Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 72: Big Trouble at Little Caesars: Making Sense of Detroit’s Tough Season (so far) - Part One

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

This episode, the first of two parts, breaks down the Pistons' persistent struggles to date---from players to coaching to happenstance. 

Welcome back, everybody, to Drive into the Basket, part of the Basketball Podcast Network. I am Mike, joined as always, by Tommy and Dante. Fellas, how you doing? Oh, between the Lions and the Pistons, I'm in a stellar mode. Stellar. Yeah, it's been an interesting week for us. I think this is probably probably the most arguing that we've done through the course of a week. And that's accompanied by four Pistons losses since our last episode.

We recorded, I think, the day of, like, right before the LeBron and Stewart fight, so we're the last ones to react to it. So, all around great week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, hopefully we can get into all that and more, but little late to the party. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Yeah, first off, also, happy Turkey Day to all you Americans out there.

We're recording this about a couple, two days after Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving as well to all of you Canadians. I know it happened in October a few years about. Dante, I suppose in this, we have absolutely failed to be a properly inclusive podcast. So shame. You know, what can we say? We're not perfect. In any case, let's move on to the most interesting topic of discussion, though, as Tommy

has said, were the latest to the vote on this. And this would be Isaiah Stewart and LeBron James. Who wants to jump in here first? Tommy, I know you got some strong feelings about this. Why don't you take it away? I don't know, man. I guess I just loved it. you know, I really appreciate the fact that we're establishing like an identity. And Isaiah Stewart,

I think Reggie Miller said it. He is solidified himself as one of the guys in the league that you just do not mess with. Nobody's accusing this guy of being a fake tough guy. And right now, every time you see an NBA fight or like guys getting in each other spaces, it's always like, hold me back. But no, Isaiah Stewart, man, did you see the way he broke like six tackles on that third charge? Like, he was ready to kill LeBron. It was amazing. I won't say, his name, but like somebody called me and they're like, Tommy, are you seeing this? I was like, yeah, dude, this is amazing. Dude, it was nice. I loved it so much. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, do you want to say his name? Was it Adam Silver? Yeah, it was Adamson. He's like, Tommy, what do I do?

Who gets, who gets suspended? Yeah, he made the wrong. That was lame. I don't know why. Why does Stewart get two games? Probably because he knocked over a bunch of personnel in the course of his rampage. Yeah, that could be it. But I, I mean, listen. And I don't want to condone violence on this show. I mean, I want to be responsible. Lots of people listening to us. You know, I'm not going to get on here and say that what transpired is good, you know, whether or not I enjoyed it, which I did, similar to you, Tommy.

I don't want to say it was a good all around event. But I think what kind of struck me as very odd is it seems like a lot of people reacted in a way where it was like, you know, I can't even believe that Stewart got that. Like, how do you get that matter? And it's like I just wonder, you know, if these people who are pushing this narrative have ever played a sport or gotten in a fight. You know, it's when you do something like LeBron did, like a closed fist, it was a punch in the face. That's what it was. He punched someone who's 20 years younger than him in the face during a basketball game.

It doesn't surprise me that someone like Isaiah got mad. And I mean, look, I've personally watched every single second of Isaiah's MBA career. He's definitely an agitator. You know, he pisses people off very easily. he's a very physical, agitating game, but I don't think he's ever crossed the line into extending beyond the bounds of basketball to inflict intentional violence on someone. And that's something that LeBron did.

So as soon as Isaiah started gushing blood, I mean, I don't know if either of you have ever sustained like a head or face injury, but, you know, I remember one time I got popped pretty bad in a soccer game, and you don't realize you're bleeding at first. And then when you sort of feel that, you know, that warmth, and then there's like this wet, it's a weird kind of thing. and then you realize that the most vulnerable part of your body is gushing blood. It's like it's a rush of emotion, right?

So as soon as that blood started pouring out, I was not surprised at all that Isaiah was upset. You know, just as a human being, it's aggravating. You know, it's scary. You're probably a bit panicked. And then you feel this rage, right? So as much as I don't condone what happened, I understand it. And it was, it was, I watched the replay quite a few times that LeBron was petrified. And he would have, I don't know if you guys saw it.

but there was that boxing line that opened between Stuart and LeBron. I'm taking Stewart every time. I'll leave it at that, probably. Yeah, he would have to remember to box, yeah, I'm fairly confident that Stewart, who is what, like 17 years younger. Yeah. And has done a lot of boxing in his life, I believe. Would probably take that one.

Yeah, whatever the case. I thought it was an incident. I got a little bit of a kick out of the second. and hold me back when he then made a really quick curl and then busted through, yeah, like eight or nine tackles. Yeah, the fake note. Yeah, it was at that point, it just kind of reached comical proportions. So I would say with respect to Isaiah, sure, be a passionate guy.

Unfortunately, nothing bad came out of it. What really could bad could have come out of it is somebody could have been injured in the course of him just busting through people. And a lot of those were team personnel. I mean, it should matter, period. but a lot of toast with team personnel, I think maybe I'm wrong about this. But he might have knocked down even one of the assisting coaches. Yeah, he did.

