can off the dribble. And again, making the right pass, vertically spacing the floor, being an elite role man for an elite pick and roll playmaker. So if you can just add defense in there, then, you know, just get him to average or a little bit above,

then cool. you know, just a guy who can play solid, reliable defense, especially in the postseason, then cool. You know, he can be the starting center for the Pistons for a long time. So that's what I'm hoping for. Just to address a concern, I've seen these, oh, we should have extended him before the season. Now he's going to cost way more. He was asking for $30 plus million. That'd be shocked, even if the rest of the season went very well if he got, you know, much, anything, even, you know, if he got that, you know, 30 plus million, maybe he gets 30 million a year, but that would be a major coup for a traditional center, especially with, if it's just like a,

just pretty much a one-season sample would also reduce his value, you know, reduces salary and the fact that he's going to be restricted free agent, and it'd be pretty unlikely for, it'd be pretty unusual for teams to pitch that much money and basically risk blowing that cap space because it's tied up for, like, a week before the other team has to make a decision. So there's an opportunity cost. I think the teams with Capspace, Washington, Utah, the Lakers and the Nets, don't see the Nets being too interested.

I'm probably just going to continue to be bad. The Wizards have Sarr, who continues. You know, it was actually at a pretty impressive start of the season. Excuse me. The Lakers, you basically have to give up both Reeves and LeBron to pull that off and still be able to stock your team. And maybe the Hornets or the Jazz will presumably have Castler and just not really have any need to throw an offer sheet. And I think maybe the Hornets do too.

And who knows? But I digress. Early in the season, hope he keeps it up. We'll see. And now, because I actually didn't give him myself much time to record this episode, we'll just go very quickly through the games. The Pistons played this week up against the magic. Just an overall solid game.

Really good game from Cade. A solid game from Duran. Tobias had a really good game. You know, Duncan was highly efficient. Asar was able to get stuff done. Not a ton to say about that one. Just an overall well-played game by the Pistons, particularly the starting lineup. And, yeah, just the sort that you'd like to see more of, especially because they shot 40% from three.

The Mavericks, I was not impressed with Cooper Flag. I mean, he's being put in a very, very difficult. position of needing to be the lead handler for a bad team as a rookie being a rookie lead handler is like the hardest thing in the NBA. Very few guys can do this well. And he's being asked to carry a pretty significant load. So yeah, Denver, I mean, they went from finals team to probable bottom feeder this season very quickly. That's what happens when you make a completely bizarre trade and you send out a generational player. You get lucky enough to win the first overall pick. That doesn't mean you're still be as good as you were before, especially when the guy you take back who's

very good as chronically injured as he was against the pistons as was lively so pistons were up against you know the 30th ranked offense and a pretty bad defense given that they they were fielding kind of a hobbled gafford and dwight Powell who used to be decent but is now very much replacement level and really stood no chance against the pistons in the interior you know between you know Kate and Duren, and, you know, even Assar did pretty well in the interior there, and so on and so forth. So hard to feel bad about them. Flag has a lot of potential, it's just not there right now. The Memphis game, you know, Pistons were just the better team. Got to give a shout out to Isaiah Stewart. What a great game, 26 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, four blocks. You know, if Stewart never

finds a roots to becoming like a 15 point per game score on offense, then also he gets even more valuable because you can, you know, you can be sure that whatever his stats, whatever his stats are, he'll be more than that for the most part because his defense is elite. Kade exploded in the fourth quarter. Like I said, that takeover basketball is just great to see. And then against the Jazz, again, a bitably pretty weak team, even more so now that they've lost Walker Kessler for the year, as a result of which they had to fall back on Nurkich, who was solid enough three seasons ago, and is now a replacement level player.

And Taylor Hendricks, zero points in 18 minutes. I mean, he's coming back from a pretty terrible injury, but actually I think I thought draft that that guy would be a solid role player. We'll see. Still has time. But, again, the pistons were just able to bully the front line. Markinen had a bit of a slow game. He was also just not really much of a defender.

and it was ex-piston's FEMA, Kowick, actually, who had the best game for the Jazz 28 points, just kind of goes to show that anybody can explode in today's NBA. 18 of those points were from the perimeter. If you get out from the perimeter, things can go very well for you. But anyway, yeah, Durham was able to really, you know, if you put up a weak front line against him and Cade,

then they're going to bully that front line, and that's good. Cade, again, took over 19 points, and the fourth didn't have the most efficient game, but again, just those takeover stretches show you he's capable of. So again, just an instance in which the Pistons were just the better team and played like it. So typically we'd go into these games more in depth. Unfortunately, I have kind of run out of time here doing this in a Friday afternoon. So in any case, as always, folks, I want to thank you so much for listening. I hope you're all doing great. We'll catch you in the next

episode.