Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 28: Thus-far season takeaways, Killian’s injury, and why Dwane Casey is the wrong man for the job

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

This solo episode speaks on Killian Hayes's injury, the continuing drag of Dwane Casey's coaching (plus some history), and general season takeaways from the roster through the first eight games.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Drive into the Basket. This will be a solo episode, unfortunately. Tommy was unable to make it today. I'm just going to start off with just a little bit of Mnay's side. And I hope nobody is put off by this or rather takes it as an effort to be political. Just to reflect, I'm recording this on the evening of the 6th, just to reflect a little bit on what happens today in our nation's capital. I know, I'm sure all of you have heard about it or have seen the images. And of course, it's a horrifying situation and one that I imagine leaves a lot of us wanting to lash out at somebody. But I just want to urge everybody, especially at times like this, to focus not on what divides us, but on what can unite us, which is our fundamental decency. and our respect for other humans. Venom only begets more venom,

and only through togetherness can we really bridge whatever gulps, whatever gulfs exist between us. And I've got what I feel is a quote that's relevant to the situation from Abraham Lincoln, I think is one of the greatest presidents in our nation's history. Many of you have probably heard

this, but I'll repeat it anyway. We're not enemies, but friends, we must not be enemies, though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. So I just wanted to share those sentiments with all of you. So I hope you're all staying well, and that you'll act with kindness to all the people around you.

So all that said, let's move on to the Pistons. This episode really isn't going to be replete with positivity. You know, that Tommy and I really were really just all about telling things how we see it. So it's not like any particular episode is going to be geared toward positivity. There are things to be, we feel happy about them. We'll talk about that. Of course, we want there to be things to be happy about. Of course, that's preferable, you know, if that's the case, then fans are.

It isn't often the case with the distance, but if it is, then yay, but it's not the case today. The first bit of news, of course, is the injury to Killian Hayes, the torn laborum in a hip. So we don't yet know the severity of it. It's been reported that there's no underlying structural or vascular damage or suggests that it may not be a severe tear, which is good. If it's not a tear that, if it's a tear that, if it's a tear that can, they said they're confident they'll fully heal. If it's a tear that's not going to necessitate surgery, he might be back within a couple of months. A severe laboral tear is a horrible injury. It's sort of akin to it can be roughly akin in impact to tearing one's Achilles.

It's very difficult to come back from that. So hopefully that's not the case. Though early reports are pretty good, of course you would have preferred even Tara's labor at all. Some of you probably have heard about the issue with that. that was the issue with Isaiah Thomas as well. He did have a laboral tear in his hip. He also had, I believe I'd read up on this earlier today, some issue with bone fragments or something like that.

Also, he played on it in the playoffs. So there was kind of some greater severity there. Killian also has the advantage of being very young with much less than the way of wearing tear in his body. So we'll all hope for the best for him, not just for the sake of the pistons, but for Killian, who seems like just a really good guy. Unfortunate, disappointing for all of us, I'm sure I can only imagine what he must have felt after getting that result. It's just, you know, you do all this work to get into the NBA and then you suffer a potentially very severe injury, only seven games in.

It's got to see kind of your dreams flesh before your eyes. So I hope for his sake that, you know, I'm sure we're all hoping for the sake of the pistons as well that he's doing, you know, that that'll recover from this. But, you know, it's best, I think, to reserve judgment, or not reserve judgment, wait, wait and see until we know more. So there is that. Now, I'm recording this directly after the game against the bucks. Just some of my observations about this game, we're really not in the business in this podcast of recapping games, but can kind of use what happened in this game is a microcosm for some of the less good things that have been happening with the Pistons throughout the course of the season.

One, of course, is Blake Griffin, who has been abominably bad, like absolutely terrible. The Pistons have been enormously worse with them on the floor. This is not Blake's fault. There were a couple games in which you were shooting more than I would have liked. The Pistons don't really benefit from Blake doing that. but he's a great player and a super hard worker and by all accounts, a great teammate who has had his career undone by injuries. And it's sad.

You know, as much as people, you know, as much as I think it's easy to look at him and get upset because the guy's making $36 million, it's worth bearing in mind that none of this was his fault. He's had injuries, issues with injuries for a long time. He had issues with that left knee in college. he, you know, he's had four surgeries on it. You know, he's just had, he's had other injuries as well. Just all sorts of problems with his lower body.

