Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 3: Free agency, trades, and what to expect from the offseason

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

This episode previews free agency, including possible targets and the potential for trades. The latter subject includes an in-depth segment about Andre Drummond.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone. This is Mike, otherwise known as Narwin, from the Detroit Piston subreddit. And welcome to the third episode of the show. I'm back after about a month's hiatus here. So this show, I'm going to start out by answering questions asked by some of you on the subreddit and then just go on to discuss other team-related issues, some season reviews, and looking forward to this summer. So first, just starting off, then some questions about my opinion on a potential Bradley Beal trade that was aired by James Edwards from the Athletic. So I'll be honest here, the prospect of the Pistons trading for Bradley Beal with what they have available for assets is really unrealistic. I get the feeling that James, who's the best of the Detroit beat writers, I'm getting the feeling that he's pretty aware of this and was just kind of spitballing ideas. I couldn't tell you for sure my subscription to the athletic, unfortunately, has elapsed. For those of you who are interested in the athletic, I'll tell you, it's actually a very good publication. It does have a yearly fee, and no, I'm not being paid to advertise anything.

But if you like sports, it's actually a very good resource. I was actually surprised at how good it was. In any event, his idea for Beale was Luke Canard, Langston Galloway, Reggie Jackson, the latter two, just for salary matching purposes. And this year's first round pick and a future second round pick. So this basically just boils down to a couple of expiring deals, which is, you know, nothing. Then after that, let's just put it this way. It boils down to Luke Kennard and a first round pick.

So Luke Conard, the number 15. Bradley Beal is like a top 30 player in this league. He's an excellent score. It can score from anywhere. He's great at creating his own offense. can facilitate for others as well and can play acceptable if certainly mediocre defense, but that's certainly less important. So it would cost a great deal to pick up Bradley Bueh, more than the Pistons have to offer.

Bidding, I think, this summer if the Wizards make him available, which they would be insane not to at this point, because they're not able to feel the viable team at this point, not with John Wall's obscenely large contract and the fact that he's going to be out for basically the entire season anyway. So there will be a lot of bidders because guys like Beale are rare and they're worth a lot and the pistons don't have anything like the outset's necessary. As far as going back to the offer, Luke Kinnard on the number 15, because second round picks really something like 25% of second round picks actually go on to have a real NBA career.

When I'm talking trades, basically second round pick is, you know, here. Matradi this and you have another shot of finding somebody. Probably won't, but you know, it's worth a shot. So they're throw-ins. So that's the second-round picks are really not worth very much. Now, if you get what the Bucks did, or excuse me, what the Pelicans did for Nicola Mirage, which is four second-round picks from the Bucks, then, you know, that's pretty good deal because you've got a good shot at that point at getting an actual roster player out of the bargain. So, pardon me, for the Pistons, it would be Canard and number 15. Number 15, of course, it's middle of the first round.

You're likely to get a decent role player out of it, or maybe if you're lucky, a starter. Or maybe if you're obviously super, super lucky, you get a really good player. But, you know, it's a decent draft pick, but not really worth a ton. And Karnard, again, I think he'll be good in this league. But he's, I think it's very unlikely he'll be anything like Stark Albury. It should be a very solid shooter. And if the pistons are lucky, maybe top out at something like a Lou Williams type.

though highly unlikely. There are very few players who do what Lou William does as well as he does. It's a very high-volume, high-efficiency six men off the bench. Maybe Lou can do that, something close to it, but again, I don't think his ceiling is as a star in this league. Unfortunately, it just boils down to athleticism, which is a big deal, and he doesn't really have it. It'll still be good, but difference between good and great. So that deal is really bad for the Wizards. So I really just don't see that happening. I was asked who would I like to see the Pistons Pickett 15. All I will say is a small forward.

Unfortunately, for the purposes of this conversation, the draft is still really nebulous what the draft order is going to be. The mocks are really all over the place. And I don't think we'll really see it solidify until maybe after the combine. Even then, this drafts could really surprise people what happens. Fortunately, there are a good number of small forwards out there. who's actually going to be available when it comes to the Pistons is anyone's guess. But basically the Pistons just have to take a shot on somebody with a high ceiling.

I'll be fully honest. I haven't started researching the draft quite yet. My knowledge on it is largely cursory. But I do know there are a good number of good small forwards there, and some of them should be available when they drop the Pistons. But basically the situation is this. Small forward is extremely important. Rather, it's extremely important to have a good small forward in today's NBA.

For the, you know, your small forwards, whether they're three in D or ideally guys who can create. In this kind of position, this week, they can play up the power forward, some that can play down to shooting guard. And it's just a super important position. The Pistons have not had anybody there since, I guess he had one season of Marcus Morris, his first season. He was actually pretty good. He was terrible in his second season. but that's, you know, neither here nor there. But aside from that one season,

the Pistons haven't actually had a bona fide good small forward since the primaries of Tashon Prince, so it's been a gap for a long time. Stanley Johnson, of course, was meant to fill that. But that obviously didn't work out. And if you look back at that draft, there was no reason to pick Stanley Johnson back then, which I've said for years now.

