Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 246: An Unnecessarily Early Postseason Review

Episode Date: July 4, 2026

This episode makes pointless commentary on the offseason after a mere 72 hours. 

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to Drive into the Baskets. I'm Mike, your host, and I hope you're all doing great. 72 hours past the start of Free Agency, almost exactly, actually 73 as I record this, and I know there are a lot of feelings amongst the fan base about how this has gone so far. So let's chat about what has happened so far. So my sentiments, I guess, way somewhere between Always Lost and Denet Thor's abandon your posts. I'm just kidding.

I don't have much of anything in the way of feelings at the moment. It's, like I said, 72 hours past the start of free agency, also very early in this team's window. You know, I understand completely for anybody who's saying we were a 60 win team last year. We should be making moves right now to get better. And as I've said many times,

on this show. I think that there is no wrong way to be a fan as long as it doesn't involve mistreating anybody. There are, I've certainly seen plenty of that on, on Twitter and on Reddit and elsewhere, and that's no good. So that's the wrong way to be the fan, excuse me, wrong way to be a fan. But aside from that, I mean, anybody should be a fan in the way that they enjoy most that makes sports more meaningful to them. So for anybody who says, well, I just want to see more wins every year than more power to you. I just disagree. That's just not the way I personally look at things. I think it's the job of this front office to make the right move rather than the fast move. Their job is to build a team that's going to have the greatest chance of winning a championship down the line,

whenever that is, whether that's three, four, five years from now. That is their imperative, win a championship. And thankfully, they're in a place with an owner who is seemingly at the point where he finally has enough patience to keep his unfortunately rather inept pause out of team affairs. and so is giving them the time and the space that they need. They seem to have a great deal of latitude, and they are being cautious in a way that I appreciate. They're being prudence with salaries. They're just keeping a lot of flexibility.

And I think that what they're looking at is, you know, maintaining that flexibility, maintaining their assets, maintaining their war chest, maintaining the ability to do what they will want to do at some point when a good opportunity becomes available. So for anybody who's saying, well, we take a little bit of a step back versus where we were last year is, you know, other teams getting better while we're staying the same, I would say maybe, you know, you might be right.

On the other hand, is that an indication of failure? I would say no. I would say it's an indication of the front office is playing it safe. And they're not going to make a move just for the sake of making a move just because, because you win 60 games. And for the record, you know, I don't think this was really, in terms of contender caliber, you know, contender level, I wouldn't say this is really so much of a 60 win team.

But I digress. You know, some other teams got better in the East. Some of the teams got healthier again. That's true. I remember there was a lot of concern, you know, that I saw amongst fans, even the last offseason. You know, are other teams getting better? Isn't it, you know, the plan to keep up in the East?

And the answer is no. You know, that's not the imperative. The imperative is not to maximize win totals every season. And though all of us, myself included, I'm not going to act like I don't like to enjoy watching more wins. You know, I'm going to enjoy watching the Pistons lose more games next season. No. So I think that's an imperative for everybody unless we're in kind of like a tanking phase and we're going, woo-hoo, yay, ha-ha, you know, let's be tank commanders.

And that was a lot of fun, at least for me, and I think for a lot of the other Pistons fans I knew back in 2020, 2021, that season before the K draft. Probably my favorite moment of that season was the Clippers making that crazy comeback and Reggie Jackson hitting that last second shot so the Pistons would lose. And everybody was like, yeah, Reggie, way to go, man. But obviously we're not in that point anymore. So that's well in the past. And so, yeah, we'll have to see more wins, but the idea is not to keep up.