And unfortunately, you know, though he did adapt his game over time to, not only to fit the modern NBA with spacing being so important, but also to account for his lack of, for his decline in athleticism, because Blake used to be in one of the most athletic players. in a league that wasn't quite as athletic as it is today, but still was very, very athletic. Go back and if you want to see, for those of you haven't seen what Blake could do back then, just go back and look as really really was something else. So he did adapt his game, but unfortunately, your body sometimes is not going to cooperate.

The NBA is a very, very competitive league. and Blake is dealing with a body that's no longer really cooperating. You've got to be able to keep up, and it's not Blake's fault that he can't do that, but maybe things will improve, but really he's not looking much better than he did last season. He can't score on the interior at this point. The bread and butter of his game, certainly two years ago,

was for the most part, either pull-up threes or driving or, excuse me, pull up threes or post-up offense, which could come in the form of him getting the ball in the post, or very often him driving into the interior and then posting up. And that is this tertiary form of offense was actual, you know, drive straight to the hoop. And his post-up offense has been terrible. He just, I don't know why, you know, maybe he just can't bully people. I mean, the thing about Blake is that he's a little archaic at his own position. He's pretty slow to be playing forward these days.

He's actually best suited probably physically, even a couple seasons ago, to playing center. And also that solves some of the issues with spacing. Well, these are self-inflicted by the piston. I guess he was playing with Drummond before who can't space. He was playing with Plumley now, who can't space. And that's not ideal. If you play him at center, you're probably going to have shooters of the other four positions. But nonetheless, he can't play center because from very early on in his career,

he's been hopeless as a paint defender. So, yeah, he is his one advantage in that respect, as though he was slow. He was actually, because your forwards, like six years ago in 2014, you still had a great deal of non-shooting power forwards, guys who were pretty beefy and couldn't shoots and and you know it did not three years later they had all moved to center learned to shoot or were out of the lead uh now blake of course was an exception that he also did learn to shoot of course that's so it's not so much an exception but he did learn to shoot and as forwards became smaller and quicker uh because the forward position now is really is very much a combo forward position.

You either, your forwards can either play both forward positions or they play it or their wings play at shooting guard and small forward or you have the rare guys who can play from shooting guard up to small forward, excuse me, shooting guard up to power forward. Blake's kind of archaic and in respect that he's position locked in that one position and he's not very limber. And like he really did, he struggled with as a defender two seasons ago to even in his all his last all NBA season. So, but his advantage was that as, as the league grew kind of sleeker, he was, you know,

progressively the gap in strength and weight between him and the guys he was facing off against his position grew. So he was able to bully people. He was able to bully people in his younger days, too. But, you know, the size advantage generally between he and his opponents, well, you know, two seasons ago was pretty significant, not necessarily in terms of height, but certainly in terms of strength. mass and uh yeah so but now he despite that advantage he's really struggling to to dominate anybody in the post and is it because of lift is it because of power whatever he just you can't do it it's not working uh his his efforts to drive to the basket he barely tries and and when he does try is

generally out of control he can't really bully his way past anybody the kind of mini crossover not so much crossover, but sort of, you know, he had his moves he did in the way to the basket a couple of seasons ago. He can't do those anymore, apparently, at least he hasn't been. This pretty much reduces him to the level, you know, just to pull up three-point shooter. And outside of that game, you know, he's made 13-3s on the season out of 39 attempts so far. And eight of those came in that one game against Cleveland. So aside from that, you know, he's five of 29. I can't remember right now if Blake has played.

I think he's played five games. If I'm right about that, then outside of the game against Cleveland, he's averaging one and a quarter of threes per game. Or excuse me, yeah, one and a quarter of threes per game. He's five of 27. So he's not really even been very good at that outside of that single game. He's a disaster on defense. He just, he's not fast enough.

In today's NBA, the reason he's, don't really see these lumbering centers anymore is that you're in offenses that move very quickly against offenses that move very quickly and focus on switches and really target you if you're slower it's just you got you got to be able to move quick now and blake can't do that he he can't really switch can't help if he's if he withdraw us toward the paints to try to help on a on a guy driving in, he has no hope of making it back to the 3.1. In terms of the kick, his defensive instincts have never been great to begin with. He's just really bad on both ends of the floor.

Still an able passer, but doesn't draw anywhere near the gravity he did before. And he's pretty much good at nothing. And also, just by the nature of Blake, there was always an opportunity cost to having him on the floor as he grew more ball dominant. and that's that you have to play your offense around him. There is no other choice. You have to play your offense around him. He also, you know, the way he plays, he can't really participate in a modern offense.

He's a ball stopper. And pace is going to plummet. You're not going to be able to run that sort of really, not so much freewheeling, but an offense that emphasizes heavy ball movement and off ball screens in order to generate their advantageous matchups or create wains to the baskets or create open three-point shots.

