Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 84: Trade Deadline Special - Bagley, Grant, and the Rest of the NBA

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

This episode recaps the trade deadline: the Marvin Bagley trade, Jerami Grant remaining in Detroit, and major moves elsewhere in the league. 

Welcome back, everybody, to drive into the basket, part of the basketball podcast network. I am Mike joined, as always, by Dante and Tommy. And this will be our trade deadline special episode, recording this about 45 minutes after the deadline, which fell at around three, actually exactly at 3 o'clock Eastern on Thursday, the 10th. So got a lot to talk about today. But first, fellas, how you doing? How you feeling? I know it's been a not so exciting last couple of days. Yeah, I mean, a couple of things happened in the NBA today.

Yes, indeed, they did. We could probably start there and say that. Some things that affect the Pistons, some things that don't, but definitely a lot to talk about. That's for sure. Yeah, definitely. I'm just relieved that the front office made a move because I think if we didn't do anything, there might have been riots. Yeah. Truthfully speaking.

And you know, it's funny, I'm still a little, like, we'll get into it, but like, I'm pretty disappointed. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll just go straight into the hot. ticket subject, and that is the Pistons trading for Marvin Bagley from Sacramento. The Pistons sent out Josh Jackson, who was on an expiring deal. It sent out Trey Liles, who, of course, the Pistons just signed this last summer,

and is on a one-in-one deal, one-in-one with a team option. And a couple of second-round picks. First was Sacramento's 2024 second-round pick, which the Pistons got in the Delam-Ripe for Corey Joseph deal. The second-year-old. The second-round pick, which is the worst of Cleveland or Golden State. which they got in the Andre Drummond deal. So the last vestiges of Andre Drummond are finally gone from this organization.

And yes, that's good. So Marvin Bagley, what do you think, Tommy? I was excited. I didn't think that the pistons were going to stick with the center rotation that they had. I was really hoping that they would add something in the way of vertical spacing or a lob threat, really. It's something that I've been complaining about for months at this point. and I figured it was probably going to be Bagley or Mitchell Robinson just based on the rumors and from what I read earlier. I think we were doing it for a couple months, so very happy.

Yeah, like this needed to happen. Let's be honest. This roster was not functional. And I'm not saying that Marvin Bagley instantly makes it, you know, some perfectly synchronous roster. But at the very least, now we have somebody who could jump higher than I can, which I think is pretty good. And then when you look at it too, we didn't give up, obviously, really anything at all. I think we're all kind of aware of how we feel about Josh Jackson on this show. He's got kind of a weird place in like Pistons fans' hearts, I think.

Maybe that's just an online thing. I think people sympathize with him because he's like from around the area. But he, Josh Jackson's not good. And then I don't know if this is news to anybody, but Trey Liles is also not good. But I will be a little complimentary of him because he grew on me a tiny bit. I thought he was definitely playing above the caliber of player that he actually is this past stretch. And that may be what enabled us to get this trade done with minimum outgoing. So we're not giving up a whole ton.

We're bringing back some potential. I think this is, if I had to grade it, I'd give it an A probably. Yeah, Josh Jackson, I know that he has slighted in some quarters because of his attitude. Yeah. He's from Detroit. He's a hardworking guy. He's definitely gritty. that and sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.

He got, I think he got two texts from the bench in the space of like 10 minutes earlier. Not so long ago, but yeah, whatever the case. Unfortunately, not a functional NBA player. If he could develop a good three-point shot, that would be, you know, he would become a good athletic 3nde wing. I mean, athletic 3&D wings will always have a place in the NBA, period. That is a very valuable player archetype. Unfortunately, Josh Jackson is very far from a good shooter. And if he could shoot, you could forgive all of his other weaknesses, like his will

basketball IQ, his tunnel vision, his poor passing. And like he improved as a willing passer this year, but he was still a bad one. But he can't shoot. So I think that was it was a really good, it was a good swing by the front office. It's a swing you take every time on a potential good talent. For sure. Funny enough, sorry to interrupt you, Mike, but funny enough, it's sort of, it's sort of reminiscent of bringing Josh Jackson in in the first place. You know, it's along the lines of that same type of reclamation project as it pertains to someone with very, very, very high draft pedigree. So I would categorize Bagley as probably, I've said this before, he's basically the modern

day darko, but we're not the ones who picked them. Like we're trading, not that much for him. So like, I'm going, you could, he could have been the first overall pick that Sacramento traded like six future first to trade up. I don't care. He's here now. We didn't pay a hefty price for him. Let's see what he's got.

Absolutely. And I agree with you about Trey Liles. He has been playing fairly well late. We still can't shoot. but he was attacking closeouts very well and getting a lot of points there, whether just from scoring or from getting A&1s, it seems like the guy got two or three A&1s a game. So he did an admirable job during the closing stages of his not very long at all tenure

with the Pistons. And I wish him well, and maybe he'll see some minutes with the Kings. I suspect he will see some minutes with the Kings. But in terms of what the Pistons gave up, yeah, this is basically them giving up a 2024 pick from Sacramento. That's about it. That 2023 again is the lower. between Golden State and Cleveland.

Both of those teams would really need to self-destruct in order for that pick to not fall in the 50s. Yeah. Mike, Dante, you made a great point about the Kings, maybe they don't make this deal if Trey Liles doesn't have this really nice stretch over the past month or two. Because for whatever reason, the Kings are going to be the Kings, and they're in win now mode functionally.

Like they're trying to do something. I don't know if their goal is to make the play in or the eighth seat or what, but they're just trying to do good things. Yeah. I shouldn't even say that. They're trying to win basketball games down the street. Well, they're not tanking. They're not tanking.

Exactly, which they should. But anyway, I'm a big fan of taking struggling players from bad organizations because sometimes you can just turn them into gold. Like, a good organization will get the most of a player. I think the Pistons are actually trending towards becoming a good organization with a good developmental culture. You don't mean that you don't think the Kings are a good organization with a good developmental culture. I mean, that's a honest.

They traded my guy. Yeah, let's be honest here. The Kings are the Pistons, if they had been even worse during these last, like, during the period during which they were trying to compete. Yeah. The Kings have one of the worst owners in basketball. It's, I think I might have misspoken, you know, mispronounced his name for a long time. I've been calling him Vivek Rana Dive, very bad owner.

He and Dolan are the worst in the NBA, and Rana Dive is elevated above Dolan only by the fact that he is not a gigantic scumbag like James Dolan. So, yeah, I feel bad for Kings fans. So do I. I feel so bad for Kings fans. I can't believe they traded Halliburton. Yeah, it's just like what was with the Pistons during those last few years before they finally pivoted to rebuilding. And Tom Gores finally understood what was what.

And the Kings, it seems to be thrilled with perpetual first round purgatory. Yeah. And me personally, I don't know anything about being a fan of an organization that's perpetually inept. So I'm not. Oh, you don't. That's great. I wouldn't know what that. feels like this is just like a foreign thing to be seeing this from afar what's going on in

Sacramento couldn't be us couldn't be us couldn't be us couldn't be not here in Detroit it is slightly reminiscent to to how things were with the red wings during the final years before the playoff street ended yeah where you had a general manager who seemed to be perfectly content with mediocrity and would every season just make the safe move again and again and again sign a washed up veteran and call it a day and the red wings would lose in the first rounds yeah but like the kings aren't even that that was always the funny part with the Sacramento thing with me. The Kings weren't even really mediocre. They were just bad. Not quite bad enough to be like first overall pick bad, but like still bad. Still like the, you know.

Yeah, at least our definition of mediocrity was like we might make the playoffs. It might be a 500 team. Dude, they had the number two pick, uh, coincidentally Marvin Bagley and an incredibly strong draft. But, uh, yeah, we can talk about about the Kings and Halliburton later on. What don't we talk about what we think Marvin Bagley would bring to the team. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably, we should make this more a little more piston-centric, right? Yeah, that's probably of general interest. Yeah, yeah, let's, I would say that probably the, the likeliest role for Bagley out of the gate, I think is the most obvious one, which would be a roll guy off the bench.

