Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 31: Checking up on the Youth

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

This episode evaluates the performance thus far of the team's youth and Jerami Grant.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Drive into the Basket. We are recording this a few hours before the game against the 76s on Monday to 25th. So we're happy to have Dante again with us for this episode. We're just going to launch straight into it. So earlier in the season, I believe just before the season, we spoke about just occasionally checking up on a certain group of players periodically throughout the season. Those are going to be Jeremy Grant. and the young players particularly, Jackson, well, namely, rather Jackson, Bay, stewards and so on.

Killian Hayes as well, who ever since, you know, it has been a very long time since he even missed a shot, so he's been doing great. So we'll just start straight off at Jeremy Grant. Tommy, I know you had thoughts about him. What do you think about how he's been doing lately? We talked a little bit about just how, I mean, you disagree with me, but I feel like this might, this level of production, we've talked about how great it is, but I feel like it might take a step back, just as teams start to game plan him a little bit. We saw that happen a little bit

with, I think, the Houston game where he wasn't able to knock his shots down, but he was getting to the line plenty. I think that's the result of teams, you know, starting to learn his game, learn his weaknesses. And even though he doesn't seem to have too many right now, I think his trouble passing off the drive and in the mid-range, I think that's something that teams are going to look to kind of exploit, maybe take advantage of his tunnel vision. So I would expect, you know, maybe his efficiency to drop a little bit. But I know you guys feel differently, or at least you do, Mike. So that's my main thing that I'm watching for with him. I think he's playing still really well. And I'm really encouraged by the fact that he's getting these calls. But

I would expect his efficiency to tank a little bit. I would say, I know, you have brought up the game against the 76ers, which was the first game of the season in which he really struggled. Did a decent job again in the line, but he missed a lot of shots. If I remember correctly, he didn't do too well against the Rockets either, though I don't think that was because they were playing him particularly well, simply because the Rockets don't really have anybody who can play him all that well. But against the 76ers, it looks like he just missed a lot of really makeable shots.

A lot of them were just barely missing. He also was playing against the Buzzsaw defensive combo of Ben Simmons and Joe LMV. I'm out of the opinion that they are the best defensive duo in the entire NBA, both of them fully capable of handling him. I do agree that over time, it's probably going to become more difficult for him to score. I mean, the Pistons are pretty much, unless you want to consider Rose, who does a decent enough job off the bench most of the time on creating offense for himself. They're pretty much just a one-horse show in which Jeremy Grant is the only guy

who's really capable of effectively creating offense for himself. So over time, I'm sure that'll happen. we're, I believe, I mean, we're about a quarter of the way through the season. And just what this brings me back to is the Pistons of 2017-2018, who started out really well with that handoff offense and so on and so forth. And it took about a quarter of the season for teams to really start catching on. And, of course, the coach back then who shall go nameless and who is not doing a very good job at all with the Pelicans. which should come as no surprise to any Pistons fan.

I did nothing to keep it fresh, and then the Pistons just, you know, they started losing games by small margin and then whatever. So I don't think it's out of the question, you're correct. I'm guessing, I mean, teams probably not taking the Pistons super seriously, but, you know, good teams will game plan for grant. So I would agree that this production might go down.

There's also the fact that we are only, I mean, he hasn't played many games in a much bigger role. I mean, it's still relatively small sample size, so we'll see if you can sustain this at all. No, I think you might be seeing a little bit of tired legs with Jeremy as well, because I found in the last two games where his efficiency dropped a little bit, I felt that he was largely playing, you know, pretty much the same as how he's played all season, doing the same things, taking the same shots in the same places, making those same drives to the basket.

But it just wasn't dropping. and sometimes the shots don't drop. So I don't know if it's that he's having trouble adapting to the attention that defenses are now giving him. I think it may be to do with the fact that he's been the only consistently good offensive force on the team for like a month and a half now. Well, except for Killian because he hasn't missed a shot since the Milwaukee game. But other than that, you know, Jeremy, yeah, he's probably pretty tired. So I do expect him to score right up around the. 22 to 25 points per game range for the rest of the season.

I don't think it's out of the question that you'll see his efficiency drop. I mean, we just observed it the last couple of games. But overall, I'm still pretty happy with his play. And I think he can be drawing a few more fouls too. I know he shot 10 free throws the other night. But when you watch someone like Trey Young, just kind of run into people and throw his arms up and get every single trip to the line that he can get, you almost wonder if Grant could get a few more trips

the line during a game as well. So I'm expecting things to level out, but I don't think it's out of the question that he's probably pretty exhausted right now. Yeah, I would agree with that, especially because the schedule has been very punishing. The Pistons, well, the Pistons, I suppose, to get one game postponed. But it's been pretty punishing overall, and he has been shouldering an enormous amount of the load. He has actually, just in reference to his willingness to pass, he, over the first, his first 11 games, he had an assist percentage of about between 8 and 9%, which is terrible. It's just terrible for a player with his level of usage.

It basically just means he wasn't passing the ball. At the very least, maybe he was passing the ball, and players just weren't hitting shots off the passes, but really what it was is he was just not passing the ball very much. Over the last five games, T has actually more than doubled that. So Grant has had an assist percentage of 20 and a half, which is very respectable, that actually ranks him behind only the point guards, beyond Svi as well, but Svi has played his average nine minutes over this game over this five games.

You take that with the brain itself. The guy's been playing 36 minutes, Jeremy Grant has. And, yeah, with an assist percentage, not that much less than Bros and Delon, right? We shouldn't, you know, ignore, of course, legendary seven Lee with his 44.4% assist percentage. I kid, of course, because he's played 13 and a half minutes. over that span. So we'll talk about a little bit about him later. But I'm happy to see that from Jeremy.

He's done a good job of it. He's done it also very safely with an assist turnover ratio around 3 to 1. That's very good. Again, that's only a five-game sample, but it's nice to see him start adding that a bit to his game. No, he's been impressive as a passer, I find. It's not just those like easy pass to the wide open guy and they drain a 3. he's finding some creative ways to get guys in positions to score,

especially when he kind of, you know, there's been a couple Plumley and Stuart dunks where Jeremy kind of drives and then he does some mid-air reverse type of thing where he kind of hands the ball off before he's even touched the ground again. And that's a good sign that's very encouraging for his playmaking moving forward because they're not just your easy. Oh, I guess no assist is really easy because you have to have the vision. but he's showing an acumen for having really good court vision,

which is going to be essential on the nights that his shots aren't falling. Yeah, the issue, I mean, over the past five games, an issue he has said, though, is his efficiency overall is tanked. He's been at about 53.5% true shooting, which is not good, even for a guy who is creating as much off the dribble as he is. That's still a bad mark. The Pistons are still a net positive team with him on the courts. you know, that has been consistently the case throughout the season.