The idea of this front office, their imperative, what they were brought on to do, is to win a championship. And, you know, going back to Tom Gores, we were very unfortunate that he was the owner for a long time. And in this case, I think we are quite fortunate at the moment that he is the owner, because the front office seems to have, like I said, total latitude. And also, as I've said, I don't think the reputation that Tom got as an absentee California owner who doesn't give crap about the team has ever been accurate. I think he cares a great deal about the team. I think it just manifested itself in a very bad way. Whatever the case, I have 99.0.9.4. 999% certainty that the guy is going to happily spend another luxury tax to maintain a contender whenever

that becomes a good idea. But back to what I was saying, the idea is to build a championship team. And if that means taking a step back in the season in the win column, if that means maybe you're out in the first round this year, hopefully not. No, obviously, it should be said that this last season's team would very, very, very easily been out in the first round, if not for some fortunately poor health on the other side. That's neither here nor there. Sometimes, you know, it's, you get healthy in the playoffs and other teams don't. That can mean the difference between winning and losing. So it's a moot point. You never know what's going to happen. But let's say the Pistons go out in seven this season. And then a good opportunity comes along and the flexibility that this, you know, the front

office, the assets that they had hoarded end up coming in handy. Or there's just, you know, an opportunity to remake the team that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. And the Pistons are able to contend the year after or two years later. You know, it's certainly delayed gratification, but I know I'm pounding this point home, but that's their job. That's Trajan Langdon's job. He doesn't have an owner who told him to come in

and I expect you to make the playoffs every year. That was Tom Goros's M.O. for a long time because he was under the delusion. That as he said, all we have to do is build a winning culture, and it's like, okay, sure. I think he's been disabused of that notion at this point and is probably very happy to have Cade. So in any case, yeah, that imperative is to win the title, is to build the team that can win a title.

So has it been exciting so far? No, not at all. And I kind of missed the days when tampering was allowed because it's like the first few days, the first two days of free agency were jam-packed. And it was just report, you know, Shams bomb and Wojbaum and whatever back when And, you know, I was going to say dearly departed, but obviously he's not dead, thank goodness. He's just retired. That we did retire for health reasons. Adrian Bolshinorowski is, yeah, so those guys were just, you know, competing to one-up each other.

And it was just fast and furious. And, of course, now pre-agency starts, and that's when the talks begin. So it's been slow. That said, we're only 72 hours in. Who knows what's going to happen the rest of the off-season. Could be something exciting. Could be absolutely nothing. We will see. Summer League starts in about eight days.

Really excited to see Okori out there. I think he's going to have a great summer league. He's just the sort of player to come in and stomp Summer League. I mean, if you are a guy who is basically playing, you're playing glorified pickup, and you're a dude who's just an expert of getting into the paint, and you're attacking guys who really aren't that great. I think it's going to be good.

All right. And okay, yeah, and Uganda, or Yunga. You Gunna, as I'm sure he'll be nicknamed to the endless, you know, you're going to get blocked, jokes, whatever. I'm sure he'll be at Summer League also. The roster was posted, but yeah, I'll talk about that. I actually have to look it up and see who's on there. All right, anyway, let's talk about free agency. Of course, the biggest story is Jalen Duren and the standoff of the Pistons.

Now, my views on Jalen Duren are well established. Yeah, just to sum up, passenger on offense, doesn't create much, can't shoot, poor defender, and elite at the very, you know, best role man in the league, maybe the best finisher in the league, I mean, assisted finisher. And it's one of the best vertical spacers in the league. But those are, and those are his, I mean, those are his elite skills and, you know, in elite rebounder as well. And those are very valuable skills, but they are not the most important skills there are out there. He has very little agency on offense, and he's a minus defender. And, of course, just has only failure in the postseason so far, especially against the cavaliers. My goodness, that is, it's hard to get it.

You know, I'm preaching to the choir here, I'm sure. So whatever the case, we heard before Free Agency began that he and the Pistons were far apart, and he planned to explore sign-and-trade scenarios with the Sacramento Kings. He's been going so far. Maybe this is his agent talking for him. No, granted, the same guy who asked for $30 million last season, more than $30 million after a pretty unremarkable season, about 30% of which she had taken off, just decided not to play defense and not to really care all that much and been one of the worst starting centers in the

league. After an entire season, more or less, in which she'd done the same thing. So either he or his agent or both are heads are a little too big, put it that way, inflated heads. So what does that mean? Of course, the Pistons front office doesn't leak. So we just don't know. In this case, I think they leaked a little bit, actually, in their own way.