Yeah, even just knocking down, you know, one innocent bystanders too much. So in that respect, I would say, you know, next time be a little, you know, be pepped up, be intense, be whatever, but be a little bit more mindful of the innocent bystanders around you. So. Yeah, yeah. Great defense. Cade, by the way. Oh, yeah.

That was, I don't want to extrapolate too much from that, but that showed a really good amount of leadership from Caternal awareness, certainly. Situational awareness. And to put yourself in harm's way like that. And like, that's breaking up a fight between guys that big, you know, and as angry as as Storr was, that reflects very well on Cade, in my opinion. To throw him. And Cade was the one who was, after Casey, Cade was the one who was talking him down.

Yeah. He came also, you see his football background. He came from a diagonal angle. He didn't try to stop him. from in front. Anyway. Yeah, about LeBron, I don't buy it when he says, oh, it wasn't intentional. Oh, that's such a lie.

That's such a lie. Yeah. I stopped liking LeBron around the time of the China incident when it became clear that, I mean, that's a different story. That's a very different story. But on the court, I mean, yeah, the guy can be a bit of a weasel from, you know, at times certainly a flopper. And in this case, just a weasel.

So, yeah, I don't believe it. I wish you could just own up to it and say, yeah, in the moment I got exasperated and I clipped him in a face. But I guess that would be bad for his brand. So, yeah, this is what Isaiah does. He's all about effort. And sometimes that irritates people because he gives it his all all the time. That's what he was drafted for. And I'm really glad that he continues to embrace that and make that his identity.

I think he takes pride in that and that'll continue to pay dividends for whatever team has him over the years. Yeah. I'll tell you what. Nobody's going to clip Isaiah like that again. like if anything he stood up for himself he made it very very clear like i play an agitating brand of basketball that gets physical but the second you cross the line you're done you know so i was proud of him for standing up for himself and he was like it doesn't matter if it's a random bench player or if it's lebron james i if i'm feel disrespected you know if i've been injured from somebody's

negligent action someone's reckless action i'm going to go after them i'm going to defend myself so i listen i i i don't fault i say at all i mean yeah maybe try to not to knock down your own team's personnel next time. But other than that, like, it is what it is. And if anybody feels otherwise, I would encourage you to get punched in the face by LeBron James and see how you feel. I mean, we can say it wasn't a straight punch in the face, but nonetheless, somebody decides to clip you right in the forehead around your eye and makes you bleed.

Yeah, it's going to piss off a lot of people. And that's realistically, Stuart, one of the negative impacts of it, and you can say positive negative, depending on where you, want the pistons to be going this season. What a negative impact is that it left the pistons really without a viable center of any stripe, and that's probably why they lost the game. When he could have just sort of mixed it up a little bit with LeBron in the course of, you know, that first being held back, which I think was genuine.

I don't think that for those talking heads or whoever, I don't like the term talking heads, whoever wants to say, oh, why didn't he just pop a ground the second he got up? It's like, number one, he's dazed. He wasn't bleeding yet. and number two, I would imagine it's to his credit that his first thought wasn't to just launch himself bodily at somebody. Whatever the case, if it had just been that first thing of just him being held back

and being very heated, then it's LeBrono who gets ejected and the pistons probably win instead of just ending up with no rim protection. So that's something he does need to take forward into the next such incident, I would say. Yeah. But it just brings to mind for me hockey. Like hockey, fortunately, fighting isn't a big thing anymore.

it was a big thing back in the 60s, 70s, the 80s, into the 90s, and then as waned into the 2000s and certainly into 2010s, and now there aren't very many fights at all. Back in the day, it was, okay, you hit our star player, then the enforcer or somebody else, you know, that could be even a score. I mean, there were your odd guys like Brendan Chanahan, now for the Red Wings who would do his excellent score, who would also fight. Whatever the case, you go over and the guy did the idea is that he gets crap eaten out of him.

now on paper that sounds fun but for the guys fighting all the time it means bad things like for some of them CTE yeah uh and you know Bob probert who was I was literally able to say Bob Probert yeah yeah he died in his 40s I believe he was in his early 40 and it was really tragic I read his book actually recently it's funny you brought him up what a tragic life um but also a crazy life and I mean yeah you're right like the violence is glorified in sports but when it's something like hockey you know when people are just getting popped in the face. And my dad actually was, he wouldn't call him a friend, but he said he hung out with Probert a couple of times.

He used to spend quite a bit of time in Windsor. And he said that that guy's knuckles looked like he had ping pong balls implanted under them. So it'll mess you up. Yeah. Like you had, what's his name, George LaRoc, who ended up in Canadian Parliament, I believe, in the Green Party. Whatever the case, he said that he retired.