You can't do that with Blake. He gets the ball. He's going to hold it for a while. And that makes them, you know, you really want to bring these young guys up in a modern offense. And with Blake, you just can't do that. So that's real bad. It's hard to see the capacity for much improvement because the problem is his body. You know, he's, like I said, he's played in a way a little bit early on in the season.

I didn't like just taking too many shots because it's like, you know, this is not the point in this rebuild. you to take, you know, a zillion shots. But whatever the case, it's just hard to see things abruptly improving for him physically. Maybe it'll happen, but this is a guy who's been in a protracted physical decline for the last going on six years. So, and he had a year to recover from that last surgery. So, and, you know, the surgery he had after the season, you know, in the 2019 offseason was his third surgery on that same.

left knee, I believe. And then he came back and looked terrible the next season and then had his fourth surgery on that knee. So that's too bad. Needless to say, the trade markets, you know, unless there's significant improvement, no team has any reason to take any chance on him, which leaves him around to pretty much, I don't know how much of a mentor Blake really is since nobody plays like him anymore. He's kind of a unique player, which comes with a set of.

disadvantages, but it's like nobody really plays like him anymore. So he's pretty much around to do what, take up minutes and usage and probably not be the greatest for this rebuild, for development. It's been brought up by some, Tommy, this was one of those brought this up. The moves Weaver made, would have made somewhat more sense if Blake wasn't on the roster, but he is on the roster. Yeah, so that's a shame. It was just reflected tonight in which he just got completely,

he was awful against the bucks. I mean, he just, he absolutely, they're one of the best teams in the league. He just couldn't play defense against them. He couldn't generate anything on offense against them. He was slow. He was just everything about how he played was bad. So that's one thing.

You've got next, and this is an upsetting topic for me, is Dwayne Casey. So Dwayne Casey in my opinion has never deserved the plot that he was given for the development of the young crew in Toronto. Casey defaults

toward what he is comfortable with and what he is comfortable with is his veterans. He also will inevitably give his veterans a due deference in terms of the minutes they get even if it doesn't make any sense to do so. The bench, the crew that developed into Toronto's future core of Powell and Van Fleet, Siakum, and Unobi,

and there was also Pertil and Powell as well. Those guys really got their shot in 2017, 2018, when Messiah Ujiri, who is the GM of the Toronto Raptors, I think you find many, I think he's one of the best GMs in the league. Whatever the case, he got rid of Casey's bench veterans. Only CJ Miles was remaining. There are really only five veterans on that team between Ibaka, Valanchunis, DeRose and Lowry and Miles. And Casey had no choice, but to play the young guys at that point.

And to round out his rotation, just he had no choice. And there's also the fact that Casey runs very simplistic offense, as you see it whenever Derek Rose is on the floor, he loves his ISO, and he loves his, it's just very simplistic one-on-one offense from his veterans. And that was just a characteristic of his, I know we talked about this last episode, it was just a characteristic component of his offense, was Lowry and DeRosen isolations, which he would continue doing on volume, even when it really wasn't working, which was really bad for the Raptors in the playoffs.

So in that season, in Casey's last season, that same season is, is the general manager got rid of almost all of his veterans, all of his bench veterans. He also, Messiah was very, took away the offense from Casey because Casey is not a good offensive coach, and his offense was lagging way behind the times. He gave the offense to form, he gave the formulation of the offense to Nick Nurse,

who is eventually Casey's successor. And so those young guys also got to play their part in a modern offense that wasn't just based around isolations and whatnot from veterans. So, you know, just if we're on the subject of Casey's quirks, I mean, the guy has weird vendettis against certain players. I mean, I know people bring up Seku, who hasn't been great this year, but it's like you'd like him to get more run.

He does have kind of half of Jeremy Grant and Blake Griffin ahead of him. But he had Jonas Valanchunis, who was pretty good score. Rano is pretty good post score, certainly, who he just constantly marginalized and never gave any really anywhere near enough usage to. I remember one game against the Pistons some years ago, he couldn't miss because he got that use, you know, he got those opportunities and he was obliterating drummond in the post. Of course, that doesn't necessarily reply or much doing, but especially back then. But Casey just didn't like him for reasons that nobody has really ever adequately been able to