So basically, where we heard this story was all from Chris Haynes of ESPN, I think is of ESPN. And these insiders are from time to time used by agents' mouthpieces, just the way it is. And suddenly it was, you know, we heard that news from him. We heard the news. Sacramento is where Jalen Durham wants to be. That, I think, took things a little bit too far, but whatever. And I think where the Pistons' front office leaked a bit was out to a couple of the beatwriters when they said, and maybe to Sam Amick from the athletic, when they said, oh, we have, you know,

we want to re-sign him, we have no intention of participating in signed trade scenarios. We'll match any offer, and who knows if that's true. But one thing's for sure. They did not offer him the Supermax, needless to say, he was never getting anything even remotely in that area. just no. It would take a true madman to do that. If I had a guess, I would say that he was looking for more something around the normal 25% max,

which still would have started him at $41 million. And if I had a guess, again, this is pure conjecture, but based on the fact that, you know, just assuming that Duren and his agent are not clinically insane and don't actually expect the supermax, which would be like $50 million. Excuse me. you know so operating on that assumption given that he ran off to the lakers and and the kings and they can just get they could only give him the 25% max so starting at 41 million my guess is that that's around what he's looking for and if that's the case and the pistons and he are far apart

as reported i would guess that their offer was in the low 30s now for me whatever i mean given that you would have trouble replacing durun you know unless you come up with the proper scenario on which you can do that. And given that, yes, he does have the potential to still be, you know, a good center. I'm increasingly out on the possibility of the defense. I was heartened by the progress that he made in the regular season. And then, needless to say, that didn't hold into the playoffs. When he just provided, as usual, very little defensive value in the first round series against the magic,

played minus defense and then got destroyed by the cavaliers, like wrecked. So if he could just get to the point of solid defense and just refine himself as a creator a bit, all right, maybe the guy can be worth $30 million, especially in a system that has better spacing. Of course, you catch 22 there is that he really needs a SAR on defense and the SAR can't shoot. The spacing's always going to be bad. Oops. So, in my opinion, even if you're paying a guy $30 million, you are counting on some progress because at the very least, the level of defense he played in the postseason is not good enough and will never be good enough.

the Pissons are not going to contend for a championship. Highly unlikely, I put it in this way, they contend for a championship with Jalen Duren, playing poor defense, even just poor defense in the playoffs, especially given what he can do on offense, which is just really not very much. Like the whole center thing, it's very, very hard,

very, very hard, and this has been the case for a very, very long time. Throughout multiple errors of NBA basketball, it's very difficult to win the championship with a bad defensive center. You basically got Yokic, you know, in the past, in this millennium, you have Yokic and Yokic and also Yokic. So, yeah, Yokic is the only bad defensive center who has won a championship in this era.

And, oh, actually, excuse me, now Carl Anthony Towns, though, let's be fair. He was surrounded by good defenders, and he wasn't that bad. So Towns has had periods in his past in which he did not suck on defense. And this postseason was another one of those. So, no, he wasn't bad, actually, so I'm not adding to that list. And Yokic isn't stupid on defense. He's extremely smart. He's just slow.

You know, defense built around him, and he's the greatest offensive center ever. All right. So all that said, there's a standoff. It was funny hearing that the Lakers told Duren that they consider him a max player because nobody in their, you know, Polinka is not stupid. He's not going to max Jalen Duren. So he got Walker Kessler for about 11 million less. The possibility of offer sheets to Duren is pretty much gone.

It seems like the Nets are not going that direction. They are, as I suspected that they would, because they have no pick looking to fill out their roster with more rotation players, because they went in this offseason with very few viable rotation, NBA rotation players. And the Bulls already traded for Claxton. Man, just doesn't. It seemed like it was never in the cards. So if that's the case, then Jalen Duren is out of leverage. nobody's going to oversheet him, and the Pistons would have to play ball and sign-in-trade scenarios.

So, as Bessini from the Princess Bride would say, we are at an imp... No, wait, did you say that? No, it was Wesley. Excuse me, Wesley. Westley, I said, then we are at an impasse. Indeed, I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brain. Sorry, I could quote that movie for a long time. It's one of my favorites. So we'll see what happens. I mean, obviously the two things that could happen. Well, three things that could happen. Number one, They could reach a compromise somewhere, though it seems like Trajan and Company.