But, you know, obviously damage is done, and the general manager who did that isn't with us anymore. fortunately. Or rather he's not with the team. He's still alive, of course. So the free agent market for small forwards is going to be awful. It's basically either they're way too expensive for the Pistons or they just really aren't fit to start and the Pistons don't have anybody else on the roster who's likely to be able to start at Small Forward at this point. And in any event, the Pistons just really need to shoot high because they need to find their small forward in the future. somehow. I mean, it could conceivably be taking a flyer on somebody in free agency, but

you'd have to get real lucky. I mean, you could try to look at somebody like Kelly Ubre and hope he really improves, but even then he might not be available for the middle level exception. Who knows? So take a shot on a small forward, hope he can play in his first year. And it might have to be somebody who's risky, but it's basically what you have to go with because there's no way for the Pistons to fill that hole this summer, not viably anyway, not in the starting lineup, and you don't want to repeat of what happened last season. It's conceivable, probably unlikely, that the Pistons could bring back Reggie Bullock, who's been opening about wanting to come, open, excuse me, about wanting to come back to Detroit.

But, again, you run into the issue of Bullock really isn't a bona fide small forward. He's certainly on the smaller side. He's around 200 pounds soaking wet, I think 205. actually. And also he's not a guy who can create anything for you. You can't, you know, he's entirely reliant on other players for, to create his offense for him, whether that'd be running around picks, taking shots off of handoffs or whatever else. But, you know, he's not ideally placed to defend even opposing small forwards, many of whom are significantly larger than he is. And, you know, in cases like switches on the power forwards, which would happen pretty frequently for

any small forward, you know, forget about it. He has no chance of physically competing with him. It's possible he turns out to be the best option, and just because, you know, if the Pissons don't draft a small forward or don't feel like that small forward they draft would be ready for the NBA, or at least ready to start, hopefully be ready for the NBA in his first season, of course, but you never know. Then Bullock is an option, and honestly, if he's being open about wanting to come back to Detroit and if he has done his homework or has heard the multitude of people talking about

Detroit's salary cap situation, he probably knows that Detroit can't really pay very much money for him. And I know this is going on a tangent, but honestly the Pistons could probably afford him at this point. He had a good 2017-2018-2018 season. This last season, he had his typical, all, you know, just terrible early season slump that has happened to him, or did happen to him, rather, all four years with the Pistons. And then he picked it up. He was pretty good, not quite as

good as the year before when, I believe he was number two in the league, in three-point percentage, but everybody with five or six attempts are higher. I don't know. I don't remember the exact statistics. So it wasn't quite as good. But then he went to the Lakers, and he was completely unremarkable. So his free agency stock probably isn't particularly high at this point. The mid-level exception is somewhere close to 9.5 million, I believe, so you could possibly be had for that. But again, not ideal, because Reggie Bullock is really more of a shooting guard by figure, you know, just by how he's built and by how he plays. Also, yeah, also he's not particularly good at defense altogether. So you can't really even call him this sort of three-and-d-type.

that people look for in small forwards if those aren't guys who can create. So, yeah, that's what I say. Draft a small forward. I really don't think there's any other position worth the pistons looking at at this point. Maybe if they, you know, if a point guard really just shockingly drops out of, you know, out of nowhere to number 15, then maybe take him for your point guard of the future rather because, you know, who knows, maybe Reggie Jackson really gets it back next year. And maybe he's, you know, he's finally gets that what was really excellent athleticism

before his injury in 2016, you know, because he was a very impressive athlete at that point. He could sky. He was real quick. And, you know, if he can get that back suddenly, which is technically possible, given that he has a full summer to rehab, then maybe the person stick with him. over salary. You can't bank on that. But in any event, it's unlikely that, you know, the point guards who are going to go in this draft are going to go pretty high. So it's unlikely that's going to happen for the pistons. And there is no reason for them to look at any other position.

Center is set for at least the next two years, assuming they don't find some, you know, they don't turn a trade for Drummond somehow. There are only maybe two or three centers are even worth looking at. And that's if you think ball ball ball is worthwhile and I don't. but that's just you know center is not something to think about at this point and power forward of course you know blake riffin is only ever going to play power forward because he really can't play small ball center so you've got your starting power forward for you know the next three seasons and the pistons can't really afford at this point to be drafting somebody on the basis of oh you'll probably you know just play back up you know they kind of have to shoot for the moon at this point

And under no circumstances should they draft a shooting guard, even if it's best player available. The Pistons are on the unfortunate position of probably not being able to be very good next season, but wanting to compete nonetheless. They're not really at all in the position, especially with, you know, you've got Blake Griffin's window. They can't really say, okay, we'll just take best player available, even if he's a shooting guard. We have about a two billion of already. and then just hope he develops. Now you can't do that.