Of course, they're considerably better when he's out there without Griffin, just because Griffin exerts a downward drag on everyone. But, yeah, I'm curious to see where it goes. I know that there are, you know, a lot of business fans are very excited about how he's done, you know, how much he's, you know, what he can be in the future. And a thing I would say about grants, whatever the future might hold, if they bring in another person who develops into a star, you know, who knows, maybe if the Pistons get really lucky,

end up with Cade Cunningham, for example. You don't really expect that Grant is going to be scoring this much in the future because only one person can have the ball. It's a great problem to have when you have a lot of guys. You know, you have several guys who can create offense and score at a high level on high volume. So, you know, $20 million at the Pistons, assuming the Pistons are trying to win at that point whenever that is. I don't know if the Pistons will be in position to win by year three. But we'll see.

It's reassuring that the guy is also a good defender and he can play both on and off the ball effectively. But we're ways away from that. Now, one concern I have about Jeremy Grant, and this goes into the future, is that the pistons are not losing games by much right now. And let's say you get Kate Cunningham, and suddenly the team is good enough

that now they're winning games and they're not in position to pick high for a second, you know, for 30 year in a row. That does concern me. Can I disagree? No, not allowed. Just for the sake of argument, I mean, let's say we do. I'm not expecting Cade Cunningham.

I can't, I couldn't fathom something good happening to the Pistons in the draft lottery ever. But let's say we do. And let's say we do get Cade Cunningham. And let's say that Jeremy Grant continues a strong play. Let's say that Cillian Hayes continues to not miss a shot. And the young guys all take a step forward. I would be, if we have like a franchise player who, in my opinion, Kate Cunningham could come in and be your foundational piece as a franchise player.

And the rest of those things happen and we start winning games, I'm not going to be upset about it. I think that's a natural progression for a good team. I don't know if, like if you have the pieces to win and those pieces are decently young with a chance to kind of round out and become even better, I don't see a problem with that. If that were to happen next year and we were to land one of those top five picks and one of those is better than expected off the bat, I'm good with it. You know, it'd be nice to see some winning basketball again, because not only would you then be winning,

you'd be winning with the chance to win even more as these players develop. So that's where my difference of opinion would come in. But I understand, too, that multiple high lottery picks are probably best, but I guess it's going to depend how we get there. Yeah, I can just second here. Tomic's pitching to get on this. Yeah, I mean, we've talked in the past about how ideally, I think my vision was, you know, you suck for three years.

And then by the time that first rookie contract extension is like ready to be signed, you know, you have ideally three really young guys who are your core. And at that point, you have some cap space. You sign vets. And that's how you like maximize the amount of talent that you have on your roster while staying under the cap. And that's why that was one of the reasons that was kind of not upset about the Jeremy Grant contract, but he doesn't fit the timeline as well.

as, you know, three consecutive high picks would. I mean, Grant, I think he's about to turn 27. When his contract runs out, he'll be, what, 29? That's something to worry about, you know. He does accelerate your timeline. But to go back to, like, his performance, I was going to say that part of the reason I think his production might drop off a little bit is because, yeah, he is, like, the main source of offense right now.

But I am encouraged by what I've seen. I think he can play next to a guy like Cade Cunningham or Jalen Suggs or whoever is going to be that lead ball handler. That's not a problem to me. I think he'll maybe his efficiency would pick back up at that point. I think his efficiency would suffer only because, you know, teams are really game planning him and quite frankly, frankly, we suck right now. I mean, especially in that Houston game, we could not get inside. There was just, it was all passing around on the perimeter and he was just doing the bulk of the creation to get inside. Yeah, if you can't get inside against the Houston Rockets, then you've got big problems, especially without Christian Wood on the floor.

I mean, to Marcus Cousins, you know, cool. It's been nice to see him have some decent games. He had a very good game, the game after the one they played against the business. He had a very good game, but he's hopeless as an interior protector now. He's just hopeless. So, yeah, I think, of course, having help would make Grant more effective. I don't think he'd score as many points. He just, you know, you could be able to score on higher efficiency and so on and so forth.

it's like we've said in the past. I never thought the business would suck for three years, but if they start winning next year, I'm just concerned that it's just premature. I don't think you want to start pulling a trigger on winning games when you don't necessarily have the ceiling you would want to win a championship, for example. It's everybody's ideal situation.

I know, but two superstars. But yeah, I would not like to see it happen next year. You'd really, really be banking on developments from a lot of the young players at that stage. You'd need to have somebody, because I don't think Jeremy Grant's ever going to be. the second best player in a championship team. All right. Yeah, this is continued on it happening naturally, though.

Like, I wouldn't say that it's, I don't know that Troy Weaver would say, okay, you know, we got Cade Cunningham. It's time to win and then just flip the switch and start training future first round picks for some of get his way in Ellington. I would hope that that wouldn't happen. I'm just personally not opposed to winning games if that's just so happened. That just so happens to be how it plays out naturally. Well, it's going to play out naturally that way because of what Weber did last season, or this last offseason, rather.

Yeah, that's true. I wouldn't necessarily say that that wouldn't, strictly speaking, be the natural progression of a rebuild. What he did was a little strange, in my opinion. I'll continue to say that. Yeah, you can say that. It was a little strange thing. And I think the fixation on, you know, the winning culture and so on and so forth is a little excessive. And I kind of feel, though, you know, just I know I'm repeating what I've said before, a little irritated that the business couldn't just do this to the traditional.

way. Is the traditional way always work? No. Do I think it has a better chance of succeeding in terms of becoming a championship contender than what has been done? Yes. Because I think that basically he artificially, you know, not artificially, he took steps to raise team seller for this season. And that's going to hurt in terms of, I think the team will win more next season, which may not be entirely ideal. All right, so let's move on to our next subject. We'll talk a little bit about Josh Jackson. So Josh Jackson, who looked very, very promising early in the season and during the preseason,

but has absolutely horribly fallen off a cliff since he got back. The guy can't hit a shot. So, yeah. It's been bad. How much you guys think the ankle is still affecting him? Because I personally feel like someone who's a slasher like that, especially also too with the three point shot you're really trying to make sure you've got a good center of gravity and you want to put your weight distribution in the right place i i just

sprained my ankle a number of times but it's it's horrible i don't know if you guys have ever had a really bad ankle sprain it's one of the worst injuries you could get it's it's how did it uh how did it affect you on the floor on the NBA uh well i i scored about as much as killian has been scoring um the last couple of weeks so that's yeah i was a better three point fooder than Josh Jackson. Yeah, I can tell you that. Fair enough. Yeah. I don't know. You just got to, I'm just wondering if that's still lingering because it depends on the, um, the grade of the tear, because really you're tearing the, the ligaments that are holding your ankle together, right? So if it's still bothering him and he's still

kind of walking around gingerly on it, I could see how that might affect him. And I'd also rather believe that than he just forgot how to shoot a basketball or what we saw earlier in the season was just the Mirage, I think it's plausible that the injury is still playing a factor. I think it's mental. And what he's doing on the court, but obviously that might not be. It's possible. It could be mental too, but what concern me early in the season is that he was making a lot of very difficult shots in the paint.

