Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 241: A Hot Start

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

This episode recaps a week that saw the Pistons grow the standing win streak to nine games and the season's record to 11-2: Daniss Jenkins, the bench mob, and so on. 

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Drive into the Basket. I'm Mike, and I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend. A little bit on the weather here, as you can probably tell by the super congested quality of my voice, but in any case, let's talk Pistons. This may end up being a little bit of a shorter episode than usual. just because I'm not sure exactly how long I can talk consecutively, and I really don't like to break episodes up into, you know, recording and segments. So, yep, I'll see what I can do. Yeah, that sounded like a bit too much qualification. Any case, I'll put it this way.

Hopefully, I can get through everything I have written down. So let's launch right into this. First off, thank you for those of you reached out with feedback about the new formats. This is your first time listening or haven't listened to the last couple of episodes. it's basically, I'm just trying to stick with a format of, you know, since the last episode, like what I've liked, what I have not liked, the overall context, some around the league stuff, user, excuse me, listeners submitted questions. We used to call them user submitted questions.

I'm not sure why. This isn't a product anybody's using. This was back when I had co-host, and somehow none of the three of us really realized that that sounded completely off. Anyway, yeah, so listeners submitted questions, and, yeah, again, if there's anything, you want to hear me meanderingly monologue about it on this show and then just uh you know hit me up on twitter discord reddit always good to hear from uh really always really appreciate hearing from listeners uh and then just go over the games the pistons have played since the last episode so in

the interests of trying to get through all the material i've written down here uh let's launch right into it starting off with what i like what i have enjoyed and what i have enjoyed and what I think is good over the last week or so. So number one, of course, has to be the Pistons or 11 and 2, you know, regardless of anything else, obviously that's a big deal, you know, no matter how you look at it, if you're looking at it in the most, you know, the most hype you, most type you way or the most kind of cold and analytical way. Being 11 and 2 means that we've gotten to watch a lot more wins.

And, of course, that's also a big boost toward seating, what ultimately happens. You know where the Pistons ultimately find themselves. So, yay for that. Best start in, my goodness, I think 2007 or something like that, so almost 20 years. And it's a fun place to be and certainly enjoyable and certainly in adjustment. The Pistons have not had a season anything like this, like to any degree, since, well, I guess it's only been since 2018 when the Pistons started 13 and 7, though, you know, that's not 11 and 2. And also there are some issues there.

14 and 6 in 2017, 2018, that's still my favorite start to a season for the Pistons in a long time is because they did it against a really difficult strength of schedule. But in any event, yeah, the first time the Pistons, I think I've started this well, and it's won nine games in a row. Yeah, it was back during the going to work days. I believe, yeah, so this would have been 2007, I think, in which events, well, even if we're 2006, 2007, you know, that's after Ben Wallace. so it is in the 80% going to work days.

So awesome, great, definitely only good things to say about that. And it's just, yeah, it's an adjustment watching the Pistons, you know, consistently win games rather than find ways to lose them, which has obviously been kind of characteristic, whether deliberate or otherwise, since, you know, 2020 on board, mostly deliberate, but not always. It's been fun to watch these sort of ruffian lineups of largely bench players and depth players win three games in a row. Well, the first of those, you know, Cade was playing and Jalen Durham was playing. But the last two, I mean, we've watched the Pistons win with the starting lineup of Dennis Jenkins, Duncan Robinson, Jivante Green, Ron Holland, and Paul Reed. And these have been games, the Pistons. You know, granted, they're not, you know, they're not world-beating opponents. but nonetheless, you know, winning games, you know, two games in a row with a lineup like

that is notable. So it's just great to see from a culture perspective, also just from a viewer perspective, it's fun to watch a team win. But from a culture perspective, I mean, these are guys who, quit with a locker room is very, very good. And, I mean, we've got a lineup full of players who are really working hard. And, you know, hard work's never going to go out of style. I mean, you all work the other team. It's going to give me an advantage no matter what. So, you know, just fun doesn't necessarily mean anything, you know, to be in the grand scheme of things, to be winning games with, you know, chiefly bench lineup, you know, lineup full of the NBA bench players and death players.

Yeah, I mean, not really, per se, but it's fun to watch anyway. I mean, these were enjoyable games. Dennis Jenkins, of course, deserves mention, you know, he's been doing well, he's been shooting great from the perimeter. He's shown more kind of creation chops than I had expected out of him, especially against Washington. And oh my goodness, I'm hitting this point, the episode where my brain is not working as it usually does. Again, probably a consequence of illness. I'm going to do my best here.

I'm a little obsessive. He probably picked up on that by this point if you've been listening for more than like an episode. Anyway, I digress. So, yeah, I mean, Jenkins is kind of shown. some stuff he hadn't in the past, just in terms of, he's a lot bouncier than I thought he was. I mean, vertically speaking, he's a, you know, pretty respectable athlete. He's always been quick, still not really explosive. But, yeah, the perimeter shooting has been great.

