Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 247: Where Things Stand

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

This episode discusses where things currently stand in the offseason, what the front office solved, what remains outstanding, and why the current direction is a little concerning. 

Welcome back, everybody. You are listening to Drive into the Baskets. I'm Mike. Hope you've all been great since, well, hope you're all doing great. Put it that way. It's been a couple months, almost done the dot since the last time I recorded. Time has kind of flown in what has been a very, very slow off season with not much beyond just, you know, waiting to see what happens with the whole Jalen Durand saga. And waiting to see what happens. with what would probably thereafter be an extension for a Sart Thompson and et cetera, et cetera. So the last episode I recorded about 72 hours into the offseason and I'm just going to talk about where I think the team stands

and answer some questions from people who are kind enough to care about my opinion. So since the last episode, it is basically just been Carus Lvert being traded for Gary Harris and Torium Prince and a couple of second round picks being traded for Isaiah Joe who came into the

Dennis Schroeder trade exception so that's basically left us where we are Giovante Green of course as well as back I can't remember if Herder had signed already come the 3rd of July okay yes they had already agreed on that deal oddly enough

He has not been officially signed as far as I know. So I don't know, the guy's contract technically is eligible for a sign and trade because it is of three years. I believe season three is a team option or it's non-guaranteed. One of the other pretty much functionally for the piston's purposes, nearly identical. So where do we find ourselves right now? with a relatively deep rotation, with more shooting than the pistons have basically ever had, especially if Harder can get things back together, though he may be on the outside of the rotation. You've got, you know, Prince can shoot Giovante Green as a reasonable shooter.

John Collins is a pretty good shooter. I like to see him shoot on higher volume this year. Duncan Robinson, of course, is one of the best off-ball shooters in the league, I think, very, very underrated. Man, the guy's combination of shooting. shooting ability, IQ, work ethic, conditioning, just as a composite makes him, you know, one of the best, one of the very best all-ball shooters in the league. Of course, he's limited to being almost exclusively an all-ball shooter, but. And then you added Isaiah Joe, who also is one of the best shooters in the league. Kind of more of a wide open three merchant, but still a very good shooter anyway.

and somehow simultaneously, and oh yeah, Boko O'Coree, who was quite a good shooter in college, and presumably that's the sort of thing that's often going to translate. So simultaneously, the pistons have more shooting than they've ever had, and still have major spacing concerns, which is just going to remain the case as long as as as Sir Thompson is in the starting line, you know, it's a major piece of the rotation, as long as Ron Holland. it remains a significant piece of the rotation and neither of them can shoot a Saur alone. I think it understandably goes kind of lesser understood unless you're looking at just the greater

scheme of the NBA over the last 10 years and especially over the last, I don't know, five or six years when things have tightened up even more, how hard it is to win with a total perimeter non-shooter in the playoffs. it is just very, very, very, very, very damaging because there is a guy who can just be completely ignored on offense by the other team. And it takes away an option because he can't finish plays. It drastically reduces the potential caliber of his own contributions and also makes life just enormously easier on the defense and a great deal harder on the offense.

So cannot be understated. No matter how amazing a defender you are, it is a big. weakness going four on five on offense and you're going to be up against I mean the deeper you on the playoffs you're going to be up against some great teams who are not going to be operating with that disadvantage so that hurts Ron Holland if you can't shoot that hurts maybe Paul Reeve will shoot this year he's got some potential we'll see um bigger staff doesn't really like his center shooting threes anyway doesn't like as big as period shooting threes you saw what he with Mobley that's not great and darn of course can't shoot period excuse me

for those of you who just heard the throat clearing. So in any case, though, the most shooting the pistons have ever had, that's a good thing. The spacing is a concern, but that kind of is what it is right now. So let's talk Jalen Duren. And so I'll try to keep this relatively brief. Everybody knows that I feel about Duren already. The guy's head is very large. I don't know if that's just him or if it is his agents or both at the end of the day, it's him.