He had his move where he would drive in and curl around, generally curling from left to right. and he would use his right hands to make a shot basically right over or around the outstretched arm of whoever is protecting the rim. And that's a tough shot to make. Yeah, it's cool too. It looks awesome. It looks awesome.

And it was exciting. Yeah, it looks awesome, but it's tough to make. He was also just shooting. He was shooting as three considerably better. I mean, the guy ever since his return is, to say the least, comically bad. Horrible. Yeah. At 43% true shooting, that is terrible, especially.

the guy's getting a lot of run too. He's continuing to get a lot of run despite the fact that he's been awful. I mean, one thing I could say that might indicate he's maybe not quite as bad. You know, maybe it's not his ankle is that the team has still been good defensively with him on the floor, like better than,

better than almost anybody else. You know, in terms of, of course, there's a lot that goes into defensive rating. I'm not using this as a, you know, it's a BL and all statistic,

but in terms of players who've gotten minutes, the team has been better defensively, only with Isaiah Stewart on the floor. So, I don't know. It does look like he has a little bit less jump, but I got to agree with Tommy. I think it's more mental.

He just looks different, but who knows, could be a combination of both. But an issue with Jackson and Phoenix that we're seeing here is that he does take a lot. He is taking a lot of bad shots. And I think the difference is that he came back in that game against Phoenix. And he looked terrible. Like he was forcing a lot of shots early on.

They weren't going in. And then I think he just lost his confidence. I think that's just carried over into these other games. That's all I see you from it. Like, yeah, you're right. He was hitting, you know, he was shooting a little bit unsustainably well for his, for his, for his, yeah, his history, exactly. And I didn't expect that to carry on that long, but for it to drop off that hard

and for him to, you know, kind of cool off that much in one game and then it just keeps going, I think it was a mental issue. I think he just lost his confidence. He wasn't really playing super well. I mean, his efficiency wasn't great before that either. I mean, he was about 57% true shooting, which is, which is good. I mean, and he was creating a fair amount of offense. So if he could sustain that, it would have been like, cool, awesome, good for you.

You know, that would have been perfectly acceptable. But I felt like the issue with Jackson has never been that he can't create offense. His issue has been that he creates offense very inefficiently. So, you know, we'll see. This is, you got, if he's not good this year, you got another year to try to work it out. We've heard nothing bad about him behind the scenes at all. There have been no reports of troubles in the locker room or troubles off the court or anything like that. So that's encouraging.

It's another situation in which he's been bad. Sure, but you don't really need to worry about it right now. You guys have any other thoughts on Jackson? Well, I hope he returns to form. Well, I don't know if to form is the right word. I hope he can continue to produce at the level he was producing earlier in the season because that's just another asset for the pit. distance, right? So we're going to have to see how that kind of shakes out.

Fingers crossed, I don't know. You know, if I'm, if I'm reading it correctly, and I do think the ankle is still bothering him a bit, then we'll probably see him marginally get better and better in a gradual way. But if not, I mean, we're not paying him that much, and it's not a long deal. And those are the kind of flyers that are rebuilding team needs to take. Oh, great. Yeah, it was great. Absolutely. Yeah, not great. I'd absolutely agree. brother. I think it was a great idea to take the flyer. You know, even if it fails, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Yep. Absolutely. I'd like to see more flyers like that in the future, quite honestly.

Because, you know, one of these days, someone will have a Josh Jackson, like, resurgence here if you keep giving these guys chances. And eventually it'll, not to say that Josh Jackson won't stick, but you've got to think eventually someone will elevate their level of play in a new environment and they'll maintain it. and we're a team who could desperately use something like that, you know, taking nothing and turning it into an aspect. Yeah, I was not very happy that there were so few players on whom Weaver took a chance in this all season.

For example, it was pretty much just Jackson and O'Cafour who has nothing to offer. No, Ocalfour does it. I'm much higher on Jackson than I'm on Ocalfour. And Ocalfour is taking minutes from, well, not necessarily anymore, but when Ocalfour is on the floor, that means Stuart's not on the floor, which means that I have less fun watching the game. Well, frankly so.

Okerfor has never had much to offer. That's the thing. I mean, he's never been particularly distinguished in his NBA career. It's often been empty stats because there's very, very little, I mean, he had a decent rookie season, but even though stats hit the fact that he can't pass, he can't shoot, and he can't play defense. And he's a really crappy mover and he's not athletic.

All he can do is score when he's given the ball around the basket. And that's... So basically your perfect NBA player? Yeah. Because that's the rest of the success. as it will be, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I've, you know, you can look at Stewart, for example, with, in the context of Casey and playing his young players and say, oh, he got to play over Okafore. Okafore is barely qualified. Or for Okafore is never an established veteran. He's not a guy who has a

pedigree of being good or a guy who has a, you know, he has a pedigree of struggling and of having issues off the court. That is, that is his NBA pedigree. And I don't think it's out of the question that he would have been out of the NBA this season if the business hadn't signed. and he's not a good player. And basically, it wasn't a matter of Stewart needed to win away his minutes. It was, they were both going to get a chance. And whoever looked better was going to get the minutes. And Stewart immediately superseded Okavore, which was not surprising because Okifor has very, very little to offer.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, I know we said we tracked Stewart earlier on. We talked about Stewart in the last episode. I don't know if there's anything you guys have to. He's fun. He is so fun.

to watch like I I understand the reservations around taking what it would at least right now is a more traditional center so early in the draft but I I just have a ton of fun watching him play I've never seen well at least not in recent Pistons history such a ferocious offensive rebounder because a lot of Drummond's offensive rebounds came on he missed the shot and he's just bigger than everybody else so he can kind of reach up and tip his own shot back up and then he misses that, then he tips it again. And he, you know, he comes away with, like, three rebounds and two points off one possession. Whereas Isaiah Stewart is just, like, he's awesome.

He's awesome. I love watching it. I know you guys do too. And I can see why he's becoming a fan favorite because that competitive fire, like, just the will to absolutely do anything necessary to grab that ball, is something that's been missing from the Pistons for a long time. So I'm a big fan of Stewart. I know that's not groundbreaking. Yeah, I'm really asking. Those are just my personal feelings.