I really, really like that they are being fiscally prudent. It is so necessary in today's league to shepherd every cap dollar. Under the current CBA, I mean, it's just so important. And it just doesn't really seem like they're going to budge. And I'm sure I'd be shocked if they didn't make a reasonable offer based on what Duren actually deserves at this point, based on his very limited regular season track record and his non-existent track record of performing well in the playoffs. After four seasons, he is still a bad postseason player, like bad. And that's, I mean, only two post seasons, but you know, you had your good regular season

and you followed it up with a truly terrible postseason and against the Knicks two seasons ago. You know, excuse me, well, I guess it is two seasons ago because we're now in the new league year. He was also bad. So number one, he takes the office. offer. Number two, they find a side in trade that actually works for the Pistons. The Kings are not going to work out. I would tell you, if the Kings offered Demontas Sabanus and a couple of unprojected firsts, I think that the Bissons would have to seriously, the front office would have to seriously seriously think about that. Sabanis, you're going to have trouble winning a championship with him,

because he's even worse than Duran on defense. I mean, on offense, he is legit good. I think he can't shoot. He could shoot on, you know, he's never shot on high volume, but I'm going to say you were having him shoot on high volume. I mean, he's one of the best passing bigs in the league, probably second only to Yokic, maybe tied with Schengun is really up there, whatever the case. He's, he's one of the best passing bigs. He's a really strong finisher. He's a really good pick, pick and roll big, not as much of a vertical spacer, but his passing out of the short rule is good. He's a very crafty finisher. He was pretty, you know, he's a solid enough post player. And I'm not sure if he's really operated in the post much in recent seasons, so don't quote me on that.

But a strong offensive player, who I think could do some good things with Cade and the pick and roll. And also could probably pop, could give you more lineup flexibility, play five shooter lineups, help out of Sarr a little bit, you know, by having at least four shooters in the four. Yada, yada, yada, mood point because the Pistons have already announced that they're not interested in not announced, but that's come out. And again, almost certainly leaked deliberately that they're just not interested in that. But if that scenario would have come up, you have two, you know, unprotected future first from a team with an extraordinary history of failure.

I mean, those are pretty good assets. You wait for Sabanis to be in expiring, and then you know, you've got more artillery, so to speak, to make a couple of big trades, but it's not happening. So, yeah, if you're going to find a sign-in trade, I think it's going to have to return value immediately.

I mean, I doubt this front office is looking for draft stock. You know, there's taking a step back, you know, temporary step back, and then there's just needing to, you know, reinvent where you are at the position. Of course, I could be wrong, but I feel like that's unlikely to happen. Though at this point, maybe it's the best option to, well, excuse me, the best option to try to find, no, excuse me, that's not the best option. The best option is maybe to try to find a replacement form. I'll talk about why I think that is in a moment. And the third, of course, is that he takes

qualifying offer. Qualifying offer means that he has paid about $10 million next season, nine and change. And then somewhere between $9 and $10 million. I don't remember exactly what it is. And then he has just one-year contract, his number-stricted free agent next summer, and he has veto power over any trade. So, and if he does get traded, he loses his bird rights. So the team that traded for him cannot exceed the cap to re-sign him. Well, they would have non-bird rights, so to speak, which would allow them to sign him for $120,

you know, excuse me, $12 million in year one, which is obviously not what he's looking for. So he'd be wanted to go to a team with a lot of cap space to resign him. So in any case, that's a risky move. And it's one we very, very rarely see, like very rarely see for a player who, you know, was in line to receive that amount of money, like $30 million a year. Like Quentin Grimes did it. Did any of the others? No, but Grimes did it last year?

and now I think is being paid around MLE money, if I remember correctly. But he and the Sixers are far apart, and they offered him, I think, some of $10, $15 million or something like that. I mean, Duren is almost certainly has an offer on the table for a cell of 30. But we don't know how many years he's being offered to.