Because he's got to be the one who, you know, he's the one who calls the shots at the end of the day. so if his agent is telling him to do what he's doing, and he is saying, okay, then that's his call. Whether that was him or his agent, too, as was, though I hadn't noticed, actually confirmed by Fred Katz from the athletic earlier in midseason back in January, I believe. And Duren did indeed, and I thought he had asked for a 30-something million. He had actually asked for a max extension last summer in order to resign, a max extension, which would have started him at the, I know, 41 million-ish. upcoming season that he seems to be asking for. It's possible he's asking for more than 25% of the salary caps. Pissons can give him up to 30% thanks to his, in my opinion, quite undeserved. All-MBA nod. So, yeah, he has high salary demands that I think it makes perfect

sense that the front office is not willing to accommodate. I've seen confusion. It's kind of funny looking at fans, at least on social media of other teams, being really bewildered as to why the front office is not willing to just max him. The answer, of course, is that he still has some flaws, some major holes in his game that are inevitably going to be far, substantially more damaging in the postseason than they are in the regular season. You know, get paid. I mean, teams are smartened up to this. You don't just max a guy to be a regular season merchant unless you really just are satisfied with making the playoffs and maybe get into the second round.

Players just like that in general are increasingly not getting high salaries at all. So it's, you know, when you have a guy like Duren who can't shoot, is still limited on the creation side. And of course on defense, can be made a non-value loser in the regular season for the most part by surrounding him with a good perimeter defense and the pistons at the top three perimeter defense and just playing him and drop and not asking him to do much.

I mean, he was still a poor rim protector anyway. His defensive processing still kind of sucks. Of course, you can't protect guys like that in the playoffs. And it's just not really, the game doesn't really allow it. and you look over the last 50 years. I mean, honestly, my ability to properly analyze players probably ends around 40 years ago. Excuse me. Well, maybe in the early 90s, but there are, I know many of you who listen,

whose knowledge of the NBA goes back substantially further than that. But the inability to win with a guy who can be a liability on defense is largely era agnostic. And there have been two guys, two bad defenders at Center who have made the finals from like, you know, as far back as the first win of the, the bad boys era. Before that even, because, you know, the teams that were winning before that were like the Kareem Abduljabar Magic, one of great defenders ever. You know, the Celtics, who I can't remember, I think was that Robert Parrish Plank Center. I can't remember. They had a good, no, I don't know. I think it was powerful.

I don't know. This is where my knowledge is kind of my lack of familiarity is showing through. but the Celtics teams, whoever played center, as I recall, was a solid defender. There have been two guys who made it, Kevin Love in 2018, and they got beaten up on pretty badly by the Warriors, though nobody was beating those warriors, but nonetheless. And then arguably the greatest offensive center ever, Nicole Yolkich, who's very smart defensively. He's just slow.

And he had a defense built around him, and there's no other guy in the league who's a bad defender on center who's worth building around because it just it hurts so much in the playoffs. So, yeah, when you have a guy like that and you're looking at, you know, four big minute seasons and he's still really, he's still not really particularly close to even offering you value on defense and can't even prevent you from losing it. It's a big problem. You know, the role game with Cade, which is like the best in the regular season in the league is easily taken away. unfortunately especially when you have a sarah on the floor you can focus on that and if kata's a secondary creator would help but still it's it's predictable and just like the nicks the season before

took him out of the offense for long stretches sort of the magic so did the cavaliers and again that that bad spacing is just going to make things even harder and his ability to create is is pretty much limited to some isolation against opposing bigs most of which is just him driving right occasionally bullying. So I think the 35 million that we've heard, you know, an average per season that we've heard that the front office has offered is a very generous bet on his improvement defensively, which I consider to be quite unlikely. And here's where it gets a little scary too. I mean, number one, I think that their willingness to pay him a really substantial amount of money despite the great concerns defensively. If he was a good defender, it's like, okay, cool,

you know, pay him that 35 million, you know, great. This is a guy. who can certainly be center of the future. Because you can be sure that at the very least, he's going to offer you good value in the postseason on defense, like Walker Kessler, for example, who's far ahead of Duren as a defender. He was not the finisher or the role man, or he doesn't really have any ability to create,

but he is a good defender. Maybe a little bit overpaid, but his playoff ceiling is inherently higher because of his defense. You know, passable drop guy, excuse me, passable switch guy, really strong drop guy. So I think that the front office

This is more just kind of, there's a premium for the opportunity cost built into this, the opportunity cost of, well, you know, it might hurt if we just don't sign him. It's going to cost him more, you know, how we're going to replace him. So we're going to offer him what is still a very generous salary, despite the major concerns over his future. And at the same time, clearly being very interested in extending Assar Thompson, thereby locking this team into a two unless the SAR makes very considerable progress on offense. And yes, his brother just got a nearer. max contract.