I think that would be a very bad idea. So, yeah, I think even if a shooting guard drops to you, and you didn't expect to be available, I think you just pretty much have to pass on him because with all the guys in the system, you know, Bruce Brown is, you know, a shooting guard, again, by, you know, he's just a native shooting guard. That's what he's always played.

He's not idea of a small football. forward because he is on the smaller side. Kyrie Thomas, of course, at 6-4, 6-3 and 3-4-3-and-3-quarters in shoes, is not going to be playing much small for he. He's going to be playing primarily at shooting guard, probably not much point-guard at all unless he improves his ball handling. Brown could technically play a little bit of point-guard if he improves his handling and his shooting. He's got McCulliak, who, again, is a shooting guard who probably play some at small-forward.

Dwayne Casey has talked about him, maybe playing summit point guard, but who knows. And then, of course, you're stuck with Galloway for at least this season. And Karnard, who knows where they'll play him. I'm of the opinion they could play a backup point guard, and they should put him in a sort of Lou Williams role. But it's possible they won't do that. And then he's a shooting guard too. And again, you can play him at small forward.

He's going to get murdered on defense. It's not ideal. So you just, and he's the only, like, slam dunk youth, the pistons have in a system. So you can't just draft another shooting guard. It would just be complete madness. in my opinion anyway. Moving on, and this overlaps a bit, draft slash free agency. And poster asks if I'm in speculation, could I draw up some realistic or wild trade ideas?

Not really into speculation, unfortunately. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, unfortunately, for the purposes of this question. So when it comes to trade ideas, a couple things. First off, you know, impossible to predict because sometimes a team will just you know, another team will just throw a Hail Mary, if not a Hail Mary, just, you know, you just get a really wacky decision out of another team because as much as we like, we would like to think, you know, hey, well, we'd like to think this about our own general managers. Though I think we know it from looking at other teams, you know, occasionally you have guys who

are really, really bad at their jobs and just make stupid decisions. So, you know, maybe the Pistons could capitalize on that, but that's never something to bank on like the Tobias Harris trade to Detroit. That wasn't, you know, some sort of mastermind's, you know, operation by the Pistons. That was the magic. It was Rob Hennigan was general manager of the magic, soon to be fired, general manager of the magic, because he was out about two months later, making a horrible decision, like just an awful decision. And basically it's like, oh, okay, well, we have Aaron Gordon, and he's a... our power forward to the future. And so we just don't really have any space for Tobias Harris,

who's this really up-and-coming, you know, athletic, you know, good all-around score on what amounted to a pretty good, you know, and also front-loaded, which was helpful contract, actually really good contract based on the contracts that were given out in 2016 off-season. And he's like, okay, well, we just got to get rid of him. I'll just trade him for expiring. So that was one of the dumbest trades in the last decade easily. So that can happen. You just can't count on it. And the Pistons just don't really have much in the way of assets to swing trades.

The way I look at it, the assets the Pistons have are current and future draft picks, of course. Ideally not trading those away because the Pistons, I mean, it's good to have a promising youth on good contract. You know, it's not worth those trading those away unless you're really, really getting a good bargain in a trade. Luke Kennard, of course, is an asset. One that the Pistons probably can't afford to lose. He's got two more years in a very affordable deal. But, you know, also he's the biggest aspect of the youth movement in Detroit. And he could be pretty darn good.

You know, pretty good. I'd say pretty darn good. He'll be pretty good in this league if he develops as we all hope and as the organization hopes. Bruce Brown throw in. He's got potential. Kyrie Thomas has potential. You got a lot of second round picks. They had a ton of potential and ended up playing in Europe because they couldn't cut it in the NBA.

Those guys don't have any trade value. Same with McCaulyuk. Again, when I say don't have any, I mean, they have minimal trade value. They're not going to play a significant role in a trade for a good player unless somebody from another, you know, unless a general manager from another organization just really likes them. And I don't think that's the really, it's possible. really not very likely. And beyond that, the Pistons don't really have much of anything as far as trade assets go.

Griffin, they could probably swing to another team, but that's kind of out of the question at this point. It's not really even worth talking about. Reggie Jackson, of course, nobody's likely to want that salary. I mean, I know he's an expiring deal, but, you know, you've got to be able to fit people in under the cap also. He's just not really a very attractive. of commodity and also the Pistons would have to get a point card back. That's unlikely to happen. You know, you have John Ler and Langston Galloway, of course, Fleur is in a terrible contract. Galway isn't a bad contract. Just for the record, because I've seen a lot of talk about this,

expiring deals are not inherently valuable. Other teams don't look at them and say, oh boy, an expiring deal. I want to trade assets for that because that's just not the case. Where expiring contracts are valuable is, number one, if you want to take a best, back a bad contract from somebody else. And maybe they'll throw in some assets on top of that. That's one place in which expiring contracts are good. It allows them to get out of a bad contract for which they'll pay. And beyond that, maybe when it comes to the trade deadline, things can be different.