explain whatever the case. Yeah, those were the circumstances under which the young guys developed. People point, you know, you can point at Lowry. Lawry was 26 when he came to the Raptors. He'd been a starter for two years already. He had five years, five seasons of NBA experience. He was pretty good player already. He was not a young player. Casey did give him the latitude to pretty much play however he wanted. And I think Lowry credits Casey for giving him that chance. but, you know, it's pretty easy to take a guy and who's good at what you want them to do and say, okay, go nuts. And you had DeRosen, who did become a good score, but was gradually outdated, had a horrible habit of checking out on defense,

persistently imploded in the playoffs. And ultimately, after the Kauai Trey was, you know, despite being that same scorer who had been, I believe, all NBA the season before, 13th. team all NBA, I think, was promptly forgotten because he's just not an effective score anymore. It costs a lot to take him out, to put him on the floor because he can't space the floor. He's only capable of certain forms of offense. I can say it costs a lot, but there is a cost. It's tough to he doesn't really fit into a modern offense.

And it's another thing under Casey. Clearly, he never developed a three-point shot. And then also correlation does not imply causation, just the fact that he was playing under Casey. He doesn't mean the case he was responsible for all. of his good development. It doesn't also doesn't mean he was responsible for all the things that went wrong. But in any event, so what do we have with Dwayne Casey? We went over this before, you know, just the awful favorite of the veterans given in the first two games. We're back to that tonight. He started five veterans. The youngest player on the floor for the first seven minutes of the game

was Jeremy Grant at 26. Then you had Delamrade at 28 and the other three players were all over 30. You might be asking yourself, what purpose could that possibly serve in a rebuild? The answer is your guess is as good as mine, and Casey is not a good coach. Casey is the wrong coach for every situation. He was really incredibly painfully mediocre when the Pistons were trying to win. Basically, his primary strategy in that first season was Blake, take the ball and please, please do something with it, because if you don't do that successfully, we're probably going to lose.

Generally, a lot of the other guys weren't even really moving off the ball. He would just keep drumming in the paint. Like, the pairing of Griffin and DeAndre Jordan was really outdated even when, you know, even in the last couple seasons, excuse me, and it was outdated in the last couple seasons they played together. How Doc Rivers made it work, you know, even before that with Griffin spending so much time in the paint, DeAndre, and being unable to shoot was to have DeAndre, be doing a lot of basket cuts

so that Griffin wasn't facing off against not only his own defender, but DeAndre Jordan's defender as well. Casey just stuck drumming in the paint and it was like, whatever. So Griffin often had to face off against two defenders. He started Bruce Brown, who couldn't shoot. Brown's defender was free to sag off him by six feet

and just go bother Griffin instead. Yeah, the Pistons had a really, really inefficient offense, you know, by true shooting percentage. Probably part of it, in case he wasn't given the best personnel to deal with. You know, the roster was an abomination. But, yeah, he was just, he didn't coach it well. Like, early on in the season, he made the completely inexplicable decision to to continue posting up Andre Drummond, who at that point, he's improved a bit.

But at that point was still the NBA's absolute worst volume post-shooter of the previous four, I think, yeah, previous four seasons. like Drummond is comically that post score in case he's like, oh, well, let's just do that. You'd give post offense to Drummond, and he wouldn't give it to Valanchunus. You know, Drummond was terrible and Valanchunus was good at it. He had his favorites. He loved Langston Galloway, who did better in the last season in Detroit. But that season was horrifically inconsistent.

Like, you know, over the course of, you know, it's just streaks, it's, it's, it's Walt's Drace would last like weeks at a time. But, you know, Casey still feed him usage. Bruce Brown, you know, for a good NBA team, would probably have not seen the floor in his first two seasons. With the pistons, he got a major role in his first season. He was a good defender, but not an elite defender. He was incredibly foul-prone.

And of all, he couldn't shoot. Neither could drummond. If you're putting only three shooters on the floor, you better hope you're the warriors. You know, you better hope you've got some incredibly good shooters on the floor and the pistons don't. I mean, running four shooters is, you know, is an invitation to have many less options on offense

and be easier to cover running three is, unless you've got all world talent on the floor there is a death sentence for your offense. And again, it was basically just Griffin, just having to create something out of nothing and getting just beaten up in the process. Let's see. What else was there?

slow to adapt, like always. That's one of the things that get him fired in Toronto. The man just doesn't adapt during games. He's awful at it. The moments that a lot of people remember is when Kevin Love posted up CJ Miles, I think four times over a short period and scored every time because it's a massive mismatch. This was in 2018.