Amen, regrettably, sadly, is far ahead of a Sauron offense. So do you have a front office, and this is, again, where it's scary, who is willing to lock into a two-non-shooter starting lineup. And again, forgive me if I harp on things, you need to have a really good team to win a championship, like really good. It's really something else. I mean, you need to have an almost total absence of weaknesses. And there are some weaknesses that are very.

very, very, like I said, damaging. You look at, for example, even in, like, the 2022 finals with the Celtics, like Marcus Smart just not being able to hit an open three, like you shot, I don't know, like in the low 30s, like when the Warriors would swarm Brown, swarm Tatum, it's like, okay, Marcus Smart is being left wide open. You give him the ball and he cannot give you the points that you need. And Smart was a way better shooter than a SAR, at least ASAR to this stage. who of course, needless to say, I'm sure.

You know, the sure sure can be that he works his arse off, trying to improve as a shooter. But some guys don't get there. I mean, yeah, SARS is a better defender, but your most easily exploitable weaknesses are on offense. And again, if you're going up against another team that is not operating with that weakness that has good spacing or maybe even five shooters in the floor,

and you're operating with the clogged interior and in the Piston situation, a maximum of three guys in the starting lineup who can hit an open three, and you're pretty much always going to have a spacing, I mean, whenever if Sarah's on the floor, you've got a spacing liability there inherently. It's tough, good luck winning a championship with that. You can make it work if your non-shooter is really, truly excellent elsewhere on offense,

and you built around him. Like, you know, Janice and Teddekumpo is the only guy we're thinking about here. I don't point at the Warriors. I mean, they've been the ultimate meta-bending team. And, yeah, so they're just the exception of all exceptions. And having, like, the most game, what I think just has been the most game-bending player, like pretty unambiguously of the last 10 years, 11 seasons, really, has allowed them to do that.

And it's not working anymore because, I mean, the core is aging out. So unless we're looking at the exception of all exceptions, and he can't count on being an exception. And the Pistons don't have a Steph, Curry, neither is anybody else, and it's entirely possible. Nobody ever will. You're looking at Janus, who's like a 30 point per game score on the regular season. You need to surround him with shooting because, again, just if you don't have those shooters, if your supporting cast dies as his is his did, you know, especially notoriously in 2019 when the Raptors just threw

three long defenders at him because they could weave a shooters open. Then, good luck. Again, your team has to be pretty darn good. That Buck's team that won with him in 2020. 21 had just had an incredible amount of shooting in the playoffs. And still, they, well, I can't actually make that, make the comparison. I was going to say, still, they would have lost the nets. Mike Boodenhozer was just the truly awful coach. He was a complete dinosaur. Of course, Ishby had brought him back, and he was a complete disaster,

and I was surprised he got a job again. I was sure the likes of he and Doc Rivers would not. But he got brought back for a year. He was terrible and never coached in the NBA again. Doc Rivers got brought back, you know, for reasons that. and just defy any comprehension, and he was terrible, and he'll never come back. Just the point is, let's say, I don't know, I've heard scenarios, like what happens if Jalen Duren can shoot. Well, you have a couple of, you have a couple of issues there. Number one,

if you're going to compensate through the guy not being able to shoot, again, number one, he'd better be pretty darn good on offense. And Assar is probably one of the worst players in the league on offense right now. Can't shoot, can't really create much weak at the rim. His shot diet is in the half court where, you know, really the money is. made, so to speak, the vast majority of your points are coming from, is cuts, put back, swabs, that's it. It's just to say, I mean, Janus is exceptionally good at what he does, and Asar is way on the opposite side of the spectrum. So, yeah, sure, you can mitigate things by surrounding him as shooters, but you saw what happened with Janus. I mean, literally he would have Portis or Lopez

on the floor, and they were spotting up while he was being a role man or attacking downhill. And let's say Jalen Durham learns to shoot. You really expect Duran to be just hanging. hanging out in the perimeter on 90% of possessions, Ball Assar attacks off the dribble or plays role man. No, that's not going to happen. Even if Duran becomes like, you know, really beats the odds to become a traditional big who becomes a reliable shooter.

His heft as, you know, on offense, is still gonna be primarily in the interior. You'd be losing a great deal of what he can offer by playing, you know, by just spotting him up on the perimeter. So number one, he'd need to be pretty darn good to justify him being out there at all. And number two, he's still going to spend most of his time in the interior. But let's say you bring in like a Brooke Lopez or something, you know, the fantasy scenario.

