Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 37: Midseason Review, Part One - Blake Griffin’s legacy, the Diallo trade, Sekou’s future, player grades

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

The first in our two-part midseason episode discusses Blake Griffin's legacy in Detroit, the trade of Svi Mykailiuk for Hamidou Diallo, and Sekou Doumbouya's status as the sole holdover from the pre-Weaver era and his future in Detroit, and finishes with midseason reviews and grades of Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee, and Saddiq Bey.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Drive into the Basket. My name is Mike. I'm here with Dante and Tommy, and this is going to be a halfway through the season retrospective. We're actually at 42, excuse me, not 42 games. That's what it would typically be in a standard 82 game season. This is a 72 game season. We're at 37 games right now. This is actually our second time recording this episode. We really didn't like how it came out the first time. So we're giving them a crack at it. So, yeah, today we're just going to talk actually first, because we haven't gotten a chance to talk about this just. yet. The departure of Blake Griffin and his legacy in Detroit, we'll talk about the trade, as actually transpired last night. We're recording this on Saturday afternoon, a few hours prior

to the game against the Nets in which Blake Griffin will not be playing because he's injured, whatever. And sorry, Blake had to take that little crack at you. And, yeah, so we'll be talking about last night's trade of Sveemichai look for Hamadou. We'll talk about our player grades for the first half of the season. We'll talk a little bit about the team's performance first half of the season, and we'll end that with Tommy's draft preview of Cumminga. So, Blake Griffin, as we all know, who's not headed to the nets?

He's actually on the nets already. I had departed from the Pistons. I think, I believe that was like the 12th of February. So he had actually been off the roster for, off the effective roster for three weeks was bought out, gave up $13 million in salary. And close to about $9 million of that will go toward next season's cap, which basically means he'll be paid.

I don't know, what is it, like $30 million instead of $39. So, you know, that's the only way, short of trading a player, that's the only way you're going to reduce his cap, it is to renegotiated buyout. So Blake gets to be paid a tremendous amount of money to go off and chase his dreams. The Pistons get to go further with the youth movements and don't have to play Blake Griffin. He's on a team he's going to play. It opens up a roster spot for what a little bit is worth at this point.

But yeah, it's the end of an era. Some people would say the end of an error. And this is definitely a big change for the Pistons. So I guess people, I know there's a lot of disagreements even at the time of the trade. Some people are very happy. Some people are very unhappy. We all know how it's gone. I'd say it's for the Pistons, given what they gave up and what they invested.

It definitely didn't go well. But, yeah, Tommy, what would you, in your opinion? What would you say, Blake Griffin's legacy in Detroit is? I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this because I felt like I kind of cheated myself out of really enjoying. a great individual season in 18 and 19 because I was really focused on the macro and the bigger picture. And all I could see was, well, this is really hurting us in the long term. And it has. We're paying a guy 30 million to not play for us next season. But on the other hand, it's almost like it blew up so badly or it ended so poorly that now we're finally doing this rebuild that

I have been hoping we'd do for a long time, especially since that trade. So it's probably the best case scenario for how that could have gone. But as far as Blake Griffin, the individual, it was a breath of fresh air, honestly. He worked really, really hard for the Pistons. And it was a lot of fun to watch. I went back and watched his highlights after the fact. And it was like, wow, this really was fantastic basketball to watch. So maybe it's not, it didn't end how we wanted it to end.

Not surprising to me, if I'm being completely honest. But I'm pretty happy with what Blake tried to do here. It was a professional and I appreciate that. Absolutely. Tom, I love that you said you appreciate what he tried to do because I was going to start by saying if, you know, if there's one thing that you can say about Blake Griffin's time with the Pistons is that, He did what he could, you know, and I think that he embodied that pretty much every single time he stepped on the floor, whether he was at, you know, his peak or whether his body was letting him down and he couldn't perform up to his fullest capabilities anymore. It's just, it's very easy to get lost in the macro, right? And to look at the situation and say, okay, we gave up assets for an often injured older player who in the end, all he brought us was a first round sweep, right? and then we buy him out and he's on the hook for more money when he won't even be playing for us.

But on the micro scale, right, on the day-to-day basketball, us fans tune in and watch it and we have him as a presence on our team, I think you can look a little bit deeper into it and you can see that this is a guy who did not ask to be traded here. If he knew he was going to be traded, I think it's safe to assume that Detroit would not have been his first choice. And yet there he is getting off the jet in the middle of a Michigan win. and he never complained once, not a single time. And he gave everything that he could to a franchise that at the time believed in him.

And if you go by his media appearances, his quotes, there have been some great articles written about his time in Detroit. I think that he had some level of belief that he could help turn the pistons into a winner again. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, at least not to the level that I'm sure management expected when they invested so much into him. but at the end of the day he gave everything he had every time he was able to give um so i'll always respect them for that and just as a as a brief uh little conclusion to this i you guys have

heard this so many times so humor me because i'm gonna have to say it one more time for the listeners but i was i was at game for uh against milwaukee um when blake came back with what looked like a it was like a bionic knee it was wrapped so much and uh i was there with a bunch of my friends and I don't know if you guys remember that game, but the Pistons had kind of, they had jumped out to a lead early on in that game. Everybody was playing well, and Blake was astonishing. He was so good. And then the game, obviously, you know, Chris Middleton and Janus do their thing. And the game gets out of hand and Blake gets subbed out when it's clearly lost and he's in a lot of pain.

And as he's limping off the court, you know, you can watch this on YouTube. It's all over Twitter. The crowd gets up, gives him a standing ovation, and starts chanting MVP. and it's like in the grand scheme of things all that is is a moral victory because we didn't actually get anything out of it he wasn't the actual MVP obviously but that's a moment where all the all the pain that you suffer as a sports fan especially us you know this past little while being a Pistons fan it hasn't always been easy but that that it's moments like those that that sports are all about right it makes you feel good it's a it's a lot of fun to watch and it and it can be

special, right? So that's something that I'll take with me for sure. And everybody who got to see that, it was a privilege to get to watch Blake play. So I wish him nothing but the best. And like you said, Tommy, if anything, if you could take a positive away, it's that this whole Blake Griffin fiasco kind of kicked off the rebuild because in the macro sense, it failed so spectacularly. So we got to watch like a year and a half of incredible basketball from him. and now we're moving on to a new era with absolutely, I would imagine, no hard feelings one way or the other. So those are my thoughts on the matter. Yeah, I hope he wins in Brooklyn.

Oh, me too. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that would mean needing to watch Kyrie Irving and James Harden win. I know. I know. I consider we the problem. Yeah.

Here's one thing. I will say there's been not, I mean, it's sure. This is people who are, whatever. There's been a narrative. Oh, did Blake Griffin, you know, he used to be such a great player, was he just not trying in this last season with the Pistons? And I think the, I would wager money to the answer to that is no. Like I said, Blake has been a professional since he came to Detroit,

absolutely a professional. The reason perhaps we did not see more from him in his first 20 games and that abbreviated first season with the Pistons is that by the accounts of his teammates, he just didn't want to step up and take the leading role away from guys. who had already been on the team, and they were very clear with him. I think it was Roger Jackson who said this, that I don't remember who. I don't remember exactly who that, you know, dude, you know, you step up and take this leading role as we want you to do. But, yeah, he's always been a hardworking professional.

He's, he only played 20 games for the Pistons, but he's leading the league and in charge is drawn. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I got to say probably if you're a guy who just doesn't feel like. trying and is trying to preserve his body standing still with the intention of being run over by other amazing athletes going at full speed down the floor is probably not high on your list. But it's really unfortunate what's happened to his body. That's just the reality of the situation. I mean, the guy can hardly move at the NBA level at this point.

Can't jump. Doesn't have anything left of the power he once had or very little of it or the explosiveness, even the lift. He didn't really have a ton of lift even during his all-MDA season. with the pistons. But back then, even, he was very predictable. He was going to take a spot. He was going to take a pull-up three.

He was going to post up, or he was going to drive the basket. He was so unstoppable. It didn't matter if he was predictable. And that very, very impressive sporting, whatever, you're going to say body physique, whatever of his, which was already much diminished by the time he got to Detroit. It seems to be largely gone at this point. So I think the guy still definitely was trying, maybe not his hardest, but 90% of his hardest.

