Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 97: 2022 NBA Draft Prospects - An In-Depth Look at Chet Holmgren

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

This episode, the third of our draft series, takes a detailed look at consensus top-three 2022 Draft prospect Chet Holmgren.   Draft player cards: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h6ZaAu30Rb4ovrjY-8ifK6OXJGYvtZIEMad8DGWh9Zg/edit?usp=sharing

Welcome back, everybody. You're listening to Drive into the Basket, part of the Basketball podcast network. I am Mike, joined by Tommy, as always. And we are one week away from the NBA draft lottery. That's right. Next Tuesday, we will be back with you in our next episode with really a reaction right after the draft lottery, our thoughts, feelings, hopefully positive feelings, and what we see really going forward.

So today is going to be the last of our pre-wottery draft previews for the third of I guess you could say consensus top three overall draft picks, and that is Chet Holmgren out of Gonzaga. So, yeah, let's launch right into it. So Chet Holmgren listed at 7 foot 1, as we've said with other prospects. Probably shorter than that, I would guess he's at about seven feet, probably, maybe a little bit shy. MBA even, they round up. And he's at a very, you know, jacked 195 pounds. Just kidding.

The guy is basically a walking skeleton. them. So, it'll be about 20 at the draft, 7'5.6 wingspan. That's very good, needless to say. And how he operated at Gonzaga, really top-notch interior defender, one of the very best in the NCAA. It uses his length and his mobility, which is definitely very good for a guy his size, to alter shots, block shots, prevent shots, and just a great defensive IQ. And pretty versatile score at the other end as well. Big question, his weight, which will talk about later. So, yeah, I've talked a while. Sorry, Tommy. Oh, you're good, man. Yeah, what is the thing you would say you like most about shut?

I think it, you will already mention it. It's the rim protection. I think that's probably his most game-breaking skill that he's going to bring into the NBA. I think he's an excellent room protector. You mentioned it. Fantastic positional defender picks his spots really well with that combination of mobility and verticality and just makes him an exceptional talent as a drop defender. his length and his size, just his physical profile, it's unique. He walls up higher than typical NBA defensive fives, and he gets to his spot faster than normal big. So he makes these angles that even NBA players won't be used to attacking.

Definitely. I mean, he's, so you have plenty of other guys who have long wingspans, like quite a few who have Chet's wingspan amongst centers in the NBA. It's a week of long players for the most part. But really the key thing for Chet is that he uses his wingspan very effectively. he gets the absolute most you could really get out of that wingspan. To go along with what's a good degree of agility for his size? And again, good mobility.

So, yeah, when it comes to his defense, totally agree. Potentially offense bending defender, interior defender. So the sort who's not only going to do a great job blocking shots, but Chet does. I mean, one thing that Chet does, and one of the reasons he's such a good shot blocker, he really stays upright. Like in every situation, it keeps his arms up, and he's very good at positioning them. He's very good at positioning whether he's doing it. to block a shot or just to alter a shot or whatever else.

He just always stays in a good defensive stance around the basket. So he's the kind of guy you look at, like, we don't want to get to the Rudy Gobert comps very early, but this is a guy you look at in the NBA who does something similar to this. Basically, you'll see these guys sometimes go at Gobert and then just turn around because it's not even worth it. Because Gober has a, yeah, he's an established defensive position. And there's really no point trying to attack him at the rim.

because at best you're going to get off a bad shot if he doesn't swat you out, right? So chat's a guy who has the capacity not only to block shots, not only to alter shots, but you do a fantastic job up in college, but also just to prevent players from even trying. And not many guys are going to fit that profile. Right. It's like you said, he's excellent at staying vertical. And that's a key for not following. He's not afraid to take the hit.

Like a lot of guys, when they see that contact coming, they'll brace themselves. They'll kind of push their arms forward a little bit. and that's what refs will like to call the, that's when refs will call the foul on the center or the defender. Chet doesn't do that. Like he is perfectly willing to take that hit, go straight up and down, and that makes the shots that the opposition is trying to take very, very difficult.

I think back to the Memphis State versus Gonzaga matchup, where he played against, oh gosh, his name, Jalen Durenne. Duren, yeah, that was Memphis, not Memphis State. Yeah, and he, Duren was able to get all the way to the rim, but once they got there, Chet just walled up. He puts his arm straight up,

and Duren could not get the shot up or around him, and he forced some really, really awkward shots. At one point, Jalen put up a flip shot with his offhand, just trying to get the ball over his arms. And regular, I mean, that's a bad shot to begin with, but that's the kind of stuff that Chet can force. Like, he just has a different kind of length,

and guys are not going to be used to having to deal with this size and length so quickly. because that's the difference. I mean, yeah, it takes it's there so quickly. Yeah, he gets there quickly. He's good at compensating when somebody gets by him. He just knows out of position himself. And it's a rare player who can use his length properly. You can couple that with the necessary basketball IQ,

the defensive IQ, rather, the necessary overall awareness, and just the use of his physical assets to just so expertly alter shots around the basket. So it's a tremendous asset. one that not many guys in the NBA have, and that that's one I think will translate very well. And again, just the defensive IQ is very good. I mean, he knows where to be. He knows what's going on. This is a guy who can definitely anchor an interior defense.

And though I don't think he's going to be a great switch defender, I think he'll be respectable. Like, we're not talking Isaiah Stewart level. It should be noted. We do criticize Isaiah Stewart, not for how he plays. Because both of us love the guy. I mean, who doesn't love Isaiah Stewart? You're not the Lakers fan. But, yeah, I mean, Isaiah is legitimately an excellent switch defender, like from the, from the perimeter on it.

And Stewart, excuse me, a home ring doesn't profile as that. But again, just the way he capitalizes upon his physical assets is very impressive. Right, absolutely. I think Chet is actually a better drop defender than switch defender. And, you know, for sure, like with how good Chet is, both at, you know, switching back and forth between the ball handler and the roller, just the amount of ground that he's able to cover on those possessions. I think that you're going to want him to be that guy. And we'll get to this when we talk about fit with the pistons and how that factors in.

But, you know, when you watch Chet, like, he just covers so much ground. He makes so much use of his length. This is something that I thought Christian Wood did a decent job of, kind of picking his spots to be able to contest both guys. But Chet just takes it to another level. Definitely. He knows where to be. I feel like I'm repeating myself, or I'm definitely I'm repeating myself.

He knows where to be. He knows how to use his length. then he knows how to recover. Fantastic pick and roll defender. Yeah, this is something we also see with Isaiah Stewart, who's able to find like the happy medium. I mean, Isaiah has very good footwork, and he's fairly mobile on the interior,

not mobile overall, but in terms of using his instincts and his footwork and his length to find kind of like a happy medium in between the role man or the screener, whatever you want to call him, and the ball handler, so that he can do a decent job of getting to either one of them, depending on how the situation to make.