I know there's some contingencies in his, in his, there's something with his deal that makes it so that the number of games that he starts affects his, his total, like, yeah, I can explain that. Yeah, that's, and that's, this is not my area of expertise, but what I do know is that they have to use him as a role guy. They have to. Whether that's with Killian Hayes, primarily, whether that's with Cade Cunningham. Not entirely sure. I can't imagine he's going to play tonight, probably not going to play tomorrow either. But when he does play, then we'll know functionally what his role is going to be. But I'll tell you one thing. He can jump higher than Trey Liles. And I think that that's

probably a good thing. And he probably has better hands than Isaiah Stewart, too. For all of Marvin Bagley's fault, I watched a little bit of, I'm not going to say tape. I watched some highlights of them earlier as soon as we did the trade. Like the guy can catch a lot, man. And I think that that's sort of something that's gone a little underappreciated around here. And we're going to see really quick the kind of difference that makes. Yeah, really quickly before Mike explains the cap implications and the money stuff,

I just want to say, I think that if Bagley is going to come off the bench, this is great for Killian Hayes because Killian Hayes needs a role, man. I was thinking about this recently because I think long term Isaiah Stewart is a bench big. and then Killian Hayes is a bench point guard. And eventually, I think you're going to have to pick between one of those two. But if Bagley is playing pick and roll with Killian Hayes, Killian Hayes has like an actual lob threat. Because prior to this year or prior to this season,

well, really for Killian's whole career, he hasn't had like a great athletic lob threat. And for a pick and roll point guard, that's like, that's half of your, that's half of the pick and roll. You know, you need somebody there to finish the plays for you. Otherwise, you got two guys just collapsing on you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you forgot Plumley.

I mean, Plumley was okay, but he wasn't that athletic. He could finish a pick and roll. You don't think Bagley has some great athleticism. Like, his jump from just a standstill, like he's going to be a guy who can stand in the dunker spot and just explode upwards. That's something that we didn't really have. So I'm excited just for Killian. If those two can develop some pick and roll chemistry, I think it'll be really good for both of them. because they're both top picks who have just struggled to this point.

So maybe they bond over that. Maybe. Mike, what is it exactly with the, could you maybe jump into the contractual aspects of it? So Bagley, this is for the final season on his contract. Obviously, the Kings chose not to extend him, which they would have had to do prior to the current season. So Bagley, as the second pick in the draft, would, had he met what's called Starter criteria, had a large qualifying offer at the end of the season. So qualifying offer is the offer you have to make to a player. It's a one-year offer in order to make them a restricted free agent.

Restricted free agent means that you get the right of first refusal on any offer sheet, which the player signs with another team. So I'm not sure if it's going to be an operative thing at all. With Bagley getting an offer sheet from another team, I really doubt it. I mean, really, really doubt it at this point. So restricted free agency isn't going to be that big of a deal. But just for the purposes of cap mechanics. So in order to get the full qualifying offer as a player between, excuse me, as any player in the first round, you have to meet start a criteria.

Starter criteria means that in either the previous season or the final season of the contract or the previous two seasons, the average of the previous two seasons, whichever one is higher, you have to start 41 games or play 2,000 minutes. So Bagley, in order to get 2,000 minutes this season, would have to start playing immediately and play 48 minutes a game. Oh. The remaining 28 games, unlikely to happen, of course. In order to meet starter criteria, he would have to start, I believe he started in 17 games, or is it 16, 16 games. So we'd have to start in 25 of the next 28 games. He's not even going to be around almost certainly for tonight's game or Friday night's game. So he's going to play, if he plays every game, 26 games with the Pistons.

way he's going to start. Jeremy Grant is there. Sadiek Bay is there, you know, and they're not going to start him at center over as a steward. So, I mean, this may end up being completely irrelevant, really, because I don't think it's likely the Pistons even off making the qualifying offer. But who knows? Like, if he really impresses, maybe they do. And in that case, the fact that his qualifying offer is half what it would otherwise be will be relevant. But here's the thing with Bagley, I mean, you're bringing him as a reclamation project. Like, you made the good point, Dante, that it's just like Josh Jackson, you're taking a flyer on a potential high ceiling. talent. It's entirely possible bag we could play this season and be bad and the Pistons are done

with him this summer. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's entirely possible. It's also possible, you know, it's also possible that he plays really, really well. I don't think it can be understated what it means to play in a toxic environment, you know, something like, something like the Kings. And listen, we don't want to throw stones. Like, it's not like the Pistons have been this, this bastion of, you know, competent management since their last championship. But I can't. I can't. imagine what that's like for a young man knowing that your team passed up on, you know, Trey Young, Luca Donchich, Jaron Jackson, Jr. And you are just hated by your fan base probably. So get him out of there. That was clearly the plan from his camp. I know there were some tweets

going around last night. Mike and I spoke about this briefly. There were some tweets going around last night of I guess Marvin Bagley's dad was liking Pistons-related tweets. As soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, you know, maybe they kind of let Bagley's camp in on something, but they're probably just so thankful to get out of there. And I think the possibility does exist that a simple change of scenery, you know, even in the absence of some fantastic offensive-minded coach who can use him better than he was used in Sacramento, I think the change of scenery might actually do something for him. And that's a viable thing that could happen. Absolutely. Yeah. You just never know. I mean, it was the same sort of situation for Josh Jackson and Phoenix back when that team was

completely incompetence. And either, really, either one could happen. I mean, he would have to come in and really wow the pistons for them to, for them to give him a qualifying offer. The qualifying offer, they would only give him if they felt that they were a risk of some team giving him a larger offer than the pistons would. But he could come in and do well. He could come in and do not well.

I'm just basically saying that this should be seen for what it is, which is a flyer on a high ceiling talent, and they could go either way. But I want to get into what Bagley is like as a player. So Bagley, of course, has issues. That's why he is the number two pick never caught on and has been traded for basically a pittance. So we'll start with the strength. Athletic, of course, a strong interior score. I mean, those are good qualities to have.

And that's much of what he's had going for him in the NBA so far because if you, and just good raw talent. I mean, obviously good raw talent. I mean, this guy was drafted in the top five for a reason. If it wasn't the king, somebody else probably would have drafted him, you know, I don't know, maybe number five. So those are the three things you got, really. Athletic, you know, good weeper, strong interior score, and a lot of raw talent.

Now, the downsides with Bagley, you know, we can start in no particular order. He's not a good shooter at all. I mean, he managed 34% on two and a half attempts last season. 34% of course not very good. That's not going to make you a four spacer. He's at 24% this season. He was at 18% in 2019-2020 season. So shooting is not really his thing.

And that means he can't really play power forward. like unless he's playing next to a stretch center of some kind. Also defense. I mean, Bagley has really bad defensive IQ. I mean, there's really no way around it. Back during his single season at Duke, he was playing alongside Wendell Carter Jr., who was drafted, I think, number seven in the same draft. And they were both so unable to defend the pick and roll that Duke had to go to his

own to protect the two of them. Wendell Carter has gotten better at it. Bagley has not. He's got real issues with defensive IQ, just defensive acumen in general. and so he's those kind of mixed together to make him sort of between him. You can't play him to power forward because he can't really shoot. And you have trouble playing him at center because he can't really defend the interior. Who knows?

These things could change. Maybe a player blossoms in a better environment. I'm obviously a better system, but in a better environment. But I just want to prepare people for what Bagley's downsides are. And these are the reasons why he never really caught on in Sacramento. I should note also, he's good rebounder. I mean, the guy's a good rebounder. There's no, there's no taking that away from him either.

free throw shooting also another weakness. I mean, he is vacillated significantly. 70% is rookie season, 80% the next, 57, and then 75. So he's a raw talent like Josh Jackson was, and I hope he works out. I hope he works out too. And I don't know, before we move on here, do we maybe want to, I already gave a grade. I gave it an A, not because I think Marvin Bagley's great, but because I think that the swing is essentially what you need to be doing from the place

that the Pistons are coming from here. What grade would the two of you give this trade? I would give it an A-minus. It's not a home run. And again, Bagley is not known to be a good player. I don't want people to get it twisted. Like, he's not going to come to the Pistons and just all of his issues are fixed. There are reasons why the Pistons were able to acquire him for so little.