He retired a fairly young age, and Lerac could score some goals. I mean, it wasn't a good score, but he wasn't like the sort of pure enforcer that no longer exists in hockey today because you can't fail the pure enforcer. You have to roll four lines. But he said that he retired in part because he felt he was setting a terrible example for kids. But other parts of his interview, like that some guys, some enforcers would get drunk before games because they were terrified. They knew they were going to have to go out in there and fight, whatever the case.

So it was just a striking difference from hockey in that respect. That's all. And also, like in hockey, you have your agitators. just like your actual pure agitators. Yeah, like your Red Wings fans. Sean Avery's, yeah. Sean every kind of. Kirk Maltby was very good at this.

Yeah. At the best of all time, probably, oh man, I'm completely blank on his name, Barnaby. He played for, like, for a bunch of different teams, but Matthew Barnaby, I believe. And just the idea was to piss guys off and make them do stupid shit, and then you don't fight back.

So for Stewart, obviously Stewart isn't a weasel, like, you know, it isn't just an agitator like that. But, you know, if you can play hard and get other people off their game and then let them do the stupid shit that gets them kicked out, you're better off that way. Of course, this is just a different story and it's something you'll have to take the lessons, you know, the lessons forward from it. Yeah, I agree with that.

Yeah. Right. Suspended for two games. And I don't know if you guys remember, but like right before that Lakers game, Isaiah had, he had a scary fall and we thought he might be out for an extended period of time. And we were all questioning it was, I think I even said on that episode, like, if Isaiah of Stewart is going to be out for a while. We're going to see the value of Isaiah, of Isaiah Stewart because we were talking about

strengths and his deficiencies. Yeah. Yeah, his strengths to this roster. I mean, magnifying. Exactly. I don't know if I would, yeah, I don't know if I would categorize it as his strengths as a player on his own merits. Not that he's not good, but I think it reflects more on the poor state of our big men, you know,

the poor state of our front. Exactly. Yeah, we can take that forward to. I know we had that to talk. about too. We've talked about it before, but just, yeah, what's happening amongst the centers and in terms of rebounding with this team, for example. And just some ways in which, you know, it's possible for Troy Weaver to be good. It's possible for any general manager to be good, you know, to make a lot of good decisions and some decisions that aren't quite as great.

And I was kind of, I had some trepidation about this in the off season when I saw that the Pistons basically, for example, had no third string center. It's nice to have a third string center. And that their backup center is kind of like a tweener who can't really protect the rim and it doesn't really have a very strong interior presence. Yeah, that the guy behind him for whatever reason was Luca Garza. And we've seen that Garza has, well, it should be predictable. Garza was going to have issues.

The guy is just not quick enough. And that's going to have ramifications. But even beyond that, I was thinking at that point, like if you want to put Stuart and Olinick on the floor together, who's your backup? Or if you just want Olinic to be on the floor, maybe he'd be functioned better, power forward in some cases, but you just can't have Stewart on the floor because you've got to rest him.

Who are you going to play that and bring a guy in who can just catch lobs and finish strong in the interior? Like, I've constantly pooh-pooed Isaiah Hardenstein because I just don't think he's all that good of a player. But if you had to choose for your 15th roster spot, you know, maybe you choose him. I don't know. I had a discussion with somebody about him versus Jamarco Pickett, and I advocated for Pickett.

But in retrospect, this is a rebuilding team, yeah, but you still want to be able to play a viable NBA game. Right. And we just have nothing on that in the rotation. And right now it's – I don't know what more there is to say about it because it's like, yeah, in the offseason, we should have signed a third string guy. But if you look at the current state of the team, it's a lot of guys playing out of position. and playing against guys that they ordinarily wouldn't be playing against. And I guess I feel like some guys are being unfairly criticized for it. Like Liles is playing at the five sometimes.

Grant is playing at the five sometimes. And they struggle. Their power forwards and they're playing against big men who have gotten more and more skilled over the years. Like, I mean, just going back to like 2015, 16, 17, everybody thought the big man is done. PJ Tucker is playing center. Well, the only thing that happened was centers got more. skilled. They're still big, but now they're just a lot more skilled. And for the guys who are too small to hang with them, it's just a real struggle. And right now the Pistons just, they don't

have anybody with that type of size other than Isaiah Stewart. And Kelly Olinick, even as our backup center, he doesn't really have the size to play against, like, true big men. So the pistons, yeah, they're just struggling in the front court. And that's trickling down all through the roster because guys are just playing out of position and really struggling with the roles that they're being assigned to right now out of necessity. I would certainly agree with the two of you. And I think, too, this kind of generates a broader discussion as it pertains to Troy Weaver.

You know, I'm a big Troy Weaver guy. I'm a huge fan of a lot of what he's done. I mean, anybody who's listened knows that the three of us are not huge Troy Weaver critics ever, if at all. But I think he sort of, as Mike likes to put it, he sort of kind of flubbed the front court situation coming into this season. And yeah, it's like we said, we understand that it's a rebuilding year. We understand that you're not necessarily pushing in all your chips to try and be as competitive as you could possibly be.