Who knows? The thing is, he looked just as bad as this last season when he came back for those, like, 18 games. But when it comes to his legacy in Detroit, yeah, I agree the guy came in was professional, always worked super hard. It was always the first guy to die for balls, and I'm sure it was in the back of the heads

of his teammates, the coaching staff, most fans, it's like, dude, just leave the ball be, let it go out of bounds, whatever. It's fine, this is one possession, preserve your body. Yeah. And, yeah, I remember this one game against the Orlando Magic in that all NBA season, I think he actually did end up injuring himself a little bit. And it's like, dude, just let the fucking ball go.

Pardon the language. It's like, it's like this one possession. It's admirable. This one possession is not more important than your health. But, yeah, the guy definitely worked hard. I don't agree that he destroyed his body for the best. And some people have been saying this. I mean, his body was.

No, it was shot long before. Yeah. It was shot long before. The destruction had begun. yeah a long time earlier he'd already had he'd had four knee surgeries by the time he arrived with the pistons that number is now six yeah but if anything like that makes it even a little more admirable because if you think about it he was in pain before he got here and then he arrived clearly you know he he must have been extra sore after some of those backpacking performances

he put on in his early pistons tenure and he's in a lot of pain and he still went out and engaged pretty much everything he could. Absolutely. Yeah, he might not have destroyed his body for the Pistons. It might have already been destroyed and he worsened it. But that doesn't lessen the sportsmanship that he showed. Oh, I absolutely, I agree. The guy works super hard.

He took on a Titanic workload with the Pistons who pretty simply couldn't win without him. He was the offense. I mean, the roster that the Trey-A created was an abomination that really couldn't be improved. The Pistons were bound to have a horrifically bad offense. he was the only thing that really worked well. And yeah, so I can't disagree with anything you guys have said. He was professional. He put it all out in the line.

The trade was a disaster. We all know that. That's not his fault. I agree that part of his legacy, yes, it's going to be, he is not just that he came in and worked super hard and had a very successful season with the Pistons. And was more than that the first real leader of the Pistons it had since John Zillips. So that was 10 solid years in which the Pistons did not have anybody like him.

I mean, who was there in between? Like, nobody. Nobody like Blake, no. Nobody in general. No really veteran lead by example, highly effective player. There was zero of them for the Pistons guys. Yeah. No, I'm sure there were good leaders, but nobody at his caliber.

Well, nobody even, no one anywhere near his caliber. Nobody was going to be a stratosphere as him. No, nobody was going to even go out on the floor and be a leader. lead the team. I mean, the closest as far as leading the team was Reggie Jackson and his first season with the Pistons and he was not a leader. He was an egotist. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. So, yeah, absolutely. Very unique. Yeah, I, yeah, as far as the Pistons are concerned, yeah, I mean, this is the type of

player. Most, most teams have a player who will come out and lead the team on the floor at least into a degree, but to agree in the locker room. Whatever, I digress. Yeah, the guy waited out in the line for the Pistons. I definitely, of course, don't hold anything against him for the fact that his body failed him. It said that Trey was a disaster. it did lead to a rebuild. Whatever the case, I wish him all the best. Now, what is it going to mean for the Pistons without Blake going forward?

Unfortunately, the Pistons are probably mean there will be a better team. They already have been a better team. Yeah. Proud of that has been a schedule, but there's just been a significant jump in performance, not significant, but noticeable jump in performance statistically and in general since his departure. Also, the Pistons had been better even throughout the period in which he was playing for the Pistons, they were significantly better without him, the tune of about three points, better without him on the floor. More efficient, better at moving the ball, better at assisting, really better at everything but rebounding.

So now you're taking an ineffectual player because he was horrible. Again, not his fault. It's just he was bad. And you're replacing him with Bay, who's a pretty reliable rookie, who's going to perform better than Griffin. It doesn't come with any of Griffin's downsides. And you're moving Grant to his natural position, whatever that's work. So the Pistons will be a somewhat better team and hopefully not too much better. So moving on, the big news of the last 24 hours, of course.

This really came out of nowhere. This was a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Troy Weaver's old team, which was Svema Kailuk and the Pistons' 2027 second rounder. so somebody who's currently in like seventh or eighth grade. And yeah, so that was for Hamdo Diallo. Now, both McIuluk and Diallo are on their final seasons of their entry-level contract. They will be restricted free agents next season. So as it's been reported, Weaver, who was involved in making the trade that the draft

night trade that brought Diallo to the thunder in the first place was big on him. I've been looking at him since the beginning of the season, probably before, and Seism is a core piece going forward. So more or less, this is an audition. Well, for Svi, it's probably an audition. For Diallo, apparently, Weaver just really likes the guy. And again, and Seism is a long-term piece. Now, the fact that he's a restricted free agent means that the Pistons, if they put in the qualifying offer, which they will. It's only $2.1 million.

We'll be able to match any offer that comes his way. So I know none of us are super familiar with the LO, but yeah, Dante, what are your overall first thoughts on the trade? Well, my first thought was that Weaver's master plan of assembling the entirety of the 2019 slam dunk contest participants to be on the team. That's well underway. So we're about halfway done that. And then I reflected on it a little further. And we actually spoke about this briefly before before we started. recording. I think back to Donovan Mitchell versus Luke Kennard, right? And the way that I would connect

this to Hamidu Diallo is that, so we chose Luke Kinard, Stan Van Gundy chose him for what we assumed to be the safety of the floor of a good shooter over the athletic, the athletics, the intangibles of someone like Donovan Mitchell, who's maybe not quite as polished, but has a potentially higher upside. And so if you relate that out to Svi versus Diallo, it's the shooter versus the athlete. And what is Svi right now? Well, he was a terrific shooter last year. This season, the rate that he's hitting his threes relative to how many he's taking and the nature of the threes that he's taking is just not acceptable. And I say that as someone who's a big fan of Svi. I've always liked him ever since he came here and that Reggie Bullock trade with the Lakers. But he was not planning.

playing well. He wasn't. I didn't think he was a particularly good defender either. And so if you're shooting like 32, 33%, and you're taking these tough shots as well, you're not a particularly effective player, right? And so if we're able to swap him and like you said, a fifth or sixth grader for someone like Diallo who, yeah, he's not even close to the shooter that Svi is, but he's a lot better at everything else. And I think he's a whole year younger. I'll take that every time. And I'm a big fan of this trade. And if anything, I would actually predict that Diallo is going to be the starting two guard, maybe not his first game, but I think within a few games, he'll be the starting two guard because Wayne and Svi were kind of rotating back and forth. And I think Diallo is a better option than

both of them. And those reports that suggest that he's a core player moving forward, I trust Weaver's talent evaluation. I do. And so I'm very high on this trade. I'm a big fan of it. I like it a lot. And, And yeah, it's like I said, in most cases, I would take the athlete over the shooter in a vacuum as far as if you're looking for potential upside. So we'll see what Diallo can do. Yeah. Just to note that Diallo has been out since February 24th with what's been called a right groin injury. Oh, yeah, I saw that.

I think it was expected that he was on the men's, but he's still unready to return. He's already even ruled out of tonight's game with that injury. Okay. Okay. But hopefully soon, we'll see him. Hopefully soon. Yeah. Tommy, what are your thoughts? Yeah. I'm not sure I would agree with the idea of you take the athlete over the shooter. I know that that was, you brought up Donovan Mitchell. He has probably like the best case or argument for that case. But I like Weaver strategy of doing that with a few different players. He has Josh Jack who kind of had that problem of like super athletic, but maybe not the best shooter, Dennis Smith Jr. and now Hamadu Diallo, maybe one of those guys sticks,

and that athleticism raises their ceiling considerably. So if one of those guys pans out, it's a great value trade. All these guys, we brought them in for really nothing, relatively speaking. Houston's 20-27 second rounder and Svima Guy Luke, who was, yeah, like he said, not shooting particularly well this year. That's really not very high cost. And if it doesn't work out, it's not a huge deal. Totally.