That's one thing. So that could be where they're far apart. Unfortunately, we don't have any reliable information about that. And I'd like to take this time to put out a plea for people to not listen to bad sources. because the only sources we've heard from are legit bad sources in terms of what the salaries are, you know, what salary he's looking for. So your tiers of sources, you know, at the top, you've got Shams, Sam Amick,

Mark Stein, not Jake Fisher. I think I went over this last time. And the local beatwriters. And you've got guys like Haynes who are typically right, but not always. And you've got guys like Jake Fisher and Scotto. Mike Scato, who occasionally knows something, but the vast majority of the time, what they say comes out to absolutely nothing. And then you have the absolute dregs of Brett Siegel, Evan Sittery, Jake Weinbach, stuff

and guys like that who just want to complete frauds who want to act like they know something. So they're very, very good at disguising absolute speculation as insider information, or they come up with scenarios, oh, you know, this was proposed but never happened. So it's like come out and prove a negative, which would take somebody involved coming out and saying, no, that's not the case, which, you know, the teams just don't care enough to do that. And, you know, or just making educated guesses that they, you know, in the hopes of being right and looking like they actually knew something. Also aggregators, just keep in mind, every time you amplify something from full court pass,

a golden retriever puppy dies is possessed by basketball demons. And those basketball demons do nothing but post highlights of Killian Hay's pull-up jumpers for the rest of all eternity. Full court pass is terrible. Like, even by Twitter standards, the most deliberately distortive aggregator I've ever seen. NBA Central, somewhat less bad, but still pretty bad. Underdog NBA, surprisingly honest. Anyway, I digress. And it's been mentioned to me and pointed out very correctly.

that my annoyance at bad sources and my efforts to, you know, my meager efforts to get people to stop listening to them, just because I dislike the, you know, the fraudsters involved are a complete and utter waste of my time, but I feel obligated to try anyway. I hate to see people misled, and I hate to see frauds rewarded, too. In any case, so, yeah, we have no information about that. But, yeah, it's extremely rare to see that happen for a player who is looking at a very big contract offer. The last one to do it, in fact, unless I'm really forgetting somebody, was our very own

Greg Moose Monroe, when Stan Van Gundy decided, well, sorry, Moose, you're going to the bench so that we can move Josh Smith to power forward. Right after he said to Vivek Rana dive, the endlessly inept owner of the Kings, who, by endlessly inept, I mean, he's just, he's incredibly meddlesome and just makes horrible decisions. It's just been, he's been terrible for the organization. He really liked Josh Smith, so he's like, you know, be obsessed to his GM, go out and get him. and the GM offers, and this is very little known, remains still very little known, reported by Woj. It happened. So Smith was on one of the worst contracts in the league.

It was a terrible signing by Dumas to play Smith out of position at small forward alongside two of their non-shooting bigs. He'd been a cancer in the locker room. He'd been awful with the pistons the season before, truly awful. And so the Kings offered a much smaller salary load. And Van Gundy said, no, I can make this work. And so he kept Smith. I ended up 28 games later, so the Pistons are 5 and 23, having to wave the guy because even the Kings didn't want him.

And the Pistons ended up with a sizable dead cap hit on the books. Because it wasn't super sizable because the cap exploded about a season and a half later. But nonetheless. And Monroe was just terminally alienated. They made him a big contract offer. And he said, no, I'm taking the qualifying offer. and he pieced out the next off season. He was going to be gone anyway because he was a terrible fit with Drummond,

and Drummond was considered the future at the time. But if you have the guy on a contract, him, he wanted to get a max deal for the bucks. You trade him and get that asset. So anyway, yeah, this would be the first guy since 2014 to do that. It's a possibility, but it's a big risk. Let's say you suffer a severe injury. You just have a really bad season.

The more you've gone to the postseason. You've got a really bad postseason. Well, you're going out into a hostile market, my friends. So those are your options. which one is the likeliest. My concern at this point, you know, given, again, it was this Durham, was this is agent, was both, but they went very agro. I mean, sure, I get paid, but it went very agro. And if the relationship has been poisoned as a result, if Durham's being a little bit of a baby about this, we've seen what disengaged Durham looks like. We got about 100 games of it

in his rookie contract. And if there was any chance of him coming back and acting like that, I mean, that is a bad player. He was a bad player during that period. Like, no ifs, or butts. There's genuinely a bad player. He put up, like, 16 and 12 in his second season, and he was a bad player, one of the worst starting centers in the league. If that's a danger, they got to move on. I mean, you can't risk that. You can't risk this guy ending up under contract saying, okay, well, I'll sign for $30 million, and then just being a little shit about it.