And, yeah, Chet, his footwork isn't, or excuse me, he's got good water mobility. But his overall mobility isn't quite as good as stewards in that capacity, but that doesn't matter. I mean, he still does a very good job of it. So, yeah, just a guy who could, as long as he's able to play center, we'll get to that later, that'll depend on weight. Could be, you know, a top five defender at his position. And just really have a rare sort in that capacity on the defensive end. I mean, I think he could just be a great drop defender.

and a guy who's not going to be a liability at least on the switch, though he's not going to be, I think, a strong switch defender. But you can make that work as long as you have decent personnel on the perimeter. Yeah, that would probably take us to his post defense, which is also very strong. He does not give up ground very easily. But this is kind of like we wanted to save, you know, the negatives for later on. But I think you have to have the conversation about the weight within the positives because at least here, it doesn't really matter.

He doesn't give up ground easily, but he does give up ground when like a strong post player is backing him down. But once you get to the rim, it's the same thing we mentioned with Jalen Duren earlier. You can't finish over him. Like you have to be shack to like power through this guy at the rim. He's still going to make life incredibly difficult there and he's still going to force tough shots. So, you know, great drop defender and even a post defender. Now when you talk about post defense and like really big guys backing you down, people are going to mention the yoga. which is and the Embedes.

What's your take on those guys? Because I feel like nobody's really stopping them. But to what degree do you think he might struggle with that? Because I'm not super worried about it, truthfully. I would be. I mean, I think, rather have that discussing, we're going to talk plenty later on about his weight. I think that might be best saved for that segment of the show.

But I do agree definitely that even when he gets back down, I mean, the guy never gives up. He stays in the vertical position with his arms up. And there were definitely instances in the NCAA in which he was back down to virtually underneath the basket. But when his assignments went to actually try to put it in, I mean, Chet was still standing bolt uprights with his arm straight up. And then it was still a very difficult shot. I mean, it's very difficult to make a shot through Chet's size,

through Chet's length and through his ability to just, you know, wave one of his arms and block the shot in many cases. So, yeah, he did manage to really stay in it with much strong. or centers. Like Duren is 250, very strong. And Chad even managed to stay with him quite well on defense. Actually, very well. I mean, Dern had a terrible game. Yeah. And that, that's probably his, his game. I think he, like we already said this, I think he's a much better drop defender, which is different than what we're kind of seeing some of the NBA, in terms of the NBA defensive men, I think that's a little bit different. But just going back to his switchability and his

perimeter defense, he's still good. I think he's a better forward and backward. Uh, in terms of, an athlete in terms of his mobility. I don't think he's great laterally. But he can close out to shooters on the perimeter quickly. He knows when to stay down. And he seems aware of the fact that his length and presence are enough to cause the opposition to take altered shots. Maybe they're speeding up their release or they're taking a higher arc than usual, whichever it is. They're going to shoot at a worse percentage of Chet is the defender, wherever he is on the floor.

Definitely. And even the mere presence of a guy like that can change how an offense plays. I mean, just the, like he said, just the fact that he is there. is going to alter how, at least in the NBA, it forced teams to alter how they were going to approach their, how they were going to approach offense in general, especially around the basket. And when it comes to scoring at the basket, you know, this goes without saying, of course, that's driving in and scoring at the room, and that's a super high percentage form of offense. So you really have to plan around a guy, like teams have to plan around a guy like

Goberra, for example, when they're trying to attack the basket. I mean, that's just a factor just in that he is there. So definitely very impressive. And Chet's defensive potential in the NBA, I'd say, is very, again, I just repeat, is sky high. I mean, he could be a very special defender. And also, I would say that his offense is not, I don't think he'd be quite a strong, but has an air of versatility to it that is also very intriguing.

Right. Yeah, if you look at just even the list of NBA centers who are able to defend the rim at a high level, and shoot threes. I believe it's just Miles Turner. Unless you're counting Embed. That's different. I mean, Embed is Embed. So,

but primarily focuses on the interior. Right. And even at his size, you know, the level of touch and finishing that he displays, it's not a guarantee. Chet is definitely capable

and he makes full use of his length and footwork, really. He has some go-to moves that are very effective. He's very fluid as an attacker. He makes use of a lot of spin moves on the drive. And he's very nimble. That's something that stands out when you watch him,

especially when he gets going and he's got a lane to the basket, even if it's not super clear. He can kind of squeeze between space and finish with length. He definitely, he's a hard guy to stop on the way to the rim. Yeah, when he gets there, I mean, the guy doesn't have the strongest first step, but if you let him gather up speed, definitely he can do good things around the basket in general, particularly when he just gets the ball there from another, you know, from a teammate when offense is created for him. but he still needs to finish, make a difficult finish rather when it's not just a basic one. And if you give Jet the opportunity for an easy finish, I mean, he's going to get it done.

I mean, the guy can dunk the ball very quickly and he barely even needs to jump. And he is able to just play very upright so that when he receives the ball, I mean, it's just a very, very quick thing and nobody really has time to react. But when he has to actually finish in a more difficult way, he has good footwork, he's composed, and he uses his length and positioning not only well on defense, but also on all. offense and just getting close to the baskets and in position to parlay what his physical assets are when he's very, very good at just dunking the ball, just given a little bit of space. So clever composed.

Yeah, it seems at all times to just have a good head for the game and not get sped up. He just seems to never get sped up. Yeah, he has an enormous catch radius and good leaping ability. So he should be a lob threat. There's upside there as a role man. He had limited attempts at Gonzaga, which I didn't really like, well, this is. is really more of a personal pet pee, but I didn't really like that we didn't get to see as much of Chet at the five as we really should have. Like, there were a lot of weird things that happened

with this college season that made scouting a lot more annoying and difficult. He played power for it. He was definitely one of the big ones. Yeah, he played powerful on offense. He played center on defense. He played center on defense. Yeah, Timmy, I mean, it made perfect sense. Timmy was one of the best scorers in college basketball. I mean, he was, he did great as a post-scorer. I mean, it's kind of, yeah, I agree it was irritating. Doubly so because Timmy is the kind of player who's highly unlikely to make it in the NBA, just because he's going to have a great deal of trouble on switches and just defending quicker guys in the NBA in general and also the post game in the NBA. I mean, you can be a very

strong score in the NCAA as an excellent guy in the post in the NBA. It's hard. It's almost certainly not going to transfer, not for a guy like him. But yeah, so we didn't get to see Chet a lot in the role. But what we did see, I thought was very promising. Like you said, is he good enough sleeper off the run and not just when he's got a runway. He's a good enough sleeper where he can get up and grab it with that massive catch radius of his. He's going to be able to see over almost anybody, or at least, you know, reasonably so. So be able to catch that lob. He's got the passing vision in chops to make some passes off the role. That's very useful. And it has kind of like the beginnings of a floater game that would be very useful. And also,

last but not least, should be a decent pick and pop guy. Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned the because the place where I saw it most clearly was when he was running the floor with the ball in his hands. Because for such a big guy, he is deceptively quick. He takes really long strides, covers a lot of ground, and he can get all the way to the rim and finish with power if no one embodies him up. And it's just another one of these things where it makes him such a unique prospect because you don't expect to see a guy that big, that long, move that gracefully, especially in the open court. He has some issues, I think, with turnovers, but you don't really see it on these players because he's definitely just capable of taking the ball up himself. Absolutely is. Yeah, actually a plurality of his possessions, his offensive possessions were in transition.