I mean, he's at, I don't know, like 55%, which obviously isn't going to last. But if you can keep that to 40, that would be really good. The guy's super high energy. Just really a big fan of his swagger, super hard worker. And, you know, we'll see if it's, if it goes anywhere. in terms of, you know, a variety of factors, one of which is, is he just going to continue to get minutes at all when Cade is back, and then when Ivy is back, is even just Cade coming back. If Leverett continues to get minutes, and he will, almost certainly. Then, you know,

just for the healthy starting lineup, basically, in Carus Levert, that closes off a lot of potential minutes for Dennis Jenkins. There's, you know, also, who knows, some guys' fringes of a lineup really get it going and then fall off. That happens pretty frequently. Hopefully to This is not another one of those cases. Quality of the competition, blah, blah, blah. You know, we'll see. I mean, if you can stay in the lineup, then he'll have a chance to show what he can do. I'll talk a little bit about that later on in the episode.

Got to give a shout out to the K. Duren chemistry. Like, you know, it's right now, obviously to this point in the season, has worked extremely well. It's a combination of an elite pick-and-roll playmaker and just all-round score and an elite role man. I mean, the goal of any NBA action, offenses, actions, whatever. is to just give, not only give yourself the best breadth of options you can, but give defenses only bad options. So in a lot of cases, a lot of cases so far, you know, it's been either you double-cover Kade, you know, off the pick and thereby, you know, to this point, really free up Duren to grab the ball and explode the baskets or just, you know, catch an alley-oop,

or you kind of back off on Kade and then you give them space to score. The two of them, I think, pretty clearly worked very extensively together in the offseason, because, I mean, the chemistry is really just top-notch there right now. And, yeah, that's obviously a, you know, whatever me or anybody else wants to say about, you know, Duren's defensive shortcomings, which, you know, he's been largely holding of his own yet, but this is kind of a we'll-see sort of thing. He is an elite role man, and he has shown a bit of a different offensive gear. So in any case, just credit the two of them.

And credit for the hard work they clearly put in together over the summer. That's not necessarily something you see a lot, so, you know, credit for the two of them. More on Duran, his foul drawing and really high free throw percentage. I mean, he's doing quite well at drawing, you know, excuse me, at drawing fouls, whether it's just kind of exploding on short drives at the rim or catching the ball feeds largely from Kade and just positioning himself well to get hacked rather than just get an open basket and then making his free throws at a high percentage. It might sound basic, and it is basic, but still a good way to get points.

And also, though, I'm going to have to push this to another episode because my brain just isn't really cooperating. Just how he's kind of bringing together his assets as a player just in terms of, you know, his athleticism, his ability to vertically space the floor, his, you know, pretty darn good touch around the rim, his ability to attack off the dribble with a good handle, you know, against opposing bigs, you know, with a good handle and, you know, not very telegraphed at all. You know, a couple that with, again, even a good touch at the rim off the drive. Like for a big, it's his ability to put the ball on the floor while remaining completely upright is, you know, and dribble pretty explosively to the rim, well, for a big, is an asset, you know,

and then he's perfectly poised. he's just really able to beat some opposing bigs off the curl generally to the right and occasionally help will come and then he's able to make the right pass and so on and so forth. But I guess I'll leave this for an instance, you know, an instance, maybe next episode in which I'm actually able to put forth the sort of analysis that I would like to. In any case, you know, good for him. You know, he's been doing quite well on offense and hopefully that will continue. And defensively, he's, you know, it's been nice to see him holding his own more. And just to be just much more intense and hardworking in general, it was kind of

refreshing to see him take Asar to task for blowing a defensive, well, for blowing a defensive assignment. I don't know if that was actually him taking Asar to task for it, or if he was pissed that Asar had pointed at him first, which is what happened. I watched that play a few times, you know, because typically you would think it would be Asar who was correct when he points the finger to teammates for screwing up defensively because Asar rarely does, but no, that was his fault and seems to have pissed off during a little bit. So whether he was taking a start of task or just being defensive, whatever, you got to like the intensity.

Duncan Robinson, who I think continues to be a very good signing for the Pistons, and I think deserves more credit than maybe he's being given, not pointing fingers, obviously. I think that everybody is very sad to see Beasley not return to the team, given how well he did last season and kind of how much he meant to the locker room and how much he embraced the city. And that that maybe created some space for Duncan Robinson's really elite caliber and also pretty elite resume as a shooting specialist over the last six seasons, well, five out of the last six seasons. You know, for that to maybe fade under the background a little bit. I mean, Duncan Robinson is an absolutely elite shooting specialist. This is a guy who, for good reason, started for a team that reached game six of the finals in the bubble and played an important minutes for another finals team.

actually has a better resume than Beasley altogether. You know, if he had had the season that he had in 2019, 2020 coming off the bench, you know, you're going to think this is a guy who may have won six man of the year because that was one of the greatest three-point shooting seasons ever. In any case, it's just good to see him finding his stride. It's also good to see J.B. Bakerstaff using him more in a Miami way. I mean, there is an established blueprint for using Duncan Robinson to his utmost that comes from the guy who, again, I think,

the best coach in the league and is certainly far on a way better than anybody else at getting the most out of his players, especially his role players. That's Eric Spolstra. And, you know, don't reinvent the wheel, so to speak. You know, something that works. Use it. And Bakerstaff has been doing that more effectively, which was a little bit concerned about early in the season because, you know, the first few games, I'm like, what are you doing with this guy? You know what's going to work and you're just not doing it, but he is now. Which is just to have him just run back and forth around screens, basically, which even if which is going to accomplish

