Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 243: A Higher Degree of Difficulty

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

This episode recaps a week that saw the caliber of the competition increase substantially.

welcome back everybody you are listening to another episode of drive into the basket i'm mike and let's talk some pistons basketball first hope all of you who celebrate had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday and now let's get right to it so for me this almost felt like i guess the second or third week of the regular season, rather than however many weeks it's been. You know, typically, first season looks how it looks. Like I said, last episode, the Pistons have just, in general, had a, after the first week, really, had an exceptionally easy schedule. And, you know, as it's been put to me, you play who's in front of you.

So it was never besmirching the team itself to say they had an easy schedule. You know, if you're playing an easy schedule, you'd take it. advantage and you win those games so that when the schedule gets more difficult, you've got yourself a buffer and so on and so forth. However, just to repeat myself a bit, it felt like we weren't getting real honest to goodness data on the team because you can't do that until you actually go up against better opposition against teams that are of postseason caliber. And there is where you see what your team is made of. There's where you see where your team is still going to do well. And there's also where you see the areas in which your team is

struggling, you know, the issues with your roster that you need to smooth over. And that's a lot of what this season is about. I know I've said this many times, but I feel like this is a very important point that that's what the season is about, particularly with the youth, seeing where they stand. But in general, just getting the maximum usable amount of data on this roster to decide where do we go next this is not the final version of this roster most likely i mean in an ideal world all of the youth work out you know ivy holland durin hasar everybody is what they need to be for the pistons and then this roster could look a great deal like it looks in five years which point hopefully the pistons won a championship or something or at least contender still or hopefully it's happened

well before then uh in any case it will know more when the season is further along and particularly at the end of the season, hopefully with the Pistons make a, you know, postseason run at least in a round two. So I feel like this is because the first week of the season, really the first quarter of the season, but definitely the first week of the season is usually extra wonky in terms of teams are just settling in. And a team might be really struggling in the first week and then be doing fine in the second week. And the magic are kind of one of those teams. The Pistons played them. I can't remember.

It was in the first five games, I believe. The match with a one and three at the time, and I've really picked it up since then. And the Pistons, of course, met them this week. And I'm just excited, like, we have, we've had this kind of minor three-game stretch. There's, you know, a stretch of decent competition coming up as well. You're going to see, you know, Milwaukee a couple of times. Or a decent team with Janus in the mix. I don't have the rest of the schedule in front of me, but for the, you know, the next, I think, five or six games are going to be on the more difficult side,

the Pist and see Atlanta again, and so on and so forth. And then from about the 15th, of December until right about the end of the year when the Pistons face the Lakers, it gets up to that point, not including the Lakers, including the Clippers, which is terrifying that the clippers are awful this season because Oklahoma City owns their unprotected first round pick. You know, the rich may very well get richer. And in any event, I digress, the Pistons until they face the Lakers in the 30th, you know, between that stretch, like the 15th until whatever the game, I think the 28th against the

clippers. It gets very easy again. And then starting in the 30th, the Pistons are actually playing a fairly difficult schedule. So like I've said, it kind of sucks that we have to wait until 2026 just about to really, really see what this team is made of on a consistent schedule. In part, just because, I mean, it's waiting. In part because, who knows, if the front office would make a major deadline move. But at that point, we're going to have a very limited amount of data, like five or six weeks of it, assuming good health on the part of the Pistons and the other and the other team. So hope for the best there. But, you know, in response to some of the concerns I've seen with the Pistons losing a couple of games, I just want to say again,

that this team was not made to win as many games as possible. His team was made to do something, which I should say Troy Weaver failed to do on a horrendous scale, which is provide a good development environment for the youth. And, you know, in the course of, you know, helping them along and seeing, you know, rather providing that development environment and, you know, providing a functional roster so that you can get the best evaluation of where they stand. So let's head into what happened this week. And pretty much the context is that the Pistons played a bit of more difficult opposition. Some of the context is also that teams at this stage of the season are adapting. They've seen what each other do. And anybody with the D's and coach on defense in

particular on offense, I would say to a lesser degree. On defense, certainly is seeing that, okay, here's what's going on with this team. This is how we're going to play them. And with the pistons, that means focusing a bit in the interior. Definitely teams are looking a great deal with the pick and roll, the two-man game of Cade and Duren, which has been probably the biggest staple. That's unsurprising, given that Cade is, you know, by far the leading guy on this team on offense, and he lives in the high pick and roll, and Duren's an elite role man. But we're starting to see teams adapt to, you know, that two-man game are starting to see teams adapt to what Darn is added to his game. And, I mean, this sort of thing is expected. And the onus is on the coach

to respond properly. Some coaches do. Some coaches don't. Some coaches are more able to respond in the course of a game and just make changes kind of on the spot, especially at a half-time, but just in general. You know, the great coach is Spolstra. I'll always shell Eric Spolstra. I think he's just a fantastic coach. I'm so envious of Heat fans. This is not meant as a knock on picker stuff, but just getting to watch that brilliance on a regular basis is just like, my goodness, I would love to do that. The, excuse me, no Detroit team. At least the Pistons or the Reblings, though, I think, as far as I understand it, this applies the Lions, too, where Campbell was very good, but certainly has his warts. No Detroit team has had, like, truly unimpeachable

coaching since 2008. When the Rebling's last one, the Stanley Cup and Mike Babcock was backed up by Tom McClellan, who was the current coach of the Red Wings, and Paul McLean, both of whom were an HL head coached caliber assistance. And after McClellan left the next season to coach San Jose, things went downhill. Babcock, I think, was really propped up by his assistants, perhaps especially in the locker room sense, because we never really start to hear very bad things coming out of the locker room until a little bit later. In any events, that's a complete tangent. All right, so considering whether to talk about it. the games first or kind of the bigger picture stuff first. And let's go with the games. So I'm not

going to get into the Pacers game. And that was a game against a just tragically bad team. The Pistons built a cushion and then got sloppy down the stretch. And pretty much no matter what team you're playing against, that's not like the, what was it, the sixers of whenever who won like nine games or something like that or the 2010 or 2011-2012 Bobcats. I mean, some teams are just absolutely horrendously bad, but for the most part, any NBA team you play against can beat you if you do badly. And the Pistons left just kind of like a scrappy, not very talented lineup, really get back into it in the fourth.