You usually don't see that out of a big, you know, out of a seven-footer. The guy is definitely very fluid when he runs the floor. And like you said, just gobbles up space with long strides. He knows where to be. He can either take it close to the basket and score it very gracefully. catch a lob in transition, or he can pull up in transition, whether just with the ball or as a trailer and shoot the three there. He was actually pretty darn good at that. He was actually, Chet was, he didn't take many pull-up threes as a small sample size. He was 9 of 21 on pull-up three-pointers.

I'd see the majority of those, almost all of those, I would say probably in transition. But I feel like his potential as a shooter is also good. He's got a good stroke. It's just, It was very encouraging. I mean, you can look at free throw shooting as a metric, and he wasn't so great at that. He was only about 72%. But his stroke looks good. He just, he looks like he has that potential. All told, he was at 39% of the season on 105 attempts.

So, yeah, to have a guy that size who can score well around the basket and also shoot three, it just affords you a lot of opportunities. Right. And right now I'm calling his three-point shot. Like you said, 39%. But right now I see it as three-point shooting upside, just because that was one of the things that kind of came along halfway through the season. That's one of the reasons why, like, at one point, I had Chet fourth on my board,

and then his shooting really picked up. And that kind of solidified him as, like, a top three guy for sure. And on most boards, he's actually the number one overall pick. And that was definitely, like, a swing skill for him. So I'm not going to call that a guarantee or, like, something that's definitely going to translate to the league. But I definitely think that his transition three-pointer looked really nice. He really liked that shot.

Took it a lot from the top of the key. That's a good shot. And yeah, I'm not as high on his shooting as you are, it seems, because I think he brings the ball low. It's definitely a slow, like, set shot that he likes to take when he's on the perimeter or when he's taking a jumper. So I'm not a huge fan of that. I don't think he has a ton of versatility there as a jump shooter.

But I'll agree that there's upside for sure. And it's not the sort of thing where he's like a non-spacing threat. Yeah, definitely. I mean, he took about 35% of his shots with three-point jumpers. I mean, that's a significant amount. And like you said, I mean, his role in the offense was a little bit hazy. Right. And it did deny us the opportunity to see what he could do with a larger role because Timmy was really the guy in the interior.

And Gonzaga's guards just love to handle the ball and take a lot of shots. So Chet could get squeezed out at times. And some of that was perhaps a matter of assertiveness, which we'll talk about later. But, you know, he averaged 14 points per game in about 27 minutes. That's not bad. And his efficiency was fantastic. I mean, the guy had 69% true shooting. That's not something he will, is likely to replicate in the NBA.

I mean, that would be a brilliant percentage for anybody who is not just finishing easy opportunities created by teammates. But 83% around the rim. And I didn't take much in the way of two-point jumpers, but was it around 50% on those? So, yeah, I do feel pretty good about his shooting upside. But altogether, the guy's got a pretty versatile offensive package that I just feel good about. I think, I think the majority of his impact is still going to come on defense. but I feel good about what he could provide on offense as well. Again, if he can gain weight.

I keep saying that. But I think also something that should be mentioned is his motor. He got a super hard worker. It's super competitive, just never backs down even from much bigger players. It really gets into it physically. You know, it's just a very physical player. I never backs down from that. Really takes pride in his defense, really a team player and just a great attitude.

So it would definitely be a great culture fit in Detroit. Yeah, I mean, you kind of took the words right out of my mouth. I have that exactly. Doesn't back down, plays fearlessly. Bit of a dog. And he really, there are clips that you've seen, I think of one particularly from high school, where he really likes to get under guy's skin. And I think that'll be appreciated here.

But there was one clip you see where, you know, they call a dead ball, catches it. And he just kind of whips it at a player on the other team. Not hard enough that it was egregious and that the ref is going to call like a technical. but just to annoy the guy a little bit. And the guy gets it in his face and Chet starts to walk away and he's got like a smug smile on his face. Ref t's up the other guy. Like Chet knows how to how to do that.

I think that's the sort of thing that Detroit fans will really fall in love. Yeah, completely agree. So, all right, anything else before we get to the minuses here? No, we can move right on. All right. So just before that, a quick word from our sponsor, Draft Kings. The NBA playoff action is nonstop at Draft King's Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. This week, new customers can best.

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of the draft, or you could even, I guess, make the arguments amongst the top five unless you have Shaden Sharp there. I'd say probably most teams would have Jaden Ivy and Keegan Murray rounding out that top five is definitely the guy with the most bust potential. So, sorry. You just heard a text message from my phone as I failed to put it on vibrate first. In any case. Come on, Mike.

Yeah, come on, me. What an amateur mistake. So I guess I'm just too popular. All right. So I know it. You know what? Everybody knows what I'm going to say is his chief concern is his weight. I mean, the guy is incredibly thin right now. And I feel like if he can't gain weight, he really cannot reach his ceiling.

And he's going to have to gain a significant amount of weight. Right. My concerns, again, they stem from the weight. And it's the reason, well, I'll save that for later on when we talk more about, like, rounding it out. But I have concerns about, like, how that is exploited. Like, what's stopping an opposing offense with a capable big from exploiting his weight over and over? Like, if you just back this guy down, would a team have to send the double to compensate for Chet's lack of weight, even if this guy is getting all the way to the rim?

Like, is Chet going to be responsible for the other team creating advantages? That's the sort of thing that my concerns kind of stemmed from. And for the most part, I don't think that the lack of weight is really a problem. Check kind of compensates well enough for it with position and length. But I think that there are going to be times where you just have to work around it and that could cause problems down the line. I mean, I would say that the NBA is just a very different beast in terms of the athletes. And I mean, you saw it in the NCAA.

Like, for the most part, he was able to hold his own. I mean, the worst player in the NBA is basically like an NCAA standout or close to it. So I'm thinking, like, at this point, center is not really going to be a good position for him, and that's a problem. Because I feel like a lot of his defensive potential is tied up in playing center. But I'm sure he'll compete as hard as he can and he'll do what he did in college in terms of staying upright and being in position to challenge guys at the basket. You've got way higher skill level in terms of guys being able to score over those outstretched arms if they've established position. Like the likes of Embed, or Yokic and some others as well, we'll just pulver. him physically. I got a very close-up seat to the last time the Pistons played in Denver

against the Nuggets. And Isaiah Stewart, I mean, the guy is even bigger, you know, even more, you know, physically impressive in person than on television. And Yokic just bodied him. I mean, and there was nothing, and nothing Isaiah at like six foot, is about six foot seven and a half and 250 pounds of, it was with incredibly low body fat. And, you know, this only so much you can do. So yeah, I agree with you in terms of are they going to exploit him? Because if you can just back him out of the way, I mean, then he's a non-factor on offense. If you can just set a highway screen on him, then he's a non-factor on defense. If you can set a highway screen on him, he's a non-factor on defense. I just feel like the ability of these much bigger centers to reposition him and the ability

of NBA offenses to exploit that repositioning in a way that NCAA offenses would not will be an issue. at his current weight. Right, absolutely. And I'm a little bit surprised that you said his ideal position would not be the five right now. Can you expand more? Because I think, at least right now, I think he can compensate for it against most matchups.