And Casey did nothing. You know, he didn't call a timeout until Bobbitt scored like eight or ten. points. So, like, I don't have the numbers precisely correct there, but it's just, it's a good example. And it's one, yeah, it's one that's really pointed to is this very characteristic of Casey and also, you know, characteristic of how bad his coaching was in those series against the Cavaliers, for the most part, certainly in that 2018 series that was a sweep and that was his last, this was last games with Toronto. And then he won coach of the year, which I think it became very apparent after his departure that Nick Nurse was the real coach of the year.

And that Nick Nurse did win coach of the year for the 2019-2020 season. So yeah, what a case to do tonight? Yeah, so first seven minutes, he just played those veterans. Why would you do that in a rebuild? What point could that possibly have? And, you know, that lineup also, you know, it's the vast majority, vast majority of the first half consisted of five-man veteran lineups. Vast majority. You didn't see one of the young players even hit the floor until seven

minutes in. That was Isaiah Stewart. He was the seventh person end of the game. After that, you saw Bay and, goodness, why, I'm having trouble, Svi. And eventually when Grant left the floor, Dumboya. Unfortunately, they were on the floor with Rose. And so you had the young guys on the floor. But the offense, because Casey, I hate to put it this way, sorry, this is grass, has his head up his ass. Casey, basically, he lets Rose do whatever he wants. And Rose plays in, like, the most horribly anti-developing way possible, which is that he takes a pick early in the shot clock, and then he goes for his shot, period. That's it. So basically, the rest of the quarter consisted of Rose bringing the ball up the floor.

And the four young guys would do nothing. Oh, excuse me, Isaiah Stewart would set the picks. So Stuart would set a pick. Svi and Bay and Seku would just be standing still and Rose would go for a shot immediately. What could possibly benefit? I mean, the pistons aren't looking to win. You know, the winning is not the priority here.

Sure, you want to, you know, if you want to establish that winning culture, whatever, you don't want to get run over. but I mean, whatever validity that has, it's, whatever. It's accomplished no purpose to have Rose behave like this on the court. No purpose at all. The young guys don't get involved. They don't get to operate in a modern offense.

Rose is hogging all the usage. You got to think case you could say to him, Derek, please just try to get the young guys more involved. And if Rose isn't doing that, then that's a different issue, but I find it hard to believe that that would be the case from all we've heard about Rose. So as much as I can get irritated in Rose, I think the real call. culprit there is Casey. But he does nothing. So you had seven minutes of just five veterans. And then you had basically, you know, then you had Stewart on the floor for one minute. And then after that, you had more young guys on the floor, but it was just the Derek Rose show and the young guys not doing anything on offense. And then you get back to the

second quarter and the young guys just don't play. They don't. I mean, it's veterans. Maybe they played a little bit, but it was the five veteran lineup, just first. for almost the entirety of the rest of the quarter. And then he started that, and they got blown out. It's not just that it was veterans on the floor. They were terrible. The younger lineup was way better. But Casey came back with it in the third quarter.

Mason Plumlee only got pulled early and Isaiah Stewart got to play. Oh, yeah, Okafore got to play in the second quarter over Stewart. Why? Why would any coach in his right mind do that? Okafore is a developmental dead end. Okay, I don't even know why he's on this team. Because he's the same player he was in college. He's a guy who's a fairly capable interior score,

but he's slow-footed. He can't play defense. He's an awful passer. He stops the ball. He can't stretch the floor. He's got nothing to offer. I don't know why he was signed for two seasons. If you want to sign him as your third center on a minimum one-year deal,

then go ahead and do that. That makes some sense, even though I'd rather give that spot to somebody who might have something to offer. But, you know, in any case, there's no reason for him to be seeing the floor Isaiah Stewart has established that he's more valuable than note before already. And he has a place in the future. And in Okafort, I'd be shocked if he developed any further.

I'd be very surprised. So in any event, you get to the third quarter. And sure, Isaiah Stewart gets to come in fairly early. That's because Plumley has four fouls. It's the only reason. The starters come in and play. The veterans play terribly again. And then you lose Rose.

And then Casey, in something that's characteristic of his time in Toronto, which is that he plays Saban Lee, and he plays Sabin Lee because he has no choice. He only has two point guards. Sure, he gives Sabin Lee a lot of pull. I think the game is out of reach at that point. But again, you get a lot of run from the young guys. Derek Rose just went out with a knee contusion, which basically amounts to a bruise.

I doubt he'll be out any further, you know, for any future games. But yeah, saving Lee gets this time because Casey has no choice. I don't doubt that if Derek Rose were still around, we would have just seen him on the court instead. Maybe you see some Lee, but not nearly as much. So you see the young guys play. This is Bay and Svi and Lee. and Stewart.