No, that's absolute speculation on my part. But if that's a danger, you've got to trade him for somebody. Now, who's that going to be? That's a very, very good question. So anyway, that's the drama of the postseason so far. Let's move on to what else has happened. Tobias Harrison, excuse me out, John Collins in. Farewell, that's Tobias.

I love that guy. I've loved him since his first stint with the Pistons. I think he is, as I've said many times on here, but I'm going to say it one last time. The model sportsman, utterly team first, super hardworking. You know, a good leader in the locker room, super active in the community. Just incredibly wholesome. him is positive in every way. So I loved having him back in the team.

I'll miss him being on the team. And at the same time, he was never really a great fit on the team. Unfortunately, his three-point shooting has taken a bit of a dive in recent years. He's not a very good off-ball player for, at least, a coach who was really intent on playing him off the ball. Not a very good regular season for the, regular season player for the Pistons. In the postseason, he was the second best player for the Pistons this season. I mean, not equivocally.

But I'd say that was as much a reflection on the rest of the team as it was on Tobias himself. He was still hot or cold, still shot poorly from the perimeter. You got to have a better guy than that is your first option. So it seems to piss and just weren't interested. I mean, it seems like John Collins from what was reported was, you know, was there, you know, was who they wanted. So what does this switch off mean? And I'm taking out intangibles here, like leadership. because I can't measure those.

So Collins is a bit less off, excuse me, on ball heft. Like, Tobias isn't really a great creator at the stage of his career. He was never really a super high volume creator. But he's a guy who's, you know, solid enough in the mid-range, whether he's pulling up. I don't think he did really a great job of that last year or more just in the paint. Like if we're defining that as short mid-range, you know, floaters and whatnot. You know, you can create some off the dribble that way. he can attack some mismatches in the post.

These were not high-volume sources of offense for him. Maybe that was just because Bakerstaff didn't really feel like it during the regular season, more so in the post season. There are plenty of times, and it's like, dude, you can't get a bucket. You can easily attack mismatches with Tobias here. I was at a game at Ball Arena, where it's like, dude, Tobias has endless mismatches, and J.B. couldn't score. He had a Saur and Holland out there at one point, and Pistons just weren't scoring.

He just never turned. into the obvious thing, which is just have Tobias mismatch in the post. He's really good at it, have him score. And once they start doubling him, which is inevitable, in that situation, Yolkich was out, the Nuggets just playing really small lineup. Then, I mean, someone else, somebody's open somewhere. And Tobias isn't the greatest passer, but you can find an open man who can then find another open man who can take a shot. So you're losing that. So you're not losing like a ton of creation, but for a team that's relatively short on it already, you know, it's somewhat meaningful. Now, what are you gaining? John Collins is a significantly more reliable perimeter shooter,

especially from the corners where he's, you know, in the 40s last season, if I remember correctly. He is a better finisher, you know, off ball. He's very athletic. He's just a very strong finisher. He, and, you know, a better vertical spacer, too. He is, is better at the rim, all told, and Tobias. He offers you some line of flexibility because he's actually good on offensive center.

It's actually been what's made him a bit of a precarious fit in his NBA career as a whole is that he's arguably best suited to play as a center. He's a good role man. You know, he can space the floor at the five.

He's just, yeah, I mean, he's good on on offensive center, but he can't play defensive center. But he does offer you some line at flexibility, you know, just to go small, play him at the five, maybe in five shooter lineups, maybe just the center alongside Saur, you know, to minimize his, you know, the impact, excuse me, mitigate. Now, you can't make you go away, but mitigate the impact of him being unable to space the floor,

et cetera, et cetera. So you're gaining better spacing, you're gaining better lineup flexibility, or getting, you know, better off ball finishing. And, you know, that's important. I mean, the spacing and the off ball play, especially the spacing, you know, that that's better. You know, that's important. So you're losing some creation, not a ton, and you are really gaining some spacing and some line of flexibility. So I'm fine with the signing. It's only one year fully guaranteed. So again, just goes on the side of flexibility. So I'll miss