I don't think he can. I think that it will be exploited in ways that don't involve just backing him down and trying to score at the rim. Again... What are you picturing? Like, for example, like we saw how effectively Isaiah Stewart used,

which call highway screens, which is basically you set a screen and then you roll into the key and you just hold your defender at the edge of the key while the ball handle scores. So imagine how easy it would be to highway screen, Chad Holmgren right now. I mean, yeah, that would be incredibly easy and there would be basically nothing you can do about it besides try to fight his way past the screen. And against an NBA ballhandler, he's almost certainly going to get there late. So, and even if you can, if you back the guy down under the basket and then you pass to a cutter,

nope, sorry, Chad is completely out of position at that point. And I'm not saying his ideal position isn't center. I mean, I think his position has to be center. It's just a question of can he do it right now, and I don't think that he can. I think that a lot was made of Mowbley's weight before last draft in terms of can he play center. Moby was an inch shorter and 20 pounds heavier. And I would argue that he still needs to gain weight in order to effectively play center. Yeah, and a lot of what he's, you know, a lot of his detriments were covered up by the fact that he's playing next to Jared Allen.

Jared Allen's covering the five. Mowgli is a fantastic perimeter defender. Chet is, I think that's probably one of the bigger differences. I think the Mowgli comp, it probably shouldn't come up because they're different. They're both just really skinny. But Mowgli is a fantastic switch defender. Chet, I think at his best, he's going to be a drop defender, and he needs to be, like, searching for the defensive positions on the ball.

So that is a real problem if you don't think that he can play the five. I personally, I think he'll be fine for the most part. to go against most matchups. I think he is capable of fighting. He establishes himself and he definitely doesn't give up ground easily. So I'm not as concerned as you are, it seems, on his positioning for there. Yeah. In the NCAA, he could do that.

I mean, you look at, you look in the NBA. I mean, there are going to be forwards, like a lot of forwards who can push them around. Yeah, they'll push them around. Like, this is why the matchup with Jail and Duren was so important. And I was encouraged by what I. saw from Chet. Yes, Jalen definitely backed him down, got all the ground that he wanted, but he could not finish over him. Yeah, but this Jayland during. At this point, it's going to be an issue of can NBA centers back him down all the way and then just create advantages that way?

Like, they're going to have to pass and get rid of it. I don't think they're going to be able to finish over or through him, but are they going to create sufficient options in posting him up? I think so. That's where I disagree. I mean, I think in the NCAA, I could pull it off. And Duren, I mean, sure, he did it against Duren. Duren is a guy who's, rawness on offense is one of his major downsides, is Duran is just not good at creating offense for himself in any capacity, even at the rim. I mean, he's good at dunking the ball.

On layups, he only shot like 52%, I think, which is not good at all. So in the NBA, I mean, you have these, these uber-skilled guys who against whom chet will be going. And some of the centers that go up against are just traditional bigs who really won't be able to do this. But there are other players who, as long as they can bump them off balance a little bit and just hoist to hook over him, they'll be able to do that. Embed has his turnarounds.

You can easily get himself in good position for that. Carl Anthony Towns, I mean, that's going to be an issue if Chet Kemp bulk up a bit and be able to hold his own physically more. And, I mean, the matchup I actually shudder at the most is Janus. Because, like, Chet comes to help on Janus. Janus is just going to bump him, twirl around him, and score over him. I mean, if Janus can score on just about anybody, but do you think about that, I mean, any guy, you know, a guy in particular who's strong and agile,

it's going to be real tough for Chet, as long if he can't take that first bump. to prevent him from scoring. So at 195 pounds, yeah, 195 pounds, I don't think he's anywhere near bulky enough to play center in the NBA right now. I'm not sure I'm quite there. The difference for me is, like, is he ready to take that first bump?

Because I think if he's not ready for it, yeah, the low weight, the high center of gravity means he's going to get knocked out of the way. But Chet, his awareness and I think his willingness to get low in his stance and really like dig in and try to stop guys. I think it's effective enough for now. But yeah, on those like those bigger more bursty forwards who are going to drive against him, yeah, I think he's going to have trouble.

It's going to be more a matter of keeping them, keeping on their hip and contesting with length. But yeah, if there are centers who are catching him off guard, they're just going to knock him straight down. And I think he'll try to, you know, maybe flop out of those, but because he did that a couple times, at least that I saw. But yeah, that's really more my primary concern. Like if he is caught off guard and he gets bumped by like a bigger guy, yeah, that's where I think the matchups are going. going to be a bit more of like a repeatable thing. And then if you have like big centers who are capable of posting, like not even centers like just bigs who are capable of posting up, I think they are going to get the

ground that they want. Finishing over it yet, no, I don't think that's going to happen. But I think they're going to get to the basket. Yeah, but you don't need to. So certain guys can just finish, they're going to be able to finish over him like MB with his turnarounds or Yokic with his hooks. Yeah, but they'll finish over anybody. for the most part, but I mean, if you're talking about it,

if you're drafting a guy for his defensive potential, you really want to be able to do that. Now, if he can gain weight and he can take the bump and they can't just really have their way in terms of what positioning they're going to get on them, it gets a lot more difficult. But I'm glad that you mentioned Mobley because basically, like, it's like you said,

Mobley had the luxury of playing next to Jared Allen. I know that the Allen signing was kind of pooh-bood after they had already drafted Mobley. I thought it was a good idea. I think, you know, he's a strong rim protector for now. He can play center while Mobley, you know, physically develops. And generally, the big physical leap you'll see is after year one. I mean, the guys don't really go into the first NBA off season typically and put on a bunch of muscle.

So, and, you know, it's like, Patalan is a good player. He's on a reasonable contract. And you just trade him down the line if you really want to. Because I think he's just a high floor player who's going to be able to contribute. And he's been way better than people expected, I think. It's way better than anybody expected. But Mobley is, you know, the guy went number three in an incredible. strong draft for a reason. And the guy

couples excellent athleticism with just great length and fantastic mobility for his size. So he was able to flex to forward and just parlay his defense out to the perimeter and as an explosive weak side rim protector. And Chek can't do that. Check doesn't have that mobility. So you can't

just kick him to forward and say, oh, we're going to get anywhere near as much out of him on defense. Right. And that is a concern that I have because I have that he plays a bit slow on offense as a four and his strengths really show more as a five because I think of him as like a play finishing five. Yep.

On offense and that's, you know, depending on who you have next to him in the front court, you know, maybe you, maybe the more natural fit, even if it's not a good fit, is for Chet to play the four. And I don't want that. I think that Chet is capable of playing the five all the time. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, that is certainly a concern. I agree with you.