So, yeah, I trust in Troy Weaver in terms of like this is a guy that he was there when he was drafted. And if he went out of his way to bring this guy to his new team, I believe in that. And even though I feel like Sve was just having a down year because of like the inconsistent minutes, it felt like he was kind of the odd man out of the rotation, I still believe in his shooting. Unless he starts like really lighting up opponents from three again, I don't think we'll look back on this trade and be like, oh, darn, we really screwed this one up. but like you said i don't think any of us know how i'm going to do all that well i know he's not the best shooter uh that'll be something that you want to see him improve with but the athletic symptom that he shows the slashing ability uh that's encouraging that's yeah if i could just clarify

too um about the shooter over the athlete debate i think that's contextual right maybe a little bit of an over exaggeration on my part but like say you got you know j j redick versus Stanley Johnson. I'm taking JJ Reddick, right? But as far as prospects are concerned, if you take a Luke Kennard archetype of a prospect where it's like, okay, we can anticipate that this guy's a very good shooter, but he's severely limited athletically and we don't project his ceiling to be very high versus a Donovan Mitchell who, wow, this guy's a crazy athlete, not the best shooter right now, not even really a good shooter, but we project his ceiling to be pretty high if he were to reach it. In that circumstance, I guess I'm just conditioned to want to take the athlete

because I think it's your athleticism other than these extraordinary cases like, say, someone like Luca Donchich, it's your athleticism that carries you to that next level as a player. If you're just a shooter, just a shooter, even if you're the best shooter ever, you know, you can only go so far as far as how effective you can be. But if you're the best athlete ever, like say Janice at Tenacumpo, your ceiling is ridiculous. So that's just to provide some further context. Obviously, it's dependent on the situation, but just as a general rule of thumb, that's my philosophy. Yeah, I mean, Mitchell is shooting 38% on threes for the year.

So the fact that he's able to shoot above league average means you still have to contest him out of the arc. And that really opens up his drive. It's not just that. He's taking threes with a high degree of difficulty, too. It's not just a lot of threes. I was going to say that too. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, definitely.

Later, definitely, athleticism is going to play determining role in your ceiling. Of course, you have to look at the overall context of the player. Yeah, in a vacuum,

if you want to go with the less athletic player, excuse me, the more athletic player who is a somewhat worse shooter. Yeah, I mean, you look at that. Just your athleticism is going to play a very big role in your ceiling. I mean, uh, you look at Blue Canard.

Yeah. I mean, he's got a lot to offer, but in terms of, yeah, it's just, he's, by NBA standards, he is not a good athlete, like by any measure. Yeah. Not just in terms of his weather mobility, his explosive and misses overall speed, even, even down to his wingspan, for example. And that was always going to limit his ceiling. I think he still has a lot to offer. He definitely has more to offer than he has this season, and he's offered this season.

I mean, he's just in a terrible, terrible situation for him. He was brought in to provide additional ball handling. and of course his floor spacing presence. Ultimately, he's on a team with a tremendous number of excellent three-point shooters so far and a lot of guys who are able to handle the ball this season. And so given that he's poor defensively, that goes down to his athleticism and his short wingspan. There's just very little reason for them to put him into the lineup.

But of course, Donovan Mitchell, I mean, that pick was all about, first of all, that pick was all about, you know, at its foundational level, a terrible drafter, a general manager who was awful at his job and dreadful at the draft. But when you look at the situation exclusive of that, is do we go with the guy with the high floor, but the lower ceiling because Karnar was always going to have a useful NBA skill. You're an elite shooter. You're doing a job in the NBA. Or do we go with the guy with the lower floor, even though Mitchell had shot decently in his sophomore

season at Louisville, with the much higher ceiling. and unfortunately the wrong decision was made, and it didn't make any sense in the context of where that team was. But nonetheless, back to what we're talking about now, I don't feel too strongly about, I mean, I like Sveed. He was having a down season. I see it as his down season. I mean, he was one of the best pure perimeter shooters in the league last season,

over 50 plus games, a good portion of which was spent in the starting lineup. He was, he shot upwards of 40% on, I think, think it was five attempts per game. And he could, it was not only, was he effective from, and just catch and shoot, or excuse me, spot up threes. He shot well on those high degree of difficulty threes from around screens, off handoffs. That's a very useful skill.

Ran the four well in transition, you know, showed some acuity as a passer at the NBA level. Of course, we know this season he's really been not good from the 3.1 by any measure, even wide open threes. I think he shot about 34.5%. he definitely has improved himself off the dribble so he's no longer just a one-trick pony in the half court but he's not great at that he's been super turnover prone as a passer and in general he was always just going to be for a good team he was going to be one of those role players who could come off the bench and hit difficult threes and maybe play a little bit more of a role in facilitating the

offense and these days in general but certainly these days the more guys who can handle the ball and pass better that's the difference between the guy like it's Sveen and a guy like Ellington who is not at all good at facilitating for his teammates or functioning as part of a passing offense. Nonetheless, for Detroit, I mean, if Sveen had been kept next season, it would have been like, you know, why not? It might as well do it. It could be useful role player going forward. He does not fit Weaver's archetype, really what Weaver seems to be trying to do, which is fill the team with long athletic players who are very switchable on defense. and just athletic players in general.

And I kind of had an uh-oh moment for Svi a couple nights ago against the Hornets when he got switched on to Terry Roger late in the game. It got torched. Yeah. It's like, yeah, this guy is kind of sticking out in that respect. Oh, for sure. Yeah, we were probably in line. No, I can't imagine it did.

It was brutal to end that game. Oh, yeah, he got torched. And, you know, you're watching that game, you're like, hey, yeah, go Svi. Way to go, man. Yeah, get wrecked. Oh, my God, he was terrible in the last three sequences of that game. He pretty much, I'm not going to say he lost the game because I don't think that one player loses the game, but he stuck out like a sore thumb as far as the type of team that Weaver's

trying to build. I completely agree with you, Mike. I completely agree that he does not fit the mold even a little bit. And so this really shouldn't come as a surprise. No, so when it comes to Diallo, I mean, one of the reasons. And he was well liked with Oklahoma City. and he was really succeeding this season as a slasher. He's been very good in that respect.

And they, you know, he's got a really good mentality, really relentless, hard driving. I know just coincidentally, they spoke about him on the low post podcast. I mean, you know, as much as, you know, if I'm going to pump a single other basketball podcast, it will be Zach Lowe's. I think very highly of him as a basketball analyst. It might be the best in the business. Anyway, they had Royce Young, who is one of the, I think one of the beat writers. for the Thunder who was talking about Diallo, and he said, you know, he qualified this heavily, of course.

He's like, I'm not comparing Diallo to Russell Westbrook, but he's like, yeah, he does, in terms of his mentality of just going downhill and his ferocity, but I think about him that way. He's definitely got defensive potential. He is long and very athletic, moves very well. And the reason he was, there are two reasons he was made available. Number one is he's a bad shooter, 28%. And being unable to space the floor means you come with a significant opportunity cost in the court. I mean, just the ability to space the floor is very, very, very important to your offense in general. So, and also, if you're non-spacing threat, it makes life a lot easier for the defense.

So there's that. There's also the fact that Dort had been playing so well for the Thunder made DEL a more expendable. So, Svee may be better for them. They definitely need more shooters. Maybe they'll keep him. Maybe it's just an audition for him. and we'll see. I'm satisfied with the trade.

I don't think Svees, by any means, a big loss. He's not a player with a high ceiling. I mean, he's athletic. He's pretty athletic, despite how he may look. I mean, it does have crocodile arms. That much is true. Yeah, but he's, yeah, but he's, you traded for a player with a higher ceiling. He was a player who is by no means indispensable.

And, you know, this is season one of a rebuild. So it's a trade I'm happy with, and it should be fun to watch. I expect Diallo to come out and jump over Shaq for his first dunk. Bring Shaq out on the court, you know. Yeah, at the very least, he'll be exciting. Like Diallo is very exciting. And even I think I might have touched on this last time. But like with Dennis Smith Jr.'s and Josh Jackson really kind of throwing it down to,

it is nice to see some athleticism on this team because I feel like we went through a period of like three, four, maybe five years where nobody was athletic enough to do those crazy. dunks and if they were like Blake they just had the injuries that wouldn't allow them to do it. So at the very, very least, at the bare minimum, the dunks we're going to see are very cool. Yeah, I guess. I mean, the Pistons have now had three slam dunk champions. I got, actually done contests champions on the team for the past three seasons. And that's all you need to succeed.

No, that's the formula. Yeah, that's the formula. We really should just kept Glenn Robinson because that's really all you need. That's why he is currently a star in this league, just kidding. he recently got waived by the Sacramento thing. Sorry, Glenn. Yeah. Oh, Gordon Robinson.