But I think he does some interesting things. The Pistons just haven't had a lot of fun play just because we don't have a lob thread. We don't have anybody who's throwing down dunks. That's part of the reason that Hamadu has been such a, fun development on the season, but Bagley does some good things in the short role and he can finish a lob. So just on that alone. I like the swing and it's a low risk move. So I'll give it an A minus. I'm with you. Yeah, I mean, I would give it an A just on the basis of it being, like you said, a swing and a potential talent and the pistons gave up hardly anything. I mean, I don't think

Trey Liles was going to generate any interest at the trade at the debline from any of the LAT. He wasn't going to draw probably a second round pick. Second round picks don't really trade hands so lightly as they did in the past, but also it's Trey Liles. And who knows, maybe if you've got a monstrous you know, monster season, you get like a second round pick at the draft. And really the only real cost to this is a 24 second from a King's team, which would probably be right in the middle. Yeah. And that's nothing too major. No, that's nothing too major by any means. So yeah, you take the swing and you give up very little. So that's great. And as far as role, which I realized I never talked about, it should be noted. Like, Trey Liles had stepped in like the last three weeks, I think, the last

month into exactly the same role that the Pistons had signed Kelly Olinick to play, like almost to a T. And so now that he's gone, Olinic and play his old role, and yeah, I think that you'll more or less be seeing Bagley play center off the bench. Yeah, not the worst place for him. Listen, it's not like we're big on options there, right? But I like what you said, Mike, about just taking a swing.

And that's what this is. It's taking a swing. And speaking of, you know, not taking one, the Pistons retained Jeremy Grant today. So I'll sort of lead this off by basically giving my brief thoughts. I want to know what the two of you think for sure. But, you know, for all the insider tweets coming out, oh, you know, Jeremy Grant is the hottest player.

Come trade deadline, just wait, the phone's going to be ringing off the hook. We do a whole freaking Jeremy Grant trade scenarios episode. And then nothing happens. I know Mike wants to jump in here. I'll let Mike get to it. But really quickly, I just want to say that I'm, I think I'm pretty disappointed here. I've seen some people compare this situation to the Ben Simmons situation in that,

oh, you know, he'll retain his value and you'll be able to sell for either equal or a higher price later on, you know, maybe on draft night, maybe in the offseason, whatever the case may be. What people are forgetting is that Ben Simmons didn't play. And outside of the 25 to 30 game or so stretch that Grant was outstanding last year, he's not played that great. So what is our confidence level that Grant is going to retain, let alone, you know, heighten his value going into the draft or going into the offseason? My level of confidence is very, very low. I can't help but feel like the Pistons missed out on a chance to cash in on an asset where by which you could have maybe gotten more than it's actually worth in not trading Grant right now.

So I don't know what the two of you think, but I'd pretty firmly place myself in the camp of being disappointed. So what I wanted to jump in and say was that, yeah, absolutely Jeremy Grant was the bell of the ball. early on. I mean, in the weeks leading up to the deadline, nobody expected that Tyrese Halliburton would be available, or he absolutely would have been the number one target. I mean, Tyrese Halliburton is, with all respect to Jeremy Grand Halliburton would have been the Hobb commodity. It came out from Adrian Moshenorowski that teams were stunned. They had not even known that Halliburton was available. So this is another, it also reflects very negatively on the Kings, because maybe they could have gotten a better offer. But you had him move, you had C.J. McCollum move,

which maybe wasn't really that surprising, and of course, Hardin. So I think though Hardin was always just going to be failing or nothing. So I think that more things happened at the deadline than have been expected. As for the situation, I mean, I'd feel better if we actually knew, and I doubt we will know, what offers were actually made for grants, because I think without that information, it's really difficult to say whether we should be disappointed or not. Now, if the Pistons were just asking too high a price and they were asking for two first-round picks or I think a pick and a very good young player as it was put.

There was no guarantee that that was going to be offered. So maybe that was shooting a little bit too high, particularly because they wouldn't be looking for picks like right at the end of the first round. Because picks at the end of the first round, it's not like a first round pick is a first round pick. I mean, the picks at the end of the first round are basically on the border line of the second rounds. I mean, obviously.

Now, if the person's got a good offer, but they just weren't willing to go down on their ask, that's a different story. I think that would be very disappointing. So I think without that context, it's a little too difficult to judge. And maybe that information will come out in coming days, but I doubt it. Yeah, it didn't really seem like we were getting these crazy offers that I think people were expecting. And I'm not surprised that they decided to hold onto the deadline.

It really felt like if it was going to happen, it was just going to kind of come out of nowhere. And if it didn't happen, that's kind of expected. It didn't really seem like there was a lot of traction anywhere other than, you know, Portland created all this space that Jeremy Grant could have just nicely fit into. but even then, like, I don't know what team really needs Jeremy Grant right now other than the Bulls if they really want to go all in this season, but there's just so many weird little factors. So the primary ones being apparently Jeremy Grant wants to play, you know, a pretty substantial

role, and he's looking at this massive extension, and you're kind of expected to give that to him. Now the Pistons have him, and it goes one of two ways. You know, if the Pistons want to hold him to the deadline or to the offseason and trade him then. One of two things happens. Either he plays poorly and the Pistons continue, get a top pick, a top five pick or top six pick, or Jeremy Grant plays well. He increases his trade value, presumably, but maybe the Pistons hurt their draft lottery position. So we're kind of in a tough spot there. That's what I'm saying. In that sense, I'm disappointed

with you. But if the offers just weren't there, like, and you think that the Pistons are going to get a better offer in the off season, which a lot of analysts have kind of indicated historical historically, that is the case. You know, teams miss the playoffs. They're disappointed. They're emotional and they want to make a big splashy trade with a big name. Maybe then you do get something else. But I don't know, there's also the factor of like the draft happens and you have more flexibility in terms of the names and the pieces that you can acquire. So it really comes down to whether the Pistons think they'll be able to get a better offer in the off season. If you want to judge it by the Pistons were asking for a good young player and a pick or two first-round picks and they just didn't get it, you'd have to compare that to what they end up getting.

So that's how I would frame it right now. I don't think you can make a decision on whether it was a good or bad decision right now until the off-season where we see what we get for them. Yeah, it's just so hard to say. I mean, it's hard to say that there's going to be anything necessarily better available in the off-season. I mean, you are losing one postseason that's not ideal. I think, sure, any team which trades for Jeremy Grant is going to do so with the belief that they can give in that extension for which, unless I'm mistaken, it's still going to be available two years the day after he was traded. So that would be in November.

But because that was a weird offseason, of course, free agency was in November. I'm not sure if the NBA is going to just adjust that back to July because that's when the offseason typically is, but whatever the case. So there are some downsides. Yeah, one last postseason that does decrease his value. A team can't really trade for him now and say, okay, well, we got some time to see if this is going to work out.

We're going to flip them if it doesn't. They got a lot less time to do that if they trade for them at the draft. Well, yeah. That's kind of what it is, though, to me is that I just feel like there's these different, there are these competing things in what may happen, right? Like Tommy pointed out, it's like, okay, this could go one of a few ways. But the ways in which it could go, they all sort of conflict with each other, right? It's like, well, if Jeremy plays well, you know, well enough to sort of buoy his trade value

or maybe increase his trade value, presumably you've won more games than you probably wanted to down the stretch. But then if he plays poorly, sure, you get, you know, a better pick, but then his value is probably lower. And you're coming in and teams are potentially trading for him with one year less on his deal, which unless you've guaranteed him that extension, as Mike pointed out, is probably going to be something that limits his value as well. So, yeah, obviously you can't fully make a determination if you don't know the exact trades that were proposed and we'll probably never know. But you got to think like there probably was something out there that might be better than how this situation could end up resolving itself down the line

with Grant. This is something we're going to have to revisit, you know, when Grant is either traded or extended or maybe he retires a piston. I don't know. But yeah, I just, and also too, and one last thing, I don't know if I buy that there's more emotion in the off season. I feel like the most emotion when it comes to roster movement or roster, you know, shakeups is the trade deadline. You know, if someone didn't bite right now, I just don't, I just don't really see. it working out in our favor here. I would definitely say there's more emotion after the playoffs. The teams that would have been looking at Jeremy Grant would have been the ones that

have just lost in the playoffs. Grant is a talent that, or he has the potential to elevate you a little bit. Does he? You know what I think is going to happen? Oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to ask, does he? Because we've only really, and I like Grant. I know we all like Grant, but like, serious, I'm genuinely asking you guys this without a

hint of what, do we genuinely think he's a team elevator because he really only played at this level where the, league was sort of recategorizing what he is for like 25 games last year. We haven't we haven't seen that since. Well, that kind of leads into what I think is going to happen. This is a prediction that I have. I think Grant is going to continue to hurt his value. And it's not just Grant.

What I really mean is I think Casey is going to hurt Grant's value because I think Grant is at his best when he's like a third option on a good team. And maybe it does come down to this role that we keep hearing about Grant wanting, where he doesn't want to be a fourth option like he wasn't Denver. he wants to be, you know, a high volume score. I really think he's at his most valuable. If you give him, if you take the ball out of his hands a bit, don't let him elevate for his own shot.