In the off season, it's extremely rare. You'll see somebody trade a player just for expirings. I cannot think of that, you know, a case of that in the recent past. The only time I've seen a team just actively say, okay, we'll trade such and such for an expiring contract was for Brendan Haywood back in 2015, and that's because his deal was non-guaranteed. So they're basically trading for cap space. And they got a trade exception out of that. I think the Cavaliers did it. I can't remember in particular.

But when it comes to trade, that's a different story. You have teams saying, okay, well, this current roster isn't working. Time to rebuild. and cool, maybe we, you know, in that case, it's like great. We can trade away this contract we don't want. It might not be a bad contract, but it's, you know, it's just we want to get rid of this relatively pricey player, who's on a multi-year deal. And, okay, so in return, we'll take expiring deals and, you know, a modest payment on top

of that, or if it's a really good player, then, you know, on a high salary, then, cool, those expiring deals let you match that salary or come close to it, you know, as close as you need to. So that's where expiring deals are useful. This summer, expiring deals are not going to be very useful unless a team just has a, you know, you're not going to give you a player, you know, through use of your expiring contracts this summer, very unlikely. And it's just going back to what I said, the point of this is that they're not inherently valuable. And in the offseason, even if the pistons find some way to use them, it'll just be because they're available to help with salary matching, not because other teams are going to jump at the chance to take on

expiring deals. So I would say, Bluear, of course, is going nowhere. It's just a horrible contract. You know, there's only one year left on it, fortunately, but nobody's, you know, obviously nobody's going to be interested in that contract straight up over the summer. Galloway, it's conceivable. The Pistons could trade him for another. suboptimal contract at a position they need more help with, such as, you know, possibly backup center.

Though here's the thing with backup center, and I'll just say this, you know, I'll just, I'll repeat it when I come to free agent stuff. But it's hard to tell what the pistons are going to do with Thon Maker. I mean, they trade it for this guy. He doesn't really fit it power forward, is he's just not built for it. he was drafted as a center he played all of his minutes pretty much for the bucks at center so the pistons traded for him like okay well what the hell are you going to do with him you know you're really looking for another backup center whereas thon maker fitting into this so who knows it's tough to say with that but who knows maybe they can trade galloway for somebody else on a single

or multi-year deal at a position that just you know the pistons need help at So obviously there's the two most notorious contracts out of the way. Drummins, I know a lot of people want him gone. It's going to be tough to trade Drummond because he is very overpaid. Even when he's playing at his best, he's pretty overpaid. He doesn't play at his best very much. He had a period of doing so this season that coincided with the pistons, having that hot stretch, you know, we can say it with the proviso, yes, largely.

It was against very bad teams. But, and also it spawned the narrative that Drummond carried the team in the second half of the season. That wasn't really true. His hot stretch coincided with the pistons, particularly Kinnard, Galloway, and Jackson, and ultimately Ellington as well, just shooting an unsustainable percentage from three. Maybe for Luke, 42% is possible. But for Jackson, Mike closed 50%, for Galloway, 47%. it just all happened at once.

And the drummond did really well during that period. Give him credit, he was doing what was necessary in order for him to have the maximum positive impact, which is, number one, work hard at all times. Number two, play within himself, within his talents and not try to do stuff he's bad at. Number three, play within his role, which is basically the same as number two. And number four, play a team game, which I guess goes within, you know, playing within himself and playing within his role. role and just not doing shit that is bad for the team, which he has a really bad habit of doing, like his annoying isolations and his putbacks through, you know, multiple, you know, multiple coverage, and he's not good at those even necessarily through single coverage.

So, and then he regressed along with the rest of the team down the stretch when the Pistons almost flamed out of the playoffs altogether. So here's the issue. with Drummond's traditional centers are a dying breed, really. The NBA is all about shooting. It's all about offense now. Guys who can't space the floor come with a cost because spacing is huge. Guys who can't create offense, which is basically every traditional center, that's also a big problem. So in order to be worthwhile as a traditional big, and to give back what you lose a team on

offense in terms of that spacing in terms of that offensive creation. And this is very, very much an offense first league. just by its nature and even more so this season because of the rule changes. Scoring is higher than ever and just the rules favor offense. So if you, in order for any traditional center to give back enough on the floor to compensate for what they're losing on offense on a high salary, they've got to be good at four things. Number one is pain offense. You've got to be a really efficient pain score.

Number two is rebounding. Of course, you've got to be really good rebounder. Number three, you've got to be an excellent defender. You just have to be. And number four, you've got to be a hardworking guy. You're a hardworking guy. You've got to hustle. You know, you just have to do that.