I forgot about him. Yeah, he actually, he played terribly for the Pistons, and then went out and had a pretty good season for the Warriors and the 76ers. So, you know, middle finger to you guy. Anyway. All right. So one thing to think about in the context of the Dielo trade is Sekudemboya, who now was shockingly, is, you know, about six months,

just how long has it been? I think Weaver took over West. June. So six months after Troy Weaver took over is now the longest tendered piston. Yep. Is that wild? Yeah, it is absolutely wild. You're never going to see that coming a year and a half ago, even a year ago, certainly, even nine months ago. In any events. So it brings up the question of, is Seku safe? Now, I think that takes it a little too far in saying, oh, does Weaver just want to get rid of everybody? But, yeah, Tommy, what do you think about Seku's potential future on the team? Yeah, before we hit record, I told you I was nervous about his future, but you made a good point. He does fit Weaver's mold of like these long athletic guys, and he was a project player. And even though he wasn't playing particularly well this year, and I don't even think he was that great in that decent stretch he had last year, capped off by that 24-point game in Boston, I think it was.

We knew he was a project player, and he probably would be in the G-League. right now. And that's okay. This team doesn't need him to be spectacular right now. We need him to be a contributor in like three years when this team is theoretically trying to contend. And Seiko is still, what, 20 years old right now? He's still young. I like his jump shot. I like the arc on his, on his three ball. That's important to me. And I think if there's something there, this team is going to be able to figure that out. I believe in this team's ability and this roster's ability to get the best out of each other because it seems like weaver is really prioritized bringing in guys who work hard and i think that like uh royce o'neill or whoever you just referenced on the low post

podcast uh said hamadu's another guy who tries really hard and attacks the basket that's infectious you know same thing with stuart right brice o'neill plays for the utah jazz so we're talking about you know what i thought that's who it was anyway uh yeah I'm pretty happy with, I believe that Seku can still contribute and I'll try to be patient with him, I guess is the biggest thing. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with the both of you. And if you guys hadn't brought it up, I would have brought up the fact that he's, Seku is literally the exact type of, maybe not the exact, but very close to the mold that

we see Troy Weaver trying to build this team in, right? He's the exact type of player. He's in that, that Jeremy Grant, that Hamadu Diallo, these big, long, rangey athletes. who, you know, shooting is a question mark. Obviously, Grant is a very good shooter right now, but just in general, those long athletes over the established more technicians, right? So as far as his Seku safe, well, we've just had the quote, right? Nobody's safe.

Like, if you offer me four good first round picks, anybody can be traded, right? So I don't, I wouldn't say that he's untouchable, just like I wouldn't say that anybody's untouchable. But as far as Seku specifically, yeah, you just got to be paid. with him. And if if you've watched all these games of his career as we've all watched, right? And you can't see that there's something there. There is absolutely something that could lead to him being an effective player, then I don't know what you're watching because he does have a quality about him where you can say, okay, okay, like this guy could turn into a good, if not great player. So we have

nothing to gain by trading him in my opinion unless something extravagant is offered to us. I'd stick with him for now. Like you said, Tommy, he'd be in the G League if that was available, but because it isn't, he's kind of getting these inconsistent spotty minutes and then doing whatever he can do when he does find his way on the court. But I would advise Pistons fans to be patient. And even though it wouldn't flabbergast me to see him traded, I doubt that that's something that Troy is actively pursuing.

Yeah, I think he's safe on the team as well. I don't think Weaver has, I mean, it would surprise me. Maybe you have some people who come in or just full of themselves, you know, in this kind of position or so full of themselves. It's like, I want this to be my team and I'm getting rid of everybody. It's so three things I think will keep second on the team. Number one, as I've already said it, is that he does fit the mold. He is long. He is athletic.

Number two, again, has already been said that he's, he's young and he's a project player. And I think this should be emphasized. When he was picked in 2019, he was taken absolutely as a project player. I mean, he was young at the time and remains young, not in age, but in terms of basketball experience. He didn't start playing organized basketball until the age of 13. Now, I know there are other guys who came in and were more ready for the NBA like Joelle and beat, got started late. So did, man, ashamed to beat, got started late and flunked, of course, but that had nothing to do with that. But, yeah, one of the worst second round, to second round pick,

excuse me, number two overall pick reaches of the recent NBA history. But I'm not comparing exactly to him to be failed because he had very little in the ways of NBA skills. He was just really tall. So when he was selected, the Pistons were trying to compete. He was not expected to see the roster, you know, to see the floor anytime soon. And it was put, I don't remember who put it this way, but whatever. You need to say this. ever, you know, this was the overall consensus.

This is a guy you're drafting for several seasons down the line. He ended up in the lineup because Griffin got injured and the Pistons pivoted to a youth movement to rebuild. And he's still in the lineup this season. Yeah, I would agree that he very well may be in the G league. Because if the G league were an option, the drive didn't go to the bubble. And, but it's not an option for obvious reasons. He's looked terrible. He's, he's completely, you know, he's clumsy.

He's in a way, kind of clumsy. He still doesn't really have a good sense for things. Like I said, he's very young, not just an age, but in terms of his basketball experience. And I don't think it's out of the question that when they drafted him, they thought that he might enter the lineup in the 2021-2020 season. So the fact that he's being seen now shouldn't detract from the fact that he's very much a project player. So I think that will keep him safe. And just like you guys have said, I think he deserves more patience from

the fans. It's like, yeah, he hasn't shown much yet, but he wasn't even expected probably to be in the NBA, period. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So he does, I would give up, if somebody would ask, when would you give up on the second, I would say at the end of his working contract. So if at the end of four seasons, he is still not looking like a real NBA player than to be cut ties. But the third factor that will keep him on the team probably is that you're never going to, you look at his potential right now, and then you measure that against what somebody might be willing to offer you. I mean, just the return is not, it's probably not going to justify taking the risk on, you know, giving up on a player who might develop into something. The other players,

the other Stefansky draftees, and, you know, you add Svi to this list as well. Weaver has traded away, so you have Svi, who isn't a draftee, of course, but he, he was drafted in 2018, so the same year as Kyrie Thomas and Bruce Brown. So you have him, do you have Brown who was traded away? Yes, he's doing well for the nets. The reason he's doing well for the nets is he's in a perfect situation where he doesn't do anything but cut to the basket, run in transition, and get rebounds, I guess. He doesn't have the space before. His weaknesses are not emphasized there because he's surrounded by superstar talent.

So, you know, if you wonder why the piss and straight Bruce Brown, it's because he was a 24-year-old with very little further upside who couldn't shoot, couldn't drive the basket. That kind of player is not very useful on most teams, a good defender, but not elite. So, and I'd say on 28 teams in the league, he would be what he was with the Pistons, which is an offensive liability and an overall minus player, maybe not 28 teams, but the net's the perfect, perfect, perfect situation for him. But you trade him because there's very little opportunity cost. I mean, he's very unlikely to get better.

Kyrie Thomas, who knows if he got a fair shake, but I guess he must have been judged not a much further upside out. Seku could have significant upside. So, yeah, I think he's safe. and, you know, I just don't think you're going to get much in the way of him. I don't think Weaver would trade him for a second round pick. No, his value right now is you're not going to get anything even remotely approaching something relative to what his potential could be.

Yeah, exactly. Like the way you phrased it, Mike, it's like what? So if somebody offers you, we'll give you a 20, 24 second round pick for Seku, it's like, why would I do that when, yeah, even though there's a chance he's never an NBA player, there's a chance that he's a very good NBA player. So you don't know what you're getting. I mean, if you get a With the number 15 pick

If you get the fifth best starter On a good team Thumbs up Yeah, not terrible Not a terrible. Not terrible at all If you get a long-term Like a starter

Yeah, if you get a long-term starter Who is solidly a starting caliber player With the 15th draft pick Then fantastic, you've done a good job So And I would err on the side of I think Seku could be become a viable starter.

And it's like, okay, his performance this season, it kind of bumps him down for me from franchise cornerstone. Like I'm so excited about this guy. I'm so fired up about this guy to, he's just kind of there now. And he's like a lottery ticket. We'll see how it goes. But that's not necessarily, you know, a terrible thing to have is a big, tall, athletic, rangy player who could potentially turn into something greater.

That's not the worst thing that's stashed on your team. Absolutely not. Yeah, I agree with what Tommy has said in the past, which is that Seku's really hot starts to his rookie season. It was about two weeks. Some of it was just right place, right time, being in the right place for cuts and easy baskets and whatnot. So I don't know if I was this excited. But you're just thinking about Seku.