Don't let him pull up for long twos. You know, make him a movement three-point shooter, play good defense. And then his value goes up. That's where, you know, teams are like, that's a guy that we can put on the floor with our good players. Sure. And they're going to cohesively fit together. But Casey just doesn't do that.

So I think, exactly. And I think that the pistons are going to continue to lose games. because they don't actually play a very good brand of basketball when Jeremy Grant is playing heavy minutes. That's what I'm saying. But yeah, so in that case, I think he is going to just hurt his offseason value further. Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And it really, it's all about getting value. And probably the best place that you can get value is Draft King Sportsbook.

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at Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of Super Bowl 56. How was that? Great. All right. That was a particularly evil place to put that. In any case, though, It was incredible. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, this is the first time we've actually tried the ad mid-roll. Yeah, people are probably so confused. They're like, what is he been talking about?

So, Grant, I mean, of course, I've said this many times. Like, Casey, if you give Casey a veteran he trusts who can create offense off the dribble, he cannot resist giving the guy the ball and saying, please do this. You know, I need you to do this. Do it. Absolutely. This is great. You know, he just, he can't resist.

I mean, it's put it that way, but he's been coaching the NBA for a long time. and that's just true. So, I mean, we've seen it since Grant has been back. He's back to taking the long twos already. His first shot after he got back was a pull-up long two right inside the three-point line. The guy shoots in the mid-thirties from mid-range. Hardly anybody can make that an efficient shot, a mid-range pull-ups. Hardly anybody tries, and Grant should not be trying.

I disagree with you, Tommy, and that I don't think he's just the guy who's going to shoot threes and play defense. And more to the points, I don't think any team, which will trade significant assets for him, is going to trade those assets just to have him spot up at the three-point line or shoot three's in motion like he did in Denver. I think Grant can be kind of like the number two B or ideally number three guy on a championship team who can shoot threes, who can create offense off the dribble. Because again, Jeremy Grant, when he decides he's going to drive to the net, is a capable

score off the drive. Yeah, he could do it. Yeah, he takes high efficiency shots. He's really good at drawing fouls. And he'd be used presumably more intelligently as a lesser option under a much better offensive coach and Casey is almost unequivocally one of the worst offensive coaches in the league. So yeah, at the draft, just to expand Tommy on what you said about what's more available there. For those unfamiliar, this is this thing called the Stepping Rule.

And it's named after a Cavaliers general manager from a long time ago who just traded away picks like they were candy and really hamstrung his team. So in order to prevent teams from doing that to themselves, the NBA put in place the Stepping rule, which says that the teams cannot in the future be without first round picks. in consecutive years. These have to be guaranteed first-round picks. They cannot be picks that are protected. You have to absolutely have a pick for all of the consecutive years.

Excuse me, for all future years in consecutive years. If you have a guaranteed pick from another team, then that's fine. You can trade away your pick. You just have to have a guaranteed first-round pick every other year, at least. So at the draft, you can sort of bypass the Stepping rule in that, what happens is teams use their draft pick. So they've already drafted the guy. And so the clock is reset because what has already happened means you don't worry about

consecutive years then. You're only worrying about future years. And then the team trades the draft rights of that player to whichever incoming team. So in that case, yeah, you have teams who are able to trade their pick at the draft without interference from the stepping rule. And that does give you more options. And it just boils down to really who's going to want to make the trade at that point. I mean, there will be more available options.

And you're right, Tommy, the teams will really be thinking playoff aspiring contenders will really be thinking about, well, what can we do to get ourselves over the top? So it's possible. It is possible. But let me ask you guys that. Really, I genuinely want to get back to this point because I want to know what the two of you think.

How do we reconcile? Okay, well, let's say Grant plays really, really, really well, that probably elevates his trade value. But that likely means he took the ball out of Cade's hands versus, you know, Cade dominates the ball. Grant probably doesn't play as well, doesn't put up the counting stats, but his trade value is lessened. How are we, like, it kind of seems like a lose, lose. I don't, what is the most beneficial way that this could actually work out? So I think that teams will be cognizant of what Grant can provide. I mean, teams will look at this sort of thing in context.

This, I mean, these are management teams being paid a lot of money to do a very complete job. I mean, some of them fail anyway, but that's that's besides the point. So they're going to be looking at this contextually. I mean, at this point, they know what Grant can do, and he's going to play a different role in their system under a different coach who actually uses him properly and coaches his shot selection and so on. They know Grant can play strong defense. So I think that the average competent team will be looking at him on the basis of what they know he can do

rather than how he was utilized. I agree, part of the reason, I mean, part of the reason I wanted him gone is because it's ugly to watch him under Dwayne Casey. It's just ugly. They play just a much more ball movement form of offense when he is not on the floor. And I don't like that. Yeah, he does take the ball out of Cade's hands. He does end possessions in ways that are not good.

He's not good for the development of young players. He's just not. And again, I think that under a better coach, he wouldn't be doing that. I hope he's not going to help the Pistons win more games because that would be really bad. Though, I'm guessing that if lottery position is really an issue, then they will do what they did last season and just sit him down the stretch. Yeah. I wouldn't be against it if Grant, decided to become a better passer and play a better brand of basketball.

Because eventually, Cade will need to learn how to play with talent. Like, the Pistons are not going to win a championship with just Cade dominating the ball. He does need to learn how to play with guys who can take the ball out of his hands. I think the best teams, they have multiple good ball handlers. That's a balance that is going to need to be struck eventually, but not right this second. Agreed. It's, I don't know. I don't know how to reconcile that, I guess.

Yeah, it's tough, man. And I hate to be the one to kind of drop that, but that sort of logic bomb there, like, it makes sense when you think about it, that in the absence of what Mike just said, you know, teams are cognizant of what Grant can do, you know, regardless of how the rest of the season shakes out. In the absence of that, you're kind of looking at a lose-lose, so sort of remains to be seen there how that's going to work out. But I want to ask you this quick, Mike, because we always have a back-and-forth on sources. Jordan Schultz, is he a reliable source? He's got a blue check mark.

on Twitter. I've never heard of him. I mean, the sources whom I trust are the reputable national insiders. Those would be Shams and Woj, of course, Mark Stein, has been in the business a long time. Okay. And Zach Lowe, who doesn't really tweet out a ton, but when he hears something, he hears something. And it's almost invariably going to be true. And the local beatwriters.

Is it possible? Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Mike. I'm saying local beat writers who can really vary in reliability depending on the team. Okay. So, well, he has 100,000 followers to discount everything you just say. Not really, but can I read what he tweet? He's got a checkmark.

He tweeted about the Pistons. He just said, so this went live right after we started recording, so it's no wonder we didn't see it. Detroit's plan all along was to retain Jeremy Grant. Hashtag Pistons, Pistons listened to the substantial interest in Grant, but stuck to their guns with the hope that he can continue to develop alongside Cade Coneyham, Isaiah Stour, and Sadee Bay as a part of a future core. So what we think of that? What Shams said was that the Pistons and Grant have a degree of comfortability moving forward.

Here's the thing about Internet sources these days. Anybody can go on Twitter or start a blog or whatever and say, oh, such and such is going to happen and just start throwing out rumors. And eventually, if you're right on about 25% of your rumors, people might start seeing you as a reputable source because, you know, for whatever, due to whatever vagaries of human nature, or the desire to have these insider sources. People are, the average person, it seems, in my experience, is going to remember the misses. Excuse me, remember the hits far more than they're going to remember the misses, even if the misses outnumber the hits significantly. So I don't know.

It's possible if that's true, but the fact is anybody can come out and say anything, you're not going to have the teams come out and say, well, this guy's wrong. So there's not really much for these guys to lose by saying whatever they say. and how would I feel about that? I don't know. I mean, Jeremy Grant's 27, continue to develop him. I mean, he showed that he had a different gear.

But no, I don't see it. I just, I don't, I cannot see Jeremy Grant is a major future component of this team. I mean, the fact that he's being used as he is under Dwayne Casey is part of that. And Dwayne Casey is here for at least another season and two, unless he decides to retire. So, yeah, I just, I just don't see it. And I don't know if I see, for example, him saying, oh, okay, sure, well, we get in another good player. And maybe if Sadeek Bay continues to develop, I might be, you know, number 3A or 3B,

is he going to be happy with that? So I don't think it's likely. I think that the Pistons will move him for a good return at the draft if they can. Though we did hear from Mark Stein that there was a divide between Weaver and Arn'telam, who technically outranks him, and that Weaver really wanted to keep drents and that Arnettelam was a louder voice in the room wanting to move him if possible for a good return. Right. Yeah, I think there's maybe two ways that that tweak and go.