It's a way for any player to maximize this value on the court, but particularly for a center, particularly for a center who can't shoot. So if you're being paid a high salary, you would best be good at all of those things and very good at all of those things in order to, to actually have anything like your salary value on the court. Now, the only traditional center in the league who fits that criteria, those criteria, rather, is Rudy Gobert, who is excellent at all of them.

He's a game-changing defender. He is perennially extremely efficient as a scorer. He's super hard working, and he's an excellent rebounder. You know, the other guys you have around Max Salary Territory, White Side, Drummins, and Adams, and all of them are overpaid. Whiteside, of course, is the most overpaid of them all. But Drummond and Adams are overpaid as well.

And Drummins, when he's not playing it as best, is extremely overpaid. Because in that instance, you have a guy who, number one, isn't working hard, often kind of checks out and is, you know, there's a lot of stuff that goes beyond just the raw stat sheet. People look at the average player and say, okay, well, this player put up like 20 and 10 or 20 and 20. For the average player, it's like, okay, that got played pretty well because your average player is working hard on a nightly basis. For Drummond, it doesn't necessarily mean that

because he can put up those stats by scoring those points and by grabbing those rebounds, but he's not really actually working hard anywhere else. And, you know, I know it's been brought up by some people, oh, you know, Drummond's only, you know, he's statistically comparable to Hakima Lajuan in terms of his points, rebounds, blocks, and steals. It's like, okay, well, does that mean that Drummond is as good or anywhere near as good as Hakeem Elygian?

The answer is no. Those of you are familiar with Elijah one of the greatest of all time, and Drummond doesn't even hold a candle to him. So no, it doesn't suggest that the two of them are comparable. It suggests, or it's a reminder that a great deal more than just raw stats goes into somebody's effectiveness on the court. And, you know, as far as those things off the statute or off the immediate statute, Olajawan was excellent at pretty much all of them, and Drummins, even on his best night, is not necessarily the case. So, yeah, so Drummond just, I almost kind of forget where I got started on this, basically Drummins on his bad nights can, you know, is just heinously overpaid.

And on his good nights is only somewhat overpaid. but unfortunately his bad nights significantly outweighs good nights. People were saying, okay, maybe you turned a corner this season. Like I said, that corner was largely just hard-working attitude. He had a stretch like that last season as well. It didn't last in this season either. He fell off down the stretch. That increased work ethic and just better attitude fell off down the stretch,

and then it was nowhere during the playoffs. It completely evaporated against Milwaukee. He had just an act. absolutely horrible series. Like, my goodness, it was awful. Like, there was, there was no redeeming quality about it. He was just absolutely heinously bad. So, there's a trouble with Drummond. Basically, he's, he's very overpaid. And traditional centers are, you know, just progressively depreciating in value. There aren't really all that many of them left in the league. And the ones that got overpaid, pretty much all got overpaid in 2016

when just a stupid amount of money was just thrown at everybody. I mean, you have guys like Mosgov, Mahimi, Tristan Thompson, Bismak, Bionbo. Those are some other highly paid traditional centers, and of course, they're all considered brutally overpaid, and that's true.

But you're just very... My point at the end of this tangent, or at the end of this long, whatever it is I'm doing, is just you're unlikely to find a taker for Drummond who's actually giving you value, because you know what? They, he's just not worth that, and they'd rather find a guy who can shoot.

Even if you take a guy who can't shoot, you can find a guy who does 75% of what Drummond can for half the price or less. And there's also that centers the position teams can most afford to shirk in today's MBA. If you have good guys at the other four positions, then you can just pay small dollars to his center and you're just fine. It's really, really, really, really only worth paying big money to his center if he's a game-changing presence. And aside from Gobert, traditional bigs, just can't do that anymore. Your game-changing presence is you're talking, it's pretty much guys who can change the game on offense. So you're talking guys like Anthony Davis, Joel M.B.,

those two are excellent two-way players. Carl Anthony Towns, excellent on offense, Yokic, excellent on offense. And to a lesser extent, Al Horford, who's just a really good all-around player, but is really kind of starting to show his age and is paid a whole lot of money. So, unlikely you move Drummond, unless, as noted, you get a very, you know, strange thinking, a jam from another team who just decides he really wants him, but I can't think of anybody who would fit that bill.

You could say teams that really flame out and free agency, you know, because there will be a few. There are some teams that have cleared a bunch of space to take on max deals, you know, because you got a lot of guys who will draw Mac sellers who are going to come on in the markets this summer. And you might say, okay, maybe one of them who really just strikes out will take a risk on Drummond. I doubt it. You know, that's just not a risk that it really behooves any team to take at this point. That's a lot of money. And you can be all but certain he will take up his player option for the 2020, 2020, 2021 season.

because it's just, unless the guy just makes tremendous progress next season, it's incredibly unlikely he'll see that amount of money on an annual basis after the contract. So he's almost certainly with, you know, he's almost, you know, functionally speaking, he's got two years left on his deal. So I wouldn't expect to see Drummond moved. And, you know, then after that, you know, there's really not much of anybody else left on the roster. you know, maybe I'm missing somebody, but I don't think there's really anybody left on the roster. I think it gets to everyone. So back to the original part of the question, just trade is very unlikely.