Yeah. Yeah, I know that. Yeah. That was part of the reason, just to break in. That was part of the reason I know that that Troy Weaver drafted him so high was because he just really like the guy. It's good to have that guy on the floor. His energy is infectious. I feel like we play harder when he's out there.

And he helps us in transition, too. I don't know if you've noticed, but we move up the floor way faster when he's there because Stewart never, he never walked up the floor. like as soon as he gets the rebound as soon as it goes in as soon as something happens he's like at least jogging up the floor you know it's infectious yep and he never looks tired right now right now right now he's doing suicides the whole time he's still pretty foul prone yeah so I think the uh the bench minutes and that role is really good for him so I like I like how they're using him right now I like that he got the yeah he seems to have won the backup minutes over so okapur and credits a case that's a good That's a good decision. Yeah, I agree. He is actually, speaking of his offensive rebounding, he is, in terms of players who have gotten significant minutes, he's a top 10 player in offensive rebounds for under possessions.

So that's good to see. He is also, yeah, really, he needs to, he is incredibly foul prone. That's not helpful. Also, this is, this bears mention, you know, Mason, If you want to talk about foul prone, I mean, just as an A-side, Mason Plumley has now followed out of four straight games, which is impressive by any measure, especially because he's, you know, he's played up, if I remember correctly, about high 20s in every game. That is impressive in its own right. He has now followed out about 40% of his games with the Pistons. So in any event, yeah, one thing, I mean, Isaiah Stewart, this is one thing that it's just going to happen with rookies. You saw it happen with Bruce Brown in his rookie season. You play too hard. You're playing against players who were better than you played against for and you're not familiar with the game and you commit a lot of fouls. Yeah, a lot of fouls. Yeah, your desire to play defense is outpacing your ability to play proper defense for a lot of

these rookies. So if you're someone like Bruce Brown, Isaiah Stewart, and you really, really, really want to play defense and you want to play it well, there's a good chance that you just don't have those foundational fundamental skills that will allow you to do it without fouling at every single opportunity you get. But you know what? That's something I'd imagine he'll grow out of. Plumley didn't clearly.

So Plumley's not the guy to learn from. But Stewart, I'm not too concerned with the foul trouble because that to me just shows that he wants to play defense. He might not quite know how yet at the most refined level. But I'm sure he'll improve. I'm positive he'll improve, actually. Yeah, it's just a matter of, I mean, the game has played differently. Like, you have guys like, you watched him defending an NBA.

for example. And there was one possession on which Greg Kelser just said, you know, I don't, whatever, I'll spare the commentary on Greg Kessel. In this case, he was right. T.C. said, wait for it. You're going to hear the whistle. You're going to hear the whistle. And sure enough, the whistle blew because M. B. is fantastic at drawing fouls. And there is nothing in Stewart's experience that could possibly have prepared him to try to defend a player like M.D., who is, I've said it before, I think one of the most underrated players in league. He is an excellent basketball player. You're not seeing anyone like that in college.

No, hell, not even close. Yeah, there's, there's not, you know, he only played a year there. Even from guys who are coming into the NBA, there's nobody like that. I mean, Joe Ambite is, is, especially in terms of pain offense. I mean, he's the best post player in the NBA by a post-scorer, excuse me, if you want to include post-passing, you, throw Yokic in there as well. But as far as post-scoring, he is the best player in the NBA in that category, bar none. He's a battering. I agree. Yeah, but, you know, Stuart is he's all about getting into it and getting, you know, and then just being in the thick of it.

And that's going to lead you to a lot of fouls early on in your career. So, but, you know, in terms of rebounding, yeah, he's, he's definitely doing real well. He's got a very good, you know, very high contested rebound percentage. He does well on that. Yeah, he's, yeah, he's good at it. He needs to work in his pain scoring. There's no doubt about that. I'm a little concerned because he doesn't tend to jump when he throws the ball up.

and that's a problem in the NBA. But I'd really like to see him start being able to shoot, but this is a case where Dwayne Casey was very fixated, and I'm winning is, you know, and what continues to be wrong way to do things, is not going to let players do something that they're not necessarily good at yet, which is really shit. Yeah, we talked about this last time,

we talked about this last time where it's like, you know, just because you don't want to have Isaiah Stewart out there run around like he's Steph Curry. against Cleveland in the finals. Like, I don't think any of the three of us would be upset if he was wide open beyond the line and shot one. Because his shots look good, fundamentally and mechanically sound. I'm not going to be upset if it doesn't go in because you kind of need to get those reps in a game before you're going to have the confidence to actually start making them.

But Dwayne Casey's not that kind of coach, right? He's fixated on, well, I want to win at all costs. And right now you're not a good three-point shooter, which means don't even think about it. granted that didn't, you know, that didn't apply to Drummond when he was taking step-back threes and stuff, but we'll just leave that for another time. But it is an impressive statistic for Stewart in terms of contested rebound percentage. That's the percentage of contested rebounds you grab. If you're looking at players who score more than, excuse me, you play more than 15 minutes

a night, he is number four in the NBA. I mean, you got to take that stat in context, of course. But if you look at the guys in front of him, of course, like Robin Lopez, who's number two is not, you know, an all-world rebounder. Jacob Perthal is number one. He's, you know, he's pretty good. Mitchell Robinson is an excellent rebounders at number three. So Stewart's sandwiched in between him and Stephen Adams.

So he's definitely, he's definitely, one thing, I mean, he's not athletic. He's not athletic in the sense of he's not a good jumper. He's not very quick. He's not very explosive. But he is extremely difficult to move because the guy is about, you know, he says 6'9, I think 250 pounds. with very little fat on him. He's thick.

He's put it that way. If he sets himself down at some place in the paints, you're going to have a very difficult time moving him out of the way. I guess density is the word you're looking for. That's what I'm looking for. Very dense. Very dense. So fun to watch.

I completely agree with that. And I just wish he were in a situation in which you were allowed to do more. Because all Dwayne Casey is allowing him to do his set picks and muck around in the paint. And that's, and again, that that's a casualty of having a coach and also, we'll talk about this a little bit later, the, you know, probably also general manager who's just more focused on the quote unquote winning culture right now than on actually getting these players, the reps, they, that might help them in their development. So, yeah, so Sadiq Bay, who's, who finally got more minutes against the 76ers after a stretch in which you got hardly any. that was thanks to, you know, that this has been a common theme and the young players playing a larger percentage of minutes

of Blake Griffin was out. So Dwayne Casey more or less had to start one of the young players. You know, it's a common theme with how it wasn't Toronto. It's like, okay, I give big minutes to the young players because I have no other choice, you know, in his last season there, is that time and again. Well, it's purely out of necessity.