One of the reasons fans, business fans are so excited about him is there's been very, very little to be excited about. Oh, for sure. It's all measured relatively, right? It's all measured relatively. absolutely it is so um but about his cuts to the basket though that is a skill that is a tangible skill and a lot of people say oh we're just get like you could even say about bruce brown like well you're only getting these baskets because it's created for you and you happen to find yourself in the right place at the right time but it's like if that was so easy how come not everybody does it

it's not that easy you have to have a nose for uh finding the soft spots and defensive coverage and you're quick you have to be quick and long too yeah you have to have good quick mental processing um you got to be twitchy and you got to have a nose for the basket right so i'm not saying that it's this crazy skill like say james hard and step back but it is something you know it is something so i wouldn't dismiss it as not not to say that you were doing that mike but i wouldn't dismiss the prowess that he's shown as just a product of being in the right place at the right time because he has shown a mental acuity for finding the net um now it's a matter of putting it all together yeah uh don't know i mean i don't want to just repeat what you've said i mean what are you're

what are your thoughts? Yeah, when I was referencing that Boston game and I said easy baskets, I mean, some of them were just like he got out in transition or he was the trailer and he got an easy put back. Some of those were actually this season, I think he showed quite a few of those just like he caught his defender sleeping and he got under the basket. So that's something, but I don't think you can bank on that as like a building. I'm more excited about his three-point shot.

Yeah, he's got a nice stroke. Very good mechanics. Very good mechanics. His mechanics are good. I've just noticed that in some situations, like he'll catch the ball and bring it, bring it over, and he'll be leaning, for example. There are just some situations in which the shot looks a lot better than in other situations. He doesn't have a broken shot by any means.

He's got a very nice high arc, which is nice. Very nice high arc, yeah. Yeah, it's just about taking time to develop that. Yep. But if you have a player, yeah, who's a good offball mover, we can shoot three. He's at a reasonable clip and you can play decent defense and he's far off from being able to play decent defense. But I think he's got it in him. He's got the physical tools, no doubt.

He's got the physical tools. Yeah, again, even if he's, even if he's a guy who comes out and plays 20 good minutes a game, I mean, that that still is a very reasonable return, a 15th overall pick. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You guys want to do third grades now. Yeah, moving on. All right.

So we will start with the definitely, he was the big off-season acquisition, and he has been the most important player for the Pistons thus far. And that would be Jeremy Grant, who's definitely come in and. surprised everybody. I mean, not just amongst Pistons fans, but in the NBA in general, he was given three years, $60 million. That was a contract that was really roundly pilloried, as in here's a three-and-d player, and you're paying him this amount of money. Of course, it's come back. It's a very good value contract now. A half-season later, Grant, who was previously just a three-and-d and finished player who created very little offense for himself and, you know, generally fell flat in his face when he tried. And has now become...

the primary creator for it, granted, one of the worst teams in the league. And I'd say he's a guy who's best fit to be the second or third option on a championship team. But he's been the best performer, probably the on-court leader for the Pistons, a super hard worker. And I'm just going to go through for every player. I will, I'll just give kind of a random stat. It's tough to give it actually not a random stat, just a kind of exemplary step. We put it that way. For Grant, honestly, it's the hardest for any player.

the team because he is just improved and really across the port in every respect, though. I mean, you look at the guy from last season to this season. Last season, just 12 points per game and hardly created any of his offense. He created 15% of his own offense last season. This season, it's 34% of his offense that he's creating, which still isn't a huge number compared to some. But that's definitely a big increase. He's doubled his scoring.

he's almost up to about 24% excuse me 24 points and he's he's not too far off he's 2% off and true shooting from last season so just just really a remarkable performance a remarkable improvement by Jeremy Grant's who really bet on himself to come to the business what are your thoughts on on Jeremy Grant's performance this season don't he no he's he's been wonderful like it's so it's so refreshing and it's yeah it's a breath of fresh air to see a guy who very few people believed he was capable of more than he's shown. Then he goes out on a limb and he says, you know what? I want to be the guy.

And he's rewarded with a season that, okay, maybe he hasn't garnered any accolades yet, even though I think we're all sure he's going to win MIP, nothing in the way of All-Star or All-MBA, but he's been awesome. And I've touched on this on the podcast before, the idea of diverse scoring, right? And the one thing you look for in Star players is scoring diversity, because unless you're, you know, Shaquille O'Neal and you're so dominant at this one thing that you do, that you're just unstoppable no matter what the defense knows that you're going to do or how they position themselves or try to stop you, you need to be able to score in a variety of ways.

And Grant offers high-level scoring in more than one facet. So he can shoot the three both open and corner and at a high degree of difficulty at a pretty good clip. and then his mid-range game is, it looks like the poor man's Kevin Durant a little bit, like the way he's so long, and then he just pulls up over you. It's probably my favorite shot of his. Honestly, it's gorgeous.

Oh, man, his mid-range is not too good, though. I mean, he's hitting those at kind of low to mid-30s right now. Yeah, but it looks good. But it does look good. I love what you said, Dante, about having a variety of ways to score, even if he's not making them this season, being like a threat. Oh, Jim. We both have some threat.

the same time yeah yeah no that's great though because yeah it's it when he has some like more talent around him uh it's gonna make him a much tougher guard and even if he's not the number one option on a great team i think he can do it really well as the second best option oh and having that extra extra trick in his bag that's gonna be huge exactly hey i couldn't agree more i couldn't agree more tommy so it's the three he does need to get like that up to him an acceptable percentage but As long as he's keeping the defense, like, locked on to him at all three levels, that's great. Completely, completely agree. Like I said, I couldn't agree more.

So you got the three. You've got the mid-range who, okay, yeah, the percentage isn't quite there yet, but the threat of it is enough. And then you want me to jump over you and dunk it? I can. You want me to contort my body and do an athletic, twisty layup, I can. And then in the event that he does get to the rack and he's just overwhelmed by the defenders jumping to block it, he's developed a nice kind of dish out. kind of like in 2K when you got the bailout badge

and you can just throw it midshot, he does that and he's improved at it. So what you're looking at is a guy who has increased his repertoire times of billion. I never really saw this type of diversity when I would catch those playoff games he had with the Nuggets,

but it bodes well. And he just turned 27, which yeah, it's not young by NBA standards, but it's not like he's 33, 34 years old. He could still further him. improve. And I think he's a very good defender as well. So overall, if I had to sign a grade, I don't think you should get an A plus unless you're like an all NBA, having an all NBA type season, but I would give him a solid A. And then maybe you could bump that up to an A plus when and if

he wins MIP because that's pretty cool. I don't know if any other Piston has ever won it, but that that would be a big victory for Pistons fans, I think. And these recent reports about, you know, Boston wants to trade multiple first round picks, it's like, all right, Okay, just leave us to own. That's a month, actually. Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was. I do believe they've had, I bet you Boston is called at the bare minimum.

I bet you a lot of teams have called. I don't know, man. Danny Ains probably offered like a bag of basketball as in like, yeah, he's got to kill you in every trade, you know. He's not going to make it. But that came from that rumor actually was, was James Edwards, just one of the writers with the Pistons,

was talking about something that's, that the Celtics, play-by-play guy, I think it said on a broadcast, and it took off from there, and James Edwards came out on Twitter and said, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. There were rumors of Boston having interesting grant, but I think it's the close that. Yeah, that's that spun off from that. But yeah.

Yeah, it's good. A lot of teams have interesting grant. And only 20 million, I would agree with you, Dante. I'd give him an A. He's a great value. Terrific. And I didn't even mention the contract, which at the time you're like, oh, that's a bit of an overpay for a three-e-e player,

but then it's like, oh my God, he's playing at an all-star level. Yeah, for sure. So it's an easy thing for me. Yeah. And I think he's a building block. I think he's a building block. I think he can stick long term. Lots of people have said, okay, now he's boosting his stock.

And then when the team is ready to compete, or like, you know, we could trade him for more assets, whatever the case may be. I disagree. I think Grant is going to stick around and be here. And I'm happy to have him because he is so fun to watch. He is so much fun. Love having him out there. it's like you're watching the game and then you blink and he's got 30 points.

It's awesome. I should mention, I forgot to say this before, how we're going to grade players is just based on expectations. Yep. So, no, yeah, not in a flat scale. If a player, you know, we'll go with A is if a player has substantially exceeded expectations, is playing super well, B, a player who's playing pretty well, still above expectations. C, player who is barely meeting expectations. And D, of course, somebody who falls below them.