On defense, I mean, he doesn't have the road still to that Mobley does. No. I mean, yeah, you push him out to power forward. Yeah, he can't chase guys around the perimeter. He can't, I don't think he's going to be able to switch nearly as well as Mobley can. And, I mean, Chet, I got to think, if he were in last year's draft, may have gone like number six because they were just much more, I think, would be considered much sure bets ahead of him. I don't know about Scotty Burns, but I'm pretty sure that the, what was the consensus top four of, of Cade,

Jalen Green, Evan Mobley, and Jalen Suggs at least would have gone over him. Of course, that changed on draft night. But like, it's just so much of its defensive potential, I think, goes by the wayside. if you cannot play him at center. And on offense, again, I don't think it's, I agree with you. I don't think it's ideal to play him at power forward. Like, what does he provide there if he's primarily playing in the perimeter? Like, you're just, you're not getting a ton out of him.

So, yeah, the way I see it, either it's a significant amount of weight gain or be very significantly reduced in ceiling. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm there. I think he's going to be, for the most part, fine, even if he doesn't put on a ton of weight. At a hundred and 59-5 matchups. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I mean, like, he doesn't play, even right now, he doesn't really use a ton of strength.

Like he'll, he needs to, you know, brace himself for contact and for guys to back him down. But I think that his biggest assets are still his length and his mobility. And he uses those extremely well.

I am concerned certainly about, you know, guys who are a lot bigger than him, just completely overpowering him, you know, like shack-ass guy. I don't know, but I don't have,

I don't think that's going to happen night to night. Now, in the playoffs, if you get a bad matchup, yeah, they could just run that over and over and over and what are you going to do about it? You have to send a double.

and that's when you're going to have defensive breakdowns. That's where my concern stems from. So I don't think, like, how much weight are you looking for him to gain before? That's not an issue. Yeah, I was about to ask you the exact same thing. I would peg it. I mean, if check can get up to like 220 to 25, I think you can pretty comfortable with playing at center at that point. He's still going to be on the wider side compared to some of the NBA centers.

But at that point, I think that he can take a bump well enough that he's not going to be exploited. So, and, you know, on those. highway screens, you know, in that case, maybe you can fight the rhythm to a degree or just, you know, I think he's mobile enough, he's nimble enough and agile enough that he'll spin around them. Like, he was definitely, he definitely fights for position very, very well. Yeah, he fights for position. Or at least with a lot of effort. But if you got the right angle on him, I mean, the proper angle, I mean, you want to be angling the guy

slightly away from the basket, so he's legitimately going to have to run through you and can't just, and also you're tying him up a bit. And the margins, I mean, just the level of athleticism and talent in the NBA is so much that even if you lose like three quarters of a step on a guy, he's probably going to score. So, yeah, I mean, what concerns me is that there's no guarantee that you gain weight. I mean, there's no guarantee that it's not as simple as, you know, just give the guy like a super, super high protein diet and just a crap wood of calories and work him out in the gym. It's on, like, a lot of this is genetics.

Like, you've got three basic body types in this respect. We've got your ectomorphs who are naturally just going to carry a lot more fat, be fairly muscular mesomorphs who are just your very muscular type. Like, I don't know. I mean, which are 20 examples in the NBA. Yokic is more like an anomorph, you know, carries a bit more pudge on him, but is very strong. Isaiah Stewart, it's like a mesomorph. And then you have guys are ectomorphs who tend to turn thinness.

And Chet has all the markings of an extreme ectomorph. And some guys will just have a genetic ceiling on how much weight they can realistically gain, how much muscle they can realistically put on. So with Chet, weight gain may be slow, and more importantly, it may be very limited. So, yeah, it's not just the situation in which you say, okay, Well, he's an NBA player at a game weight. I mean, unfortunately, it's not, yeah, it just may not turn out that way. Yeah, I don't think they're really solid precedence for this either.

Right, you know, I was struggling to come up with a comp that I thought made sense. Chad is a very, very unique player, very unique body type. I think he's going to be kind of the beginning of a brand new breed. I think we're already starting to see because usually big, at least in the past, if you were big, like you were lumbering, you were slow. But now they're getting faster. They're getting more nimble, more agile. I think that's kind of the tradition.

Yeah, exactly. The NBA has evolved. And I remember, I think it was the Rockets that started PJ Tucker at Center because they won nimble fives. Robert Covington, too. I mean, that was the ultimate evolution of Morrie Bowl. It didn't work too well because the Lakers just brought in Anthony Davis at Center and it was over. Yeah.

And that's why it was like centers got faster. They got more agile. I think it's good for the product. And I think Chet will be able to play it well. So I don't think you're going to have, but then there's guys like Embed who just break the game because they're fast, they're agile, and they're ridiculously strong. So, Matt has that issue. Embed and Yokich, guys like that have an incredible level of skill.

I mean, Embed, both of those guys are able to do things that nobody, no other big in the history of the league is able to do Mb, with the scoring versatility and Yokic with his own versatility and his passing. And, I mean, Yokic, who's been announced recently is won his second straight MVP. I feel a little bad for Embed, who had a great season in his own right. but Yokic, I know there's a bit of a digression, Yokic does stuff as a passer that I think should not

reasonably be possible. I mean, some of the stuff he does should be impossible. It's just unbelievable. But Ambide between his just mastery in the post and his ability to shoot from pretty much anywhere, I mean, what are you going to do? Like there are times when there's just, no matter who you are, there's nothing that can be done against him.

So yeah, the skill level is up there as well. But yeah, I mean, so you, you definitely have to be mobile enough now. And Yokic has his issues, particularly in the playoffs. Mbid is able to be pretty good. But you need the mobility because otherwise you're going to be relentlessly exploited. But, I mean, Chet is so far on the end of skinny that, I mean, just in terms of precedent as far as players being that skinny and gaining a lot of weight, I can't think of any.

Like, Janus, I know I've seen brought up as an example. Janus was significantly more tone than Chet, even before he came into the league. He was also about a year and a half younger and two and a half inches shorter. Janus was still growing. He grew maybe around two inches, if not more, in his rookie season. And yeah, his body was just still growing. And I'm not sure if he had really been exposed to like a proper strength regiment over in Greece. But I think he was still playing in Greece.

But, yeah, I don't think that's comparison. Sean Bradley, who was very thin, was nonetheless 275 pounds. I mean, is 76, but 275. So Chats really in his own category here, except for Pocoucif. who is 7 foot 190 but poker is very much a project and the jury is out on what he'll really be able to do and what position will play he's also very much a skill player i mean he's he's all about a skill on offense yeah i think about uh the you mentioned the biomarkers like you read about the ones like how uh like the circumference of your wrists and your ankles they kind of

can help you project out how much muscle you're reasonably going to be able to put on i feel like chet's got to be one of those guys who just he doesn't have the genetics to put on a ton of muscle he doesn't look like it he's got thin shoulders too yeah I mean, he's got definitely enough space to put on muscle. I mean, the guy is incredibly thin right now. I mean, just for reference, if he had played on this season's distance, he would have been the tallest and tied for the lightest amongst all the common rotation players. Like, only Saban Lee would have been lighter, and he didn't really play it done.