I mean, that's why you build a cushion. That said, you don't want to let it happen on a regular basis, and it happened again, but they won that game. I mean, they won both games. However, if it becomes a trend, it's an issue. Celtics. So this, the Pistons had no business losing this game. without Kada. Kada's starting center for the Celtics, who is the most impactful player

has been so far by an enormous margin in the on-off sense because they have no centers after him. Boucher is, you know, he had a solid season and then like a sort of acceptable season or two after that, if I remember correctly, but it's not really much of an NBA player at this point. Garza, you know, super great guy, works really hard, massive defensive liability. That's why he was a naysmith player the year in college as a senior and almost went undrafted. And then got drafted by the Pistons ahead of Aaron Wiggins, who just played a, you know, non-ins significant role in a fun, you know, on a championship team. But whatever, you know, picks in the 50s.

It was Balsa, Kopravita, who was a weirder pick. And that draft for the Pistons, in any case, Kada basically meant no centers. I mean, the Pistons played with just a couple of wings at center for the vast majority of the game and even bothered dressing Bouchet or Tillman, who, can kind of play center. So the Pistons, I mean, this should have been an easy game just because the pick and roll combo of Cade, who is not particularly small himself, who was, I believe, about the size of anybody not named Garza who didn't play all that much from the Pistons, some of the

Celtics put out there. They didn't really play the vast majority of the game without a big of any sort. So the combination of Cade and Duren really should have eaten or really should have been just enough of a threat that the other stuff was opened up. And in the event, Boston one call went small, and Bakerstaff got outcoached. Miss Miss Miss Miss Miss Missoula threw everybody at the Duran-Kade pick and roll, like pretty much, you know, two guys at Cade every time and a guy blocking Duran. And when Duren did get the ball, he got swarmed. And again, this is just a matter of teams adapting to your offense.

Missoula is a good coach. I would say not a great coach, but a good coach. Great coaches don't just stick to Missoula ball, which is a crap load of threes. even when it's not working and give up massive leads in the playoffs like he does. But, yeah, they just, they clogged the paint deliberately against the staple of the pistons, and J.B. did really nothing to adapt. This should have been a relatively straightforward thing. Unfortunately, Holland and Assar were left open for the entire game for the purposes of just swarming the paint,

and sometimes they are going to be a casualty of that. I mean, if the paint is packed, I mean, it's, it's a double whammy because if they're out there, then the Celtics can pack the paints, and if the paints is packed, then they can't really do much. So that was a problem. You know, Durham was pressured in a way he just hasn't seen so far. It was a reminder that, though he's certainly been probably the league's elite role man so far, and has created some offense, you know, largely just on drives to the right against slower centers or just flat-footed players who are guarding him, which end in a basket, typically, or in

him passing out to a strong-side shooter. The guy isn't likely to score 20 of his own accord. He's still a traditional big. Still really needs to be set up. He plays alongside an elite pick-and-roll handler. But, yeah, he was swarmed on his standard right drives. He was swarmed in his usual spots in the interior, like J.B. loves to have him just standing in the paint while actions are being run

that draw guys away from the paint. He can just explode to the basket. He was swarmed to the pick-and-roll. and these have been a huge part of J.B.'s offensive gameplay, excuse me. And it just wasn't there, and we didn't see any really adaptation. Yeah, sure, the Celtics went incandescent from three in the second half, but you just got to make your own advantages. And there's just no shrugging it away and saying, you know, well, whatever,

when he loses to a pretty mediocre team playing with no bigs. In this case, it was really coaching difference. It was also, it's kind of a double whammy. also because it really gave us a good look at what happens, you know, or just the fact that Kate is the only guy in this team right now capable of creating offense. And he's often doing it into pretty poor spacing. That's less than ideal. Obviously, you know, the who's going to be the number two is probably the biggest question facing the pistons right now. Though, you know, another big one, of course, is Kandar and play defense against good offenses. We still haven't really

seen that. But, you know, when you get into the postseason, having guys who can create their own shot is even more important. Like these guys who can just effectively create offense from the perimeter, you know, assuming you don't have one of those highly skilled bigs who can just, you know, like a yokeach or an M-B'd who can create it very effectively from the interior. Those guys are pretty rare. But just guys who can create offense reliably on a high volume are the ultimate currency in the postseason when defense is really tightened up and every decimal point matters. So a decimal point of efficiency. Obviously you can't score, not injured your number of points.

So Cade had a great game still. I mean, the skill level there is crazy and just continues to rise. But it was just too much Cade ball. I mean, the offense was stale outs out of that. The Celtics did a good job of shutting down, you know, the usual means of scoring. We, again, just didn't see Bickerstaff adept. I mean, Tobias is probably the second most reliable creator in this team right now and largely got frozen out.