And, yeah, so when it comes to Grant, yeah, I agree he's around long term. Weaver's actually been very open around that, sees him as just exemplary of the culture that he's trying to build in Detroit. And so also worth noting that the reason Grant came to Detroit, and James Edwards of the Athletic wrote a very good article about this, was not simply because he wanted to have more offensive responsibility and wanted to bet on himself for what would be his last big, contract. He'll come in a free agency at the age of 30 and at the 29 actually, excuse me, 29 going on 30. And that's, you know, as an NBA player, that's your last real chance to cash in. But also wanted to come to a city with the large African American population, play under an African American coach, an African American general manager and have the opportunity to help out,

you know, to really help out in terms of his. impact on the community. So I'd say that's another reason. You don't, you don't have a guy just come in for those reasons and say, okay, sorry. You know, I know you came here for those reasons, you know, in addition to your desire to have a bigger role. But we got some assets. See you. No, you don't do that. There's a human. There's a human aspect to it also. But also just Weaver. Weaver loves the guy. Yeah. So I agree he's sticking around. The only, the only instance of which I could see him leaving is if something really unexpected happens or if somebody offers him in 2020,

20, 23, somebody offers him an enormous sum of money at the business just aren't willing to match. But, yeah, I agree. Definitely give Jeremy Grant-N-A. He is, for me, substantially exceeded expectations. I didn't really care at the time that the business had given him that amount of money in terms of, oh, is he worth that? It's more just really rather if you use that money to absorb some bad contracts,

if that could have been done. Who knows, maybe Batum could have been an option back then. but and there's also with grants I mean an opportunity cost of taking him on is that he increases the chances of the pistons will be bad enough next season to really get another high pick nonetheless if we're just looking purely and we are just looking purely at his performance yeah he's done great he has gotten a crap beating out of him because he I mean he's he's been asked to create so much offense off the dribble he's really good at getting into the baskets I mean, you look at him just in terms of his biomechanics are excellent.

Yeah. He takes really long steps because he has super long legs. He keeps the ball high up. And he'll just kind of curl around. He absorbs contact super well. And just kind of his arms, he's clearly very strong in the core. I mean, his arms just stayed very solid. The ball's high.

And then he throws it in, you know, he weighs it up into the basket. He's very good of doing that off the backboard. He's even doing it. He's even pretty good at flicking it across his body with his right hand. And he's just generally done well at everything. Yeah, he has. Yeah, he has been a good shooter. He's been good on the way to the basket.

I guess he hasn't been so great on pull-ups, but if he can develop, that's still fantastic. And I'm not going to complain about him taking inefficient shots for the pistons. We've talked about this in a previous episode. It's like, yeah, I'm not rooting for him to fail, obviously. but if he wants to take some bad shots, it increased chances of distance losing any game. I'm not going to be too upset with him.

No. I feel like, okay, fine. You know, work on your game. And if it helps the pistons to lose, then great. You know, awesome. That's a big thing this season. Yep. He, you know, he's been good.

He's even been decent as a role man. He's definitely been good. He's just been good at everything, really. As an ISO score, he started off stronger than he's done lately. I think you brought this up, Dante, I think he was, I mean, he's, he looked exhausted for a while. I think the break, the All-Star break was a big thing for him. And ultimately, I think he's a player who, if the Pistons managed to, to see the improvements that they hope for will be the second or the third best player, second or third option in the offense, and that'll

allow him the opportunity to be more efficient. And he's been quite efficient, 57% for a guy who's creating a lot of offense and is the primary option scoring 24 points. That's good. I think he could be more efficient than that if he weren't counted on to to score on so many difficult opportunities and on such a high workload. His defense hasn't been as elite as it was, but that's because he's been and he's been, he's been relying on such an offensive load, right? Yeah.

He's still been good. He's still drawing the difficult assignment whenever he can. And he's been, he's definitely been a plus on both ends. The Pistons aren't, I mean, throughout much of the season, they were absolutely terrible without him on the floor, just in terms of his on-off. And not quite as good of late.

Again, he struggled for like the last week or two before the All-Star break. But nonetheless, the Pistons are five points better with him, and without him, of course. You know, he's been the best player in the team, no doubt. All right, so moving on to, we're just going to do these. And I guess, no particular order.

We'll step with the starting lineup first. Moving on to Mavis. Mason Plumley. So Plumley was the other, yeah, Tom, excuse me, Dante will have not so great things to say about Mason Plumley. I don't feel quite as bad about him. But so Plumley was the other big off-season acquisition, of course, came on at a contract that, as with Grant, a lot of people laughed out, including me.

I still don't know if I, I feel better about it now than I did back then, because he's definitely a kind of player I really like hard worker who plays exclusively for himself. I mean, Grant, I think, is the same way. Plumley, his fun stat, he is fourth and assist percentage right now amongst centers. Everybody knew he was a good center coming in. And he has been given a lot of opportunity in the offense as part of it to be a facilitator, particularly with Dennis Smith Jr. on the floor. Plumley is really doing much of the facilitation.

But, yeah, all right. So why don't we start? I'll give this one to you, Dante, because I know you really don't like Mason Blumley. Not just because of that. I'll put it differently because you feel very strongly about him. We'll go with that. Okay, I'll put it this way. I have an opinion that I think is worth expanding upon about Mason Plumley.

Is it cool to put it that way? However you like. I just wanted to clarify that I'm not just going with this because I want to hear you say bad things about me. You feel the most strongly about him of any of us. I have the most to say about him. Okay. I think the grade that I'm going to give them would shock you guys. Are you guys ready?

I'm going to give him a B. Okay? Oh my goodness. Which I think is probably above what you guys thought I was going to give them. And the reason for that is because, okay, let's start with the positives. So when I saw that the Pistons had signed Plumley this off season, I was devastated, ruined my night. And I remember thinking, why in the world would we sign who I deem to be at the time

a backup level center who can't space the floor for, you know, not a huge contract by any means. but a somewhat significant one, something that limits the amount of bad contracts we can take on for assets just by its mere presence. So I wasn't happy. And then you kind of go into the season a little tainted, right? Because you don't like a player's contract

and you're not expecting them to be good. He surpassed my expectations as a player. So he plays hard. The guys seem to like him. He seems like a good dude. He can score at a better rate than I thought he could. his rebounding, it's, you know, it's decent, it's whatever. But mainly the thing that I like about Plumley is that I think he fits pretty well in the offense.

So I'll give him that. And then the biggest asset of his, and I'm going to attribute this one to Troy Weaver and put a feather in Troy Weaver's cap, is that he went from what I thought was an albatross of a contract, just a gross, gross, terrible contract to apparently, based on multiple reports, he's an asset. and teams are calling about him willing to give things up to get him. So just on that alone, he earns a beat. My frustration towards Mason Plumley doesn't stem so much from him as it does Casey's usage of him.

And the reason I say that is because we have Plumley putting up not gaudy stats, but good stats, where he looks like a mini Yokic light if you're going by the box score. When in reality, I would go with What is the way But Atama you would know this If it's not poor man's yokic You know

Bankrupts man's yokets or something Yeah Anyway He's bankrupt homeless Living under a bridge Yokic How about that? Yeah sure one And that's because of how Casey uses them

Right So I think the more I hate being like Oh casuals whatever But I think Pistons fans Who don't actually watch the game and just, you know, look at the score, look at the stats. They say, oh, Plumling's been pretty good.

And I would concede that he's been better than I thought he would be, but I don't think he's been a good player. I don't think he's been a super effective player. I think that he's been made almost, not almost. He's one of the focal points of the offense. He runs the point out there sometimes. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. And so he accumulates stats just kind of, I've said this before.

He accumulates stats just kind of by being there. And I don't think what you're seeing on the box score is indicative of the quality of player he is. So I had discussed this previously, but I don't expect him to be traded because I think Casey and Weaver really like him. But the fact that he's a positive asset right now makes me really want to unload him

for just the best offer we can get. So I don't hate the player himself. I hate his usage in the offense, one, because it's not fun to watch. And two, because I think it changes the narrative around him in a way that's not necessarily indicative of reality. So for those reasons I'd give him a B and I know that that's a lot to say about Mason Plumley.

I've probably talked more about Mason Plumley just now and expanded on more thoughts than maybe anybody in the course of human history. But it's just a lot going on in my brain about him. And I don't think I've said anything you guys would necessarily disagree with. That's just my general sentiment about him. I would just say that I think it's by design.