Yeah, purely out of necessity. Yeah, do, in his last season, And, yeah, I mean, Missoujiu, you already traded away five big minute veterans. It's like, okay, now you have no choice, you know, for whatever purpose that was. But I still think it was to get Casey to play to younger core. But so Bay played, he kind of started a name only, but only played 19 minutes. And which increases, therefore, his average over the previous five games to 11 and a half minutes a game. Fantastic. Yes, glorious.

And to those who weren't listening to the last episode, the reason that that, that, that Bay, despite having shot over the previous eight games, before his minutes were slashed, he'd shot 47% from three on six attempts per game of the previous eight games. He played well. He got his minutes slashed for what really was no reason, because there was no call for it. The reason it happened, there are two reasons. Number one, when Casey gives more minutes to another young player, he does it by taking minutes away from somebody else. Josh Jackson's minutes went up, and therefore Sadiq Bay's minutes went down pretty much.

That's more or less what happened. Or in a case, well, Jackson's minutes went up a bit, and Seku got more minutes. That was in the first game when Bay's minutes went down, and then Sve got more minutes. And the second reason is that Dwayne Casey has been just slashing minutes altogether, wait, for the young players. In the four games prior to the 76ers game, the youth accounted for about 27% of the total minutes, which is absurdly low. They're legitimately, I mean, if you want to include the two-way players, there are currently seven of them.

And they accounted for 27% of the minutes, which is terrible. And I crunch some stats on this, actually. In games in which neither Griffin, in games in which you don't have Griffin, or put it this way, in games in which the pastons are playing with a full roster of veterans, and it is not a blowout. blood, of course, you're going to have different minutes allocations because it doesn't matter

in the fourth quarter. So what you call standard games, the youngsters are getting an average of about 31.5% of the minutes, which is terrible. That is comically bad. So again, we'll talk about that a bit later. But yeah, so Bay hasn't looked good and I'm frustrated because he was playing well, and I feel like him just abruptly losing minutes and playing legitimately over the course of the course of three games he played 22 minutes and i feel like that really threw him off his rhythm i think it was absolutely i think it was stupid i would say rhythm rhythm plays a huge factor especially uh i think it plays a huge factor for any player but especially three point shooting players um i find that if you're not consistently uh repeating the motions finding your spots on the

floor um kind of getting your footing in the offense there and maintaining it if you just all the sudden go from playing 20, 25 minutes a game and jacking up six, seven, eight shots to now you're coming in for like three minutes because somebody's in foul trouble and then you're going to sit. Of course, it destroys your rhythm. And it's the same thing I think we saw happen with Svea as well. You just, the Casey's handling of these players is mind boggling to me. I can't fathom the minute allocation or why it might be the way it is. And I know, Mike, you just mentioned how the minutes of the youth are pulled from

the other minutes of the, they're sharing from a collective pool of minutes where the veterans are separate. A small pool of minutes. Yeah, the veterans. A small pool. Yeah, the accountability free veterans. Yeah. The accountability.

Exactly. And you know what? Someone like Wayne Ellington, yeah, he's shooting well. But he's also a six million year vet in this league. And I would expect him to be able to come in and shoot well, even if he hasn't been getting consistent minutes because he's done it before. Whereas someone like Sadiq, how do you think he's going to react to just being, just having completely inconsistent minutes,

his rhythm is off for sure. So whether it's Sadiq or Svi or whatever, I put it on Casey. Not to say you're not responsible for your own shots, not going in, but I put it mainly on Casey, just like we put everything else on him, but you deserve the blame for this one too.

I agree. And it's those three players in particular. It's Svi, Bay, and Seku. Again, as Jackson gets his minutes. Casey likes him. And of course, Hayes isn't, you know, isn't playing now. And Stewart's getting his minutes because he's the backup center. It's those three players, you're going to be very hard pressed to find a game in which all three of them get significant minutes.

Yep. So, and that's a problem. Casey came out and said, oh, it's just impossible to, you know, but, you know, to pay attention to roster needs, it's impossible to get all these young players in their minutes. And it's like, no, you're just not willing to do it. You're just absolutely unlawed to do. It's also his job. It's also his job.

It is the only thing he has to do. and he gets paid handsomely to do it. What do you mean it's impossible? Yeah. You choose. You choose who playing. Exactly. It's not impossible.

He's just not willing to hand out. I mean, again, you have these rookies getting like between 30 and 35 percent of the minutes on average, which is not a lot, especially in a rebuilding season. That's a very small amount. And he's not willing to increase that pool is basically what it is. He's not willing to increase that pool. And it is maddening and it is stupid. And he's doing it.

And I think with we're still. It's deliberate as well for him to pretend it's not deliberate. It's like I said, it's his only job. He gets paid millions of dollars to do this job. He knows what he wants to do and why he wants to do it. Now, we might not agree with those methods and those reasons. But for him to pretend, it's like, oh, I was so focused on winning. I was rolling with Wayne and I forgot about the young guys.

It's like, no, you didn't. No, you didn't. You know what you're doing. You know who's on your roster. You know who can do what. And at the end of the day, it's his choice. It's his choice who plays and who doesn't. And right now, he's doing a very poor job of, of,

doing anything. Look at the role that he gets when he's on the floor. Even a little bit of sense. He's only parked in the corner. And that can transition. It's like Casey doesn't trust Sadiq to do anything but be a three-point shooter. And if I was Casey, I would like, I would love to see Sadiq come off a screen. But when there's perimeter offense or when they're running something on the three-point line,

Sadiq is always in the opposite corner just drawing a defender away. You know, Casey is, it seems like Casey, if, if Sadiq is going to get his own offense, it's going to be he has to just kind of move around the perimeter and hope to find something or find something in transition. But if it's half-court offense, Sadik is always in the opposite corner. They kind of look for a shot for him, but Sadiq has definitely earned the reputation as just a guy.

You just need to keep him guarded on the three-point line. He's not going to do much else. So Casey's not giving him anything besides that, but it's a little bit on Sadiq. Like he needs to add something on the perimeter in terms of like a driving game so that these guys will have a reason to guard him anywhere but that corner three or that perimeter three.

You don't want to crowd the paint. You know, if they're running offense on the right side and Sadiq is in the corner, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Sadiq to curl around the top of the art because then it's just going to get crowded up there. But Casey's just not, it's just pretty obvious. He just doesn't trust him to do much else. And I think that's the reason he's not getting anything.

And you can argue that's not a good idea. Yeah. What a surprise. Yeah. Casey not trusting a play. not trusting a young player. I mean, where have we seen that before? That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's been a persistent issue.