So when it comes to the offseason, as I said, I think you just need to draft a small forward because you're incredibly unlikely to find somebody who's going to be worth signing for the, you know, just with the MLE. The MLE, like I said, is about nine and a half million. So I just don't see that happening. So you just kind of have to take a shot on a small. small forward on the draft. When it comes to point guard, it gets more interesting, like I said. I think Luke Kennard could do it. I think 100% you let Isch Smith go. Just regardless of anything else, the guy just doesn't fit on the team anymore. His lack of shooting is a big problem. Basically, just forces, excuse me, the other, the team to his team, rather whoever's on the

floor with him to march to his tune. And, you know, I won't go on about that. I talked, I talked about this, you know, in my last two podcasts. I just think I think it's absolutely necessary to let him go. Now, how do you replace him? The Pistons, again, possible, Luke Kinnard. I think he could do it. He's an excellent shooter. He's a good playmaker.

He draws a lot of attention. He was pretty good on the pick and roll this season, and he really thrives on involvement and volume and having an offense run around him. And that's what you have to do if you want to get the most out of him. So I think he could do really well with backup point card. Only downside there is that asking him to step into the starting point guard role, should there be an injury to Reggie Jackson, or whoever's starting point card next season,

almost positive it's going to be Roger Jackson. Then it's a different story for Luke because he'll get obliterated by a lot of the point card, on defense, rather, by a lot of the point cards will have to play against. That's just the defensive issue is just another compelling reason to keep him on the bench because Luke just by nature of what's not very good athleticism and a very small wing span is probably just always going to struggle on defense. So he's an option. The pistons might feel like they have some options with Sveemakaluk,

who again, Dwayne Casey said, oh, you know, his future is a point guard. Maybe Kyrie Thomas, if he can improve on that end. He's just not a good ball handler at this point. Maybe Bruce Brown. He has potential if he can learn to shoot. But so it's tough to say. It's just looking at all those options. you really want to spend a bunch of money on a backup point guard.

And if you do, who are you going to spend that money on? Now, I'll say what I said in, I think it was the last podcast, that it's really tough to tell what the market is going to be this summer. You're going to see the market's going to get set in your first day with how much is paid to each tier of player. Obviously, max free agents, you know, the guys who are looking at max free agents, Kauai Leonard, Campbell Walker, and so on and so forth. Those guys are going to get max deals.

That's a foregone conclusion. But beyond that, you've got the upper middle guys. And then for the sake of the pistons, you've got kind of the lower middle guys who can be afforded with the MLE. So, you know, could potentially be guys like Derek Rose. Well, Derek Rose can be half of the MLE regardless. I mean, that's just kind of without question. Guys, are you going to be able to get a guy like Patrick Beverly with the MLE? Maybe when you come to Detroit.

That's a different story. I know I know there will be other teams really bidding for him and probably the clippers will try to keep him. Will Darren Collison be available? It would be keepable for the MLE who knows. It would be getable rather for the MLE who knows. Doubt he'll leave Indiana. And beyond that, you just kind of go down the list

and it's not particularly interesting. Do you want to take a chance on Jeremy Lynn, who was good with the Hawks, but terrible with the Raptors, I mean, I guess maybe. You could look at Cory Joseph, but not the greatest three-point shooter. There's Seth Curry, I know, has come up in talks, but again, these guys are going to take up a great deal

of the mid-level exception. You know, if you really feel like point guard is a need and you're drafting a small forward and you feel like McCauley can really fill in his backup small forward, then, okay, cool. You know, I guess you can spend that money at point guard if it really suits you. Though, again, I'd really rather play Conard there,

especially because it'll free up that shooting guard a lot a bit, but I've got to stop, you know, just stop repeating that at this point. Seth Curry, again, assuming he doesn't get an offer to stay in Portland, you know, somebody made the good points. They quoted an NBA agent. I don't remember. I think it was, I don't remember who did it, who said this, but it's basically do you think Seth Curry is going to look at the Pistons payroll

and see Langston Galloway and say, oh, I'm going to take less money than that. I mean, who knows, maybe it's not a guy who's really going to care about that, but you can expect him to cost something at least $7 million annually, because you know what? He's a really good three-point shooter, and really good three-point shooters are really valuable in this week. So, again, tough to say, point guard, exactly what the pistons are going to do. Like I said before, Center, who knows what the hell they're going to do there.