Tobias. I think it's kind of a washer, maybe slightly advantaged Collins, especially because Tobias is reaching the point. Also, he's 34. And around, I mean, even just the end of the 30s, guys start to slow down and you got to you know it's mostly just the stars who continue to provide really high value the guys who just have so much talent that that they're able to continue to perform at a high level even though they do decline uh you're in the mid 30s guys tend to start you know they start to fall off pretty quickly so it may happen to tobias it might not but you are turning back the clock a little bit uh not turning back the clock you're getting younger so you're removing that possibility he's going on to san antonio i think really good veteran leadership for that really

young team, but kind of need it. In terms of fit, you know, he has not a team that he has multiple, you know, like three guys who can create offense. And you make it four if Harper, you know, continues to improve. Uh, you know, that, so he's just not the most reliable shooter, perimeter shooter. Strange fit, but I think it'll be good for that team anyway. And he's on, you know, middle level exception salary. So pretty good. You know, good for him. I wish him the best. Do I think that he's going to win a chip? Who knows? You know, the thuny the thine. You know, the I'm sure, the Big Three Thunder back in 2011, I'm sure, thought, 2012, excuse me, thought they'd be back in the finals. And they, none of them ever reached the finals, but the Thunder.

Katie Harden, Westbrook, of course, Hardin was only on the team for, oh goodness, I actually think he was traded that summer. But Katie and Westbrook didn't make it back. Anywho, who else? Let's see, we got Kevin Hurd are back on a three-year, $27 million contract. I think that this one is kind of a swing, and I don't dislike it. I actually kind of like it, and let me tell you why. If Herder, who is a solid defender, has really improved inside the arc, not so much as a creator, but just at largely attacking from off the ball.

And used to be an elite shooter, can get back to being like a 36% guy, then this is a bargain contract. You know, and it was two seasons ago, well, 23, 24, when he shot about anything. 36% in a difficult shot diet. You know, and you need good value contracts as a team with a high payroll, like when the, if the Pissons, you know, generally if you become a contender, you're operating with a very high payroll. And then having these really, really good value contracts for role players is very valuable. I can't remember the structure. I think the third year is a team option or not guaranteed. Don't quote me on that. I'm not sure if it's actually been reported. So maybe I'm making, maybe I'm, you know, my brain is making that up. But I don't dislike the contract. We've got,

You know, so I think that one is decent. We've got another Isaiah coming in. Of course, could not replace our dearly departed to another team, Isaiah Stewart, but Isaiah Joe, elite shooter. Not in the level of Duncan Robinson because Isaiah is kind of a thunder merchant in that he just got a ton of open threes with the thunder. But, I mean, he's an elite open three-point shooter. He's more of kind of like a relocate and shoot guy.

He's not a motion three-point shooter like Duncan. Like the degree of difficulty of his shots and the amount of, of gravity he exerts are just not the same. But he's more shooting on a team that desperately needed. So that's pretty good. Giovante Green was back. Excuse me, is back. That's good, useful depth, useful role player.

And that's where we stand right now. So for those of you who are cap geeks, basically, I mean, right now it looks overwhelmingly likely that the pistons will operate as an above the cap team. All the scuttle butt is that John Collins will be a sign-in trade. So you've got Isaiah Joe incoming as well. Also, we've heard that Sasser is outbound to Dallas. This is a weird one because Mark Stein reported it.

He's reliable. And also very keyed into Dallas. I guess he used to be a reporter out there. So if Sasser goes out into one of Dallas's trade exceptions, I think they have two that could fit him. They have at least one, the 80, you know, the Anthony Davis trade exception. If he goes out to Dallas, no salary comes back. And if it is a trade that involves the Pistons, the Thunder, the Grizzlies, and the Mavericks,

then the Pistons can maintain their full middle-level exception because then they're trading out Sasser and Stewart. And that allows them to bring in John Collins and Isaiah Joe just on salary matching. So at this point, the Pistons are assuming Sasser is on the way out. then the Pistons are $55 million below the first apron. I'm not counting Tolu Smith's non-guaranteed salary here. I am counting Duncan's and I am counting Paul Reed. They're $55 million below the first apron, and the first apron is relevant because the Pistons by accepting a player in a sign and trade.