And again, that's why I think why Miss I got rid of his veterans. Because if Casey is trying to win, he is absolutely going to gravitate toward the familiar. The unnamed former coach who all, you know, who sucked worse, you know, who was awful. And the best thing I can say about Casey a lot of the time is he's just, he's just better than that guy. And certainly, you know, it's better with young players. But, you know, for what that's worth. But, and his young players actually like him, whatever that's worth. I think. That's what we hear anyway.

But Casey does not trust his young players if he doesn't absolutely have to. He does not trust them. He did the same thing with Conard in Casey's first season with the business. Canard would just be sanding in a corner, you know, and he wouldn't move. He wouldn't get any help off the ball. Because Tanard, if he wants to get loose, he's going to have to get an off ball screen. Wouldn't get it. Casey preferred to have Thon Maker shooting threes instead. Yeah, it was maddening, but this is the kind of stupid stuff that Casey does because he's an Deerth Wayne and mediocre coach. Sure.

Yeah, sure. And also, too. To your point as well. Yeah, to be able to show something when you're, when the bulk of your minutes are with Derek Rose. And that's not to say that I don't like Rose as a player because I absolutely do. And, you know, you don't win MVP by not hunting your own shot for the most part. But even when the young guys do get out there and it's four of our rookies or four

of our young guys with Derek, they're kind of just relegated to watching Derek dribble around. and then chuck something up at the end of the shock haul. Yep. Absolutely. So yeah, it's a combination of you're not getting the minutes. And then when you do get the minutes, you're not getting the role. So it's, it's, I would almost say that for the youth on this team, we've almost not seen the ideal situation at all.

Like none of them have been in the ideal situation that you'd like to see a rebuilding team put the young guys in at all. Because we don't get the minutes and then they don't get the opportunity when they do get the minutes. So really it's just a compounding of issues until eventually you get what we're currently seeing right now, which is useless game after useless game, after

useless game, where nothing we're watching has anything to do with the future of the franchise, at least not in a positive way. Because nobody's developing. Nobody's, you know, learning good habits, bad habits, or figuring their game out. They're just sitting on the bench and when they do happen to find themselves on the floor, they're sitting around waiting to get the ball.

It's very predictable what happens, basically, Casey's rotation. I don't remember if we talked about this in the last episode, but eventually, at the end of the first, you know, near the end of the first quarter, it will be four youngsters and Rose and Stuart Lestead screens, and Rose will look mostly for his own offense. And it's frustrating. But as far as Casey, he also doesn't really put players, Casey does not have the innovative bones in his body to actually, well, do anything innovative at all. but also to not, he's not going to look at particular players and say, I'm going to use you in a way that best befits your talents. Like, for example, or in a way that maximizes what they can offer, rather. Like, we know that one of Seku's, you know, we can transition to talking about Seku. One of his strengths is that he's a very good offball mover.

He's very good at making it the basket ahead of his defender, get into the past and get a new easy bucket. Now, for the most part, on this season, Casey has just had him standing still. Like, in the last game, he was moving a lot off the ball. and I've got to think that that was probably part of the scheme. Seku doesn't really strike me as the player who's just going to stand still because he feels like it. So I don't see him ever being high. At this point, he's not going to be successful in a role that just features him either trying to attack the basket, which he's just not very good at doing it.

Once he comes to contact, he's pretty unlikely to score. He might be a decent three-point shooter, but I mean, he really need to make the most of his talents, and that's one of his chief talents. Oh, yeah. He's a fantastic off ball cut. I don't know if you guys remember. There was a clip of last season against the Lakers. I think there was a clip of LeBron.

So Dumboya kind of cut in behind him for like a quick dunk off of an inbound, like a baseline inbound. And LeBron had his hands up like what is going on? Like he couldn't believe that, you know, this guy just had just snuck in and found I think it was upset that nobody did that nobody signaled actually that's probably the thing. Whichever the point may be. Yeah, whatever the case may be, he he causes trouble for opposing defenses. And I'm not going to say he's, that's an elite skill of his, but to relegate him to a spot-up shooter in the corner. Like, like you said, he's an okay three-point shooter.

But a good coach, he uses the strengths of his players and attacks the weaknesses of the opposition. And Seku's strength is finding those tiny, windows on the floor where he can grab the ball and then use his athleticism to get up and just jam it in there and it's easy points but casey doesn't use him that way casey just says uh you know the offense will find you probably i'm sure as a phrase he's used before where it's like if it happens it happens but we're not running anything for you and we're certainly not running a free flowing offense where you're encouraged to find soft spots in the coverage and get yourself open yeah he benefits like a lot of the young players from the absence of griffin and and tommy i know you were talking about how

There was that clip that was popping up on Twitter of just like eight consecutive passes that ended in a mason plumly dunk. That never happens when Griffin is on the floor because he moves slowly, he holds the ball, the defense resets, and then it doesn't happen when Rose is on the floor because Rose just carries the ball.

He gets to the rim, and if he has a shot, he'll try it. And I think you even told me, like he's not even shooting that well from the restricted area this year. I mean, yeah. Oh, he's been awful. So when you have two heavily ball dominant guys like that who for some reason are not told by their coach,

hey, get the other people involved, you get this ugly offense and it stunts the development of these young guys. So I'm not sure why Casey allows this to keep happening because we only lost by four to Philly and they're a great team. And I feel like part of that is, yeah, there's less film to game plan these guys and maybe that's why the offense looked as good as it did. But I still prefer that by far to what we see when Griffin and Rose are doing the bulk of the ball handling. I agree. Yeah. You don't, it's like I've said before, and this is true, certainly true of Griffin. It's true of Rose as well, less so because Rose, if he chooses, or I don't know, maybe he's directed to, can play him more of an offense where the ball is being passed around and so on and so forth. It's not really in his nature. His nature is just to go straightway attack. but it's really hard for players to be themselves with those with rose and griffon on the floor and i think

that comes up certainly with secu i don't know if it was at casey's instigation or whatever but this this last game was the first one in which he'd really he really was moving and uh yeah in which he was just really moving a lot and and who knows maybe you're just feeling more energized maybe that was part of it i mean it certainly can't help that by all accounts he has been working very hard outside outside of the game and he's just not getting minutes. I mean, this is another case he is, and this is just, what I'm about talking about Caseyism?