But before I get into that, I don't really mind the fact that he kind of handles the ball. We knew that he was a decent pass. are coming into it. And that's kind of his way of making himself useful away from the rim, which was one of the biggest problems with Drummond was that he wasn't. If he wasn't near the rim, his defender was just kind of hanging out with one foot outside the paint, trying to make somebody else's life really difficult. Plumley can, I mean, he does this thing where he fakes like a jump shot, which we know he's not going to take, but at least his defender is like

following him out of the paint. So I think like what you said about him being a backup point guard who's playing the starting role, I would agree with that. And I think that's by design. Like, we all know Plumley's not the best defender. He's not the most athletic. You can't switch him on to the perimeter. He's the weak point of the defense. And for a guy who I'm referencing this Troy Weaver quote, Troy Weaver really values rebounding. And Plumley is not a fantastic rebounder. I think that's all by design. Like, I think this is one of the ways that Weaver is trying to have the team play a good play style without winning. I think that's kind of Plumley's role here. He makes the team worse, but he doesn't make the offense worse. He makes the team lose,

but he doesn't have us playing a losing style of basketball. So I appreciate Plumley's role, and I don't think he's overpaid anymore. And I think he, another interesting thing, actually, was that this was one of Casey's guys. Casey really wanted him. I just thought that was really interesting when that came out over the weekend but that's off topic i think he's playing his role really really well and i think that the detriments that we've listed are intentional and i think they're kind of the reason that we're in the running for a top pick well if that's the case if that's the case on me yeah then i'll then i'll agree with you if it's by design and it's all intentional then i'd be a lot less bullish on him than i am but i just i have trouble believing

And maybe I don't know if you were speaking for Troy Weaver and Casey or just Weaver, because I could believe it from Weaver's point of view. But I have trouble believing that Casey would be in on putting something out there that gives us a worse chance to win or a greater chance to lose, I should say. So if you're right, then that's an awesome theory that you came up with. And I hope it's true. And I completely agree with you and credit to you. I just don't know if that extends to Casey's line of thinking.

I think Casey probably just likes him for the person that he is. the player that he is because he is like taking care of the ball and working hard and I think that's a good thing for the culture of the team but maybe we were looking and it's like yeah this guy's not going to help us and uh maybe they'll play winning bass or a winning style of basketball anyway so I don't know that's that's my tinfoil hat theory on mason plumley I'm sticking with it that's a good one it's a good one I'd subscribe to it I didn't catch you say you gave him a B I gave him a B okay both gave him B so it is it is interesting we'd be taught I mean given that the pistons are not trying to win, we don't talk quite as much about

players in the context of their chiefly in the con, I guess we are talking about them cheaply in the context of their performance. When it comes to a player like Plumley, maybe not so much, I mean, otherwise, you might talk about, you know, how he's been incredibly foul prone or whatever else. But, yeah, particularly with Plumley. Okay, yeah, you guys put it into context. The guy's not really paid very much. He is a backup caliber center playing a starting role for one of the least successful teams in the league this season. So you do have to look at it at that context.

He is playing out of his element. So it's not that we're not talking about him in the context of performance just because the team's bad. It's that you talk about it in terms of, yeah, what the reasonable expectations for him are. He has paid about $8 million a year. Now, what was so difficult for me about the Plumlee contract on the day it was signed was that it punched my confidence in Troy Weaver. And it was like, oh, goodness, what we've gotten ourselves into. Me too. Yeah, and that was how I felt that day when we saw salary, you know, you saw Dedman get,

to get waved and stretched. It's not that I really particularly wanted to keep Dwayneedman. It's just like, oh, boy, what is happening? This is really bizarre. And, you know, you've spent, you know, when you count stretched salary upwards of $90 million of the next three seasons for Mason Plumley and Jeremy Grant for Denver's regular seasons, the back of front court. So I will say absolutely without equivocation that, yeah, I thought Plumlee would just be a negative

trade asset for good. It's not easy to move a traditional center these days who is, you know, with very few exceptions. It's not easy to move a traditional center who's making more than a minimum salary. So in any event, the, yeah, Plumley is... Yeah, so when it comes to Plumley, as we said, we are looking at a guy who is just a, hey, I'll agree with, so I have never agreed with what you said, Tommy, about, about Plumley just being brought in to be deliberately bad. But there may be some truth to the fact that, well, he was brought in, I think, primarily as a culture guy. That's why you give him three seasons, you know, as opposed to just one or whatever else. I still understand why he was.

Yeah, I still understand why he was given the trade kicker. That was a little weird. but yeah he is a good fit for a team that's not trying to win a guy who is going to come in and do some things that help his teammates and is going to come in and play hard but is not going to be too good i mean as we all know you could have had christian wood as well as jeremy grant but you would have had a team that was probably playing for the in eight seat again without much room to improve so uh yeah plumley he is i don't think he's played as well as some people think. I mean, compared to his contract, sure, he's doing fine. But again, he's a backup quality center playing starting minutes. So he's played a significant

role in the offense as far as playmaking goes. He hasn't actually been quite the role man, people expected. I mean, I think the role man narrative was a little bit overdone from the beginning just because you got rid of one of the best role men in the league to bring in Mason Plumlee. But his role in the offense has largely just been as a perimeter playmaker. And And one area in which I do look at it, do look at his play and say, okay, yeah, he's not a center who's too good, is when I see him on the perimeter alone, because when he was signed, I was, you know,

I felt pretty strongly about, you know, I wish I would have liked to have a stretch five, just so these young players can grow up in modern offense. But then I see Mason Plumley left wide open on the perimeter, and I'm like, okay, yeah, it's probably best he can't shoot because otherwise he might be a little bit too good. And, but yeah, he's done. his job is a perimeter playmaker.

Certainly a lot of the time when Dennis Smith Jr. is on the floor, for example, Plumley is actually doing most of the playmaking. And, yeah, he seems like he's been good for his teammates. And he's a hard worker. He says he's absolutely a team for his guy. But, yeah, he just, in terms of starting centers, of course, it should be noted he actually hasn't been good at all. And that's fine.

He's maybe the 25th best starting center in the league. I mean, if you look at Marcusal, who has not been good, Tice for the Celtics, who has been decent. You know, maybe he's been better than Plumley. Nerlin's Noel, who's paid like $5 million a year and has just been all about defense for the Knicks, who have been a very good defensive team. Cody Zeller, I don't know much about,

I'll be honest with you there. And DeAndre Jordan, who is better described as the corpse of DeAndre Jordan, who somehow has declined from super athletic, all-world defender to cannot jump. or it just doesn't feel like it. So I shouldn't say that Plumlee has been good because he hasn't. But for what he's paid in the role he's in, yeah, I'd give him a B as well.

All right. So moving on to Sadiq Bay. So Bay came in as, well, he was one of the best. He's come in and he's done very well as a perimeter shooter. It should be noted that he was one of the best shooters in the country in the NCAA. Really from how it's been. put, a bay was drafted later just because of concerns over his ceiling. Like, how much more is he going to be?

I don't remember who said this. But the question was, as one of the draft gurus, it might have been, it was Besseney, I think, San Bessini from the athletic, one of the best of the business in terms of draft coverage. If you're interested in the draft, I'm not plugging in the athletic here for any reason, but that I think very highly of him. Same with Zacklow. If you want a guy who's going to analyze draft prospects, I'd say Bacenny's probably the best you can get unless you really want to pay for ESPN Plus.

I don't know much about Schmitz and Gibney. Nonetheless, he said that the question about Bay at the draft was how much is he going to be. But he's come in and he's done well. This certainly is a shooter. He's in the starting lineup now. I'll get into more of my opinion on him later. But his stat of the year in terms of catch-and-shoe players in the NBA to catch-and-shoe three-point shooters who have attempted at least four per game,

He is number 10 in the NBA at 43%. So, yeah, we'll move to Dante now. Unfortunately, he has to go soon. So let him get his opinion in on Sadiq Bay. What have you been your thoughts so far? Well, I feel fortunate that before I have to head off, I can talk about Sadiq because it's like he's my son. It's like he's my little brother.

I'm so proud of him. Every time someone says Sadiq Bay, I just smile. Like, it warms my heart. He's, I feel like you guys probably feel similarly. He's just the best, man. I'm like he's here's what I'll say about Sadiq Bay before I sign off. I think I was actually just talking about this with a friend the other day. And we actually touched on it a bit when we first started talking about how we're going to be assigning these player grades and talking about Mason Plumley, whatever.