He rarely got to post up. very small lineup, and Tobias, say what you will about him, has been an efficient post score in virtually every season for the past decade. It's an option. So, like, some games are just going to lose. This was a game that I think was lost, like, 25% by the roster and 75% by the coaching. Pistons had no business to losing to a team that was this small. I mean, and the Celtics are not a very good team in the first place. But with Cato off the floor, the Celtics are a bad team. It is what it is. Again, in the NBA, typically, like an average team can beat a good team. Sometimes a bad team can beat a good team. This season, it's rarely happening. Like I said, last episode,

the winning percentage of top 15 teams against teams with a record worse than 500 is unbelievably high, like well into the 90s. So, but, you know, the Celtics are a mediocre team. They've got two good players, Derek White and Jalen Brown. You know, they're well coached and it's all about the math with Missoula's offense, but this was a very winnable game. You're going on to the Magic. Also, no business really losing this game, given the Europe against Jamal Mosley, and the Magic shoot 17%.

Magic have really turned it on since they lost the Pistons, and also they are without Paolo, which in my opinion is a good thing for them. I think he's arguably the most overrated player in the league. He just gets, I think, a lot of plot, it's because, you know, maybe fans who would just watch a lot of highlights, whatever. I'm not disparaging anybody if you want to watch highlights,

then draw your own conclusions, then do that. But I think certain assumptions are made about him just because he's kind of like a jumbo creator. The issue is that he refuses to play. He wants to play his way. He doesn't want to play within the bounds of the offense or in the way that best befits his team. And so he hijacks the offense.

His shot diet sucks. And he's not a particularly good shooter. I'm not sure where he stands with that this season. I think poor. Just not great off the ball. you see that Franz Wagner also plays very unball also not a great shooter though again I'm not sure exactly where he stands this you know this kind of earlier stage of the season but he's very effective on offense because he is absolutely a team player 100% plays within the floor of the

offense so you've got Boncaro out at this point and you're at Tristan de Silva who has you know been quite good especially compared to his draft position he's a system player and he shoots a high percentage from three and so you take out Max player Boncaro and you've got a better starting lineup. So that was really an advantage for the pistons, in my opinion. Anyway, I'd like to give a shout out to Jamal Mosley, who I cannot believe how bad he is at coaching an offense. I mean, this guy was on the hot seat early in the season, supposedly. He should still be on the hot seat because they're never going to win. They're never going to go deep into the postseason with a good team with this guy. I mean, his first set was like a Rip Hamilton set

for Desmond Bain to curl around to packed interior and take a fadeaway jumper. I mean, Rip didn't really take fadeaway jumpers, but, and then, I mean, just, just alter the game. I mean, sure, they can run some efficient sets to get, you know, to get some threes, but like, it's just a lot of not great offense, like a lot of pull-up threes, and just very uninnovative. And at the end of the game, I mean, I was watching the magic feed. And from that last play, it's like, oh, what of the magic, you know, what is Jamal Mosley drawn up for this play? And I was like, in my mind, you guys watch this guy coach. You know the answer is nothing. And sure enough, it was just a Franz Wagner ISO. So in any case, yeah, the Pistons had no business losing this one either

with the magic having shot 17% from three and Jamal Mosley being in the other side, good defensive coach, but just horrible on offense. And this was kind of, again, coaching not ideal, square peg round hole. Pistons trying to go hard in the paint and it was not working, you know, just failure to adapt. I mean, you really wants to, you know, take advantage of maximum spacing. For example, like when Isaiah Stewart is on the floor, have him shoot. You want to attack with Cade against a good defense? Sure.

I mean, that's always going to be a priority. You'd prefer to see a little bit, you know, more innovative sets when it's not working. Give him maximum space. Don't, for example, like you see on one set, have a Sarby in the paint and bigger staff has Stewart roll into the pains anyway with Kate trying to get in there. You know, it's just ramming the same game plan over and over and over. And you get to the end of the game and, you know, down the stretch and the fourth. And it's just Cade ball again and again and again, including when it's not working.

I mean, the pistons came very close. They ultimately lost by just giving up, you know, three offensive rebounds. And, I mean, that was kind of a situation where there's another snafu by Bakerstaff. Why in the world is Giovante Green on the floor in the situation playing power forward? why don't you have like Isaiah Stewart's not not an elite defender power forward but he's still quite good he can you know handle Franz Wagner pretty well why why is he not in the floor why just like last season when you had Beasley on the floor Beasley quite a weak defender in you know late game defensive like critical late game defensive possessions why is giovante green out there why is giovante green even play

you know I'll talk about that a bit later again you win this game with better coaching like like Bickerstaff is a really good, it's basically super Casey. I'll, you know, I'll say this again, like a great culture guy, you know, better than Casey, somewhat better defensively. Casey was solid defensively, somewhat better offensively, but still poor, just like in Casey was bad, and bad at adapting, just like Casey. He wasn't brought on for this team to, you know, really win, you know, coach the business as a contender. I mean, he was brought on to grow with this team, no coaches with his level

of experience, as Tom Gores put it, but coaches don't really, his level of experience don't really grow. And again, like Tobias, far quieter than he should be in a game where they kind of needed another guy to create and then he'll have anybody else on the floor who was able to do so. Rotation, far from ideal as well. Again, we'll talk about that later. And finally, the heat. First, I want to give a shout out to the heat broadcast team who remind me a little bit of Mickey Redmond and Ken Daniels, who've been calling the Red Wings for a very long time. These guys just love the game.