Like we had, you know, the Brooke Lopez from, I don't know, five years ago. And he's just, he's kind of gone downhill, especially all defensively. But whatever, this is hypothetical situation. Then, okay, now the spacing is less of a concern. But the guy who's the major spacing concern is still really weak on offense. Can I saw him prove? Yes. you know, but after three years, he's still really far down there.

And again, I just want to underline how good your team needs to be to even make the finals, a little one, win a championship. So it's a bit of a scary situation. You're basically, if you're signing the both of them, you are counting on Duran improving defensively and Assar improving a lot offensively. That's a lot to bet on. Meanwhile, you kind of need Ron Hollins to ideally hit as well.

You're just kind of reaching a point where it's like, okay, how do we make what is currently a team that has a lot of mechanical issues work. And I mean, the paradox with Dern right now is, you know, like on offense with Asar, he's a problem because of the spacing. But especially in the Post-Dies, he cannot survive on defense without Asar Thompson. He just can't. Like the last two post seasons, he has gotten murdered without a SAR on the floor. He doesn't have been particularly great with Asar on the floor.

But, I mean, or better put, the Pistons have been just a straight back. defensive team with Duranon and a Saur off. So it'd be betting on a lot and regular season is not a reliable bellwether. I mean, we all saw it. The game changes in the playoffs. I mean, the Pistons, 160 games, you remember 60 or 62, I think 60, yeah, on the basis of some unsustainable factors. They were not your traditional 60 win team where it's like, okay, this team 160 games, we got to improve it, you know, look at what we have here. The Pistons had, and this was admirable, arguably the highest compete level of any team in the regular season. That's going to win you games because especially with kind of older, more established teams, they are trying quite that hard.

And most teams aren't trying quite that hard. And it's to the credit of Trajan Langdon and J.B. Bicker's deaf and to a smaller degree, Troy Weaver, that you have this group of players are going to try really hard. So sweet. That's awesome. There's a lot of fun to watch. But it doesn't carry into the postseason. Everybody tries hard in the postseason. you had excellent health and that sort of lasted into the postseason.

But also on the playoffs, you just don't really have guys being, you know, guys will play hurt and they'll do better than the team will do better than they would if these guys had not just had just not been in the lineup, which would be the case in the regular season. So that's not an advantage that's necessarily going to hold either, though it did for the pistons in the playoffs outside of Isaiah Stewart. Again, I think the health played a substantial role in him being moved, though we have heard that he was quite unhappy in Detroit by the end. And I really wonder if that came down to his offensive role.

It was just a befuddling case. Again, I bitched and moaned plenty about this, you know, especially in Bickerstaff's first season in Detroit, him just taking Stewart and saying, well, you know, you can shoot, but we're just going to make you a low use of traditional big instead. And it's like, dude, Isaiah has to shoot in order not be a negative. And it is an asset when he can't, you know, that he can't shoot. But, well, too bad. Though I found out that this is not the first case of that happening in the spacing air. Luke Carnet is who's backup center for the Spurs now has actually, you know, had some time as a fairly decent shooter and then just stop shooting.

So, and if that was what ultimately alienated Isaiah, I think that's a shame. Maybe that played a role in them moving him. Maybe not. I think the health, though, was probably quite a concern. But that's just my supposition. Maybe we'll find out later. But, okay, so we've got those two factors. Excellent health. I mean, the Pistons had excellent health last year. High compete level. Relatively easy schedule, because they played a little. lot of teams that were missing key players. And there were a lot of like kind of meh, poor, and outright bottom feeder teams in the league. So the Pistons really beat up. I mean, they just got lucky with their schedule. I mean, they beat up on a lot of bad teams. And they went up against, you know, the better teams in the league without, you know, without really important players, whereas the Pistons almost invariably had all of theirs. Not, I mean, short the end of the season with Kate out. Obviously, that was less the case. And finally, a style of play that was not going to translate. Again, things that do not get punished nearly as hard

in the regular season get hardcore exploited in the playoffs when everybody is, you know, you're game planning in these series and you are fighting for every fraction of an advantage in a way that you just don't really do in the regular season. So, you know, the spacing, the inadequate shooting, the inadequate creation ability, those are all going to be punished much harder. So this all goes back to this wasn't a 60 win team in the context of 60 win teams who'd almost invariably go on to be true contenders. I mean, this was a team whose success in the regular season was very conditional. So my point is you don't shouldn't look back on this and say, well, the pistons have the makings of a contender. In my opinion, it shouldn't. I mean, I'm just, you know, this is just my,

I mean, it's just one guy. But I think it would be wrong to, or whatever, I can continue to qualify. I just think that looking back at this team and saying, well, it's 160 wins, therefore it's a contender, and therefore, you know, just they need to return the core and everything is good would be not necessarily 100%. It's not, it's something I would disagree with. I'll put it that way. And that plays also into concerns I've seen. Or it's like, Mike, how do you feel about the rest of the conference, I mean, getting a lot stronger? and the piston's not doing anything. It just comes back to the fact that the pistons are not ready.