Because of the state that the Pistons have found themselves in the past five, six years, we tend to look at players not really in the context of how are they performing and how are they helping us win, more so. in like how are they performing that we can then extrapolate out to kind of sense where they're going with their development, right? Like it's not necessarily about winning now. It's about seeing flashes of things that are positive and kind of give us clues as to what they could turn into. So we don't evaluate players like someone say, like say a 76ers fan would evaluate how well Joelle Embed is helping them win about how well he's helping them compete for a championship. And the reason I relate that to Sadiq Bay and why you could see that he's, been pretty special as far as Pistons rookies are concerned is because I feel like you could

pluck him off of this team and put him on any other team in the league and he makes your team better. As a rookie, he's a good player. He's not just the allure of a good player, the potential of a good player, or we're seeing these trades about him that we hope can develop. He's good right now. I would argue he's very good right now. I think he should be taking more shots than he already is taking and he's he's luckily found himself in a bigger role. I think it should be even bigger because like you guys said, he's a lights out shooter. He's awesome. Slumped a little bit recently there, but he's starting to round back into form. His mid-range to paint percentages have not been great, but he's shown an aptitude for at least bullying his way into the paint and

finishing over taller defenders, which is a very valuable skill when you're starting to talk about ceiling. And then as far as athleticism goes, I know that that's a big reason why he fell in the draft, but we've seen some crazy dunks and dunk attempts from Sadiq. He's flashed athleticism that I don't think any of us saw in his game of Milanova. He's got some lift. He just doesn't have the burst. He doesn't have the burst, but he's got the lift. Like he went for a poster a couple games ago. I forget who it was against, but I remember thinking like, oh my God, like he just tried that. And one of these days he's going to get it to fall. He's, going to land that poster and we're going to be like, okay, we've got a guy who can do that.

And he's also a light out shooter. So overall, I would give, I would give Sadiq Bay probably an A-minus because I think a A-plus range, like I said, that's for, you know, if you're winning some kind of awards, right? But I would give him an A-minus for sure. And the reason I'm so fond of him is, yeah, like I said, he's not just the allure of a good player, like we've been accustomed to as Pistons fans. Like, that's what we're looking for. He's an actual good player, which is terrific to see.

Yeah, my thoughts about Bay, definitely having a good season based on, really based on any metric, obviously, it'd be different if we're dealing with like the first, second, third overall pick here, but Bay was selected number 19. So what has he done well? Obviously, his perimeter shooting, as I noted earlier, he's been, at least in terms of catch and shoots on guys who are attempting high volume on catch and shoot threes. he's been one of the best in the league. He's hit 46.5% of his wide open threes. That is a fantastic mark on pretty good volume. Not quite as good when he's contested. Well, even lightly contested.

He's only shooting about 34.5%. It's still an efficient shot at that point, but you'd like to see him improve that. He hasn't really attempted much offense in the interior, particularly in the restricted area. As we don't know, he was horrible, horrible, from inside the arc for his first few weeks, like 20% or something like that.

As he was really still struggling to find his place. The thing is with Bay is just not very explosive. That's really the main knock against him, athletically speaking. It's hard for him to build up a good head of steam when he's going downhill. He just doesn't really have that in him. Like we said earlier, he's got good lift.

He just doesn't have good burst by any means. It doesn't have great lift either. It's pretty good, but not great. That said, lately he's improved to a degree, at least in his restricted area scoring. Since the start of February, he's around 62 and a half percent on low volume. Maybe like one, I think about two attempts per game, maybe. Of course, he's not really creating those for the most part. But he's actually done fairly well at finishing through contact.

He's strong. On defense, he has surprised me a bit in that he's been better against the smaller, quicker guards rather than against forwards, against stronger forwards, because he's real good at moving his feet, and he's really good at stripping the ball also. He's just, he's excelled of that throughout the season. He's just good at getting the ball loose from the opponent. So, also, on offense, he's been a pretty good passer on very low volume. He's, he's been fairly good, well, this is completely irrelevant. I was going to say, he's been pretty good on the pick and rule on low volume, but it's such low volume. It doesn't really make any difference.

So overall, wise beyond his ears. A guy, I think he has a certain capacity for improvement as far as how he can participate in the offense. Right now, even since he's reentered the starting lineup long term with the departure of Griffin, it's largely just spot up threes for the most part. But I think just for a guy who's as intelligent and hardworking as he is, I think he'll find additional ways to be involved. So I like Odante here. that it's difficult for me to give an A to a player who is not just absolutely blowing it out of the water, exceeding expectations.

But I definitely give you a bay and A minus. I still don't know really how he projects on a really good team, hoping that the Pist has become a really good team. I'm not sure how he projects. But I'd say either he'll be your maybe top, top, top, to ceiling fourth best player. I don't think that'll be the case. I don't think he'll ever be that good of a score. But I think he'll either be your fifth best player on a team like that. or like a 25-minute bench player.

So I'm real happy to see how he's done so far, and I think just his maturity and his work ethic weave the door open for him to see a fair amount more of improvement. But as I've said in the past, but his long-term limitation is going to be his athleticism, but nonetheless, I still think he can be certainly a valuable player. Yeah, I agree with what you said. I would say that going back to like his role long-term,

It's more important. I agree with you that his relative ceiling or his expected ceiling would be like the fourth best player on a championship team. To that I would say at that point or in that role, it's more important that you're really good at supporting the one through three guys. And Bay's play style really does do that because he's a floor spacer, good defender on and off ball, very aware player. He's not going to eat up a bunch of usage. and he's just going to be there as like, you know, the guy you kick the ball out to for the three, and maybe you get him curling off screens. I think he'll continue to expand his offensive game in ways that are just useful to, or in the sense that he's going to make it easier for the guys who are going to have to carry more of the offensive load.

And in that sense, I think what he's shown so far is already pretty acceptable, but I think he will continue to expand his game. Like you said, not the best athleticism. That was probably the reason that he fell all the way to not. But I think me personally, I'm pretty hopeful that he'll maybe not correct that, but work around it. Like we've seen a little bit more footwork and dribble moves on the perimeter when he wants to drive inside. And that's been really encouraging to see. And then he's been backing some of these smaller guys down. I think long term, there's a decent number of good guards in this draft.

So maybe you want him to play the three, especially if Killian ends up playing. playing the two, which is kind of the role that I envisioned for him as to right now. But I think he can do that. He's got that flex. He can kind of fit a variety of roles. And I think that that'll be very, very useful to this team long term. Right at the beginning of the season, we kind of talked about how I, at least I mentioned that I thought he had starting potential. And he's exceeded that expectation.

I think now at this point it's just going to be a matter of can he work around this lack of athleticism and be a more effective multi-level score because even if he's just a guy who's knocking down threes yeah he's going to demand coverage but if he can take advantage of the fact that his defender is playing him so close that'll really really help him especially if the pistons can get a floor spacing center and he can take advantage of the the space and the driving game that he's starting to develop so as far as a grade i would give him all things considered i would give him an A. He's been better, honestly, than I expected. And that's, it's just been so much fun to watch.

He's, even with this, that little streak of bad shooting, he's managed to come all the way back, and he's now shooting, I think, upwards of 40% on the season. So I'm very, very happy with him. And I have no problem giving him that full A. Yeah, I agree that it's going to be a big deal for him if he can find somebody to attack off the dribble. He's done started, he's begun doing. so in rudimentary fashion of late.

But it's largely when he's, when he's succeeded, it's been by making an AN1 through a lot of contact. But even if he can just get to the free throw line, you know, fantastic. I think it's something that will come just because he's an intelligent player. I think he'll find a way to work around it. He doesn't have terrible athleticism. It's just a matter of burst.

There's also some biomechanics to it, and I've noticed he's adjusted this to a bit lately. He leans over quite a bit when he dribbles, and he's gotten better about that. If you're leaning over that much, it's really, it's not great for getting, you know, for really getting yourself moving quickly. I would imagine that's something that they've been working on. It could be completely wrong.

But I also think that once the Pistons do establish a lineup, whenever that is with better spacing, just his floor vision and his ability as a passer will also come to the fore. His, I don't think he'll be a great passer, but he's certainly able. He's certainly always looking to make the right play. and in NBA offenses today, the more guys can handle the ball and pass the better. I mean, that's just such an asset. It's very different from how it was, you know,

six, seven years ago when you just have a point guard or even less than that if you're the pistons, you know, back in the Redoux Jackson, early Roger Jackson days, when it's just you have a point guard who's doing all the handling. That is old. And it's an old way.

It's not a good way. You don't want it to be that way. You really wants to have a lot of movements and the ability to move the ball from all your players, so that that'll be valuable. So that'll be it for part one of what has turned into a very long episode. We will pick up the remainder of the player ratings, starting with DeLan Wright in the second part of the episode, which has been posted concurrently.