And, you know, for the most part, it's either, exactly, they were in for a long stretch. And they're playing better than the veterans. I mean,

the game is, you know, they managed to narrow the gap a little bit on what was already a blowout and would have been way worse of a blowout if Janice

hadn't, which makes perfect sense for him. Just, you know, given that it was a blowout, there's no reason to put that wear and tear in your body. He was just shooting three

is and he's a terrible three-point shooter. And, okay, so these guys are not only playing better than the starters, but there, young players who are part of the team's future.

Okay. Jeremy Grant may be part of the team's future. Blake Griffin almost certainly is not. Dewan Wright almost certainly is not. Mason Plumley almost certainly is not. Wayne Ellington absolutely is not. Okaford, I would say certainly is not. So yeah, great. So even if these guys get blown out the young guys, which, and they weren't,

you know, they were keeping the deficit at least somewhat steady, though. The Bucks weren't really playing their, their starters quite as much. They were still seeing time. And you've got these guys getting valuable experience, which is an absolute, you know, versus what you saw early in the game, which is Casey for absolutely no point of which I can conceive,

just heavily leaning on his veterans. So, yeah, it's just, the guy is a deeply flawed coach. This is a coach who, who, for the Raptors was a flaw, but that was it. He's a completely unremarkable offensive mind. I would say bad, personally, actually, a bad offensive mind. He has horrible habits when it comes to favoring his veterans. And he makes bizarre decisions. Yeah, and in his last year, I mean, basically from his GM, and maybe exaggerating a little bit or certainly, you know, this is obviously not what was said,

but, you know, for all intents and purposes, it's, okay, Dwayne, sorry, but I'm taking away your option to play your veterans. You've got to play the young guys. And I'm also taking away the offense that's going to Nick Nouris, so these young guys are going to be able to play in a modern offense, as is everybody else. And, oh, hey, look, we just had our best season ever. And then you get to the playoffs, and he makes all of his old mistakes, and he, and he gets fired. And the pistons then hand him $30 million. So I would like to see him get fired from Detroit. The man has nothing to offer. It's, you know, whatever products he has, whatever strengths he does have as a developer,

and I don't doubt that he has some strengths. I found it hard to believe those couldn't be replicated by somebody else, somebody else who doesn't make, doesn't do just such senseless things. I think Casey was bad when the pistons were trying to win. There were better options, but the pistons went with somebody safe, which just really, really just fit with that awful, you know, It's just the mediocrity mentality of instead of shooting for better, we're just going to go with the safe pick so that we can make the playoffs or whatever.

He did a bad job then. And he's doing a bad job now in a rebuild. I don't think the guy has anything really to offer the pistons versus what it costs to have him coaching this team. I don't see what goes on beyond the scenes, but I see what happens on the court. We all see what happens there. And a lot of what he does makes no sense. So, yeah, that's Dwayne Casey. Just to segue into Seven Lee, it was nice to see him play.

The kid certainly got rocket boosters on his feet. He's extremely fast. You saw some of what he struggled with in college was actually, you know, what he really excelled at in college was stacking the basket and drawing fouls. He drew a ton of fouls. What he struggled with is creating for others. You saw Seven Lee kind of, you know, he wasn't good at breaking down at basically finding guys who were open. and he kept passing the guys who were covered.

He had some turnovers. He only took one shot from the outside. That was another concern coming out of college, is that he was not a very particularly good shooter. He took one three. It was one way off the mark. I'm not going to judge him on the basis of that. This is first MPA experience.

But it was exciting to see. That's nice. And if you want to do something nice for your fans also, you don't put out a bunch of washed up veterans. Not necessarily washed up, pardon me. Grant has been playing well lately. We all get to that soon. But a lot of guys aside from Brands who are basically dot-ins for this team.

You know, it's like do something nice for the fans, play the guys who they actually want to see. That would be nice. It's not a priority for a coach. But nonetheless, it was for me the highlight of the game. And hopefully you'll continue getting time. There's absolutely with Killian Hayes out, there is absolutely an utterly no reason for him not to be getting time. You know, the only reason to not give him time is if it's going to stun his development. And I find it extremely difficult to believe that would be the case.