And they just call it for the game rather than for the team. There is not like a hint of homerism about them. You know, they're clearly, I mean, they were on about, you know, how much they liked the Pistons, how impressed they were. And, you know, I just really enjoyed listening to that broadcast. You know, these guys who know the game and really enjoy it. You know, really just want to talk about basketball and appreciate what they see from both teams.

So you really want to really. love the first three quarters of this game, the Pistons were on a second night of a back-to-back, third game in four nights, and they really outwork the heat, you know, for the most part. That kind of petered out in the fourth when the heat kind of got it together and came to life and also presumably the Pissons were getting a little bit tired, particularly Cade, who, again, was just shouldering a massive load. And once again, like I said earlier, you build a big lead so you have a cushion like this and can blow a huge lead and still win the game.

It's less than ideal that it's happened twice in four games. So hopefully that's something we don't see them make a habit of. But a super hard working game, super team first game, just really emblematic of what this team's culture is about. You know, you had a team that had played, playing its third game in four nights. Again, second night of a back-to-back. That's a big disadvantage. But they were working, again, working super hard, a lot of full-court press. And, you know, Kate had a strong game.

Tobias Harris had a great game. He was used in this game to sort of bully the smaller players. you know, some of the smaller players who are out there for the heat, heat are a relatively small team, you know, outside of BAM and, and, and where, war, I can't remember where. I think he's the way to put it, Duncan Robinson, a great game in his first return to Miami. And shout out to Paul Reed, who, you know, when he's called upon, as he was in this game, to back up Isaiah Stewart with darn out, it always comes out ready.

I'm impressed. He's made some progress since last season in terms of his offense. You know, he still has his, you know, his frills, like, you know, undersized, ground-bound, you know, pretty good on switches, but not the greatest defending the rim. You know, this is just a good team effort. Isaiah Stewart got the starts. I'll still say, I mean, of course, things get lost offensively without Darren in the picture, but defensively, it's always a boost. I'm sure he loved going up against Bam out of bio, and he did a good job against Bam, notwithstanding the fouls.

And Isaiah, man, you ever want to beat defensive player the year, like you say, be able to stay on the court. There's been a lot of following this week from Isaiah Stewart. So by the time the fourth came around, I mean, the pistons almost gave up something that was like a 20-point lead. And again, same stuff. Cadeball again and again and again without even a time out for the most part, you know, throughout most of it, let alone an adjustment. I mean, the jig was long since up and no adjustments were made. It was just the, what's unfortunately the characteristics, you know, just the characteristic of flaw of J.B. that he loses control of games in which the Pistons are losing a lead or it's just close down the stretch because he becomes

completely passive. This was something that strangely afflicted Elaine Daniel in the playoffs last season, so it happens to good coaches from time to time as well. But it's pretty persistent with Bakerstaff, and it almost costs the Pistons win again. It was pretty much just turn over the ball and they get points and we get no points. And they came very close to a pretty severe collapse. So not great. Like for the first three quarters, it's kind of like this is the game you'll love to watch.

Like your team competing super hard and, you know, and handily winning against a good opponent. But the fourth came along and again, the exhaustion may have played a role. But also, yeah, I mean, some of it's on the players, but you can't control the players, you can't control the coaching. 100% of the time you can control the coaching. And J.B. pretty much flopped again in this situation,

and the Pistons very nearly almost lost. So let's go over, you know, what I like from this week and what I did not like. So first, what I like. The team culture, I mean, I think this deserves to be highlighted, and of course, Biggerstaff has a role in this. So does Trajan Langdon and how he constructed the roster. So does Troy Weaver to a degree because he always drafted for character, even if sometimes he screwed up and did not get it right.

Like Killian Hayes, who just wasn't willing to play physically, Sadiq Bay, who decided in season three that his goal was to be a star scorer. and didn't really care about defense anymore or about playing his ideal role. Whatever the case, you know, they've got a group that's full of hard workers, clearly very connected. It's something, you know, I always want Detroit teams to have, not just because it's the Detroit culture, but also just because I love watching it. I mean, I grew up with these Rebbing's teams and, excuse me,

sorry, the sniffles are a persistent issue, as you probably figured out by this point. I try to get them out in, you know, in post-production, but it doesn't always work. So I grew up watching these extremely selfless Red Wings teams, and, you know, I think that's just how it should be with professional athletes. And I think any front office that fails to assemble that has disregarded character to a very unfortunate degree, you know, it's that ethos of selflessness, just, you know, unselfish, hardworking, supportive, really hard-nosed play. And it's great to, you know, see how together this roster is and how much. they're supporting each other and just, you know, often just see the bench, standing up, just, you know, encouraging their teammates. It's just a fun thing to watch.

It's just really something to be appreciated. The Stan Van Gundy years were so dark for me, not only because the roster was often a mess, but also the guy had no conception of the importance of team chemistry or character. Like when Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson, who, you know, at the points, you know, at least for the first couple of years, in Jackson's case, had not a shred of leadership ability between them and actually were a negative from a character sense. You know, Drummond's selfishness and his poor work ethic,

and Jackson was kind of an egomaniac. It's his first couple of years, but eventually grew into a model teammate. It was just a big problem on those teams, and it just sucked to see. And I just have, again, if you've been listening a while, you don't know this. I have a little opinion of players who have poor work ethic,

or just the selfish mentality. It's just, you know, be a professional. It's not much to ask. What else I like? Cade's skill level. So I like the story. I don't remember who told it. I think it was, yeah, I can't remember.