I mean, one of the worst things you can do in the NBA, and this assumes even that there are guys you want to trade for. Well, I'll tell you what the worst thing you can do is just, you know, blow a bunch of assets on a guy who is far from ideal. And we've seen it happen. Like the Hawks trading for DeJante Murray. It's like, guys, what in the world are you thinking? I mean, you've got Trey Young, who is the most heliocentric handler in the entire league.

This guy just cannot play off the ball. And you are trading major assets for another heavily on ball handler. These guys cannot play together. And it's like, shockingly, it didn't work out. And if you're a solution as, well, you know, things will be fine when they don't play together. It's like, dude, you just paid an enormous amount of assets to bring in a guy. And the whole thing was, well, it would be fine when they're not playing together. It's like you want your best players to be able to play together.

So that's the worst thing you can do. The second worst thing is, you know, bringing in a guy who does fit, but you're not ready to contend with him and you're just blowing years off of his contract and maybe he leaves. Or maybe he gets older and you're forced to sign him to a contract when he's past his prime. That is not good for you. Maybe he just ages out. Well, you know, they're just, I mean, guys can decline pretty quickly, especially in their 30s. And so you want to see, you know, you want to make that trade when you're ready to contend.

Not when, for example, you're the magic and you have nowhere near enough shooting on your roster. your, well, second best player is I think Paulo Boncaro is spectacularly overrated. And again, the magic had been worse with him on the floor every year of his career so far, whereas Franz has made them far better. Franz is absolutely the best player on that team. But it's like, you know, your two best players, you know, to the point there, don't really fit together.

They're both pretty on ball. They're both unreliable shooters. The second best of them loves to hijack the offense and attempt all sorts of terrible mid-range offense off the dribble. And you're paying like four first drum picks to bring in a guy to put you over the top. How is this guy, how in the world is this guy even possibly going to put you over the top? And because of the step in rule, which again says you absolutely 100% must be guaranteed to not be without a pick in two consecutive future years. When you trade away a lot of your picks, I mean, you are, there's a huge opportunity cost there because, okay, now we.

can't we don't have picks to trade and those are a big deal and they're even more valuable now because i don't know but see i mean i saw somebody to bring up the scenario and i thought it was a really good point let's say that kate has a major injury next season and you know the pistons end up is like the 20th best team in the league and okay now you have a pretty good chance of getting a high pick so these are even more valuable by trade and so i mean they've they've been the major currency so you know for a long time but being without them hurts in multiple ways now actually because again let's say you have a bad season i mean you're you're no longer consigned near certainty of being right in the middle so you know i was totally not upset at

all with the fact that they didn't bring in a uh you know it didn't make a big trade and it's like your your job as i know i'm repeating what i've said in previous episodes is not to keep up in the regular season your job or at least this is the directive that has been given to the current front office by an owner who thankfully has grown as an owner and is just giving a lot more leeway to the professionals now is to win a championship. So your goal is to build a contender. Your goal is not to keep up in the regular season. What does keeping up in the regular season get you?

It's true that they're going into next season without much, you know, know, without really, with Kate's still really not going to have much help in the handling side of things. Not a huge deal on the regular season, about a problem in the playoffs. Of course, there's time between now and the playoffs for that to change. But also, there weren't really, I mean, your guys who can, who are, you know, legitimate creators. The market was really weak. Like, really weak. The only guy who could even remotely be placed into that category, who is not a losing player, like Colin Sexton, for example. was Norman Powell, and he's a little bit of a black hole.