even if he doesn't end up shooting the ball he's going to attract a lot of gravity and he often does end up shooting the ball he can catch the ball from around a screen and shoot it and it's very difficult and have a pretty good chance of hitting it so yeah it's just kind of having him

running back and forth on the perimeter around screens if he catches it and he's covered then hopefully as somebody else he's open to pass it to or he just passes it to the screener and gets it back and shoots around a screen again so. Spolestrode really excellent expertly used him in a way that both maximized his gravity and his chances of getting open,

and it's been good to see Bigger Stap doing more of that. Granted, some more of it is happening because players are out, but nonetheless, you know, especially when it comes to defensive shooting, you know, shooting specialists who often have a cost on defense. Duncan is one of those. Beasley is another, you know, your average shooting specialist is not great on defense. You want to not only, you want to get the most out of him just for basic reasons, but also for the reason that there's the cost on defense. So that's been good to see. In any case, Duncan, just a super hard worker, you know, clearly great teammates. And yeah, on defense, he can get beaten one-on-one. He has a habit of falling asleep on three-point shooters. And so he's not great there, but as a

shooter, certainly is fantastic. And in my opinion, better than Beasley in some ways. Of course, if you were to get last season's Beasley, then he'd be better than Duncan Robinson, unless you got 2019, 2020, Duncan Robinson, who is easily to equal of last season's Beasley, I doubt we would have gotten a repeat performance from Beasley. I'm not saying this out of an effort to cope with his absence. It's just that when a guy hits a new level in season nine, he's unlikely to retain it.

I think we would have seen some aggression of the mean. A guy just doesn't abruptly have one of the greatest catch-and-shoots seasons of all the time. and well can abruptly have it rather it's just not likely to continue who knows you know clearly we're not going to find out maybe he'll rejoin the team at some point but you know if duncan is still in the lineup you won't have the same role and still be rejoining the team partway through so he won't have all season of data anyway i'm not banking on it if it happens cool if not whatever, you know, that's, I suppose, all that can really be said about it. Keros Levert heating up a bit, and that has happened in the last three games.

Granted, it's against, you know, pretty blah competition, but that may be just what he needs to really get himself going. You know, he's been just more aggressive off the dribble and moving more aggressively off the ball. And I don't really think that the really difficult pull-up threes or something to bank on, but cool, I guess. It'd be important for the Pistons to get him going. I mean, maybe the early injury issues in the switch to a new system, which really should not have been much of a switch to a new system because he's played under J.B. And also because moving from Cleveland's to

Atlanta last season wasn't really that much of an adjustment for him either, a pretty easily adaptable game to any team. But yeah, the Pistons will need him to be a reliable handler at the very least that'll be a big deal. Though it is kind of revealing, and I wonder this is because of you know, the injuries recently that Dennis Jenkins got the start over him against the Bulls. And of course, Janice did quite well against the Bulls and therefore was starting again the next game. And then got to give a shout out to Paul Reed, you know, certainly one of the top third string centers in the association, also one of the best paid third string centers in the association, but that's not here nor there. Paying him that amount of money made sense just for the

sake of cap maneuvering. So he's a guy who I feel like. I mean, beyond just being an incredibly hard worker, is, you know, has added somewhat to his game, even since last season. Most in terms of his footwork off the drive, some of his shot making are on the rim and so on. And I can just continually contextualize this with the quality of the competition, but blah, blah, blah. You know, he's done well, and it's certainly good to have him as depth, you know, especially, you know, even in the course of, you know, normal circumstances with no injuries, both if, for whatever reason, Bakerstaff wants to put out Stewart with Duren and heavier minutes, or just if two of the most foul-prone bigs in the association, one of them ends up in foul trouble. You have reed to trot out there, though he's

even more foul-prone than either of them. Of course, in the number of minutes he plays, that's, you're not really risking him being run off the floor in the normal course of things. All right, so, yeah, obviously plenty of good in the week, which you would expect, you know, because the last, you know, the Pistons have played five games since I last recorded, and they won all of them. There is a little bit to dislike. I already mentioned Duncan Robinson's defense. Just his propensity for following this season has also not been great, especially with a lot of the fouls not coming at a great time, followed out against the bowls, and so on. Again, I mean, he used to play under a coach who was the best in the league, you know, bar none at hiding bad defenders.

and it's going to be an adjustment for him. But fouling out in two out of the last four games is not really ideal, nor the free throws that he is giving up particularly ideal. But again, work in progress. All the injuries, obviously that's no fun. These things happen. A lot of them are happening at the same time. And it's kind of the other side of the coin with the Pistons faced last season,

especially in the 2025 portion, but just in general, outside of Ivy and the SARS early blood clots. I mean, the Pistons were spectacularly healthy last season. And they were often playing against opponents, again, especially in the 2025 portion, who were missing guys. I've been over this, and it's not like an attempt to minimize anything

with the Pistons accomplished last season. But it's like the run of luck they had in terms of both being healthy, again, outside of Ivy, and facing opponents, missing key players, was almost infuriating. It's like, yay, for the wins, but I'd like to see what this team can actually.