It was one of the other broadcasts that Cade talked with Dwayne Casey, who's still a team advisor, about Dirk Novitsky. And I love Dirk. I mean, I think Dirk is just about as model as sportsmen as you'll ever find anywhere, you know, kind of of the Widstrom archetype. super hardworking, you know, unrelentingly team first, and just incredibly classy. So, and it's a cool documentary, actually. I think it's called The Perfect Shot.

It used to be on Netflix about Dirk Nabitsky. I'd recommend it. I think it was all done. And this was talked about in the documentary. Also, you know, was mentioned in this story that Dirk, excuse me, that Casey told them in Casey was an assistant for Dallas under Carlisle and they won the championship against the heat in 2011, that Dirk would work on adding a new item to his game in every offseason. And, you know, it's hopefully what you want to see, you know, from Cade.

But just the scale level has risen every season. And this isn't a victory lap. It's just kind of like a yay, not go me more just like, you know, awesome for the team. That's, you know, I've always felt that Cade had, you know, top 15 player potential. And just the scale level is incredibly high. And again, this is functionally his fourth season. season. So, yeah, we'll see how high he can go. He still has some wrinkles to smooth out. But this is the best, you know, player to play for the Pistons outside of arguably a year of Griffin,

who I think was kind of a trap player in a way that Kate is, in a way that Kate is not, because you really had to play your offense, be very much around him. And his style of play was not really friendly to, he never had one in Detroit or really with the clippers, but was not friendly to, excuse me, after Chris Ball left. And when Griffin was really the center, offense there. Like less athletic Griffin was not going to be a good co-star for Chris Paul. They were a lethal pick and roll duo when Griffin was still a freak athlete. But after he lost his athleticism, you know, that elite athleticism, they were not a good combo. So the Blake who played for the Pistons, you really had to play around him. But he wasn't good enough to be played

around for, you know, an offense that was going to, a team that was going to be a contender. And he was going to be very unfriendly to a co-star because you take the ball out of his hands. He becomes a max-salary spot-up shooter. In any case, case, you know, so Kate doesn't have that limitation. So I'd say, I mean, Kate is the best player. And I think will ultimately be the best player to play for the Pist since Isaiah Thomas. So it's just something. If you haven't, if you didn't watch the heat game or even if you did, go back and watch, you know, scoring highlights from like the first three quarters, you know, especially the first half. I mean, they just had no answer. Just the size and the skill

level are really incredible. I've loved seeing Ivy back in the court. Again, bear in mind that this, this season is not about just winning. It's primarily about seeing where the youth stands. It's important that Ivey get minutes. You don't want to waste that opportunity to see what he can be. Yeah, he's rusty that happens with ten and a half months away from, you know, real NBA action, you know, some small minutes in preseason with kind of an inflamed knee don't count, just a ton of time off the courts, you know, outside of, you know, your regular

training schedule because of your injuries. I think it's worth noting because I've seen some misunderstandings about this. Neither one of these was what you would call like a very significant procedure is, you know, just repairing a broken fibula and a minor scoping out, you know, a minor knee scope, which took, if I recall correctly, about 15 minutes, the latter. These are not injuries or procedures with a long-term performance impact. It was clean break with the fibula, no ligaments or tendon damage. It's just going to take him some time to get back in form. We have seen some flashes of his old burst, but I mean, he's been playing, he's been on a pretty sharp minute's restriction, and it's going to take some, taking some time to get

back in a game shape. Again, I see that I get the desire to see as many wins as possible, but the idea is to sustainably build a contender. You've got to see where and what he is. I've been very happy with Duncan Robinson. He had a bit of a hard game against the magic, but, I mean, just the contested shopmaking is really something else. And, you know, you've got to love the work ethic.

I've seen some talk, you know, oh, is he, you know, defending better now because he's working harder because of the Detroit culture? The guy came out of the heat culture. And heat culture has been strong and, like, the strongest if you're talking about consistency for a long time. And he played under the best coach in the league. You know, he improved defensively in Miami over time. And he was enough of a non-liability defensively to start for a championship team. granted under Spolster is better than anybody else at hiding bad defenders, but he, yeah, Duncan, I just love his work ethic, I love his smarts, I love his shooting, which is incredible, and he's just clearly very well liked by his teammates and so on and so

forth. At this point, I don't really miss Malik Beasley at all. I think Duncan is, you know, he's a great shooter. He's more versatile in terms of having more of an off-the-dribble game and just more of an eye toward making the right pass. I would say, though he's not perfect defensively, I'd say he's better than Beasley. And, again, comes back to responsible. Beasley, you know, had his swagger and hit a lot of shots, but was often, you know, was not always the most responsible player, not always the most willing passer. You know, I just think that Robinson has replaced him very well, and the additional size

is nice as well. You know, again, shout out to Paul Reed for his, you know, improvements on offense. The guy's been hitting some threes even. Stu want to give a shout out to his well, just in terms of, you know, his touch and foot work and body control around the rim I think have improved noticeably not substantially but noticeably stew's always going to struggle a little bit around the rim you know in matter how physical he is you know compared to other guys at his position just because he's undersized and groundbound he's got a score beneath the rim which is just inherently more difficult but

no no I just love Isaiah Stewart just and just watching how physically plays you know on both ends on offense thankfully he does it really without fouling but I mean the guys compete level is just, you know, some guys equal it, but nobody beats it. It's good to see Caros Leverk getting going a bit. Tobias in general, I mean, he had a great game against the heats, really an unsung hero for the Pistons. And I think it's, like I've said, I think his utilization has often been too low when the Pistons have been struggling to find creation as they have at times the last three games. And because I've been asked about Jalen Duren's defense, again, I think you're very untested, but I think he certainly has made some improvements in terms of no longer being a

major switch liability. I'm saying no longer a major switch liability. Last season, he couldn't switch at all. This season, his mobility is noticeably improved, which is essential to him not being a defensive liability. He's still not a strong switch defender, unfortunately, but at least isn't outright terrible. He is rotating a bit quicker. It just seems to be, you know, just more mobile in general. So plenty of to like about this past week, even though the Pistons lost two out of the three games, you know, from the players, at least, let's talk about what I don't like quite as much. Number one, you know, this is going to be the case as the coaching. Thankfully, I'm past the point at which I get angry at the coaching.