He's more just scorer than create. I mean, you can do some creation and isolation, but he's not really necessarily the sort of guy you're looking for, which may have been, I mean, the market for him was not spectacular. He ended up signing, you know, with only one guaranteed year with the Bulls. Might have been a good option for the Pistons? Sure. I mean, I guess it did that amount.

but ultimately they chose to go with John Collins instead and just to do things differently. I mean, sure you could have gotten rid of Duncan Robinson and so on and so forth. It should be noted that Powell is kind of sort of hitting the point at which he's probably going to start slowing down. 33 is pretty venerable in the NPA these days, but I don't know. I'd love to know why he wasn't really much of an option. Would he have been like a game changer for the Pistons? No, I don't think so. Also, the guy is not, you know, of course, you don't need to ever be strong on defense,

but, you know, defensively Powell probably lose some value there. Anyway, so opportunities were also limited. And I get why there's some disappointment, or it's like, well, we want to keep seeing a lot of wins in the regular season. We want more possibility of winning in the playoffs. But I don't think a big move would make this team a contender at this point. and I would say at this point that it's like okay they also need to see what they have but I mean my hopes for you know guy who's played four big minute seasons at center whose issues why on the defensive processing side of things to make very meaningful progress

the sort of meaningful progress he need to make in order to be the value adder that he needs to be in the playoffs or at the very very very very least be able to hold his own like we hit is a low. And for one of the worst shooters to come into the league in quite some time, his brother is another, to become a somewhat reliable shooter is a lot to bank on. Now, let's say Ron Holland comes in and has a really good season. Okay, you know, can shoot now. Okay, he becomes a major, you know, major trade asset. And that's nice, assuming you're not just keeping. I think in that situation, you have to wonder if it makes more sense, if it makes sense of stard him over a And if you've already signed a Sars to $30-plus million per year contract, which I think would be pretty

balzy, that becomes a little bit uncomfortable. I mean, I guess Ron can start a power forward. But I pretty firmly believe that a Ron Holland who can shoot, which I think would really unlock his game and is really good defensively. He's not the Uber elite defender that DeSar is, but I would very strongly argue that a player like that would be substantially superior to the ASR that we have right now as of last season. because you can be a spectacular perimeter defender. There are a couple of problems there.

Number one, if you're losing a lot of value on offense in the postseason, as he's certain to do, then that's a problem. And number two, because I've seen a lot of complaints about, you know, like why are, not a lot, but some have some questions about, you know, why, you know, why, for example, Asar's defensive player of the year odds low or, you know, isn't Asar going to win defensive player of the year, you know, a bunch of times? Bigs have a higher value, a defensive value, sealing than perimeter players inherently, because

they are, you know, the last line of defense in the interior. They are just, or, you know, or they're guys like Mobley, like Janus, who are doing a lot of patrolling in the interior. And that just gives them more than, more ability to contribute than perimeter defenders have. This is why it is almost always a big who wins defensive player the year. It's not just because voters are lazy. Honestly, the laziness or boredom of the voters comes in generally when a perimeter player wins it.

Every around five to seven years, they will vote in a perimeter player because they can just get bored of voting for Biggs, and then they'll go back to voting for bigs for another five to seven years is basically how it's been for a while. So it's just all to say that Asar can be like the greatest perimeter defender of his generation, but if he sucks on offense as much as he does right now, that's your value comes. from both ends. So if you're adding a lot of value on one end, but it's inherently capped, and you're sucking it out on the other end, sorry. So, you know, if you're really betting $30 plus million on this guy after you give $30 plus million on him improving as a shooter after you give that amount to Duran, unless you know a lot about the Saur having, you know,

especially after you're giving that amount to Duran assuming that happens, then, I mean, that's a big bet. So, yeah, I guess this doesn't make me sound particularly optimistic. I still have hope for a saw shooting. And he just needs to be good enough that if he's left open, he can make the other team pay. It'd be great if he were guarded. Of course, if you have a guy who's shooting like a consistent 36% and wide open threes and he's not being guarded, then cool.

That's very fine with me. I mean, it's ideal if he's actually providing spacing. but if he can relocate and hit open threes at a reasonable percentage consistently, then cool, then he's certainly worth it all, so that would unlock his game quite a bit. You know, as for Duren, just going back to what's going to happen, I know there have been the reports about the Piss and shooting now in sign-in trades. The fact is that for a sign-and-trade, it makes sense. I think the team would have to be willing to give Durham what he's asking for,

which to this point only the kings have signaled their willingness to do and what they were offering was not particularly compelling. I mean, Sabanis ultimately will, you know, the best he's going to get you is being matching salary for another trade in his final season. Really good offensive center, but just sucks defensively. And in the playoffs, it's just going to get picked to pieces. You can't win. You just can't win within that situation. He's not a contender caliber center.