So he would have been tied with Killing in for the lightest. I mean, that is how light he is. Carson Edwards is definitely pretty thick for a point guard, but he weighs more than Chet, and he's like barely six feet. I think he might be five full. actually. So there's the question there. Just going on to just another concern, defensive switchability. So mobile, but not particularly athletic, he can parlay his length and his foot speed into a respectable switch defense from the front of around in. You can translate to that to the NBA, but he's more going to be respectable rather than good.

And this is more of a concern in the postseason, you know, which has got, you know, this is going to be kind of like a longer spiel. But you've got a greater than ever emphasis on being switchable. So some defenses like the Celtics and the Warriors, a group of guys you can defend anywhere, including the heat as well. Like, who is it Robert Williams, Draymond Green, of course, and Bam out of bio. Others use a more anchored scheme with a strong defensive center and pretty good perimeter guys. So that's the Sixers with Embed and even Aden's a decent guy, a decent defender, and you've got pretty good defenders around him. So you can still make that anchored scheme work, but you've got to have the personnel to do it properly.

And you've also got to be able to punish teams over the going small on you. So going small, you saw it with the clippers in particular against Goberra in the 2021 postseason, but he just played Batum at center. And so you're doing two things. You're drawing him out to the three point line, which is really reducing his value on defense, which is Goberrison is really just unbelievable interior defense. And you're also putting him a position where he's going to be attacked constantly, regularly by Batum, which and by whoever else it was often Terrence Mann, actually, in the last couple games of that series.

and Goberra is more just a passable switch defender rather than an incredible interior defender. So you have to be able to punish them for going small. On the other side, you basically have to be able to parlay that hide advantage into crushing them. You would never go small on Embed or even Aden or Yokic. Like Embed would crush a smaller defender if you went really small on him. And so in order to counteract that Chet's got to be able to find that offensive agency. Like Gobert snided in him a little bit dirty by just sticking with his offense. instead of kind of exploiting Dallas or exploiting the clippers in the pick and roll.

But Chet's got to be able to have the offensive agency to punish them for doing that. I punish them for going small. And then you kind of worry, his other big question mark, I think, is his offensive assertiveness and his ability to create. Yeah. I mean, what do you feel like is going to be his level of agency as a creator, or his ability or level of assertiveness? I mean, we saw him kind of get squeezed out of the offense in Gonzaga a bit. Yeah, I mean, that really has to change. Yeah, I'm not going to hold that against him.

I think the coach is probably going to dictate that. And they had like a national player of the year candidate and Drew Timmy, who was a capable score around the rim, good college player. Kind of guards. Yeah. And I don't think that Chet should be trying to force his own shot too much. I think that at his best, he's going to be like more of a play finisher. So I'm not going to really hold that against him too much.

Yeah. No, I hear you. I'm just, you've got to think ahead and say, is this going to be a guy in these situations? You know, this is an extreme situation. But if the opposition goes small, Is he going to have the assertiveness and the skill to punish them for that? And I would say yes, actually. I mean, like we said earlier, he parlayes his physical assets into, I mean, he just

capitalizes them upon them in an excellent way. So I feel like if he goes small, he'll get in there and they're just going to dunk over the guy repeatedly. I would like to see him get more assertive, though, in terms of, for example, attacking easier matchups. And I think that can come with time. I don't think that's unfixable by any means. Yeah, I don't see him doing that very much, honestly.

truthly, I don't think he's like a post-up big. I don't think he has that in him. He seems more like a guy who, if he has, if he has like a driving lane, I think he's capable of getting to the rim, but he doesn't have the strength to finish over guys, especially not in the NBA, so I'm not sure. Well, we're talking smaller guys.

Yeah, we're talking smaller guys. Even then, yeah, no, I think most guys are just going to get really low in his stance. And if he, if, I don't really trust, chat on pull-up jumpers. So I don't want him to, you know, try to back guys down because I don't think he's going to get his, I don't think he's going to get all the way in the rim,

unless he's making use of that spin move. So I'm not really sure what you're looking for there. Well, you're more talking like in situations if the opposition does go small on him, like in the postseason. Do you think that Chet will be able to punish them for that? I mean, again, that might be a question of being able to gain weight and being able to back guys down. I feel like he'll be able to establish decent position,

provided he gains that weight and basically just dunk over these guys. I mean, you really need to have a situation in which Chet is punishing these guys. is able to really punish the opposition for throwing a much smaller defender at him and make it not worthwhile to go small on him when he's playing defense. So, yeah, that's something to watch, definitely, his degree of offensive assertiveness and, you know, how he can finish against mismatches. I feel fairly confident, though, just given his ability to think on his feet, his agility, his footwork, and his linked.

And, yeah, so, yeah, I feel pretty good about that. All right, now the outlook, yeah, in terms of, ideal role. I think we know what his ideal role is, just, you know, if you can gain weight, just in a week drop defender and didn't play finisher on offense. Yep, that's exactly how I would describe it. Like for the past couple guys, I've tried to assign, rather,

like a scoring option to them. I don't know what to assign here. He's definitely not a self-creator that I trust. I think the bulk of his shots would come from inlet passes where he has position in the paint or he's in the dunker spot. And then the trailing three is I actually really like. And then just as a role, man, I think he should be very capable. there. He should focus on getting better as a play finisher and making use of that length and mobility.

I think those are going to be his greatest strengths. So in terms of projected ceiling, you know, I think we just said it, like an excellent interior defensive anchor, you know, hopefully it was shooting and just a versatility on offense. The trouble for me is his projected floor. All I have written here is trouble because I don't really know if you can't get in that way and he has to play power forward or if he has to just play power forward because it's not working out. I don't know how he is really going to be a super effective player because he's not like a strong help side to find her in the NBA because he just, his mobility, his explosiveness is not good enough that he's really going to be able to relocate that quickly. And I don't see him being great chasing guys around the perimeter. We've been over this.

So, yeah, just trouble is what I see. You have a comp? So his comp, his ceiling, I would say a not very much lesser version of Goberra defensively. I don't expect him or anybody. to get up to Goberra's level as an interior defender. I mean, Goberra is, you know, one of the greatest of all time at that. I mean, he is absolutely fantastic as an interior defender. So if you can be like 85, 9% of Goberra as an interior defender,

you know, fantastic are really good. And, you know, so that defender and also able to stretch the forepass and score with some degree of agency around the basket on offense. Yep, I have the same comp. Honestly, I saw some similarities between, they use their length and mobility to, you know, make things difficult on that end. So I agree with you. Yeah.

Yeah, hopefully significantly better than Gober on offense, though. And the worst, you know, his floor, you know, again, you have, that I would say is a ceiling in terms of comps. I have no comp for his four. Yeah. If he's routinely being exploited as a, you know, as a matchup problem, he's probably not going to stick around. I truly, truthfully, I do not see that happening. But I guess it's possible. Yeah.