I'd like to see this team actually play a difficult game against a non-short-handed opponent. Well, now it's the pissings on the other side. Thankfully, the opposition with the injuries has been pretty easy, and they've been able to continue winning games through the power of, I don't know, depth and hard work. But these things happen. You know, injuries will happen, just a lot of them happening at once right now. This is probably my biggest dislike of the week is Ron Holland,

who, under the circumstances, with so many guys out, I mean, this is an opportunity really for him to show out. and to really be aggressive and to make his presence known on offense. Instead, he has been bad. You look at the last three games. He has shot 30% from the field, 11% from 3, and has averaged about 8 points per game. And just has been largely invisible on offense when he's not missing shots.

Very young player, still raw. And, I mean, the shot, three-point shot continues to look pretty solid. You know, the misses aren't bad. and they'll eventually start going in, I think. At the same time, he's one out of nine over those three games. It's just for a player who's as aggressive and hardworking as Ron is, I mean, is it a crisis of confidence? Is he not getting proper billing from J.B.?

I don't know. What I know is he's being outplayed by a bunch of guys who, in a normal course of things, don't really have rotation rules. So, again, still a very young player. It is mildly painful, though I'm by no means willing to make this a value just yet to see Boozellis do so well. You guys averaging 15 points. I don't significantly larger role, but 15 points, 40% from 3, you know,

six rebounds, et cetera. And, you know, but there's still plenty of time for, you know, for Ron to make his way. It just came in very, very raw. But it's just been a little bit discomfiting, we'll put it that way, to see him be so passive when given, you know, substantially larger chance. This may sound a little premature.

but probably not for those of, you know, for, I don't know, I think I talked up to Summer League about, so for those of you were listening to that episode about just how disappointed I was in Bobby Clinton, or Bobby Clinton, I can never remember, Bobby. So, he looked terrible in Summer League in the context of having made virtually no progress. And I'll just briefly blow through his shortcomings. His athleticism sucks. I mean, his first step is awful. He doesn't really have much of progress.

particle pop either. He's terrible at scoring through. I mean, he can't, in terms of his explosiveness, I mean, he can't explode through open lanes. He can't attack close-outs. If you're as slow at attacking close-outs as he is, basically these lanes will close very quickly. If you're that slow, you've got to be pretty strong at absorbing contact and scoring at the rim, and it's something he's been terrible at, you know, through college in the MDL and now in the NBA. He's just easily blown by on defense and just the value floor in the NBA. You can't just be a guy who shoots spot-up threes. You've got to be able to do other stuff, too, because it's not just about, well, number one, it's about meeting the value for it. It's not just that. It's

about justifying giving you minutes versus giving them somebody else. So he's been awful. I think it's, he just looks bad. And it's like at this point, it's like, is he ever going to be able to develop skills that will compensate for this really crappy athleticism of his? I think he got four minutes against the Sixers, which was the way to go. I completely missed the fact that he was on the floor but I mean it when Wendell Moore Jr. who's just signed his depth through a two-way deal gets 18 minutes and you only get four minutes and 43 seconds then I mean it's not you know something's wrong it's just that it's more that this made perfect sense for Wendell Moore Jr. who's I like but is not a very good player to get those minutes and unfortunately athleticism is not going to grow

with age so I just spent probably more time on that than I didn't to, sorry about the throat clearing. I hate that sound. It would hurt a little bit less. I mean, you know, if the two guys who were taken after him weren't rookie to year last season and the guy who is currently scoring like 16 points per game for the thunder and that there are a bunch of other potential rotation players beneath him. Of course, it is what it is. You're not going to hit on all these. He was a project. I hope he makes it work. I just don't really see a road to it at this point.

and then not so much a dislike so to speak more just a concern about what it's going to look like when teams adapt a bit more to the early season offense especially with the k during pick and roll we've already you know started to see it begin this is one reason why early season data can be a little bit suspect because teams adapt and it's tough to like come back at them with wholesale adaptations of your own we saw this most poignantly in 2017 2018 when the offense formula by Stan Van Gundy's assistants and his brother, not Stan himself, was, you know, pretty good for the first quarter of the season until teams adapted and then he couldn't adapt back. Granted, he was like one out of ten in terms of his ability and willingness to adapt. Bigger staff is better, still not great, but certainly much better. That said, there's only so much you can do to, you know, push back in the other direction when teams really catch on and start playing you there. but that's a concern for every team you know every team in the NBA has to think about that but again

it's just why early season data can be a little bit weird there are a lot of extremes in early season data in the NBA they tend to almost invariably gravitate back toward the mean so if we see the pick and roll become less effective that's just kind of to be expected I think it will remain effective we just may not see the same sort of explosions that we have seen to this point excuse me also and to bring it to the next point is that yeah quality of the competition this all has to be 100% contextualized for both players such as what I've spoken about with Durham with his defense and you know in the pick and roll with Caden Durran and the team in general basically it should be contextualized by it's going well and I hope it'll continue

when the competition grows difficult yeah the east is weak the schedule has also just been pretty kind. And it's kind of a honeymoon period. It's great to be getting this buffer early. You know, to be getting some wins in early on. That's just good for the locker room. It's great to be getting this, you know, early lead on seating. It's great to be getting kind of also a buffer for when the schedule gets more difficult, which will begin on, you know, December of the 28, the Pistons face, or the Lakers of the clippers. And from there for the next two and a half months, it's actually pretty hard. But, yeah, it's important to be able to consistently be, easy opponents you know that's not only for seating purposes but also because that's the sign of a team