And I would argue that the Kings being willing to give him that is because they're the Kings. Are there any other teams who are willing to offer him that or close to that? I think everybody knows what this front office does. Everybody can see it. So I think at this point it's overwhelmingly likely that he will be on the team next year, whether it's on the qualifying offer or otherwise. I think it would be borderline insane for him to turn down 35 million-ish per season. I mean, you're unlikely to make back the $25 million you've just given up.

Maybe he just says that petulant. Who knows? At this point, again, I continue to have major concerns about whether. we'll see a little effort Duren come back after he gets paid. You know, if he's on the qualifying offer, who knows, I mean, he'll be playing for his next contract in that case. I mean, if there were viable options for a sign-in trade, I would be moving on.

I'd say that largest part because I just don't trust his improvement on defense. So beyond that, I don't think I really have a tremendous amount left to say about the Pistons next season. I mean, it's really just been kind of an unusual summer, and it's just been a lot of waiting game. I mean, this team does, oh, yeah, one thing to talk about Summer League. Honestly, I thought Summer League this season was really boring. It was nice that the Pistons had kind of a high use of Chandler. He did struggle.

I'd like to remind just bring up again the fact that Summer League performance carries exceptionally, actually, I would say, little correlation. I mean, this is on a statistical level. Really remarkably little correlation to performance in the NBA. If you are a guy who's been playing in the MPA already, like Cody Williams, and you still suck in Summer League, then yes, it is a problem. But for like First Year Summer League guys, if you struggle, like Okori did, you struggled at the rim, you just didn't really do all that great. You know, it's no fun. But whether you struggle or you do well as a first year summer league player doesn't really presage anything. So anyway, I mean, it's a roster with more debt.

depth and more shooting than, you know, the pistons have had in a long time. Your swing factor is, of course, assuming Duren is back. I mean, he gets the postseason, he's going to be his defense, the SARS shooting, Ron Holland shooting. Paul Reed, I think, will slot in as a pretty good backup center. John Collins, like I've said, will provide some lineup flexibility. I think how much it was lost in terms of Tobias' ability to create is being oversold in some quarters.

especially considering that Bicker staff didn't really use him as a creator all that much in the regular season. Tobias punched above his weight in the postseason. I mean, credit to him, but he also just wasn't. He was pretty poor from the perimeter, and he was pretty inconsistent. Basically, all you're getting in terms of ability to create is in the post on mismatches, and Collins can do some of that if you let him. But, yeah, I mean, you look at the depth in the lineup and everything but, you know, creation ability. I mean, at Guard and small forward, you've got Cade, Isaiah Joe, Duncan Robinson, Kevin Hutter, if he's ever going to play.

Assar, I mean, you go further down, Torium Prince is still a solid enough backup backup power forward, assuming he hasn't lost anything from his injury. We'll see what Holland can do. You've got John Collins, of course, who is starting. Giovante Green is really solid depth. Who knows, but Chas Lanier will ever show us? we'll see. It's going to be tough for him to crack the lineup next season with, you know, in terms of off-ball shooters, Robinson and Joe and potentially Kevin Hurder ahead of him. Yeah. So, you know, was it kind of like a massive step forward off-season? No. Was, you know, was I think an opportunity, the right time for it to be a real step-forward off-season? Again, no. especially with all the question marks that remain with every young player on this team who's not named Kate Cunningham.

And just one final thing in response to a lot of the Duren trade proposals I've seen, there is something called base year compensation in the CBA. If you are signing and trading a player and you are not using CPS base, then if he's being paid a lot of money, excuse me, in Duren's case, I put it this way. Basically, this rule exists to prevent teams from just giving massive raises to players for the purposes of a sign and trade. And teams will exploit any loopholder is. It used to be that as long as you have bird rights in a player, you could bring him back. And, you know, like a guy who hadn't played for three years and used him in a sign and trade.