All right. On to roster fit. So the question to ask, again, I think we've already had this discussion is which position he plays in his rookie season unless he's magically gained like 20 pounds. But in terms of his fit, I think a question is, can you play Stewart and Holmgren together? Yeah, no, I still, when I think about the future, especially if we draft Chet, I still think that Isaiah should go to the bench. I think he's at his best there. Truthfully, I haven't really thought about that, those two guys together.

What are your thoughts on that? I would say no. For the same reason as we, same reasons we discussed above. So you got to play one of them in power forward, at least on defense. I really on both ends, but of course, you know, presumably it would be Stuart in my mind. Yeah, you have to play one of them on power forward on both ends. So I don't think Stewart is able to play power forward, excuse me, play power forward. I don't think he'll ever be able to play power forward.

On defense as a power forward, like you switch ability, the ability to switch and the ability to switch and defend the guy from the perimeter on him, which Stewart is great at. should not be confused with the ability to actually play defense as a perimeter player, which involves a lot of chasing guys around the perimeter, which Stewart doesn't really have the foot speed to do. So I think on defense, you're really giving up a ton and putting him at a disadvantage. So I don't think you can really play him on Power Forward on defense. If you play Chet on Power Forward at Defense, you're losing a lot of what makes him special.

On offense, maybe you just play Stewart as kind of like a guy who sets screens and shoots threes, Spalcette actually plays as role men and the effective center on offense, but you're really limiting Stewart in that capacity. It's very different having a center who can hang out there on the perimeter and when his opponent needs to kind of back off a bit and defend the perimeter, excuse me, to find the interior, then he has an open three. If they can just slap the power forward on Stewart and just really faceguard him, then he becomes a non-factor. Yeah. So I don't think I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think Stuart has enough in terms of perimeter skill set,

especially in like the way he gets his three-pointer off. Or his mobility. Yeah, to viably play that position full-time. I think it's exactly what you said. When he's a center and he's doing it, it's great. You know, it opens up the options for him significantly. But if he's just out there all the time, you're losing a lot of what makes him special on the interior.

And he is a good, a legitimately good interior defender. So I would prefer they just play in different lineups as opposed to playing. Yeah, I definitely agree. Yeah, I mean, we're not, like, it was back in, like, 2014, even, like, in 2015 before Stretch 4 stopped being a term because every Power Forward had to be able to shoot. Like, I look back, and it's funny, like, in the 2015 playoffs, I remember hearing Mike Brain talk about Myers-Lendard, and he was like, with surprise, he's like, this guy's a stretch 5, like a center who can shoot, my goodness. And, of course, you know, there's no stretch 4 anymore, and centers who can shoot are becoming increasingly common.

but back then, like your average power forward, it was perfectly, perfectly okay to be a, just basically a smaller center as power forward. And we're long past that. I mean, you need to have certain qualities to play power forward, to play forward at all. I mean, in decent, respectable foot speed is one of those. And Stewart just doesn't have it. So just being able to shoot is not going to make him able to play power forward effectively. Right.

Yeah. No, I really thought more about their offensive fit together, over the piss. is a fit with the Kate, up not Cade, with Chet. And I think there's really more upside there as a potential pick and roll, a pick and roll duo with Cade. He was only 44th percentile per synergy. That's Chet as a role man. But the NBA offense, I think Cade should be a solid duo at worst.

There's no reason that his mobility length and Cade's skill as a passer shouldn't result in a very viable attack there. So I think that there is upside. Oh, absolutely. I agree. Yeah, you can just run him as a role man, run them in some situations. The floor space, you just have a lot of options for Cade. The vertical spacing will be there.

There will just be a lot of options. And in addition to the scoring options, the fact that check can also make passes, I think we'll be able to make passes off the rule. I think he'll be enabled, just enable passer in general. So I have no concerns about the offensive fit between he and Cade. And the more options you can add to the offense, the better. Very nice to be able to have a center who can shoot. And, well, I think Stewart will be able to do that.

Stuart. Again, his cardinal flaws are the combination of undersized and a poor leaper, which just makes him a bad role man. And Cade's got to have a good role man. Absolutely. Everybody else. This would definitely address that, that need, I think. Absolutely would. Yeah, just even, again, we saw that Bagley what he offered simply by being able to vertically space the floor. I mean, basically, every team besides the Pistons and the Thunder was running a center who could vertically space the floor to some degree. I mean, it's more just, it's such an excellent, it's such an important option to have such high percentage offense that, I think that alone, unless, Stuart, just, yeah, I just don't see him ever doing it

on offense as a starter, unless there's, like, some very special circumstance, you know, like a very, very good player at Power Forward, but not Shet and Stewart together. Yeah, and that actually took me, I was really more thinking about the defensive, the defensive changes here because the Pistons were looking like a team that wanted to build a roster that could switch everything and switch everyone like Isaiah Stewart like as you're switching five he was really good at that he was capable but chat is definitely a better drop defender than switch defender so if he is defending the pick and roll you're going to send a man over the screen instead and force the offense to drive at chat that's not a bad outcome but i'll be honest i really got attached the

idea of having you know that that jumble lineup with like we already have you know kade as our point guard who can switch on to functionally everybody that he needs to and that that idea that whole idea was just very appealing to me. Yeah. The idea of changing our defensive scheme for Chet, I mean, it's not like you're changing it because Chet can't switch. It's just he's so much better as a drop defender that you want guys to attack him. Yeah, you just...

It's not really a concern. It's just a change that would come about here. You're changing a pretty significant part of your game plan for one player, but I think it would be more than. That's just the one change that I think that you're going to make. Yeah, you can make it work, though. Again, it's... Oh, certainly.

Yeah, you're seeing a strong emphasis on switch. lineups in the playoffs and i mean that excludes certain players like stephen adams who is the starting center for a really good grisley's team and the regular season has played 30 minutes in the playoffs because the timber wolves were just attacking him and he had no chance there's no chance at all so that you do you have to have certain qualities to play in the playoffs you can make a defensive anchor scheme rather than a switching scheme i mean that's just my term for it you can call a drop defense a drop defense scheme with your with your center you can make it work you just have to have decent perimeter defenders. Of course, the switching scheme, you have to have five pretty good defenders.

But yeah, I think all we were trending towards that and that would have been really fun. Yeah, it would have been fun, but who's going to be, you know, you're going to have a tough time. It's not a reason to not Jeff Chet. Yeah, I agree. You're going to have a tough time finding a center who can defend well on switches and it's also, you know, a solid vertical space. Or like, Bam can do it and Robert Williams can do it. But there aren't very many guys who can do it. Of course, with the Warriors, you don't really need Draymond to vertically space the floor because it's all about just shooting.

and he's an elite playmaker. But yeah, like, Rudy Gobert had his issues in the playoffs because he was surrounded by awful perimeter defenders and they would drive in and he would have to come help. And he did see. He had some very impressive recoveries and just, you know, running from one guy to the next. And then one of his perimeter defenders would screw up

and there'd be an open shot. Like, there's nothing Gober could do. But as long as you have decent perimeter defenders and an able interior defender, you are able to run this form of offense. But you want to have good perimeter defender. actually. It's basically necessitates having good perimeter defenders. Right. That's the issue with the jazz, right? Like nobody on there.