It's unclear to me if he's just completely double-speaking or is starting to lose touch with reality when he came out and he said, I mean, you guys know what I'm talking about. He said, all second needs is the opportunity and chance. He took advantage of it, I'm happy for him. The future is going to be bright for him. It's like, dude, you are the only person who decides

if he gets this chance, the only person. It's not us three. Yeah, it's, it's Dwayne, deciding alone in his office when he's got his little clipboard and he's deciding who the starters are going to be and what the minute allocations are going to be like it's like dude it's it's you yeah and why not he had he had a three game stretch in which he played a total of 10 minutes between Atlanta and houston he played 11 minutes uh sorry 12 uh and he's played 15 minutes or more three times in this game they issues me in this season uh once at two of those games

griffam was out and the third one was a blowout uh was a blowout win against my enemy in which he just got more minutes at the end of the game. It's criminal. It's just criminal. It's terrible, especially because I think he's a player who, I mean, sure, you saw last season that he eventually just fell off a cliff and that was fine, you know, whatever it is, what it is. But he seems like a player plays with a lot more energy when he's actually getting a chance.

Yeah, when he's engaged. Yeah, but instead his minutes have been low the entire season, and a lot of the time, he just hardly plays it all. It's not like, it's not like, you know, he hasn't, you know, he got one full of the MP. it's not like Svi who legitimately in one game got to play five seconds, which is very impressive in the worst sort of way. The sound made up, but it actually...

Five seconds, yeah. And he wasn't even part of the play. So, but, yeah, but Taku, I mean, he's a raw player. I am not under any impression that, you know, I'm not operating on the belief that, oh, if you just give him more minutes, he's going to be great this season, but he doesn't need to be great. I mean, it's just given the minutes, let him do his thing and hopefully improve. That's what this is all about.

It comes back to the same thing as he just. not getting that chance. That's a very simple concept that Casey is yet to embrace. Yeah. And I don't think he's going to get that chance in when somebody gets injured. Oh, no, I think that's beyond question at this point that the only reason we need to get fired up for a game. And I would never wish injury on anybody, obviously not.

But, you know, if Blake and Rose are being sat because of whatever they want to call it, injury management, load management, that's when I'm most excited for a game because I know, it sucks. It sucks. but I know that when I see, okay, Blake Griffin, not playing, that means that we have the best chance to now watch what this season should be under proper leadership. Oh, I get, I feel so deflated when I see the starting lineup and it's five veterans. Oh, my God.

Every time I see like the E, like the uppercase E that I just know it's Ellington, I'll say this about Ellington. Like, I don't think Ellington deserves any flak, obviously. I don't know you guys don't either. He has been playing very well. I think it's incredibly unlikely he'll sustain this clip from three years. because it's nearly impossible. Well, he's got a golden arm. Yeah, he does right now.

That's not going to last. I mean, he's not going to be shooting. So, yeah, Ellington this season is, which is what, he's shooting someplace in the mid-40s, I believe, from three. And, you know, on difficult opportunities. Excuse me, he's shooting 50% from three. That's not going to last. No, it's not. And good for him.

It's not an indictment of him. Like, he's a human being. He's a professional basketball. All the player. Yeah. You know, if I was Jim, I'd be jacked up that Casey's like, oh, if I was Wayne Ellington, I'd be like me, you want me in the starting lineup? Shoot a million threes a game?

Yeah, for sure, man. And I would go out there and do it. So good for you for making the shots. He should never be in the starting lineup in the first place. I mean, and if this went out the situation with Casey and Weber, he would not be in a starting lineup because it's all about, oh, well, he's good. He shoots threes and we want to win. It's like that is not what we put what the team should be doing right now.

No, definitely. Yeah. Now, I've seen some questions. What can the Pistons get for him on the trade? market it's like if he sustains this maybe you get a second round pick future second round at best if teams thought he was this good uh they would have picked them up yeah exactly you know it's been it's been 11 games too i mean it's like uh and it's like yeah he's shooting well but at the same time i mean the guy's like uh you know he's a he's a mediocre defender who can shoot threes and

it's like that's you shoot three is at a high percentage that's useful but like this guy this guy's not going to supplant to anybody in the starting lineup of a good team no but it's funny because Fee can do exactly what, exactly, well, maybe not exactly what Ellington does, but they're both three-point shooters

who right now, their best skill, or the best thing they can offer a steady three-point shooting. Absolutely. And why you wouldn't opt to go with the person who's 37 years younger. I have no clue,

but speak can sit on the bench and Wayne, I mean, like Wayne could just go out there and chuck them up, man, because God knows that that's what Casey wants him to do, and I'm sure Casey's giving him a green light. Yeah,

without a doubt. And I mean, if you're looking at it, you know, purely from, from the standpoint, and winning, you know, winning games, then sure, yeah, green light, awesome. Though, you know, Ellington would not be starting on a team that were actually decent.

But, yeah. Or competent. Yeah. True. Absolutely. So, I mean, that can bring us to Svi, who is, you know, it's worth noting about Svi that in the best basketball league in the world, he was one of the best perimeter shooters in the world, the last season. You know, from spot up, he was elite. He was elite on shooting from around screens and off handoffs.

You know, he's struggled to begin the season. he's been shooting 41, 41 and a half percent from game four onward. But he's part of that group of three players, you know, of Seku, Sadiq, and Svi, you know, the 3S. And, you know, if those two are getting minutes, he isn't basically boils down to. And sometimes, sometimes only one of the others might be getting minutes and he still won't. Like, yeah, I mean, there are definitely instances of that. So, like the game, yeah, and then that blowout went against Miami. somehow Casey managed to play at speed two minutes and then bait 11.

I don't know how, but. Inconceivable. Yeah, absolutely. I don't even know. I don't even know. I'm losing my stress ball right now. Yeah, fair enough. So, yeah, speed, kind of what you see is what you're going to get.

You know, he's a good shooter. He is to learn to actually shoot some threes off the dribble. That's nice. I'm not, you know, he's not doing it a ton, but, yeah, who knows? He might have less offered than Ellington right now, just because Ellington's being more consistent. But Svea, I think, he's young. He's going to hopefully be on the team for a while, I think. Yeah.

And, yeah, it's just, I know we're saying this again and again. It's just frustrating just to see what's happening. No, it's frustrating and it's not changing. And we're not seeing any indication that it is going to change because the only times we get what we want are when Blake and Rose don't play. Exactly. And even then, Casey, like, another thing Casey said recently is, is, is about, like against the 76ers, what he said is, you know, that the young players played, well, we did everything the right way.

The problem with the youth is that you have to learn how to close the deal. The only way to learn is by going through the fire. It's like, okay. Do it, well, you're not giving the youth this chance. Even when Griffin and Rose are out, yeah, you finish with as few young players as you possibly can. Your veterans have constantly failed to finish. You know, so let's not just say it's the young players who are having trouble with that, but we all know you don't hold your veterans accountable, so it's a moot point.