So as we said, but Jeremy, you know, moving on, as I said, rather, I'm used to recording this with Tommy. So moving on to Jeremy Grant, I'll give the guy credit. He's actually been doing pretty well with the pistons. He has some bad habits. He needs to cut the, you know, the mid-range pull-up jump shots out of his repertoire. Those are bad shots for almost anybody. You know, you've got to really be an elite shooter to make those work. And often, it seems he just takes them because he doesn't want to pass the ball.

he had until the last couple of games had one of the worst assist percentages assist percentages is what percentage are your team's buckets you assist with while you're on the floor he was basically just kind of a ball stopper he wasn't passing off the drive and it's important to be able to pass off the drive because that you know you establish yourself you're a threat to score and that creates opportunities when guys come when you're on the way to the basket will come to try to double to try to stop you and then you have to pass but it also establishes that you will pass so that the opposition doesn't know you're going to drive in anyway.

He's improved that a little bit recently. You know, he's been pretty, he's been surprisingly able attacking the basket on his own. He did a very bad job creating offense in his time in Denver last season at least. He was very deeply inefficient. He's pretty good at kissing the ball off the backboard. He's long. He's getting better, kind of contorting himself to be able to score through, through contact. He still takes some shots. He really shouldn't. He needs to learn when, you know,

creating offense, you know, when you, where you kind of draw the line and say, I can't score here, I'm not going to give up the ball. But he's scored fairly well on decent, you know, and fairly good efficiency, especially for a guy who's creating, you know, a good amount of his own offense. He's played good defense. You know, he has played against, aside from the box, he's playing against weak interior defenses, but he did pretty well in the second game against the bucks. He struggled a little bit in the first. But yeah, so more power to him. Do I think he's worth the salary still? Not really. Value isn't universal. You know, a guy, basically, a guy like Grant, just playing for a team like Detroit that's not trying to win, his contributions aren't nearly

as valuable if he was playing for, you know, a team that was trying to win. And sure, all the points are putting up, sure, you're getting good value on that salary. But, but you have to measure that for a rebuilding team against what you maybe could have done with the salary cap that he's that he's taking up speaking of salary there was a report today and uh came i believe from a guy from yahoo sports uh can't say for sure you know you never know for sure if this was accurate though uh you know it's he's not like this guy's not a slam dunk source uh though it would be kind of uncharacteristic this right well it's happened actually i would say it'd be uncharacteristic for some somebody to come out on the national level and talk about the pistons. It's uncharacteristic for them to do that at all, but also to come out with information that's not actually true. But Vince Goodwill has done it. I'm 99% sure.

Another guy, I believe, from Yahoo Sports, who's come out with a lot of stuff that was never corroborated by anybody else, like the Pistons trying to sign Van Fleet, for example, and even before that. Whatever the case, the report was that Weaver wasn't willing to pay Christian Wood. any more than $8 million, which, if true, is criminal because that's, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's less than he's banged plummet. Uh, you know, as we discussed in the last episode, I think it's pretty clear that, that would, would have stayed in the tribe. Weaver just didn't want to pay him. Now, what Weaver is willing to pay him, that's open to, you know,

it's open to, uh, that's a question, but, uh, it's, we've already, you know, I've already gone on record is saying that I think that's a mistake. So, you know, what other takeaways were there today? I mean, I'll be honest, the events of the day have kind of kind of shaken me a little bit. So my train of thought is maybe not as quite as coherent as I would like it to be. But, yeah, if we're just looking further at, for example, off the bench, okay, we can talk about Isaiah Stewart. and Tommy and I will talk more in depth about the rookies unfortunately, or about the young players, rather. Unfortunately, there's one last of them to talk about now, but that's fine.

Not fine, but that is how it is. Isaiah Stewart is certainly one of those maniacally hard workers who just, you know, just, you know, he's just the guy's just a super hard worker. And I'd say obsessively team focused has just this, this super dense body that allows him to establish position downloaded to grab offensive rebounds and whatnot. You know, it's fun to watch him play. I would like to see him start shooting because right now he's basically just taking

picks, setting picks and playing Garbage Man with a little bit of post offense. And I think if he's going to establish himself, because here's the trouble with Isaiah Stewart. Aside from his current inability to stretch the floor is that he is not a good leaper, he's not really going to be in above the basketball player. He's not a lob threat at that. really makes him less of a pick and roll threat. He hasn't been rolling hard of the basket either, though. I'm not sure if that is because he's not quick enough or just by design.

Whatever the case, I think his offense would really, really benefit from him. I mean, I think his offense will come from him being a shooter and him being a garbage man. So I'd like to see that from him. Right now, he's super raw. You know, he's fun to watch. But in terms of his actual effectiveness, he's probably, I would say certainly in the bottom half of backup centers. Bay has looked pretty good as a shooter from the exterior or from the perimeter. He's actually been very good.