Maybe this is maybe a reach, but if you're telling other teams, it's like, yeah, no, we really don't want to move this guy. Maybe that's a little more leverage for you. Like the teams are going to look at that and they're like, okay, well, if we really want this guy, we have to pry him away. They're not looking to just get rid of him and just take the best offer that they see. They, you know, the other option is, you know, they just keep him. And if they do keep him, one, Grant needs to learn to pass. He's not a good pass or he doesn't pass well within an offense. And if he does, I don't know why I said one.

It's just that's just it. If he's going to pass. And then he needs to shoot better. Yeah, no, he just needs to play more team-oriented basketball. And with Dwayne Casey at the helm, I mean, he's kind of enabled to, you know, play this superstar-style role where he's just taking whatever shots he wants, they're difficult shots. He can't do that. You know, it's ugly basketball. It's not winning basketball.

And it really doesn't, you know, help Grant, honestly, because if you look at his shooting percentages, they're not good. No. Because he's taking such difficult shots. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Let's, I agree. I agree with what with the two of yours assessments there. And let's talk a little bit about before we jump into what happened in the rest of the NBA.

I don't know if anybody heard there was a couple trades went down, a couple big ones. But as far as the rest of the Pistons roster is concerned, Corey Joseph. sticking around. Kelly Olinick sticking around. Not a lot of movement, well, really no movement, aside from the Bagley trade, what do we make of not being able to find a home, or maybe a better way to put it, would be to find a return for some of these lower end of the rotation guys. I don't think that there was really much value. Kelly Olinick, everybody knows what he is, but he's also been injured for much of the season. Maybe there is some concern about how much time he's going to take to get back up to speed. But I do think that if Kelly had been actually

genuinely good this season. Maybe you could draw a late first round pick for him. Maybe people were waiting to see, okay, well, was what he did with the Rockets last season, just good stats and a really bad team? Or was he actually genuinely playing well as a bench piece? So if he had been playing that well, then maybe you get a first round pick for him. At this point, I mean, he's just, he's an average role player paid a pretty average salary. I mean, $12 million is 13 million, I think. I mean, that's just over 10% of the cap. So I don't think that you could reasonably have moved Kelly Olinick for value. And, you know, not right now.

And I think the pistons, you know, they like him. And I think it's likely that he gets moved to the deadline, much likely that he gets moved to the deadline next season if he plays well or if he plays the rest of the season, you know, who knows maybe at the draft, though I doubt it. Because it's just not that hard to find Kelly Olinix. So that doesn't bother me. I just don't, I didn't think that was a realistic possibility.

And Corey Joseph, here's the thing about Cojo. He's at a good season. But like, is that a good season shooting over 40% from two or from three, excuse me? He's got the highest true shooting percentage on the team. And he's a good veteran guy. He's not the defender used to be. But he's so ball dominance that he's just of less value to a playoff team. I honestly would have been okay with keeping Cojo.

Kelly, I'd be fine with moving. But Corey Joseph, again, this is really more about Dwayne Casey and what he allows some of these players to do on the basketball court. But I think Corey Joseph is a valuable piece for this team. He's not expensive. And I still think about this mentorship that he seems to have with Killian Hayes that that was reported on maybe a few months ago. And I like that because Killian Hayes has struggled in the league. And anybody who is going to make him more comfortable and instill confidence in him is somebody valuable to me.

So it's not just about the value of Corey Joseph on the team. It's what he could be doing behind the scenes for Killian Hayes. veterans are valuable. You know, you can't just, you don't want to just get rid of every older player who doesn't fit your timeline. You still want some of these guys who provide, you know, good locker room presence and good leadership. So I don't have any issue with the idea of keeping Corey Joseph.

He took a pay cut, or not took a pay cut. He re-signed with us for less money, even after we did not pick up his more expensive player option. I think it means he wants to be here. And that's, that's good. I mean, you don't want a toxic locker room. So I'm not fine with it. I'll give the remainder of my piece before Dante, who I know is probably the least really likes.

He's got like three or four Cory Joseph jerseys. Yeah, sure. He's growing on me. He's growing on me. Don't harp on it. Go ahead. He's fine. So, Corey's teammates love him.

I mean, that much has been made clear. He's a leader. He's a veteran. I'm firmly convinced that there have been a couple of games in which Corey started and Saban was playing and save him play the rest of the game. And I'm firmly convinced, I'm just on the basis of what I know about Corey Joseph that he, you know, that he told Dwayne Casey, like, go ahead and play him the rest of the game, you know, and he was perfectly content with that. So I have no doubt that he's a leader in the locker room. I have no doubt that he's just a good presence in the locker room.

He's his steady presence on the court. And I've got nothing against keeping him. More to the points, I don't think anybody would have paid anything for him. So I think it makes him makes it kind of a moot point that's that he wasn't traded. It should be noted, Tommy, with respect to taking less than he was offered. I mean, he was overpaid by the Kings. I mean, there's no doubt about that. Also, he got, I think, 2.6 million of just dead salary when the Pistons didn't take his option because his last season's salary, excuse me, on his old contract was partially guaranteed.

But the only thing I don't like about Cojo is that he's playing next to Cade. I don't want him to play next to Cade. And Dwayne Casey is the reason he's playing next to Cade because Dwayn Casey loves him and refuses to put Frank Jackson into lineups with Cade at point guard. Just start Frank Jackson, I agree with you. Just start him, but not only does Frank not start, Casey has been ridiculously resistant to playing him in lineups with Kate at point guard and other decent players in the floor. It has hardly ever happened at all. And we know the value of a good motion shooter even beyond just the three-point shots he's hitting.

Yeah, this is what you guys are going to get out of me. Corey Joseph is a basketball player. He's like, what do you guys want to do? He's okay. He's okay. He's grown on me a little bit. Maybe I was a little too harsh on him early in the season. I don't think he's a bad player anymore. I agree with you, Tommy. He is a good mentor. I also agree with you, Mike, that there probably wasn't a substantial market for him. I'm not too torn up that they kept him. I feel like Kelly Olinick, though, like he's actually pretty good. Now, I think Mike made a good point in that teams might want to see, okay, what does he look like post injury? Like, is this something that he can do, like what he did. Houston, is this something that he can do consistently? Maybe you flip them as expirings next year, next trade deadline, I don't know, maybe something happens at the draft and the offseason. I don't have too, too much to say about it otherwise.

I think we should probably, as we sort of looked to round out the episode here, we should probably move into a segment that Mike is going to lead. And these are the rest of the trades that happened in the NBA. And before Mike jumps into it, I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend that we start with, obviously, you know, a trade that shook up, not just the NBA, but the world of sports. Our old friend Bull Bull shipped out for a piece. Yeah. Yeah, he's on to his next destination.

He's such a hot commodity. The teams keep trading him. I mean, they know that they won't even convey likely or something like that. I don't, I'm not sure. I don't know about the details of that trade. I mean, this was purely a salary dump by the Celtics who wanted to get another tax line. Right. Yeah.

But, I mean, obviously, like, you know, in all seriousness, moving on to the big trade in the NBA today, which is really the one of those made headlines, which is the trade between the Nets and the Sixers, which reunited the dominant front court of Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin in Brooklyn. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Brooklyn has decided to zig when everybody else has zagged. They have Kevin the rant. I had to unmute my mic specifically to jockel it. that. I hope you know. Yeah. So really, though, James Harden was traded alongside Seth Curry and a couple of draft picks in exchange for, excuse me, James Hardin was traded alongside Paul Millsap to the Philadelphia

76ers in exchange for Ben Simmons and Seth Curry and a couple of draft picks. So that, of course, is a big deal. I'd say this, like Tommy despises the Sixers. I it's true. Even though Drummond isn't on the team anymore, I still just, I do not want them to succeed. Yeah, I just don't. I really hope this blows up in their face somehow. I like Embed, I know that he has like had beef with the Pistons in the past, but I still just hate the Sixers organization and the fans. Oh, he hasn't had beef with the pistons.

He's just, he's had beef with Drummond. And while he's in the process of grinding Drummond under his boot heel on the court, I mean, he used to destroy Drummond. I love the imagery. I love the movie. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was murder committed in plain sight when the two had them played against each other. So I really think highly of Embed. I mean, the guy is an incredible basketball player. There are very few, maybe nobody amongst big men in the history of the league who can score the way that he does with his level of versatility.