that kind of has it together and can do these things you know it has more talent and is going to consistently win games as a result more talent maybe better coached maybe or certainly just works harder so it's useful uh so that shouldn't be uh goodness i'm missing the word you know what i'm talking about that uh shouldn't be devalued i guess is sort of the word i'm looking for but or and in the end have to be able to win four out of seven in the playoffs against good teams that's really the mark so you know i'm not saying don't be excited you know winning is fun you want to be excited be excited you want to be hyped be hyped it's part of the fun of sports and i'm enjoying it i'm also looking forward to seeing you know you know me i'm just all you know very heavily on the analysis and uh in data side

i'm looking forward to getting more data on where this team really stands uh i also just like uh i much more enjoy watching like my enjoyment level is higher if the opponent is better put it that way so yep I'm all so far hope it continues and yeah that's pretty much all for the context section around the league I almost just said LOL which means I've been on the internet for far too long but I guess we'll replace that with point and laugh at the bulls like I said in the last episode I consider their start to be totally fraudulent and there are not now doing substantially worse. I mean, there's not enough talent on that team, and the shooting was totally unsustainable, and they've come crashing down to Earth. So, like, I wasn't watching,

obviously, back in the, you know, the Pistons versus MJ days. It was well before my basketball time, but I still, you know, whether I'm, because of my time against the Rebbings, you know, excuse me, as a Rebings fan, or just, you know, growing up watching Detroit sports, I do have an inherent dislike for Chicago sports teams. So it's very nice to see the Bulls flop. Also, laugh at the Pelicans, who just, my goodness, I've been over this. Why do you hire Joe Dumas? And, you know, not only because he has far more failure than success in his past, or rather, he, in a very, very short period, is successful GM followed up by quite a bit of failure, starting with significant failure, or substantive failure, rather,

and then moving on to being one of the worst, arguably the worst GM in the league for his final five or six seasons. So why do you hire him? So you're just, you're going to almost certainly get subpar work, President of Bass or his VP of basketball operations, whatever. And then he's going to do completely stupid things

like hire Troy Weber. And then go from potentially having two top five picks or something like that for the Pacers who are terrible and the Pelicans themselves who are terrible. I mean, shockingly, Zion is injured again. The team wasn't going to be, I think, very good in the first place. But they originally had the Pacers pick for this next season, or the current season, rather. And the Pacers, like, after, I think it was this after game six of the finals when Halliburton was injured.

And maybe they were thinking about this, well, you know, he's going to play game seven. And it's a risk that he'll have an even worse injury. So let's not take the risk and let's get our pick back for next season, just in case. or whatever the reasoning was. If I remember correctly, it was before game seven that they made a trade to get their pick this season back in exchange for, you know, just kicking the can down the road? Like, why with the Pelicans, not just wait 24 hours?

Was it kicking the can down the road, or was it sending, I think it was actually sending out their pick in this past draft? Sorry, normally I'd go and confirm this. Whatever the case, they could have had the... Normally I'd go and confirm it, but I'm really not feeling well right now. So the upshot I can say for certain is that they, up until before game seven, had the Pacers pick for this season. And now they don't. Up until the draft, when they traded, made the shocking decision of trading an unprotected pick in a very strong draft for a team that, you know,

which was actually most favorable of New Orleans or Bucks or whichever team had the worst record to Atlanta, which again was a trade where I'd, you know, the Hawks thought it was a joke. And once they figured out that it wasn't, they just wanted to get it done as soon as possible before the pelicans, whoever was Weaver or Dumars, have both changed their minds. So now they are one of the worst teams in the league, and they don't have a pick either. Not ideal for the Pistons if either the Pacers or the Hawks end up getting really top tier talents. So big middle finger to Dumars, who spent the last however many years, I know this is a controversial opinion, but certainly spent, spent like the last six seasons with the Pistons, just outright hurting us. And now potentially has, yeah, well, we'll see.

Also speaking of the Pelicans and the Pacers, but particularly the bottom of the East, the bottom three teams in the East right now, the Wizards, Nets, and Pacers are a combined three and 34. The bottom four teams in the NBA, when you add, who is it, the, oh yes, the Pelicans to the mix, you add another 10 losses and two wins there. The Kings are 3 and 11. The Mavericks are 3 in 10. So your bottom six teams are a collective 11 and 65. That's pretty shocking by any measure.

So the playoff picture in the East, again, very early is looking as you would expect, which is the Wizards are terrible. The Nets are terrible. The Pacers, thanks to injuries, are even worse than expected. They were unlikely to make the playoffs in the first place. The Bulls started out strong, but are sliding. magic started out weak but are turning up where they were one in four when they played the pistons are i think one in three one and four another seven and six and the celtics are going to

hang around in the middle there the hawks are eight and five despite lacking trey young again very early but you know i think the playoff picture barring injuries in the east was always going to be pretty predictable like you had some teams that were going to be probably making the playoffs outright The Pistons, Knicks, Cavaliers, Hawks, maybe the Bucks. Sixers were going to be on the edge there, depending on health. You know, the bull, I thought the magic would be high up there, and we'll see. They've had a rough start to the season. And after Willie Green, the Pelicans, who was already been fired, I'd say the hot seat for Jamal Mosley,

excuse me, the seat for him was going to be the hottest. And, you know, the Hornets, shockingly Lillamillo has missed significant time. Shockingly, Brandon Miller has missed significant time, and they don't have much talent in the first place. So you had four teams that were going to be at the bottom of the east. The Raptors have started reasonably strong, but we'll see if that lasts. On to Lesnar submitted questions, is Janice Jenkins for real? So just to contextualize this and not to minimize, that's the word I was looking for earlier, what he has done so far.