And just, and the other team would just wave him, for example. In this case, it's like, okay, so we can't take, you know, we want to add this really good. player we can't take like I don't know the likes of looking at this roster at Toulouse Smith or something and just give him 20 million next year and non-guaranteed in years two and three and bring back you know like a player making 27 and a half million which is the maximum you'd bring back assuming you're not an apron team or assuming it would not cap you with you know assuming this would not take you over the first apron because you get hard capped at the first apron from taking on more salary than you send out in the trade so you can't

can't do that. And for Duren, the, uh, basically the upshot is that his outgoing salary for the Pistons in terms of calculating the incoming salary that they could take back, it would only be 50% of his salary. So let's say some team in a sign and trade, uh, you know, gives him 41. It's around 41.25 million. Okay, so you can take back 20.6. Sorry, I can't do math in my head right now. It's around 20.6 million. is what he counts for outgoing salary. For incoming salary for their team, he counts 100%. That makes trades awkward, especially because, again, I mean, it means that you're going to almost undoubtedly be taking back more money than you, excuse me, taking it more money than you send out at the same time as you are capping the other team at the first apron, and they are taking in substantially more salary than they are sending out. You could close the gap by including like a Duncan Robinson in there, but that, which you'd have to do just to make the trade legal.

You'd have to put substantial salary in there. And, you know, for the Pistons purposes. So, yeah, that just compounds the issue. So that rules out a lot of sign and trades, though I think, again, the number one factor staying in standing the way of a sign and trade is that Duren wants, it seems at least the 25% max, just the most he can get from another team in a sign and trade. only the Pistons can give him a contract that starts in year one at more than that 41.25 million, which again, it's 41.25 or 41.5, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, 41 points, 125. Yeah, that's it. It's $165 million cap. So, yeah, I mean, you need to find a team that's willing to give him that. Is it possibly he's asking for more than that from the Pistons, the only team that is able to give him that?

If so, then I would say that, I mean, that's in pretty poor faith. And I'd say the relationship might be ruined already. I mean, I don't know. This front office very rarely leaks. I mean, any leak we get is going to be from the Duren side, almost undoubtedly. So, yeah, so you've got two major barriers to a sign and trade there. So it's just not a great situation. We will see what happens.

the deadline for him to accept the qualifying offer is in early October, but by assent of the team and the player, it can be extended. Now, one final thing I've seen it asked, well, what's stopping Duran from just holding out, not playing next season. Well, what's stopping him, number one, he's not going to get paid. Number two, will be a restricted free agent anyway. The only way he becomes an unrestricted free agent is if he accepts the qualifying offer and plays out the year.

Now, if he does accept the qualifying offer, he gets a de facto no trade clause. He can veto any trade because if a player who is on a one-year contract or a one-plus option contract gets traded, he does not bring over his bird rights by trade. So that means when the player gets to the other team, they cannot use bird rights to re-sign him. He only has what's called non-bird rights, which allows 120, you can just start the player at 120% of his salary from the previous season, which is obviously not the kind of raise that a lot of players are looking for. It would be typically just role players who are going to be playing in the minimum anyway, which is obviously not the case in this situation.

So the only team that would really benefit from trading it, that would really make sense for during midseason would be a team that he knows is going to have a lot of cap space. Because in order to give him a big raise, they would need to sign him with cap space. And that's kind of a little precarious to depend upon that. So in any event, that's where we find ourselves. And I realize it did just spend basically 50,

of an episode talking about Duren. But I guess that makes sense because it's a pretty big question, biggest question mark for the Pistons right now. Just, I mean, Asar is also a question mark, but basically just one last point. You have what's called the Rookie Extension window. It starts at the end of the moratorium, so on July 6th, 12 noon Eastern.

And lasts until the day before the start of the regular season. And that is when you can sign a player who is in his third off season, whereas who's, you know, between his third and fourth years, you know, first round, a guy who's drafted in the first round, excuse me, that's when you can sign him to an extension. So the Pistons don't have to sign us R to an extension this summer. They could always do it next summer. It's just, if you don't do it now, you can't do it until the following off season. Though new and the current CBA is that you can negotiate extensions, you know, I think it's like

the last week, a couple of weeks. weeks of June, you know, before the league year officially turns over and free agency opens, you can now negotiate extensions with your players, or you can talk to your players about signing new contracts. So it's not like they need to hit next offseason and figure it out then, though, again, he'd be a restricted free agents and restricted free agency by design really favors the team that owns the free agent's rights. So even in that case, the Pistons, again, would be, you'd have very much in every way the inside road I'm resigning him. Now, who knows how things are going to look next year. I think, I mean, free agency may make a little bit of a comeback because being a

bottom feeder just doesn't really make sense anymore. There will be more teams looking to add talent or free agency. We'll offer sheets become more of a thing. Who knows? In any case, I think that's enough me talking about basketball for a little while. So as always, folks, thanks so much for listening. Hope you all are doing splendidly well. I will catch you in the next episode.