If that is the case, with John Collins, it become hard cap there. Hard cap means you can't exceed it under any circumstances. So there'll be $55 million under the first apron and $47 million under the luxury line. So let's say Durn's back at 32. get the, you know, more or less the full middle level exception to work with. And you never know we're going to be next season. I mean, you want to be able to use the, you know, the full middle level if you can. Is there going to be somebody worth paying it to, who knows? Also, the rep, you know, the rotation is getting a bit full when you look at guys who are going to get minutes next season.

John Collins, Isaiah Joe, and I'm not saying this in any particular order. I'm actually just reading him off a list. So Collins, Joe, Cade, Duncan, Hussar, presumably Ron Hollins, Paul Reed, I'd be very surprised if Okori is not in there. Giovante's probably going to get some minutes. Herder, who knows, Karris Levert is there. I mean, who knows, maybe he bounces back. Jenkins could easily just end up, you know, out of the rotation. But there's a lot of guys in there who would presumably be in line for minutes.

So it begs the question of, is there, you know, as the front office hoping to make a trade of some sort? Who knows? It's tough to say, again, it comes back to the point of us being in the very very. very early days here. When it comes to trade possibilities, I mean, who knows? Again, I think the front office, and this is also the impression just they get from watching them operate, operate, excuse me, is that they are never going, excuse me, sorry, I get briefly distracted there, that they're going to wait for the right move. They're not just going to make a move, just to make a move, you know, for a Tyler Harrow, who I think has a lot of flaws. I think I talked about that last episode,

but just reiterate pretty bad on defense injury prone and incredibly bad in the playoffs. Also an expiring contract, and if you have to extend him, you really want to extend an injury prone. And again, there's nothing to say that Harrow couldn't do better in the playoffs, just he has absolutely no track record of playoff success, including as a rookie, because the heap were a lot better with him off the floor. It was the Crowder, Druggich, Butler, Audubio, Robinson lineup that really propelled them in the finals that year. So, yeah, are you going to want to extend a pretty injury-prone hero?

Who's very likely to lose a lot of value defensively, just like Duncan did, away from Eric Spolstra? Yeah. Trey Murphy, very high price by all accounts, placed on him by the two failed. Well, excuse me, I mean, that's probably a little bit strong to say about Dumars, but the two, Dumars was pretty bad. for a long time before leaving Detroit, leaving Detroit. It was terrible in his last five seasons. So, and it's already proven as an aptitude in New Orleans. So whatever, two bad GMs over, you know, the bad president of basketball operations and his, and his likewise bad right-hand man,

a general manager. They seem to value them very highly, excuse me, value him very highly. They also made Herb Jones, untouchable last deadline. Apparently, Missy is untouchable. They have done nothing but signed D'Andre Jordan. That is it, a re-signed D'Andre Jordan to be a benched cheerleader. That's been the extent of their off-season so far. Trey Murphy is very much an off-ball player, you know, strong off-ball score, but not a guy you're going to give the ball to and ask him to create much offense, so you're really paying three first-round picks to just upgrade on Duncan Robinson to a player who's not really going to bring you the on-ball.

creation you need and you're hindering your ability to get that player, you know, to get that all-star, superstar level secondary creator next decade, which is just such an essential commodity if you want to win a championship. I think it's unlikely. And again, the Pistons are not in a position where they just need to do it. And Trey Murphy is your best, you know, is best traded for. At this point, as a put you over the top kind of acquisition when you've already got, you know, that secondary grader on your team. So I don't see that happening. Just, you know, just to add somebody. Now, who knows? Who knows what will happen in the offseason again? Only 72 hours old. All right. So I said I do a summer league preview, but this episode is getting

long enough already. So I'm going to call it there and I'll talk about summer league. I don't know, hopefully sometime next week. Anyway, that'll be it for this episode. Hope you're all doing great. And I'll catch you in the next one. Thank you.