But if the theme of the season is development, you know, and the theme of the season, at least it should be to put your young guys in a position to succeed, I personally don't understand how just an embarrassing lack of rebounding, an embarrassing lack of rim protection and really no viable big outside of a lot. Isaiah and of course, Olinic being a tweener doesn't really count. I don't see how that's conducive to, number one, a good product and number two, an environment in which your young guys can thrive. So I, yeah, I sort of question what Weaver was thinking. I think it was a bit negligent to go into the season with the personnel that we did in the front court.

And unfortunately, you know, we're seeing the results and they're not pretty. Yeah, I would say to, but perhaps this isn't along the same pain, Tommy, is what you said. that sure, you sign a winnic because you want more spacing at the five. Okay, that makes sense. You know, you want that shooting. You want the shooting around K. You want that shooting in general. But the other things that centers provide, like, rebounding and rim protection,

interior defense, those are still important. You can't just say, oh, we need more shooting. And, you know, that's just more important than everything. Shooting is the most, you know, the most important skill in the NBA right now. But that doesn't mean you can just load on it. just pretty much load in on it and just ignore certain other very necessary skills, especially when when doing so leaves you with very, very, very, very, very little of them. Yeah, we are talking about viable rim protection.

We are talking about rebounding, interior scoring, just beneath the basket, the ability to catch lobs, stuff like that. I mean, of course, you're not going to say lobs or an integral capacity to many team. They're just a nice thing to have. So obviously that's kind of, you know, a different category from strong, restricted area scoring or rim protection or rebounding, whatever. But yeah, it just left the pistons very, very, very, very, very, very weak in that respect. The last time I checked, this may have changed in the last couple of games. They were the worst rebounding team in the league.

Basically, Stewart is the only capable rim protector. Olinick is not. Lyles is not. Garza is not. They're all bad rim protectors. We're not talking about Olinic just significantly below average. The other two bad. and it's yeah it's just it's a problem i mean and it's center sure it's just center center's still

important it's not nearly as important as it used to be but it is still very important and the pistons are weak in some very important areas and you can say okay they're not trying to win but still if you want to be able to play a real NBA game and the pistons have some struggles in that respect right now not just but shooting in those categories also right and right now kate is just it's glaringly obvious that Cade is missing like another part of his offense. It's like another, his other half, essentially, of the pick and roll, because right now we just don't run very, very well at all. When you want to get to Isaiah, it has to be a dump off pass because you can't throw it high to him because everybody else is going to break up the play. But just going

back to Troy and this discussion on roster construction, part of me is still hesitant to call this negligence on his part. I know it sounds crazy. But I know when Troy Weaver was first hired, I don't remember the question that led to this answer. But the answer always struck with me. And I've brought this up before. Troy Weaver knows the importance of rebounding. He was like some stat that he brought up where he was like, usually the team that wins the rebounding game wins the game. It just, I cannot subscribe to the idea that the man who said that, like two years ago, like by his own negligence, who is trying to,

to win and constructed a roster that is now currently last in rebounding. I just, I feel like Troy Weaver doesn't want to be too good, too fast. Maybe he wants another high draft pick. Maybe he just wanted to see what Isaiah Stewart was capable of. I don't know, but I don't think it's purely by negligence. I think they're trying to not compete too soon. And as a guy who's like pro rebuild and has wanted a longer rebuild for the sake of the completion of it, I'm okay with that. So I just don't believe that Troy Weaver just was like, no, we don't need rebounders, or he just didn't think to bring in guys who could do that capability. Yeah, I don't, I don't, and I didn't mean to imply that he didn't think rebounding was important.

But would you subscribe to maybe the idea that he overestimated the rebounding and the rim protection of guys that he brought in? Like, I wouldn't call it negligence in terms of ignoring that facet of the game. I would call it negligence in really just expectations being way off. You know, I don't, it's like I said, I don't think that they were pushing for any serious contention this year. You know, obviously not. Oh, for sure. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that he deliberately sabotaged the roster.

I don't know if that's something I'm prepared to it. Yeah, maybe he didn't think it was going to be this bad. And then Kelly Olinick has been out for a couple weeks. He's going to be really out of it. Kelly Olinick is not a strong. He's not a, yeah, he's not a. I mean, this is, here's the thing. He didn't show up the center position a little bit nicer than this.

I don't, I don't agree with calling it negligence, for example. Like, I think it was a mistake. And I don't absolutely do not, do not in any, you know, to any degree whatsoever, think Troy Weaver looked at this and said, okay, well, we need to make sure that we're bad. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to be sure that this team is horrible at rebounding. Like, absolutely terrible at it. I don't buy that. I don't think he did that.

I don't think any GM would do that unless it's like the pro. Again, the process era sixers who are just trying to be as bad as they could possibly be, period. If you're talking about, Troy Beaver calls it a restore, rebuild, whatever, a team. You want to field a team who can do stuff reasonably well, like reasonably well enough that they can play a functioning game, that they're not getting obliterated on the boards, that they're not getting annihilated in terms of trying to protect the rim. Yeah. That is not the way to build a team. To develop a team, even to take young guys and say, okay, well, you know, we're, you know,

just our goal is to build you. We're probably not going to win too much in the way of games. Even in that situation, you still wants to be able to put forward a functioning product for their, even if only for their sake. And that's not the way to do it. I don't think there's any chance. Well, insofar that there can't be any chance at all.