Yeah. He's an excellent defender and he's a super hard worker. And he's been stuck in sort of a difficult situation, a march part due to Ben Simmons and horrible management on the part of the Sixers. like Jerry Colangelo and Elton Brand took the very good situation. Sam Hinkie, the Tankmaster had left them and completely screwed it up. I mean, they were horribly incompetent. So I'm glad to see he's going to get another shot at this. And, you know, there are some questions about the fit between he and Hardin,

but I don't doubt that he's very happy about this trade. And so you've got Tobias Harris still there. There was some thinking that they would have to dump him and in order to make the Hardin trade work in the off. season. Tobias is still a good player, is just having a tough season. But I mean, you've, you've got a good team there, a genuinely good team. M.B. doesn't have to do everything anymore. And they managed to keep Matisse Stuybal, who is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, though he still needs to shoot. But he's on the four with Pardon and an M.B.

The shooting is less of an issue. And they kept Tyrese Maxie, who was having a very good season. So I think it's a big deal for them. I don't think it's a great trait for the next. I think that today came along and they were very cognizant of the fact that they needed to make this happen or risk getting a much worse return in a sudden train of the off season where it's basically Hardin wants to go to Philly. And they're like, okay, well, we have no leverage here at all. Okay, we'll just take Ben Simmons and nothing else, which may have happened. Yeah, yeah. I think I might actually disagree with you a little, Mike. This is one of those trades where I see the rationale for both sides.

I kind of like it for both sides because, yeah, I do agree that Brooklyn made this trade out of almost panic, right, for getting nothing from Hardin, especially when they traded that treasure trove of picks to get them. But at least they recognize that there's like a 99.9% chance they will have no leverage in the off season. And I think they utilized the little leverage that they did have to get someone who, you know, say what you want about Ben Simmons as a person. But as a player, I think he fits really nicely with Duran. and then obviously he's not pressured to shoot or score when you've got Irving and Durant running around out there with you. And, and, you know, Brooklyn added Andre Drummond, so just pairing two of the greatest front court players of all time, him and Blake off the bench.

It's going to be something for Brooklyn. And then from Philadelphia's point of view here, I'm not a Sixers fan either. I don't like the Sixers. I don't like Embed at all. But I do recognize that he's a fantastic player. and maybe this is a little premature, but just from like on paper, I would put MBE in this current state and James Hardin, like you're maybe looking at an all-time duo right there.

I don't know if the Sixers are immediately better than the bucks right now, but they're going to make some noise in the East for sure. And they may even contend for the finals. So listen, we'll have to see what happens, but I can understand it and I kind of like it for both sides. Yeah, I would say for the Nets, like I agree Simmons could do well there and his shortcomings would be less of an issue. And maybe he's still surprised everybody did that.

Like he spent all this time just learning to shoot spot up threes. Yeah, exactly. Ben Simmons who can shoot threes is a super valuable player. Ben Simmons who can't shoot threes has big flaws, which can be compensated for it to a degree. Like anything can be compensated for it to a degree by having just a lot of superstar talent. Like I think back to like in the NBA today,

you really don't want to play with less than four shooters in the four. Preferably you want to have five shooters in the four. The Warriors, of course, were able to make it work with three shooters in the floor because you've got Durant and Thompson and Curry. You've got one of the best trios ever. And also one of your non-shooters is Draymond, which that requires no explanation.

So yeah, the net's got, but if you get current Simmons, sure, his flaws are less, he is still an all-world perimeter defender. He's a very good passer. He's very strong in transition. But like the picks that they got from Philly are not going to be that great. Like even the 2020. So they traded Philly at 2022,

which is unprotected. Brooklyn has the option to defer it to 2023. Hardin picked up his player option for next season. They're still going to have MB. They're still going to have Hardin. Still going to have Maxie. They're still going to have probably Tobias Harris. Who knows?

So that's not going to be too good. And the pick in 2027 is top eight protected. So even if the Sixers are not good, they're not going to lose a really high pick. Seth Curry is helpful, but, you know, so I don't think too highly. Hardin kind of screwed the nets here. Not going to lie. but I feel okay about it because I'm really happy he's going to the Sixers. But that kind of thing I really don't like out of a player.

That's what Hardin does, though. That's what Hardin does. Twice in two seasons. Yeah, I know he didn't. There was that report that he didn't want it leaked, but it's like, dude, you can't imagine that the nets were going to trade you for no reason. Like if you were on the move, it's probably evident that you didn't want to be there. But I don't know if Tommy, I don't know.

Did you give your input yet? I don't know if you want to jump in here, give your input. Then maybe we can move on. Tommy's input. I hate the Sixers. Move on. Tommy, what do you actually think of this? I just don't know who's going to be the better team now because, I mean, Hardin has been struggling a bit this season. But again, when you talk about he's done this twice in two seasons, maybe he was just kind of like phoning it in. I think his last game that he played

before he got some really timely hamstring soreness was like a four-point effort. So when he did this in Houston, when he was trying to force his way out of there, he just kind of sucked for a while. And then when he got to where he wanted, he turned it back on. Now, what I really hope will happen is the refs will do what they did at the start of the season and not call the garbage falls because I think that makes a huge difference for Hardin. And I do not want the Sixers to succeed. I don't want James Hardin to succeed.

And I do not want Joel Embed to succeed. So just do what you got to do to make sure that they don't win. That's a very high-minded way of thinking about things. I admire you. It's not petty at all. I respect it. I don't think it is. I think it's entirely reasonable and I think I'm a very smart person for it. What? Nobody said anything about your intelligence. I was I was just questioning the moral integrity of the statement. Listen, I put back on makes sports fun though, right? It's just hating for the sake of hating. I've had this discussion sort of off topic. I've had this discussion with my friends, right? Where like Aaron Rogers, for example, one of my buddies that I met in school is a big time Packers fan. And obviously I'm a lion's fan. And you'd always say to me like, you don't like appreciate.

for how great he is. You don't, you know, you're not going to miss him and his greatness in the league when he retires. I'm like, no, I hate him. I don't have to, no, I don't have to like any team for any, I can hate any team or any player for any reason that I want, right? That's the beauty of sports. Rivalries are part of what makes sports fun. Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's much of a rivalry though. I mean, maybe for you, for you. It is in my head. Yeah, for you, for you, for you, for you, for you, for you. He versus Philadelphia. As soon as I saw this trade go down, I thought that Pistons title chances were immediately took a shot.

Oh, yeah, I agree. They have no chance of winning the championship this season now. Yeah. Yeah, some trouble as far as that. So don't hedge your bets on that. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the question is, of course, you know, how you're going to make it work between Hardin, who likes to play very ISO-heavy style and Embed, who does a scoring with a ball in his hands, too.

But I think they'll make it work. And Hardin, I thought, is fit in Brooklyn is always a little bit awkward because you have three guys who all do their best on the ball. And at least you've got more positional versatility here. So, yeah, there's that. Moving on to another one that might have somewhat more implications for the Pistons,

though I hope not, is the Mavericks trading Christaps Porzingis for a very curious package of, I believe it was Bertans and Dinwiddie. Weird. So, yeah, this was a weird trade. I want to give some background on this. So Porzingis got injured during the playoffs in 2020,

during that series against the Clippers, which I believe Dallas would have won if he had stayed healthy. I mean, Luca Donchich was really something else, and Porzengis was playing well too. So when the Mavericks traded for Porzengis, their vision was that he would play center and that you just have a really great perimeter interior duo, the Porzingis, of course, lots to operate from the outside also.

But also, Porzengis was an elite rangers. and protected before this injury, like unambiguously, an excellent interior defender. After this injury, he lost the step. His defense took a dump. Just his overall game took a dump. And there was some talk that he wasn't too happy playing unequivocal second fiddle next to Luca. And it's like, dude, you're not as good as Luca.

But, you know, whatever. So there might be some implications in that they've got a decision to make on J-Wen Brunson in the upcoming offseason. and he wants quite a bit of money. There was also Dorian Finney Smith. He was actually signed to an extension about five minutes ago for a very reasonable price. Like surprisingly reasonable, $13 million a year is an excellent price for Dorian Finney Smith. So there's been talk of the pistons being connected to Brunson.