You know, you know what you're going to get from Bakerstaff. You know that he's going to have his flaws, chief amongst them being somewhat simple on offense, being poor-d-adapting, and being just a poor-to-bad-weight game coach in close situations. So, yeah, the coaching has just gotten stale, worse than stale, actually. I mean, we've just got to hope for adaptation. had too much Cade ball, too much reliance, and the Cade during pick and roll, a insufficient reaction to the ways that teams have been adapting to them.

Start of the season with a good game plan, but you have to keep it fresh, because now teams have seen it a billion, you know, they've seen it a billion times. I'm exaggerating, of course, but it's invariable that teams adapt. It typically happens around the quarter mark of the season. You have to be able to keep it fresh. It's just a thing. Even the offense started out more dynamic and it's been allowed to slide a bit, which happened last season as well, for example, with Jaden Ivy, who was

With a good degree of success, you know, attacking open lanes off the move, he'd get a pass from Cade and just explode through an open lane and help generally wouldn't get there in time. And if it did, he'd make the, you know, the right pass to an open shooter. And then Bickerstaff just decided didn't really feel like doing it anymore for some reason. We've seen the same thing with like Isaiah Stewart shooting. That's a very, that's a valuable skill for a center. Bickerstaff, I mean, sort of at center, Isaiah was shooting more.

It was more powerful, but whatever the case, at center, Bakerstaff has just decided it doesn't feel like it anymore. Assad was attacking mismatches off the dribble, which is pretty important, given that he's a spacing liability and it's going to cost otherwise. You know, he was able to do it even against some decent defenders from the rockets. Again, that's completely fallen by the wayside. So the things that we've gotten stale and they've also constricted, which I'm kind of concerned is a trend with Bakerstaff because, I mean, it's two seasons in a row. And just the bad late game coaching. I mean, having a co-star would help, and we saw how much Dennis Schroeder was helpful.

even just as just another guy who could handle weight in games. It's maybe we don't know really what Dennis Jenkins can do at this point. We'll see more. We'll see if it works. Karas Leverts has not been great. He has also just been used in a weird way. Ivy is still getting going. And there's really nobody else outside of Tobias,

who is not really a handler, but can still create some offense, but really hasn't been used. Again, in my opinion, outside of the heat game as much as he should have. And that brings me to Dennis kind of brings up another annoying quirk. about that, did not silence my phone. Another weird quirk of Bakerstaff, which is that he is completely unwilling to trust anybody not named Cade to handle the ball, you know, to be, you know, a true lead handler. This happened last season as well until Dennis joined the team.

He was willing to trust Dennis. Now he's not willing to trust Caris Leverick. He's not willing, I mean, Ivy's not ready. He's not willing to give that opportunity to Dennis Jenkins. When Kate is off the floor as playmaking by committee and not in a good way, even when these guys are on the floor with Cade, they're not really operating in the same way. way that Dennis Schroeder did because he's just not willing to trust them. That's a problem. I don't know why it's the case. I don't know why he's doing it. Did the same thing with Ivy last

season. Uh, you know, it's Kate gets off the floor and suddenly Malik Beasley is handling the ball as much as or more than Ivy. So, you know, it's kind of like a WTF thing. I don't know where that particular term came into my head from, but it's a problem and I wish he would stop because it's an issue when Kade's on the floor or Kade's off the floor. That brings me to the rotation, which has also been irritating. you know Jenkins has been playing well you want to see if he can really handle the ball if he can be a viable backup point card for this team that's a pretty big deal he's kind of getting pushed out a little bit you know for it goes beyond that I mean

it's it's a symptom of a bigger problem which is jb playing in a rotation that's that's just too large like I said last week it's it's easy to run like an 11 12 man rotation when you're winning against you know when you're winning against a very easy schedule when you're winning in general. When the schedule gets more difficult, that's considerably less than ideal to be giving minutes to a guy like Giovante Green, who just seems to be getting minutes on the basis of what Bakerstaff thinks is merit. Giovante Green is an NBA depth player. He's had two good games. He's played some valuable minutes in other situations, but ultimately this is a business, and you, you know, Giovante Green is about 32 years old. I think he is 32 years old. I think halfway to 33 or

thereabouts. This is not a guy with upside. This is an NBA depth player. Do not give him minutes for the vibes. You should not be getting minutes. He should certainly not be out there at the end of the game instead of Isaiah Stewart, for example. And, you know, shrink your rotation. Give more minutes to players who deserve it. Jenkins will be one of those. Again, those minutes can propagate down the lineup.