I don't think there's any reasonable chance at all that Troy Weaver said, okay, well, this is the way in which are going to be absolutely terrible this year. And, you know, there's the shooting also. But I don't think that he deliberately flubbed at an aspect of roster construction. I think that's highly unlikely. Maybe. I could see it happening, honestly. Like if I was trying to build a functioning offense while that you could like practice a functioning offense while still losing games, that's probably how I would go about doing it. Well, if the goal was to create a functioning offense, I mean, I got news for you.

This is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that transitions us into our next topic. I know we wanted to touch on the offense, which which would sort of branch out. out into a broader discussion about Dwayne Casey and what's going on here. So I don't know. Do you guys want to start with maybe the offense in particular?

How do we want to tackle? I mean, here's the, so there are two things. There is the fact that a lot of players are playing poorly at the same time. The Pistons are a horrendously bad shooting team. A lot of players are in slumps. Whatever. That is what it is. And it's going to be tough to win games if you can't shoot.

In parallel with that, you have the issues with coaching. It's possible for, you know, those two things. can exist at the same time, and they do exist at the same time. Say whatever you will, Dwayne Casey has a decade long history as a poor offensive coach. He's a competent defensive coach. His players like him. He's historically been pretty good with young players. On offense, he is not good, period, full stop, end of story. And he has not really grown in that time. So Casey is as an offensive coach, very simple-minded, not good at adaptations, not good at innovations, not good at making adjustments. He basically just throws it out there and maybe you'll

change something in between one game and the next maybe, but even then, he is not by any means whatsoever good at all at getting the best out of his individual players on offense or even running the best offense. In Toronto, it was all about running his best players on ISOs. He let them do whatever they want, but they're just constant ISOs. And you saw the same thing with Blake Griffin in this first season, the season in which KC1 coach of the year, Masayujiuri, the very, very competent general manager. The Raptors said,

okay, well, after this flame out against the Cavs in 2017 and the playoffs, we're going to a modern offense. And Nick Nurse is going to be the one to build it. Nick Nurse, who was an assistant at the time, is going to be the one to build it. And basically,

you look at that, it's like, well, Dwayne, sorry, you're losing the offense. We're giving it somebody else, and he's going to update it. And Casey won coach of the year that year, which I was he wasn't. deserved. So this is Dwayne Casey. He is not going to do the right thing on offense. That is just the unfortunate fact of the situation. So, you know, there's having the discussion, of course, and I think we should have it. But there's also just a measure of acceptance that that is going to continue

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minimum $5 deposit and $1 wager required. One per customer, restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And if you have a gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler. Yeah, to say the least, he's going to continue to do things that don't work very well. I mean, Tommy sort of referenced this in the beginning of the episode, but I, you know, in the two-ish years that the three of us have been, you know, year and a half-ish that we've been doing this show together, I don't recall the last time we were so divided on a topic. Like we've basically been arguing for like two weeks about, you know, how much blame do we ascribe Casey and how does the, construction of the roster and the talent and Troy Weaver factor into this and you know what's going

on with there there's things we're going to touch on later in the episode in regards to development but the the idea and I think Mike did a pretty good job of summing it up but this is my basic thesis my basic thesis has always been that you know a team can be untalented uh but a coach can also be a poor coach at the same time I don't believe those two things are mutually exclusive at all and you know you're you I'd imagine a lot of our listeners or Lions fans too you're seeing the very same thing, just a few blocks away at Ford Field, you know, the lions are less talented than the Pistons. So a lot of the fan base wants to say, look, Dan Campbell is, you know, he's working with what he's got. But much like Dwayne Casey, I don't think that the lack of talent on a roster

should exonerate you from really terrible coaching decisions, you know, I just, I don't, I find that to be a very unhelpful viewpoint. And at that point, if you're just going to say, hey, look, the team is bad, what are the coach is supposed to do? It's like, what's the point of going online and talking about the team? What's the point of having these conversations with your friends? What's the point of having a podcast? It's like, you know, we've got to analyze what's going on. And I think what's going on is independent of the talent, you know, Dwayne Casey is not a good coach. And I think that a good coach can get more out of a bad team than a bad coach can. That should go without saying. And Dwayne Casey, you know, I don't know.

I'm not in the locker room. I'm not there for the team meetings and what's going on off the court. But on the court, the product is not good. And I think that when your head coach is a significant part of why the product isn't good, it's essential that you're able to criticize them. It's essential that you're able to point out, look, here's where the deficiencies are. Here's where the head coach is failing. And Casey's failing in a variety of ways.