We see, you know, fringe line-up guys have strong stretches, and then just because the NBA is punishingly difficult and or because other teams is kind of catch on them after knowing nothing about them. was kind of fade out in the background. So the real thing about Dennis, the real question that maybe he will have the opportunity to answer, is what can he create off the dribble in the interior against capable defenses?

The three games he's played, the Bulls with their wretched Vuccivic-centered interior defense, it was the only game in which he was actually able to really create off the dribble. Aside from that, it's been largely three-point shooting. And this is a guy who shot 32.5% for the G-League last, in the G-League last season for the Cruz. He's now shooting well over 50. Is the shooting, for real, again, not going to stay that high.

Nobody does that. But, you know, can he maintain it at 40% because it's a huge aspect of his game? That said, you know, at his size, he's about 6.3. He weighs like 165 pounds, like 6.6 wingspan. I mean, it's on the smaller side. You know, all things considered. And on defense, he works hard, but, again, just on the lighter side, this guy was going to get fairly easily pushed around.

So for a player like him, to justify giving him. him minutes. He needs to be at least a somewhat capable creator off the dribble, able to break down defense. His driving kick game isn't bad, but you've got to be able to break down defense as an ideally score at the rim. And the question is, can he do that? Like, is there any reason to, no, and again, it might just be rendered moot by the return of other players because that might kick him out of the lineup. But I've seen the question, is there any reason to convert his contract? So you can upgrade two-way deals to to, you know, depending, if you have the mid-level exception or the room mid-level exception,

then you can upgrade them to deals lasting up to four or three years, respectively. If you have the biannual exception, which the Pistons do, then just, you know, two years of length. And then for those three exceptions, you're constrained by the maximum salaries there. Or you just upgrade them to a minimum contract, maximum of two years, including the year, including the current year. So the Pistons have them on a two-way deal, which, means, I believe, they have another 37 games they can play him in, or is it 36, and no, teams can't just come in and nab him. He's under contract to the Pistons, same as any other player

on the team. The only difference in a two-way deal is he's getting paid less, and he can be waived at any time with no future or past cap impact whatsoever. Because typically in the NBA, if you pay a guy a dollar, you know, even if he's fully non-guaranteed and you wave him, it's still counting against the cap for the season. Two-way guys, it's not the case. So basically, like it's very, very unusual for an NBA front offices to just act in a way that's going to put themselves in a disadvantage or to act on the basis of sentiment. So their decisions at this point, even if it continues to play well, boil down to upgrade him later, you know, which they can do up to it, including the last day of the regular season

or, and just do so on the basis of much more data, or just do it on the basis of, you know, relatively minor sample size and have to waive somebody in the process, which would probably be Isaac Jones, you know, which wouldn't necessarily be a big deal, but it's basically just keep things how they are now and don't cost yourself anything in the way of flexibility or having to make any changes at all, or upgrade them to a standard contract now and really don't gain anything and lose some flexibility and or ability, you know, whatever, however minor ability to maneuver. That's said, just the sample size is small at this point. And I've even seen it suggest that, oh, well, you know, he's shown more as a handler in, you know, in three games than Sasser has in two seasons. And I agree with that. You know, do we just get rid of Sasser now? And it's the answer to that. I certainly know you're just creating $5 million in dead cap for next season rather than at least having it around for salary fodder or against the very unlikely. Or developing somehow at the age of 25, or taking the age of 25 a big leap as a handler against NBA opposition.

Highly unlikely, but, you know, at least you have him around for salary fighting. for salary matching and trades, you know, rather than just creating deadcap. And if you really want to waive somebody, it would be Isaac Jones. About Jones, I mean, I think, you know, he had been picked up the same day as I recorded last episode. So I just hadn't really put in the research on him. Basically, it's a fourth, it's functionally a fourth two-way contract. This is basically, you know, a tryout. He's on a totally non-guaranteed contracting, and all salaries become,

oh, non-guaranteed salary becomes fully guaranteed in January, until then, you're just a crewing cap hit on a game-by-game basis, basically your salary divided by 82. He'd be waived at any time, and he was just sent straight to the cruise. So the only difference between him and, you know, to G-League, excuse me, a two-way player is that he's actually getting paid against the cap. But, you know, he's just there for them to see the same way, as same as any of the two-way players.