And also just don't play a player who's not helping you. There is no reason for Giovante Green to be getting minutes at this point. And there is no reason for the Pistons to be playing quite so long of a rotation in general. further stuff so yeah i mean just to go back to it real quick there are certain things the bigger staff will not improve upon hopefully improves upon rotation management and like trusting guys who are not named k to handle the ball that's just an irritating snafu uh i don't know if he did it with caris a couple years ago when caris is a solid enough playmaker you know averages i think like seven assists per punted possessions across his career uh and two seasons ago i'm not sure if

he used Karris on high volume as a ball handler when Donovan Mitchell, I think, missed significant time that season. I'd have to go back and look, but why bring the guy on if Bigger Steph is not willing to trust him as a handler? That seems like kind of an oversight by Trajan Langdon or a lack of communication because it's just not happening that way. Other stuff, turnovers, this has been a very turnover prone team. Again, kind of a symptom of having only, you know, one guy really super capable, really genuinely

capable of creating offense and that player being kind of turnover prone. Cade is a very smart player who can just make some very stupid decisions. Well, I don't want to call them stupid decisions, bad decisions, pardon me. With the ball, again, just a wrinkle of his game. I'm certain he is aware of and will improve upon it has been better at certain points of the season than it was last season, you know, certain points to date. Again, playing some better defenses and has predictably become more of an issue. Coaching can be thrown in that a bit as well against the heat. It was, let's trap, let's trap, let's trap, let's trap. Then Kay just would try to dribble into guys, turn into guys, lose the ball. And does a turnover, so he just should not be

making. And then finally, I did talk about what's, you know, what's been good about Deirons' defense, but there have been definitely been cracks in the last few games, the last, excuse me, against the Celtics, against the magic. He's better at switches, but not necessarily good at them. Like I said, Brown burned him for an M1. He got burned three times by Franz Wagner. He has been failing some rotations and so on, and hopefully that doesn't continue. It's very important that Jalen Duren be at least a solid defender again in the postseason, like as a traditional center and in the postseason.

I know I've repeated this. It's just you have to have him be a reliable defender. It is very, very, very, very, very difficult in the postseason to win with a bad defensive center, even if he is a, you know, genuinely like one of the elite defensive centers. Denver managed, win a championship, Denver managed to do it by, surrounding Yokic with, you know, it's kind of a purpose-built defense, and also Yokic is a very smart defender. I mean, this guy's issue is not failing to track plays or failing to make rotations. It's that he's slow. And also, the guy carries a mammoth load on offense,

and I'd imagine he does need to let up a little bit on defense. But it's chiefly just that he's slow. This is not a guy like, you know, like a Sabanis, for example, who also has issues with defensive decision-making or Vujibich. All right. Just some final points and then we'll go over some questions. With the around the NBA thing, all I want to do is give a middle finger to the thunder for having way too many draft assets. Sam Presti has been very adroit, I would say, but he also got very fortunate on two occasions. One of them, having a huge haul for Paul George fall in his lap. And I don't blame the clippers for making that trade. They were trading not just for Paul George, but also effectively for Kauai as well.

Unfortunately, for them, they just did a pretty poor job of building their team out after that and then the injuries began. And then he absolutely fleeced the rockets for Westbrook and got Paul, Chris Ball as part of that equation, and then flipped Chris Paul. So he's had some good opportunities, but he is also just a good general manager. There's no gain saying that. So I'll visit the NBA as a whole in, you know, maybe next episode. This one looks like it's already going to be fairly long, though maybe not.

I have a goal of kind of trying to limit these to 45 minutes, maybe 50 max. I just feel like that's kind of a more manageable, more manageable listen. Maybe I'm wrong. Excuse me, maybe I'm wrong. So overall, Jaden Avi is a handler. I've seen some questions. Oh, is Jaden Ivy capable of being a handler? You know, is his, you know, does he have an end in him to play an on ball roll?

Let's remember Ivy's arc to this point. He was used on pretty significant volume as a handler in his, in his rookie season by Casey. It was very, very basic stuff, like just driving kick. But he averaged six and a half assists in the second half of his rookie season with a terrible team around him. That team won, I believe, three games out of its final 41, I think, maybe four. And seven and a half assists per game in the final quarter of the season in which he was surrounded by truly horrible players.

Because his primary teammates were Wiseman, Bagley, Livers, Killian Hayes, Rodney McGruder, Corey Joseph, and he managed to average seven and a half assists over the final quarter of the season with that group. Then, of course, season two came along and he faced a coach who tried to bury him and didn't really get to handle the ball too much in that situation in the very late stages he did, with, again, probably an even more tragically worse, even more tragically bad roster around him and did swamp a bit, but I find it hard to fault him for that given, of course, the season it went. And then last season, Baker Savage's wasn't willing to trust him.

It seemed to be trending in that direction right around the time when he got injured But he, you know, when he's been given a chance He's done a fair job of it And it's just been a while since he's been given a chance And I think he should be given a chance Is he ideal to be your lead handler? No

Like, I think he's just much more of a driving kick guy Than a floor general But he's a guy who can do some creation And do some handling, do some passing You know, as your secondary guy If you can build on what he did And the second half of his rookie season You could certainly do far worse

then have him as a secondary handler, and he could conceivably be good at it. Just more about the rotation issue. So unfortunately with Dennis Jenkins, if you want to give minutes, it's kind of a zero-sum game when it comes to he and Ivy and Levert, especially as Ivy's minutes increase.