And these, like Mike pointed out, are, ways that are just ingrained into him as a person. You know, he's not going to all of a sudden run a revolutionary offense at 65 years old. Like, I've said so many times, I live in Windsor, you know, this is Raptor country. The amount of Dwayne Casey hate that was prevalent during the years where they kept getting balanced from, during the Lowry and DeRosen years where they kept getting balanced. Like, it, it, for a team who is so successful in the regular season, it's very telling that Casey could never have success in the playoffs. very telling.

So, you know, I want to let Tommy jump in here because I don't want to misrepresent what he thinks at all. But we have been arguing about this pretty much nonstop. And I think it's a critical discussion to have if you're going to be intellectually honest about the state of the team and where we go from here. Just a tick. And I'm pretty sure Tommy, you and I were ripping on Casey before I even became the coach of the distance, weren't we?

And so was I. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't want to be a coach. Yeah. You like to talk about his secret plays. Yeah. Well, I'll admit, I stole that from the Toronto Raptors. So that's their thing, and we've kind of adopted it because he's our coach now.

Yeah, secret plays are running. Yeah, exactly. Give a player with ball. Yeah, give a player with the ball and say, please do something with it. Top speak, right. And, well, there's a few things. When we ripped on Casey, it was when we had Andre Drummond, I think Reggie Jackson was still on the team. Like, we were still trying to compete, and that's what Casey was brought in to do.

and at the time, like, if we're trying to compete, Casey's not the guy you want. But right now the Pistons are not trying to compete. There are a organization that has torn it down, and they're trying to reestablish a, like, a new culture. And we used to hate that word, but now that it's, like, kind of coming about, like, the Pistons have probably got the strongest identity that they've had since the going to work years. Like, we are a strong defensive team. The effort from the guys out there is great every night.

credit to Casey for that because like guys are buying in and part of that is certainly Troy Weaver drafting guys and bringing in guys who have that personality and who are very coachable and will work hard. But Casey is now coaching a team that is rebuilding that is kind of restarting, reestablishing. And that's actually what he's good at. And we remember Casey got that one year extension. So now I think he is coaching, his contract expires after the 20, 24 season. And if at that point we're trying to compete and Dwayne Casey is still the head coach, like they keep going with him, yeah, then I'll have a problem. But right now, we just need to be a stable organization where guys aren't really, where the locker room is doing well.

And other than Hamadu, things seem to be going fairly well. Like the team seems to get along. And that's a difficult thing to do when you're losing games like this. And right now we just need to kind of see the long term and stay the course. You know, if you try to rush or rebuild, it's not going to work. You know, that's not the solution. The solution is make incremental improvements and see the bigger picture. And I think managing the locker room, establishing an identity, that is Dwayne Casey's strength. And he's done that very well up to this point. So I just wouldn't say that, well, here, I'll let Mike respond and maybe then I'll say more. Yeah, I mean, I'll say it's possible to be good at some things and to be very bad at other things.

Yeah. It's needless. So what you're talking about is positive qualities, those just kind of exist. Those are persistent positive qualities. Great. You're good in the locker room. You know, you're good at maybe establishing a culture. I think that a lot of that boils down to the personnel and not just Dwayne Casey,

and that it's not necessarily Dwayne Casey being strong at that. But yeah, he's good at the locker room. His players have always liked him. Young players always like him. I seem to do fairly good with them. And he's a competent defensive coach, sure. You don't have to keep being this horrible on offense. You can look at your own flaws and say, okay, maybe this isn't working.

Maybe we can make some changes. Maybe I can change the way I operate. Maybe I give one of the assisting coaches. This is a reverence to Nicknors, of course. That maybe I give the assistant coaches, one of the assisting coaches more of a say in the offense. He doesn't need to continue doing crap that doesn't work over and over and over and over again, just on a constant basis like he has done for his entire career. That, I don't think, can really reasonably be condoned.

And sure, the pistons are rebuilding, sure, they're not trying to win games. But even in the context of development, I don't think it's helpful for players to be used in ways that don't be fit them. And for the offense to be run in a way that doesn't give them – it doesn't give these players the best chance to succeed. Totally agree. Right. And before we move on to the offense, I just want to say, I mean, really, this is me putting the cart before the horse. But the question that everybody's kind of – well, maybe not everybody, and maybe it's not really being considered by fans yet is – people want to fire Casey.

And good organizations don't fire their coaches like this. Like the Kings just fired Luke Walton. They're a horrible organization. Stephen Silas is on the hot seat. Houston is a mess right now. Pistons, like I don't think Dwayne Casey is like thinking, oh, man, what do I do? Like, am I, if I keep, if the offense looks this bad or if the win-loss record stays this bad, am I going to lose my job?