So who knows, maybe they're trying to clear, maybe Dimwitty is his replacement. Maybe they're trying to clear space for Cuban to be a little bit cheap and not paid a tax. Yeah, which is like odd though, because and correct me if I'm wrong, Mike, like Mr. Salary Cap Guru yourself, but I don't understand if the Pistons really do want, and I'm not saying they should or shouldn't go after them, the Pistons are going to have the most cap space in the NBA. So if they really want them, I don't see how clearing just a marginal amount of space is going to make or break whether or not they retain Jalen Brunson, like as far as the Pistons are concerned.

So this is a really curious trade. I get it, but I also don't get it. Yeah. There must be something we don't know about Ports. It's just yet, though, honestly, he's, just the injuries are piling up now also. I mean, he's missed a lot of time this season. And I just, I think it's just, it's hard to know behaviorally what's going on behind the scenes. Yeah, this is really more of an A side, well, two A sides.

One, I do not want Brunson. No, me neither. And it actually kind of ties into the second point. The Mavericks, they really don't have a lot of flexibility anymore. One of their big moves was supposed to be Porzingis. And now I really don't see how they're going to add more like top-tier talent to Luca, at least anytime soon. Imagine if the Mavericks had gotten another top pick in 2020.

There were some real talents in that draft. They could have had even Sadiq Bay would have really helped them. But now they have to kind of build through the middle of the playoffs, which is where the Mavericks kind of find themselves year to year. I think they've won a few playoffs series. But I don't know. They just, I really look at the Mavericks. And I'm like, well, everybody's still talking about how good Loo

Luca is, he's still only like 22, but where do they go from here? How do they take that next step into being like actual contenders without relying super hard on Luca to just be a all-time rate? You know, so they're a curious case. I don't really have much more to say beyond that. Yeah, the maps. The maps were actually... Yeah, they are. The Mavs just weren't a very, we're a relatively strong team that season in general. I mean, Luca had a very good season. They were a 33-win team. They weren't great, but they weren't bad either. And that was also a season in which, a season in which, like, there were a ton of weak teams in the East, like a, so, but also bear in mind, they had also traded that pick.

I completely forgot about this when I started that sentence. They had traded their 2019 pick in order to move up in the draft and take Luca. So they didn't have an option of tanking in 2019. I mean, unless they were just going to try to be really bad, which is going to be tough with Luca and just trust the lottery odds. It didn't really make much sense for them. So in the event, I believe they had the ninth pick, and that went to Atlanta. They could have just tried to be really bad, but I don't think it made any sense for them. Porzingis was a good move. I would absolutely think that poor Zingis was a good move. Before his injury, he was a really good player. He just, you know, he was an injury prone player,

too, and he got hit with the injury bug, and that was that. But Brunson, I don't want Brunson either. I mean, yeah, again, slight A side, but Brunson is a player who is by far at his best on the ball. He, he's a player who does most of his damage by penetrating into the interior, attacking the basket, breaking down defenses, you know, that come of breaking down defenses. He's an up and down shooter. He does just, he has like a 20% three point attempt rate, which is very low by any, you know, by any definition. So yes, the Mavericks have been winning lately with him, he and Luca together. That is not offense. Brunson is much better when he's, is considerably better when he's, is considerably better when he's, you know,

away from Luca. The Mavericks have been winning on the basis of extremely strong defense. And even when it comes to defense, when Luca is playing without Brunson, the defense on the Mavs is way better. So you can't put Brunson next decade. I think it's just a really bad idea. Yeah. Yeah, I'd subscribe to that line of thinking. I don't know. Do we want to do Halliburton? We think we got to find for Halliburton's a bonus. What do we want to do? Yeah, absolutely. So I've just got a couple more that I'd like to go through. I think Halliburton was just a big thing in the NBA. Crazy.

Yeah, as I said earlier, you know, it was said by Wojj that teams were just done that he was even available. I mean, Halliburton has grown in the sophomore season into a very good player. Tommy has always hated him, but the other two, just kidding. Yeah, Tommy was very big on Halliburton. He was upset when he drafted Killian. What I will say about drafting Killian over Halliburton is that it's very unlikely that you draft Halliburton over Killian and still finish second worst in the league.

And, you know, I'll take Killian and Halliburton. and, excuse me, Killian and Cade over Halliburton and, you know, whoever else. Jalem Suggs. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is just without thinking. But this was just an example of Sacramento's very straight line thinking. Like, okay, well, Fox and Halliburton played an overlapping style or something, and we want to trade for more positional versatility elsewhere in a better pairing.

And I think it is a better pairing. This is just kind of shocking, and I think they probably could have done better than Savonis. Yeah, they probably should. This is going to be the argument that people make now. You know, everybody talks about, well, you don't want to draft too many of one position because then you have a log jam, you kind of feel obligated. And maybe that is the case here because they had Davion Mitchell. They had Deer and Fox and they had Tyrese Halliborne.

And maybe there weren't enough minutes to go around. But I just, I don't think you do this. I think you should still take the best player available. I think the Cavaliers did that when they drafted Garland, when they already had Colin Sexton and obviously that's working out very well for them. So I hope that this is not like an argument that people make in the future. Well, there's also the fact that Sexton got injured and Garland was way better without him. Like way better.

And it's become, yeah. So, I mean, the two of them together were considerably less than the sum of their parts. Yeah, no, I mean, and Garland was pretty bad to start his NBA career. So I think people are looking at Garland as like a little bit of hope for Killian Hayes. Yeah, he was bad. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know.

I just hope that this isn't like something that people point to. That's all I would have to say about I cannot believe that Halliburton was available. You hear the, I mean, Subonis is a good player, but you hear the comments that Halliburton makes. Like, he is just such a good person for an organization to have. Fans love him. Their locker room undoubtedly loved him. And he was like the one guy who was like, there was some quote, and I'm paraphrasing. It's like, I'm not going to let the history of the King's culture get to me.

I'm not going to let that be us. and then the Kings trade him. He wanted to be the guy. He wanted to be the guy who he wanted to go to Sacramento. He wanted to be the guy who helped Sacramento return to respectability. And yeah, and they traded him. I think this is hilarious. I saw an image last night in their first game,

the first game Sabana's played against the Timberwolves. And they were at halftime, I believe. And of course, you know, the halftime guys, not of course, this is just how it is, were in an area with fans behind them. And like the two most prominent signs said something. like welcome to hell, Subonis, stuff like that. I mean, the fans are, of course, not happy.

I do think that there'll be a better pairing than Fox. I don't think highly a Fox. Just for the record. Then Fox and Halliburton would have been. But it was just an utterly bizarre thing to do. And it was just the Kings. The Kings want to make the playoffs. They were like the Pistons were.

They just want to make the playoffs. But I don't think the Pistons could have beaten that offer realistically. No, Sabonis is substantially better than Grant. I'd say. Yeah. I don't think the pistons we're going to offer up both Grant and Bay. And who knows if the kings would have sprung for that, maybe? Yeah.

I would have done. Well, and just interject here, too. I don't even know. Like, clearly Halliburton was available in the sense of the kings were, you know, willing to part with him. But I don't know if he was available, like, they're like actively shopping him. It may very well be that the Pacers were like, give us Tyrese. And the Kings just kingsed.

And they were like, okay. So I don't know if you're available. in the traditional sense, right? But if he was, I don't see the pistons beating out the majority of the league, let alone just the Pacers with Sabonis. So that's probably a pipe dream. And I don't know if there's anything more to be said about Halliburton. Are there a few more trades you wanted to get to, Mike?

Or how do we want to do this? And one of them is very short. So there's the CJ McCollum trade. And this one is relevant because of it completely destroyed Tommy's dreams. So Tommy is a huge fan of Anthony Simons. apparently the trailblazers are also is after trading Norman Powell, which was just a good trade from the Nomek. It was, Neil O'Shea, it was a disaster. Trading Gary Trent Jr. for another guard was just the height of stupidity. So they traded away C.J. McCollum. McCollum didn't have much

trade value. He's a 30-year-old, but two years left on a max contract that he doesn't deserve. He was never a particularly good guard, a particularly good performer away from Willard, aside from like a few rare situations. And the Pelicans, are desperate. Zion is, well, not only is Zion always injured, but I mean, I think they consider him a real flight risk. And because a player can just take the qualifying offer in his fifth year and they become an unrestricted free agent. So it's virtually unheard of. Greg Monroe was the last guy to do it as far as I can remember, certainly the less prominent one. But that's a risk. So they acted to shore themselves up in that respect, give New Orleans a better, you know, a better roster

and the ability to compete for the plan this season. And basically the reward for Portland was a conceivably decent pick in the lottery. And geez, I'm completely forgetting what else they got. Okay. Well, they traded Nikol. They got Josh Hart. Yeah, that's right. Josh Hart and Nikola Alexander Walker.