In the interior, he's been a disaster, like to the effect of less than 20%. I wish he would stop. It's fine if he can't. Here's the thing you'll remember from if you listen to our draft review about Bay that he was a very versatile player in college because, physically speaking, he was of above average size strength and athleticism in the NBA. he's not really going to probably be able to be an effective post player or to attack off the dribble. He's probably just going to be largely a three-point shooting guy with some ability as a secondary playmaker for others, and that's perfectly fine. He's been disciplined and judicious on defense.

I wouldn't say he's been a nice surprise because I think I was very confident that some of his skills would be translatable to the NBA. He's clearly very mature and he's disciplined, and that's good to see. Sveh McIulch shook off an early slump and, you know, I don't think it's unreasonable that anyway slumps early in this season. Also, Pistons fans should have plenty of experience. We've been watching for a while should have plenty of experiences, but as a shooter slumping because Reggie Bullock was notoriously awful early in seasons. Terrible. Just dreadful before going on to become, you know, later in the season, you know, a really reliable three-point shooter. Svi is always going to struggle on defense because his arms are short.

he's actually pretty athletic, but he's got poor lateral mobility, though. He's got really short arms and so on and so forth. He's flashed a little bit of ability as a guy who can score off the dribble, but I don't think he'll ever be very good at that. It's a really big disadvantage to have short arms. It makes it finishing the basket is a lot more difficult. He's also just not a very good shooter off the dribble, though he's done a bit more of that from three-point range.

But he kind of came alive from three-point range. I'd like to see him continue to get time. He might not be a guy who's in the Pistons long-term plans, but he's a guy who could be maybe a piece in a trade. Guys who can shoot three at a high percentage off the catch and also after navigating around a screen are going to, if they can shoot at a high percentage, they're going to have a long career in the NBA as long as they can continue doing that. Those are valuable guys. Am I missing anybody? I think, oh, Seku.

Right. still looks very raw, basically. And even more than Grants, really, Seku is a severe ball stopper. When he heads to the basket, there is nothing he is going to do except for try to score at the basket. And that often ends with him getting stuffed because he's not, I would say, great at by any means at finishing through contact. He's done okay. That's precise percentage. I'm not looking at the, yeah, I could book it up.

He's done okay from three-point range, I think. But just on offense, he's been a minus. On defense, he's a little better than last year at using his length to disrupt people. But he's still kind of struggling in that end, too. That said, I'd like to see him get more playing time. It's worth remembering with Sekko, however, though, that when he was drafted, I mean, the understanding was that, you know, that he might not be ready to contribute until 2021. one.

So it was never, I think, in the team's plans, unless they judged him ready to maybe even be playing him this year. So he's still raw. He's still young. It would be nice to see more from him. One, yeah, it'd just be nice to see more from him from him, but it's one of those cases where I'm just not feeling very worried. I don't think there's anybody else really worth remarking upon.

Dillon writes, the team has been sneakily way worse with him on the floor. Plumley has been pretty mediocre, which, you know, is to be expected. He doesn't really have a ton to offer. And, you know, Ellington is Ellington. Rodney McGruder is getting playing time, which I think is completely unnecessary. We saw Servetus for 30 seconds. You know, give him a shot. Why not?

Why is McGruder playing over him? Like, it's another thing with Casey. Why bother? Rodney McRudor is a. fringe NBA player who is 29. Like, why should he be getting minutes over any young player? It's just one of those things. Where Casey was talking about he was experimenting with rotations.

It's like, dude, there's no experimenting with rotations with Roddy McGruder. There is just nothing to offer. He has one season under his belt as a reliable three-point shooter with Miami Heat. That is his only solid NBA campaign. He's a 29-year-old who, I believe, has three actual real, like full-length seasons in the NBA. and if the Pistons had waived him, he would almost certainly not have a contract right now. Why is he playing over any of your young players at all? Why is he even dressing over any of your young players?

Do you dress Frank Jackson over him? I mean, you don't have to worry about that now because the – well, no, I mean, you've got 16 guys. Now you can dress 15 of them per game, with, of course, Hayes being number 17. So, yeah, not really – I think further takeaways about this season. this point. It's, I mean, this is a completely pointless statement, but I hope, it's not a point with statement. I hope that Casey is not around past the season. I think the chances of him getting booted in the middle of the season are virtually zero. But I'd like to see a new coach at the helm. I think that will only happen if Weaver really dislikes him. So, yeah,

that'll be it for today's episode. As I said earlier, I hope all of you are, um, I guess I hope always all of you are doing well. And, you know, stay in steady. So, as always, thank you for listening. We will see you next time.