Like, Dwayne, even though Dwayne Casey was here before Troy Weaver, Troy Weaver extended his confidence in Dwayne Casey by giving him that one-year extension. That allows him to have confidence in staying the course, seeing the bigger picture and establishing identity. And Mike, I do agree with that idea. Like maybe we should hand the offense off to an assistant coach. And I know that some people were talking about how we lost some of our assistant coaches in the offseason and maybe the guys that we brought in aren't as good because we did not look this bad last year. I'm not sure. But I would just say, like no part of me wants to move on from Dwayne Casey. The guys seem to like him. And I think that's a very important thing for a team that's not going to win a lot of games,

even if you do have a good offensive coach. Yeah, but there are certain aspects of how the team is run, you know, that independent of whether we're in a rebuild or not are alarming, you know, our red flags are things that are likely to persist when the team is good. You know, I'll go back to, I'll go back to Dan Campbell for a second. So I don't know if you guys watched the Thanksgiving game, but basically what happened. Right at the very end of the game, when the bears were driving, Dan Campbell tried to call back-to-to-back. timeouts, which you are not allowed to do, which resulted in a penalty, which won the bears

the game. That, the talent level of the team doesn't change Dan Campbell doing that, much like the talent of the Pistons doesn't change the mind-boggling decisions that doing Casey makes on a nightly basis. You know, whether it's his rotations, whether it's his timeout usage, whether it's the fact that his offense really is passing around the perimeter until somebody isos and takes a bad shot. You know, these things are occurring, whether it's a rebuild or not, and these things are alarming. You know, so, so what I would ask the two of you is, at what point do you sort of understand that what's going on is not acceptable? The state of the team aside, what's going on is, as per Dwayne Casey's track record, going to still be going on when we want to compete. So it's like, so what's

the point like I just I the idea that you can't or shouldn't hold a coach accountable because the team isn't good or because of the state of the organization just run so counter to me for what it means to be a fan of a team who who loves the team enough to discuss what's going on you know I I just can't fathom giving coaches a pass like this whether it's at ford field or whether it's a little Caesar's arena I just don't understand so I'm curious to know what you guys think about that and of course later on in the episode we want to touch on we had planned to talk about what constitutes development. And I think that that's something

that we need to kind of hold Casey accountable for as well. But I really want to know what you guys think about that whole idea of when do you hold a coach accountable. I would say it's never really been in mind for me the idea of dismissing Casey at this stage. I don't think it would make any sense. And some of my agitation over this issue is just being a fan of watching the games

and wanting coaches to not make bad decisions. I mean, it's really, really, really always has been. It's frustrating for anybody. But certainly it's always been very, very frustrating for me. Watching a game and seeing a coach give his team less. Two things. Give his team less than its best chance to succeed,

which has been the case with Pistons coaches for like, I don't know, 15 years now. I mean, it's been a long time, maybe not 15 years since Flip. I don't, that wasn't enough into the Pistons back during Flip, they didn't know the things that he may have been doing wrong. But ideally, I mean, almost all coaches do somethings wrong. Ideally, you want a coach who's going to do. much more right than he does wrong. But it's also just watching

and watching a coach screw up and how that impacts things and watching a coach make very, very obvious mistakes. And yes, you can be a fan and look at a coach and criticize him and say you're doing this wrong and be right. We have legions of coaches throughout the history of

American sports, right? History of sports in general. No doubt. I'm sure if we had a time machine, you can go back to geez it's whatever team sports are being played in the Greek Olympics. It's failing me. Maybe they weren't any of them.

And see somebody making the wrong decisions there. But it's like the game against Miami, okay, you see Miami go to his own in the fourth quarter. And the Pistons are stymied in a couple of possessions. At that point, I just knew, okay, this game is out of control and it's lost because Dwayne Casey has no idea how to deal with it. And he's just going to keep basically, like Miami has closed the doors. And Casey is just going to basically keep ramming his head up against them

and nothing is going to change, and if does change, which is unlikely, it's going to be far too late. And the heat will have run away with this game, and that's exactly what happens. I just knew it the second that the Pistons failed. It might have even been only one possession against an adjustment by Spolster, who is a fantastic coach. I'll say it before, I'll say it again. Excellent coach. Like, it's constantly underrated, much like Kerr, I think. He made that adjustment, and Dwayne Casey, who is nowhere near his equal,

certainly on offense. Dwing Casey is a competent. defensive coach. Not a world beater, but competent. But he made that adjustment. I knew Casey wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. He just doesn't, he doesn't have the tools to do it. So it's frustrating to watch. What point do you hold him accountable? Well, it's the question of what does holding him accountable constitute doesn't constitute firing him? No, you don't fire to win Casey at this point. I would say even if he's screwing up on offense, the team is losing more. This is not a team

which is trying to win. And even whatever thoughts I might have about, oh, okay, you know, He could be doing some things on office to be better for development. Fine, but he does do some things well. Whatever the case, it would just be disruptive. And it would disrupt the things that he is doing well. And fortunately, winning isn't a concern right now. Yeah, I want to let Tommy jump in, but I first want to clarify, I don't, like, I know Dwayne Casey's not going to get fired. When he isn't, when it comes time that he's not the coach of the Pistons anymore, it's very obvious, if you've paid attention at all to the, what's going on around the front office.