I'm sorry. I was planning up the list up here in front of me. And they then traded Nikola Alexander Walker for a very small return to the jazz. And that was a little annoyed that the Pistons didn't get in. on that, but they would have been that or Bagley based on what they could do to match salaries, most likely. I would take Bagley, I think. They probably could have made it work anyway, but, and, you know, trading wage is Josh Jackson.

Actually, they might have been able to use an even smaller salary because Alexander Walker only earns like three and a half million this season. So that's a trade they could have made. They could have made that and the Bagley trade together. And I think Alexander Walker has some potential. So I'm a little bit myth that they didn't go after that, but maybe there's a factor I didn't know of. they could have saved Portland more money on this year's payroll and thrown in a couple of second round picks instead of just won, but whatever, it didn't happen.

So Portland just clearing cap space, getting a draft pick, and clearing the way for Simons. Simons obviously is not happening for Detroit now. You know, I get the feeling that Portland would max any offer sheet up to the maximum. And, yeah, and the Pelicans, meanwhile, I feel like it blocked themselves into a roster that is a second round ceiling. But, you know, I don't know if either of you guys really care about the Pelicans. Republicans. Not too deeply. Not too deeply. I mean, I think that probably playing at its best, McCollum, Ingram, and Zion could be fun. We talked about that when that trade actually happened. I thought it could be a fun team. Is it a team that's going to win a championship? You know, likely not.

But I do see what, inversely, what Portland is doing. And I like the trade for them. I thought it was a decent kind of sort of thing all around with Portland sort of edging it. But other than that, no strong feelings on it one way or another. Yeah, I mean, for those of you listen to these episodes, again, we've always liked to hear feedback, whether on Twitter, we're all on the Detroit Pistons Discord. We always post these episodes on the Detroit Pistons subreddit. If you guys want to hear more just around the NBA content, by all means, let us know. And we're happy to do. It'll be tend to just focus on the Pistons. But the rest of the NBA is absolutely interesting as well.

We'll do whatever. Yeah, we'll do whatever. One more trade? We got one more trade. Absolutely. So this last one is just a small one, and this is purely just for the edification of those who were confused about this. So there was talk that the Pistons had interest in Jalen Smith, and ultimately the Pacers just traded Tory Craig for him, which is a nothing return. So here was the kind of lose-lose situation with respect to Jalen Smith.

So the sons turned down his 30-year option. So do you always, the teams decide upon the options on first round picks a season before. So the Pistons picked up Killian Hayes' 22, 22, 23 option, for example, in this past off season. So if you turn down an option, you are, you know, the team which has that player on his team, whether he's traded or not, is only able to offer a salary up to the amount of that option. So at the maximum, any team which traded for Jalen Smith or the Sons of the head captain would have been able to offer him in free agency is $4.7 million. So let's say you trade for Jalen Smith and he plays well. Another team just outbid you.

And that's that, you know, and then he's gone. So he almost have to trade for him and hope that he pays poorly, plays poorly, but still want to keep him. So that's why the Pistons didn't trade for him. So, all right, any other thoughts about the NBA? There is one, we usually do listen to submitted questions here. There's one that I want to get to. I mean, this episode is growing long. This is one that I want to get to because it was submitted last week and we did not get to it.

But any thoughts about the trade deadline season first? No, I think, honestly, that was. was just about the most in-depth that I think we could cover all those trades. So I've got, I don't know about Tommy. I've got nothing more to add. I'm ready to jump into that question, I think. I just have one quick thing. We're not getting Simons.

Even if we throw a bunch of money at him in free agency, Portland has cleared the cap space for him. They didn't need the cap space. I mean, they didn't need the cap space. I mean, they have his bird rights. They cleared enough money that it's not going to be an issue. Yeah. That dream is dead. That is functioned.

And I appreciate your passion for it. That's the trouble with falling in love with. players that are not actually on your team. Most of the time you don't end up with them on your team. I mean, I'll have these discussions, I'm sure, as we get into offseason content about Deondra Aiden and Miles Bridges, I know that many Pistons fans are fans of those do, but the fact is that those teams can just match any offer.

And yeah, I agree that Portland would match any offer up to the max at this point. So the one question will go over. So does the Garland emergence for the Cavs provide you with any hope for Killian Hayes? No, no. And that's, sorry to just jump in like that. I don't know if you guys could tell that I'm passionate on the topic. But Darius Garland and Killian Hayes are different players. They're different people. They're in different situations. They have different play styles. And these circumstances are not one for one. So just because one young guard who struggled is all of the sudden playing very, very well, does not mean that our young guard who has struggled is all of the sudden going to start playing very, very well. That just that logic does not make sense. What the Garland emergence tells us is that young guards can get better. It doesn't necessarily mean that ours is going to. 100%. I agree with you, Dante.

Just because Garland is the exception to the rule. He's not the rule. Just because you play a lot of minutes in the NBA doesn't mean you're going to get better. Yep. What gives me a little bit of faith in Killian is his recent play. He's showing a little bit more willingness to attack the basket and take contact. That's a bigger deal to me than Garland. Garland doesn't really do anything for me.

I don't look at Garland. I'm like, oh, that's Killian Hayes. right there. It's just, I think, Killian on his own is improving a little bit. And he's been improving for a little while, and it's finally starting to show in a little bit. A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. He followed up, I don't want to play Debbie Downer here, but he followed up that, I mean, what for Killiam was a good showing, but for anybody else is pretty pedestrian, any other major rotation guard. But that performance against the Timberwolves, he followed that up with an absolute, utterly terrible stinker against the Mavericks who actually have one of the best

defenses in the league. Yeah. He had six points, four fouls, two assists, and eight turnovers. I mean, he got murdered. So my answer to the question, I agree with what both of you have said, with guards who start out this poorly, the odds are strongly against them making it. They can make it. Garland is certainly an exception of the rule in starting out very poorly and turning into what looks like an all-star caliber guard. There are a couple of other factors. So we harp often on athleticism. In fact, is athleticism is a very helpful quality. And players particularly, I would particularly guards, where it's an especially important consideration for them to be quick, you know, point guards in particular, I would say, being, having the need to be able to reliably

penetrate and break down defenses. You've just, you got, and again, it's true for any position. If you, if you have below average athleticism, you've just got further to go to become an effective NBA player. Killian Hayes has relatively, I don't even say relatively, Killian Hayes has poor NBA athleticism. So he just naturally has further to go, whereas Garland is very quick, which is a great asset. Maybe Killian has some things Garland doesn't in terms of his core vision. Though Garland came in as a much better handler of the ball

in terms of just his ability to dribble with either hand, correct me if I'm wrong. So, no, I wouldn't say it particularly gives me hope, only in the way that, like, sure, there's there it's like you think about the dumb and dumber line it's like so you're saying there's a chance yeah yeah that's basically what it does for me like because killian just where he is with all of the things he's bad at which is almost everything on offense he is he can't score from the perimeter he's bad at scoring from the interior he's not great at going left uh he can't really break down

defenses or he really struggles to and on defense again which i think he is highly overrated because he is a genuinely good defender against players who are too quick for him, but there are a lot of players at guard who are too quick for him. So I hope he succeeds. I'm glad to see the incremental progress. I know the pistons will give him, I'm very confident he'll give him at least another season, and we'll see where things go.

I don't think the book has closed on him yet. It's just been a distressing season for a former number seven overall pick. All right. Any final thoughts before we close? No, I think that covers it. Yeah, you don't know. No, this was a pretty, I'd call it. This is substantially fulfilling episode for what was a pretty crazy trade deadline.

Maybe not for us, but for the NBA, definitely. I think we covered everything. So I believe that that's going to do it. Quick reminder, a couple housekeeping things. We're going to start doing this at the end of episodes now. Feel free to follow us on Twitter. It's at To the BasketPod. You could join us in the Detroit Pistons Discord in the Detroit Pistons subreddit.

And like Mike alluded to earlier in the episode, we're always open to feedback suggestions. Let us know what you thought of the episode. please let us know if you liked the live ad read. I think the guys liked it. Pretty impressed with myself that I was able to rattle that off pretty. Honestly, like you should consider a career in broadcasting if the whole lawyer thing gets boring for you. I don't know.

I feel like I do enough speaking on a day-to-day basis to where it's like, if I'm not good at it by now, you know, that would be pretty alarming. But yeah, that's going to do it. So we hope you enjoyed the episode. And we will see you in the next one.