If it were me, I would not wager much on Thonmaker. He could turn out to be pretty darn good. I mean, pretty darn good on the backup center scale of things. Sure, he's a hustle guy without a doubt. He's definitely got potential as a rim protector. And, you know, if he can stretch the floor, great. He really hasn't been able to get himself to that point yet. But here's trouble with the guy.

You know, no particular order. Do you have no idea how old he is? You know, big deal was made around this. about this rather around the 2016 draft. When it came to light, that's, hey, Thon Maker maybe four years older than we think he is. So Maker at this stage could be like 25, 26 years old, at which point you're saying, okay, well, instead of like 22, I think, I believe people think he is right now, maybe 23. You know, when you're starting to get really in your mid-20s, it's like, all right, well,

maybe he doesn't really have quite that much room for growth left. and certainly he's not telling what his age is. So there's that. There's the fact that he is terrible as an interior score. That's a problem. He's just completely awful as a paint score. He has no polish, really, unless you're counting his three-point shot, which you shouldn't because he is not a good three-point shooter.

He has no offensive polish at all. And just how thin he is means that he struggles to really physically compete offensively in the paint. that also means he struggles to compete physically, defensively as well. If he's going up against some of the larger centers or power forwards in the league, he gets bullied. So Thonmaker's kind of a guy who is, you know, he's got potential. Maybe he could be good, but you never know I would really hedge my bets if I were the pistons. And that means spending some money on backup centers. Now, the question is, you know, who are you looking at as backup center?

You know, you could look at the guy like Thomas Bryant, maybe. He was pretty good for the Wizards. You know, was he, you know, was it something he can replicate? Who knows? But he was good. Maybe Ed Davis, who knows, he was a really good backup center. He's a guy you'll have to pay out, you know, to pay probably more than the Pistons would like, the middle level exception because he'll be expensive. Javelle McGee, I guess, maybe, probably stick

with the Lakers. After all, they did trade away Ivigizoo Batch to make him happy, by all accounts. And Dwayne Dedman, maybe, I mean, that would be great. He'd be a really good fit with Blake. But again, who knows how much he'll cost. I mean, he's the ideal fit. with Griffin, actually. Griffin needs a center alongside him who can stretch the floor and protect the rim because, you know, that gives one extra guy for Griffin to pass two when he's in the post. Excuse the sniffles, sorry, it's out of the season. So give us Griffin one extra guy to pass two and also Griffin's a really bad rim protector. So having a guy who can do that is really nice. The issue, you know, one issue of the fit between him and Drummond is that,

Drummond's presence around the basket means one more defender in the paint for Griffin to deal with. And one west guy around the perimeter for Griffin to pass to. And, you know, that's one issue is that that's really the kind of center Griffin needs is going to need to be, you know, able to ideal for him is going to need to stretch the floor. And that's kind of the new archetype for centers that they'll be able to stretch the fore and defend the rim. But it's not really super easy to find a guy on the market who can do that right now. those are centers of the future guys who can do that. And then finally, on to back a power forward. Now, this is a need that I think people are really understating. And that's because the Pistons got

such great health of Blake Griffin last season. He played 75 games as the most he's played in five seasons. And only four of those are actually absences due to injury. Three of them were due to load management. And honestly, those probably could have been avoided if Dway and Casey had not relied on him quite so much. Unfortunately, a lot of his offense was here. Blake take the ball and do something, and do something good with it. And a lot of the time, that meant Griffin making things happen in the post and taking quite a bit of a beating. Also, Casey played him a lot of unnecessary minutes in games that were already won or already lost. But I digress.

The Pistons shouldn't bank on Griffin being that healthy. You should never bank on any starter being that healthy, but particularly a guy like Griffin, who's got pre-existing injury issues. So you're really got to look at a backup power forward who can fill in either, when Griffin is out due to injury, or when he just needs a rest. So a few guys to look at. Number one is Anthony Tellover. Of course, every Pistons fan knows Anthony Tulliver.

He's a fan favorite, you know, for good reason. Super hard worker. He can stretch the floor. He's a solid defender. And his last season in Detroit, he also developed a little bit of a drive game. And he left Detroit last summer because the Pistons just didn't want to pay him what he was looking for. They really needed to, they chose to. and I think this was a good idea, look at a depth at small forward, because they were concerned

about Stanley Johnson's ability to fill that. It turned out to be accurate, unfortunately. They signed the guy they signed, rather, who was Glenn Robinson didn't pan out either. But in any event, Tolliver went over there for about, I think, $5.5 million for the season. He did fairly well off the bench. Then they traded for Dario Seric. He became the starter. Tolliver was bumped to third string.

So he'll probably be looking to leave Minnesota, and I doubt they'll even try to keep him. So he loved playing in Detroit, and he'd be great for the Pistons because he can fill in as a starter. He's also, you know, in addition to his other good qualities, he's a great veteran leader, which is something the Pistons certainly still need. He could probably be had, or possibly be had for the veteran minimum, certainly for the biannual exception, which is about $3.6 million. So here's one option. Another got to look at if he is unavailable or for some reason the pistons just choose to pass on that option is Jeff Green.