You basically have to kick Levert out of the rotation to get this done and still play a 10-man rotation if everybody's healthy, if I'm counting correctly, because you have Holland, Ivy, Stewart, crap, who am I forgetting? I don't know.

buddy. One second. I'm going to go check this out. I'm completely brain farting right now. Okay, right. The 10th guy was Karras Leverd. So if you did kick Karris Leverd out, basically you can run an I-Man rotation, but it's a little bit sticky in that situation. It's kind of bad for him to bring a guy on and sell him to joining your team and then say, no, we found somebody else who liked more, which can kick you out of the rotation. There are some politics there. It's just bad form. So unfortunately, if you have Levert and Ivy in the rotation. There are not many minutes for Jenkins. Again, you can free some up by rightly kicking Giovante Green out of the rotation and not, you know, and then some minutes will propagate up to

lineup. He's been playing less minutes, but, you know, over the last five games, you're still, you know, averaging around 10 minutes and that's 10 too many. But in that case, you do have four guys you want to give handling reps too. So it's just a bit of a sticky situation. It's not so simple. It's is don't play Lavert. You can be fairly certain that Lavert will miss a decent amount of time. So there's that. But interesting, we'll be interested to see how they manage this, because if you want to think about Jenkins as a piece of the future, you're going to see quite a bit more data on him. And for him to replace Lavert, who is a proven NBA veteran, he's going to need to win that spot. Maybe you need to seek quite a bit more from him. But how do you get that data if Lavert

and Ivy and Cade are, you know, soaking up a lot of those minutes already. But most Louis L'Avert and Ivy, though, I'm curious to see if Ivy ends up in the starting lineup eventually. I think the plan was always to have him there. I think also Asar being there as kind of a wrinkle too, because with Kate and Ivy on the floor, you'd really like to have an elite high-volume 3-point shooter, which is Sar, needless to say, is not. But, I mean, Duncan Robinson is just so essential to the starting lineup right now as an elite, as that elite high-volume shooter to his starting lineup that is quite short on shooting with Duren and with the Sarr-Thompson on the floor.

I don't know, but I do think he'll end up with, you know, at least 20, 25 minutes a game. If he's not starting, probably a maximum of the 25, but we'll see. Some questions. Cade's efficiency, is it a problem? Yes, Cade has not been the most efficient this season. Part of that is three-point shooting, is that one over in the last. episode, I think last episode, that's chiefly his wide open threes, his catch and shoot, excuse me, is his spot-up threes. And those are the easiest ones to improve. I mean,

you can be fairly certain he's going to progress back to the mean there. Where he really actually does need to work on it is in the vicinity of the basket. It's a strong, restricted area score, but like, you know, just in general, in the general vicinity of the basket, he can occasionally be a little bit shaky. It's a lot, you know, it's better. And his overall efficiency this season was really dragged down by that Washington game, because he took a lot of shots and missed a lot of them. So outside of that, I would say he's, you know, he's doing fine. The elite scores in the league, just the efficiency level is just going up and up, though. You know, even if you're creating a lot of offense, generally those guys who are your lead

handlers and creating a lot of offense are, you know, increasingly in kind of like the 60% entry shooting range. And finally, you know, what are the chances Cade wins MVP this season? I would say virtually nil, even if he's, you know, scoring efficiency goes up and he fixes the issues with the turnovers. You've got to find some way to be better than Yokic and Che Gilgis Alexander, and that is a tall order, especially Yokic. It would be no poor reflection on Kade if you were not able to win MVP above Yokic, whom you can be fairly certain is going to play a lot of games. Some guys just win the health lottery. like, you know, Embed and Yokch both play very physical game.

Mbid has just never been able to stay healthy. Yokch has always been able to stay healthy. Andre Drummond, who for a long time played a very high-flying game, you know, far more high-flying than Yokic does, was able to rarely miss games for the Pistons. And I don't think it's for lack of trying for guys like M-Bed or Anthony Davis, for that matter. So if you got Yokic playing at the level he plays at inconsistently hitting

the minimum games played threshold to, to win regular season awards. I mean, Shea's been amazing. And who else? Who else at this point of the season? It's kind of meaningless at this point of the season who's kind of leading the MVP race.

But just with those too, it's going to be real tough, and especially with Yolkich. And just one more around the league thing. Also, fouls. I mean, following is insane in the NBA this season. I mean, who likes seeing a constant follow is called defensively?

a constant parade of the free throw line. Here's one of my issues with Adam Silver. He is perfectly content if the money is coming in to relentlessly ride the status quo, just with endless inertia, unless circumstances really compel him to do something different, and those circumstances don't exist in this case. You know, you could just make the products better by, you know, cutting down on the intensity of, you know, just how many fouls are being called. I just called a game a little bit looser. But I would be surprised if we see that happen. We had him say about, you know, the season before last, I think it was.

It was it last season. I can't remember that, oh, you know, but we're going to be looking, you know, that if offense has gone too far, presumably that would include the follow category. And he looked at that, and clearly offense has gone too far. You know, at least I strongly believe that, the freedom of motion changes turn this, you know, just made open threes, I think it would considerably too easy to come by. Those were unnecessary changes that could be rolled back. and you would still have a lot of offense.

It would be nothing, I mean, the offense was really on the upswing, you know, well before he made those changes and had been for quite some time and just took another leap with, you know, with the Warriors and the Ab-end of the spacing era, it would not kick us back to the era of hand-checking. I mean, offense would still be very powerful. It would just, you would stand a greater shot of stopping certain sets that are unstoppable right now. But also the fouls, you know, that means less follows. you could also just, you know, loosen things up a bit in terms of what you're calling

and, you know, particularly follows in the interior. But I don't see it happening because when they looked at that, whenever it was, they apparently came away with the opinion that they should change, absolutely nothing. So I hope we see some changes, and I'll just leave it at that. Anyway, folks, that will be it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed. As always, want to thank you for listening. Hope you're all doing well. I'll catch you in next week's episode.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.