Just put him in the cruise and, you know, see what you got, see how he develops, see if there might be anything in there. Moving on, just fact that a bunch of scrubs. Scrappers, beat a few teams, mean anything. Again, like I said before, outside, you know, it means it's indicative of good team culture and chemistry and that you've got, you know, some decent deep depth and that these guys are going to work hard. Other than that, you know, not really. This is goodness willing. This is not going to be a regular thing. And these guys, a lot of them are just not going to be seeing postseason minutes at all, for example, you know,

postseason is about how good your best players are rather than, you know, how good your bottom of the lineup players are. Does it maybe mean that if the best season, see more injuries, then these guys can help keep the ship afloat. Sure, that's great. In terms of what the ceiling of the team is, you know, it means more about the, you know, the bottom of the lineup versus the ceiling of the team. But still, fun, you know, good to see. And yeah, just be repeating what I said before. So good to have, obviously. And the Ivy narrative, which is, you know, does the success, you know, last season after you got injured and the success in this season, mean that, you know, reflect negatively on him or say, oh, the team doesn't need him,

I'd say categorically no. So there are several things that happened, or two, several things, actually. Three main things that happened around slash right after his injury last season. Number one was that DeSar got more back into the lineup and certainly did have a positive impact last season. And he was in the lineup already, but had not been for very long and he was still ramping up in terms of minutes. Jalen Duren decided that he wanted to start playing defense again, and thereby, because he was still the starter at that point, was still getting a lot of minutes, though Isaiah Stewart's minutes were trending upward because Duren had been bad on defense, like straight bad. So he went from being a guy who completely unhinged the defense simply by being on the four. I mean, the Pistons had just a terrible defense with him on the four to a guy who still had his issues but could compete well enough against bad teams and was more just kind of below average.

slash poor against middling teams. It was against good teams when he really struggled. But he went from, you know, on average, he basically elevated himself from terrible to just more kind of poor in the grand scheme of things. Again, having a SARA there to kind of help was useful to. So that was a pretty big deal for the Pistons. And also, Bakerstaff finally got the offense together after, you know, first couple of months of really being very, you know, about seven weeks, whatever it was, of it being kind of meandering

and often formless. So those were pretty big deals. Also, the schedule got a lot easier, which is helpful. So there was a lot of, you know, a lot of other factors there. And coming into this season, again, with the two things about this season, number one, again, this has been kind of like a honeymoon stretch, you know, if you, not necessarily the injuries, but in terms of the games that's this you know the approach the team has been healthy it's it's it's been a honeymoon stretch in terms of easy you know the difficulty of competition so i i just don't think you can use this to say oh they don't need they don't need ivy also you know number two you want as much talent as you can get and the goal you know because the goal is to beat good

teams in the playoffs uh but you know finally when it comes down to it langdon again in both word and in both deed and word has made it clear that this season is about really seeing where they stand with the youth, and they're not just going to not give Ivy a chance. He's going to get, I'd be shocked if we got anything less than a big chance. Oh, and going back to Dennis, I know I, you know, totally poo-poot him after Summer League and preseason, and if I'm wrong, great, you know, I'll certainly own up to that. When I'm wrong about something, like, I have no issues admitting when I'm wrong about some, this is not a humble brag.

You know, I actually think it's a good practice, you know, when something happens and, you know, you were wrong to just be able to admit. So, yeah, I was wrong about this. mine you know i think that's i think that's good for anybody to be able to do uh i get pissed off with myself because you know i'm very grateful to all of you who listen and are kind enough to consider me a half decent you know analytical authority on basketball and so i get pissed at myself for you know feelings of having failed by providing analysis that turned out to be inaccurate uh but you know i've been told thank you for those of you who have told me that that's

completely unreasonable and that nobody's right all the time and uh you know if I'm wrong in a way that, you know, where things turn out more positively, then great. One of the first things I was completely off-base about was drafting Hayes over Halliburton. That obviously didn't age very well. I think the others, let's see, calling Sadiq Bay kind of very mature beyond his years, not so long before he, to be fair, he looked that way at the time after two seasons. And then in the third season, just decided he didn't care about defense anymore and just wanted to try to be a star scorer off the dream.

didn't go too well for him. And then thinking that the roster in the, you know, the Voldemort season might have the juice to make the plan. Who knows if that would have been true. Maybe under a good coach. Obviously, we got a generationally bad coach and things went tragically wrong, but the roster was certainly in the grand scheme of things. Who knows, but not great. Anyway, I don't know why I felt the need to just get on to all the things I felt have been wrong about over the years. but this comes back to if Janus Poohs me wrong, then great. All right, finally, let's send this out with some discussion about the, or just some notes on the games themselves.

So I still have not gotten to watching the Nets game. I missed that. I cannot remember exactly why, but I, you know, I'll try to get around to watching it eventually. honestly, I mean, kind of goes without saying that these kind of games are the least interesting to me when the pistons are just going up against a terrible opponent because just the data is, I enjoyed watching them win, but it's like they're going up against a terrible team. It's like there's just not really necessarily much there to see. So try to catch up on that at some point. Obviously, they destroy the

nets as they should. All right. So the first game against the 76ers, this was the first game in which we saw what I referenced earlier about there being some adaptations in the K. Dern Pick and Roll. Well, one of them wasn't an adaptation. One of them was that he wasn't going up against, you know, kind of a front line. He could easily physically dominate and or just sucked. Like, Nerkich can stand up to him and just a terrible defender and just a bad center these days in general. Drummond is still very much backup caliber, but he's competent enough at defense in the interior.