It's going to be like a, you know, Dwayne Casey step down or Dwayne Casey is now a part of the front office. He's not going to be fired. He's going to be the coach of the Pistons for, you know, a while yet. And I'm not even saying to fire him. I just wonder, when does somebody above his head step in to make changes? What those changes constitute, I'm not sure. But I want to make it clear. I don't think he, you know, necessarily should be fired.

And I know for a fact he's not going to be fired. I want to make that clear first. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I've seen people saying that. already and I just didn't like it. But as far as, you know, what do you do at this point? Well, I guess you got to look at the offense. And the real problem is it remains shot selection.

Two of our biggest, like, volume score, Sadiq Bay and Jeremy Grant, they are settling for so much pull up offense. Like there was, we were looking at stats earlier in the subreddit Discord. And somebody found the stats on like Jeremy Grant's field goal percentage. as his dribble, like when he gets the ball, depending on the number of dribbles he takes, like it was almost a linear regression. Like the more dribbles Jeremy Grant takes,

the worstest field goal percentage gets. And that's most players, but Jeremy Grant is just settling for so many, and it's like you can tell exactly when he's going to do it. He will stop, and then he puts the ball on the floor, takes a few steps forward, and from like 18, 19 feet, he's pulling up.

And I feel like we've talked about this so many times, and that's a problem, because that's the sort of thing that you do want, Dwayne Casey to Taylor. Because I feel like Jeremy Grant, if he was just playing like a dynamic role player, you know this, he won't.

He probably won't, yeah. But if Jeremy Grant was playing like a dynamic role player where, you know, he's receiving passes and putting shots up on volume, he would be so much more valuable. Like, people are talking about trading Jeremy Grant. I don't think we should. I think Jeremy Grant could still be a very, very valuable piece.

And especially on his $20 million a year contract, he could be exceptionally valuable, but the problem is he is being used in a role that is not a good one for him. Like he's playing like Kevin Durant and he is not Kevin Durant. He's nowhere near talented enough to be taking the shots with this degree of difficulty. He needs to play a secondary role to a guy like Cade Cunningham, receive the ball, and pull up. You know, he shouldn't be taking so much of his own, calling his own number so often. He should be looking to pass it more often, take advantage. of your athleticism, drive in and kick it out.

You know, I feel like guys are just maybe playing a bit selfishly right now. Like, everybody's looking for their own shot, and that's a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I wouldn't say everybody necessarily. Grant has certainly been egregiously guilty of it. And his pull-ups, his mid-range pull-ups are, they were there last year, too, and he was bad at them, too. I mean, Jeremy Graham was a terrible mid-range score last year.

He's been a terrible mid-range score this year. On his mid-range pull-ups last season, 36 percent. It is a horrifically bad percentage, no matter what. This season, the last time I checked, he was at around 32%. Needless to say, terrible. He will hit a mid-range pull-up in a big situation every now and then, but the fact is that he makes about one-third of them. And even if you were making, like, 42% of them, it would still be a bad shot.

It's a bad shot for almost everybody in the entire league. I mean, a mid-range pull-up is a very difficult shot to make efficient. And, yeah, he just doesn't pass. I mean, he gets the ball. he decides he wants to score. He takes it into the arc. Sometimes he takes it all the way to the basket. If he tries to take it the basket, go for it. I mean, the guy is good at drawing fouls. He is good at drawing, and he's good at scoring in the restricted area. You're going to see no complaints from me. He does take the occasional bad shot, but he, that's, his true shooting

at the time of this episode is around 52% not good, not terrible. If you looked at his splits, you'd think, oh my goodness, this guy's incredibly inefficient. It's thanks in, you know, in large part to his free throw. Same thing was true last season, that he's not. not horrible. So you tell you want to take it to the basket, go for it. Mid-range pull-ups, the, just should not be in his repertoire, period.

But he goes to them constantly. This is something that Dwayne Casey does not coach with his favorite go-to options. They get to do whatever they want, and they always have. That is just a fact of life. It's another one of these annoying things. If you have during Casey's your coach

and you're watching the games, whatever, the team has Dwayn Casey's his coach, and you're watching the games. games, you just have to be okay with it. It was very similar to Rosen who was not particularly efficient. It did not. His shot selection wasn't so great in Toronto either.

And when Blake Griffin, even during his all-MBA season, would constantly, like would take a shot into like two or three players rather than past the ball. Casey doesn't want, it just doesn't coach his his scores. And you have Sadiq Bay as well.

We talked about this in the last episode. It's like, okay. like sure you want the guy to expand his horizons giving him the ball and saying okay please create something and just go ahead and take shots that would be bad for like 80, 90% of the league. It's not ideal by any means and having like two guys in the starting lineup who both don't pass when they decide they want to score inside the arc is going to stunt the offense. And it's a terrible thing next to Kate. He was having his own struggles as a shooter, but he's done quite well as a ball handler.

So that'll be it for this segment of what ultimately, I'm adding this in post-production, turned into a very long episode, one which we decided to split into two parts, the second of which will be posted very shortly after this one. So as always, thank you for listening. We'll catch you in the second part.