And how are they going to learn through the fire if they can't, you know, get that chance? I mean, it's, yeah, it's just the same frustration over and over again. And I know we brought up last episode, you know, how much is wever involved? And I continue to believe that he is probably quite involved. Probably, I don't know. Probably. Probably. Well, you think that they're not completely disconnected.

I'm sure they talk every day. And if Weaver had such a problem with what's going on, you know, there might be some changes. But we haven't we haven't had any indication of that thus far. So you're only left to believe that, you know, there really isn't that much of a disconnect there. Yeah. Tommy, what do you think? I asked the question to James Edwards, like, does what is, does Weaver have any influence on who gets minutes? And I think he, in his mailbag today, he indicated, yeah, no, weaver is pretty

on board with what's happening here, which really surprised me because I love the draft and the fact that we have four rookies. I know Killian's out, but I would love to see these guys get more opportunity. So I figured, you know, especially after the second game where hardly any young guys played and it seemed like we had kind of turned the corner like Casey had gotten a talking to, I figured, okay, yeah, Weaver probably stepped in and took care of it, but nope, it seems like it's all the way back and it seems like we were okay with it so i don't know what their end game is i don't know how they think the uh the young guys are going to get minutes i know it's it hasn't been it's only a quarter the way through the season maybe they're trying to slowly bring them in we've seen adjustments made

in games i know that during the houston game isaiah stewart wasn't playing boogie cousins on the perimeter and then the second half he was you know these some of these adjustments are being made i just wish they would make more you know for a rebuilding team that has nothing to gain from trying to win it's very confusing to me that they opt to distribute the minutes the way that they do. Yeah. It's just confusing for us too. It's confusing. And then the truly kind of sort of deflating slash befuddling part of it is that the

rookies are, the young players are playing considerably lower percentage of the minutes now than they did in the first eight games of the season. Yeah. From game nine onward, when you look down the list, you know, when you start a Phoenix game, 30%, 31 and a half, 38 and a half. 30, 25, 23, and 31 and a half. So, and that's like, it hurts. It hurts. It's bad. You know, it's real bad. And so it hurts because we just want to see

them play. And it's a lot more fun and it's a lot more exciting. And, you know, judging by the the ratings of the starting lineup versus the bench, it's all the young guys play better a lot of the time. It's better basketball. So I just can't even fathom it. It is deflating. It's frustrating. and thus far it hasn't changed much. So it'll remain to be seen when it ends up happening, but I'm not overly optimistic for Dwayne Casey to have a complete epiphany on his coaching. I don't think that's not at this point. Probably unlikely to happen.

Now what scares me about this team, though, when it comes to Weaver, is that we all know, sure, he wants it to be a competitive tank. Not competitive tank. Competitive rebuild, but they try to win every night and winning culture and blah, blah. I don't know how much of that is Tom Gores. We all know about him talking about winning culture, though. It's hard for me to tell exactly how much of that was just him not wanting to tank, you know, just just deluding himself into thinking, you know, as long as they just keep trying to win, they'll become a better team. So, but like if you just change a few, the pistons have not been losing by much.

I don't think that's by design. Casey, I don't think Casey is, you know, is just, is deliberately undermining them at the end of closed games. I think it's extremely unlikely. There's no way that Weber is this all-time genius who was able to calculate all of these variables in his head. And like, let's say Blake Griffin were a league average starter. This instance would very possibly have seven or eight wins right now. That is a low lottery record. You know, if Blake Griffin, who, you know, Griffin is legitimately been one of the worst big minute players in the league.

I mean, it's not just the stats, which are awfully worse than his stats because he stunts the offense. He's a horrible defender. So, yeah, if he were a little bit better, then okay, well, well, suddenly we're winning games and this is going in a really bad direction. Or if Killian Hayes had come in and played better, it's like, okay, well, you know, if you have Killian Hayes and he's a real point guard, and he's better than Delon Wright, who's been awful, then, okay, maybe you're winning games now too. And I know Tommy you've said that you don't think that, that we even knew that thought that Jeremy Graham would play this well, but it's, you know, it also comes. up. It's come out that Weaver did want to keep Christian Wood. He just didn't want to pay him more than $10 million. $10 million. This is the, what's called the week's estimated average salary. And if you're at the estimated average salary or less, then you can sign a player with what's called early bird rights.

It's pretty, I don't know, for those of you aren't familiar with the CDA, it's a little bit complicated. I don't want to get into it right now. I think it would take a few minutes to explain. but yeah, the NBA, CBA is really, really complex. I've said it before. It makes the NHL's CBA look like a children's novel. So in any event, so he would have been happy to have Christian went on this team alongside Jeremy Grant if he could. And yeah, there's no way that team is in the low lottery. No, definitely not.

Definitely not. Yeah, so that makes me feel a little concerned. You know, I don't feel, I don't feel, I don't feel, this point it really makes that that Troy Weaver deserves the you know deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his judgment time will tell but yeah that that does concern me and I wonder what would happen if the Pistons did start winning and the Pistons were on the road to a lottery pick and I get the feeling you know this is purely purely conjecture but I get the feeling that Troy Weaver would not intervene at all and no no we haven't

gotten indication that he would so it's a safe assumption that he wouldn't that would And that would be a disaster. That would be an absolute and utter disaster. That would be bad. That would be bad. Luckily, you know, I can check Tankathon every day and roll the lottery and watch us get the fifth pick 25 times in a row. And I could go to sleep and a night happy. You know, and the schedule will get easier later on the season too.

So. Yeah. And maybe we'll see some wins that don't, that can be fun to watch where they don't have much of a bearing on the lottery. And that'll be fun. You know, ideally that the team is looking a little different after the trade deadline. And in that case, I guess it would be the youth playing out of necessity. So that might be a little more fun. So that's something to look forward to, I suppose.

Yeah, there's something to say about the trade deadline. I've seen some questions as to are the Pistons playing Griffin in these big minutes to showcase him for a trade. I would say no. I would say that. Well, they're doing a poor job. Yeah, I would say that's a couple things. Yeah, that's one thing. Blake Griffin is probably getting his minutes because he's Blake Griffin and Dwayne Casey is Dwayne Kaysie and his loading minutes on him in every situation.

in vital situations in an ever game. But if they were doing it to showcase Blake Griffin's trade value, then they have disabused, you know, then basically it's been an absolute and utter failure. Oh, they failed second accurately. Because the guy's being paid $37 million and he is far below an average starter. All right. So any closing thoughts? Well, starting lineup is probably going to pop up on Twitter soon.

So I'm going to read that. curl up in my Matthew Stafford, Jersey, and cry. Fair enough. I'm happy with the record sitting where it's at, but I guess it's better to be lucky than good sometimes. Wise words. Very wise word. All right. So that'll be up for today's episode. As always, want to thank you all for listening.

We'll see you next time.