And not so much on switches. but competent enough in defense in the interior and his big guy, neat was to say. Also, a minor middle finger to him for shooting reasonably well on very low volume after shooting like 6% during his last season with the pistons from three. Anyway, I've grown to dislike Drummond less over the years. But also the Sixers were just kind of paying more attention. And Nick Nurse, he used to be a good coach before inexplicably just completely falling off. I was paying a little bit more attention to what are kind of some stuff.

standard J.B. sets of just having Duren, if he's not on the roll, just hanging out kind of high in the paint, ready to take a pass and explode to the rim. I mean, he was just having defenders paying attention to that. And so there were quite a few turnovers as a result. And again, these are things that teams will adapt to. And just, yeah, it's just worthy of note. In any case, I mean, you know, Pistons who were missing Tobias and Stewart already in this game, though, the Sixers were missing, of course, Embed, who has not been bad. He's actually been decent, offensively, even by his standards when he's been playing. And, of course, Paul George is not yet in.

Justin Edwards, who has actually been half decent this season, wasn't playing either, and so on and so forth. So both teams are playing short-handed. It was close until Cade just totally took over in the fourth. And seeing Cade be able to take games over again is just to pretend so well for the postseason. We just need these takeover scores. So another good, you know, strong game. on offense on the boards by Duren, who did well enough on defense as well.

And, you know, beyond that, beyond, you know, Duncan Robinson also having a pretty solid game, not much there of notes in Carouselvert, really making his first real appearance of the season, so to speak, largely from three. Need him attacking more off the dribble that's really his calling card, though. If he can manage to put together another season of shooting reasonably well from three, that would be very, very nice. On the Wizards, obviously much more of an injury-butchered Pistons team against They're pretty terrible. Washington team. Pistons are playing second night of a back-to-back.

They're a game in four nights. That is a major disadvantage. Cabe was clearly exhausted. Let me start with this. Cabe was the only guy who was realistic we're going to be able to create offense in this lineup. He was missing a lot of shots barely. Guys typically don't and should not just stop shooting these star-superstar caliber players. If they are attempting makeable shots and they're coming close. And it's a good thing Kay didn't stop because he had a very big fourth quarter. I don't really, I couldn't care less about the fact that he set the record for most miss baskets.

You know, they won the game. They're really, what else are you going to do, hand the ball? I mean, no offense to Janice. Dennis, God, I've been calling him Janice throughout this episode. Dennis Jenkins. I'm just going to blame being sick. So I just realized that now. So Dennis, with all respect to him, I mean, the Wizards with Sar on the floor are actually pretty capable interior defense.

I mean, he did some, but you kind of just have to give the ball to Cade in these situations. And the Pistons won the game, and anybody who was looking at it and say, oh, look at how many shots he missed is just entirely missing the point. Just totally missing the point. So that's my take anyway. I'm not meaning to impugn anybody who is saying, you know, to insult anybody who's saying that I'm referring not to Piston's fans, I'm referring to kind of talking heads elsewhere, and obviously don't really care what talking heads I have to say. It was just kind of funny to watch them focus on the fact that he missed so many shots

and just completely missed the point. So, obviously, a fun game, you know, props to Dennis for pinning some big shots, especially the game tying shot and yeah not really a ton to say outside of that obviously kate has had his game this was actually another game in which the wizards even more so than the sixers were able to kind of punish the uh really restrict the ked during pick and rule saura i think is i think it was so stupid i thought this at the time of the hawks regardless of what he thought. Sar, I think, refused to work out for them. But regardless of what they thought, they should have taken him first over Risa Shea. This is a guy who I think can be an elite rim protector.

And he certainly got shooting upside. He's doing well at that this season. And I think he's going to be a good player in this league, potentially a top 10 center. And he did a really, just a combination of scheme and Sarr really completely took away Duren's vertical spacing from this game. you know some of that may have been cade being exhausted some of that was yeah the pistons were pretty weak elsewhere though really assar really isn't going to be a factor there tobias might um just in that they were just better able to focus on the interior but again these are the things that are going to happen in terms of teams adapting and again you just hope your coach can make further adaptations in response uh it's not a not saying it is a bad thing i'm just saying it's

the thing that happens. But many events, Pistons came out with a win. Exciting game. Fun to watch. Moving on to the Bulls, obviously, just the aforementioned really scrappy lineup of largely bench players and depth players managed to beat the Bulls. And not a ton to say beyond, yeah, fun to watch. Real props to Paul Reed, who had a big game, Duncan Robinson had a big game, Caras Lever did a pretty big game. And again, I don't say this to minimize anything, but I want to give a middle finger. Well, both kind of appreciate, you know, appreciation and also a middle finger, because I just can't stand players who do this sort of thing to Nicole Vuccivic, who, in true Pistons, drum and fashion, completely no-showed the game. There was no excuse for him not to just be

backing down the center combo of Paul Reed and Toulouse Smith, who made just had a ton of size on, but just didn't feel like it and took only 10 shots and scored six points. Again, I'm not saying this as, oh, look, you know, the Pistons would have lost if another player had done this. I'm saying because it was just, it's despicable to watch a professional sportsman do something like that. He just didn't care. But, you know, beyond that, yep, glad to see the Bulls continue to fail. So awesome. And then the Sixers game really just more the same in terms of just a scrappy lineup that really had no business winning even with, you know, even against a really injury-addled Sixers lineup. I mean, Maxie is pretty darn good player. Edgecombe has been very impressive.

These guys are playing with significantly more talent than the Pistons head. And Pistons just outwork them. So fun. These have been fun games to watch. So that'll be it for this episode. Hope you all enjoyed. Hope you doing great. And I will catch you in the next one.