Now, Jeff Green is the definition of nothing special, but he's able enough playing certainly as a backup, but also he can fill in his starter in a pinch and do a decent job of it. He's also a combo forward who can play some minutes at small forward, and that could be valuable. Another guy to look at possibly is Jamichael Green. he can stretch the floor as a decent defender and he could fill in for some minutes at center if necessary, though that's probably not going to be quite as big a deal for the Pistons. Now, I would like to actually have been able to predict whom the Pistons will sign what the organization's offseason plan will be, but there are a couple of factors that make that impossible. Number one is lack of knowledge of what the market will look like. I've mentioned this before. that it's just impossible to tell what salaries will look like

come the beginning of the offseason. The first day will really set the trend for what players at whatever particular value will be paid. You know, how much just a decent veteran, a depth veteran, is going to go for, how much, you know, a middle-of-the-line guy is going to go for. It's really hard to tell because this is the first off-season since 2016 in which a good number of teams will have a fair number of caps.

space. So really we could see, as I've said before, we could see teams really, especially those who strike out in max free agents, because a lot of teams have cleared cap space for that purpose, for the opportunity to sign some of the marquee free agents coming in the market this summer. Some of them might strike out and start severely overpaying people, for example, which would be a very bad thing for the Pistons because then the price point would rise for any given sort of player on the Pistons don't really have much to work. with. So that makes it very unpredictable as far as what the pistons will be able to afford. We won't really see what the price points on the market are until the first day of free agency,

which, by the way, is now instead of July 1st, it's now 6 p.m. Eastern, I believe, on the final day of June. That's the day that teams are able to begin talking to free agents. So that's just a minor change. I guess it saved teams the trouble of being up all night and players. So in any event, the market is the first confounding factor that makes predictions difficult. So the second, of course, is what the front office will choose to do, because in this offseason, they once again don't have very much to deal with as far as cap space goes. They have more than they had west off season when really all they could do was make a few, you know, they signed a couple minimum contracts, Julian Calderon, and then, I think, you know, about $4 million.

to Glenn Robinson, and that was really it. That was all they could do. They have significantly more space under the luxury tax line, so they could use both the full middle-level exception of $9.25 million and the, excuse me, the biannual exception, which is, as it sounds, biannual. The Pistons used it last two years ago, so they have it again now, 3.6 million.

So they have that, and they have space for a couple of minimum contracts, which count for, you know, if they were to use both exceptions, they would have space then after that, and after the draft picks, after paying, you know, signing, presumably the Pistons will keep their two draft picks after signing those, they would have room for another couple of minimum contracts under the luxury tax line. So that's not very much to deal with, you know, getting a good player these days, like a legitimately, a legitimate impact player will usually cost you in the double-digit millions. You can get somebody decent for the mid-level exception for about $9 million.

but you're probably for a good player going to have to spend that full $9 million. So the Pistons, unfortunately, at this point, they're still dealing with the detritus that Stan Van Gundy left. The roster is still in a very awkward position, and the Pistons, as I've enumerated, have a lot of needs to fill, so they're really going to decide which is the priority need, and that too makes it very difficult. Are they going to say, man, we really, really need a good backup power forward, and, you know, we're willing to pay for that, or do we really need a good backup center and we're going to pay for that and who knows. I don't think that's likely, but who knows? And or will they say, man, you know, because I think they'll let Ish go and I really hope they do. They say, oh, we really need

a new backup point guard, you know, because that, however, would come at the cost of probably pushing out one of the young guys, you know, because we have three young guards in Brown, Kennard, and Thomas. And if you, you know, you could conceivably, one of them could grow to play that backup point guard rule. Canard, in my opinion, is ready. But If they think no, he's not ready and we want some injury insurance for Reggie Jackson, okay, maybe you sign somebody. The trouble is, again, you can't really get anybody really all that great at $9 million for backup point guard.

But who knows? That could be wrong. Maybe Darren Collison is, you know, can be out of their price, you know, and that would be good. But it's just so hard to tell what the front office will prioritize. So I'll just wrap all this up by saying that I would not expect this to be a very significant offseason for the Pistons unless they manage to strike gold in the draft. the front office just has very, very little to work with as far as cap flexibility is not really

in any position to swing any significant trades. And they're going to be looking forward to the 2020 off season, which is when they'll really have the opportunity to remake the roster. And in keeping with that, if they have to make the choice between really overpaying somebody or just paying somebody less for a single year, I think they're going to go with option number two just to maintain maximum flexibility for next summer. We've reached about 50 minutes, so I'm going to finish here. Next week's episode, we look further into Andre Drummond's,

his strengths, weaknesses, value what he means to the Pistons. And after that, an evaluation of Dwayne Casey's first season with the Pistons. Thanks for listening.