Awful. On the perimeter can, is capable. And Rudy's just left to deal with whatever comes his way. Yeah, Bogdanovich was awful. And Mitchell was terrible. O'Neill is not good. And I don't know how calmly was, but it was basically like Jill and Brunson or Luca would drive in and just beat the defender either off the roll or just in isolation. And then Gober had to come helping the Mavericks were getting an open three. Not his fault. But you look at the other teams in the playoffs who have lost. Like, Yokic got targeted. That happened. There's nothing to be done about it.

I mean, they just didn't have enough talent. I mean, you can't blame Yokic. You really carried them. But like, the Mavericks were a great defensive team in the regular season. But in the postseason, I mean, Dwight Powell and Maxie Kleber are not good defenders. They're not particularly good defenders, not strong interior defenders. And if you're running this game, you have to have a strong interior defender. It's just been interesting to watch the evolution.

of the NBA in the playoffs. Yeah, for sure. Where would you take chat? So I'm constantly waffling. Like he's got so much potential. And like I've said in the past, if he can guarantee me that he's going to gain 30 pounds over like the next two or three seasons,

I would say absolutely take the guy because I think he's got the highest, just the highest impact ceiling of anybody in the draft. And it would just would really address the need for the pistons. But like 50%, and like 50-50, like he just has too much potential when you deal with the risk or like his floor, his outcome if he can't game weight is too scary.

I don't know. One or two. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm there with you. I think at this point I have Jabari number one overall, but Chet is like 1B. The only difference is that I'm not worried about Jabari if he's going to be exploited on defense or offense. Like his base is strong enough. He has the key skills that he's going to be.

I'm confident that he's going to be a useful NBA player. With Chet, there's just that outlying possibility that there is something that another team can exploit and run against him over and over and over. And it's based on the weight. But yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think that his defensive potential and his potential fit with the pistons is strong enough

that I would be thrilled if we ended up with him on draft night. Yeah. And just for the record, I mean, I'd peg Chet of like a 75, 80% chance of working out. Like I don't think his bust potential is high. It's just scary with the pick that's this high. So, yeah, but I'd be happy with the pistons came out of draft night with him also. It's just there might be. kind of like a longer timetable on it.

It might, you might not really see him come alive until his sophomore year or even his third year, depending on the physical development. But the Pistons, by all accounts, are willing to be patient. There's also just the possibility that check comes off the bench in his rookie season. Who knows? All right. So let's end the episode, but some listeners submitted questions, an interesting one. Would you take Shaden Sharp at number three?

Yes. And it would depend on what he does in the combine, but I think his athletic ceiling and his projected archetype is so enticing. Yeah, I could see him honestly if he shows out to a certain degree. He could be one of those guys who's just like a riser. But he is genuinely like a top-top-level athlete. Like just watching his highlights from high school. And then this is not a particularly exciting draft.

Like the top three is still Jabari who projects as a strong role player. Chet, who he just talked about Impala, who neither of us really like. So yeah, if he looks like he's capable. of getting his shot off smoothly, attacking closeouts. Like, if he looks like he's the complete package and it looks sustainable, I could see him being taken higher than three, quite honestly. And I would be fine with it. I would trust if an NBA front office is picking high and they pick Shaden.

I think I'm going to trust that it's because, one, they like his archetype and two, they saw something. Oh, I don't know about that. Really good from him. I mean, you had an NBA front office would pick Marvin Bagley over looking down. It's just the fact that an NBA front office is, I mean, I just strongly disagree with this philosophy that NBA front offices are going to inherently do competent things. I mean, yeah, I think that's that's provably untrue. So, yeah. I mean, no, no, no, no front office has

ever been perfectly. I think we're all pretty happy with the job that Troy Weaver's done, but killing, look at the king's tire will pick. I mean, the kings have. Sure. There's a terrible organization. I'm not talking about. I'm not like if the kings take him, yeah, maybe that, that changes that a little bit, but who cares? Like any, like Josh Primo was taken at 12. Yeah. And, like, We'll see what comes. It doesn't matter. But 12 and 3 are very different. I mean, 12, yeah, I mean, it was a risk.

I mean, he was projected on a second rounder. So that was a reach, but, I mean, number three, I just, I just very much disagree with the notion that just because it's an NBA front office, it will do something that they will, what they do is inherently competent. I strongly disagree with that. Like, taking Anthony Bennett and number one, for example. Yeah, I mean, you can lose all day. Like, if they see what's something good. My point is that, my point is just that the fact that the NBA and. NBA front office is doing this doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea that not all front offices are created equal.

But as far as if I would take Sharp at number three, I mean, this is, I feel like we've, we've dipped into the realm of the truly bizarre because I would take Ivy over Sharp at number three. And we'll talk about Ivy later, possibly, depending on where the piston's fault. But like, the issue I have with Sharp is that there's a big leap even from high school to the NCAA. Like, just having a player, if you can look at him and say, okay, he's a very talented player. and he came into the NCAA and he had it together. That's a big deal. I mean, there are some very talented high school players who just do not get it together in the NCAA. So I'm skipping that step hurts.

And there's not like an avalanche of data from Sharp in high school. I mean, the guy is still fairly raw, tons of potential. But there's just too much in the way of unknowns. Now, if you ask, would you take Sharp at number five, I would say definitely a significantly higher chance. But at number three, I just, I don't think that's, I think there's just too much that that's unknown. Now, if it came to Troy Weaver and it's like, okay, now Troy Weaver took him in number three. Yeah, you can count on the fact that I think we've established that Troy is pretty competent.

I mean, I think that the jury will be out on him until the pistons are contending. I mean, that's the real test. But, I mean, he's a guy who really, I mean, last year to a really irritating degree, did a very complete workup where it's like, you know, where I think there was kind of like a dichotomy like, oh, you know, Weaver seems very competent, but Jalen Green would be the absolute wrong pick. Whatever. So, but it would have been, it was just like up and I know we were kind of anxious up until draft day when they announced that they were taking Cade. So I'd feel better about it in that case. But I don't have access to all those resources.

Like I, I'm not. Right. That's exactly what I was about to say. Like, if Troy Weaver took Shaden Sharp at 3, I feel fine. Like, I'd be excited because I would trust that, you know, a guy of his caliber, he's seen enough good things that he's comfortable making this pick on such little film. Like Anthony Simons, I know he was taking a pick 25, but he's. He didn't play college ball either, and he's been great.

It took years, but just because he didn't play, doesn't mean. Like, he has all the physical tools that he should be able to be a good. Yeah, I mean, you can say something similar about Brandon Boston if he had just not played in college. I mean, he was, he came in as like a consensus top five pick in an extremely strong draft. And he came into the incident of all, and he struggled. He went in the second round. So there's a risk. But, yeah, I don't have access to scouting resources that Troy Weaver does.

I'm not going to get to talk to Shaden Sharp. So, yeah, in that case, I would feel. better about it. But would I take him a three, there's just too much in the way of unknowns. But again, unknowns. Yeah, I'm hoping that he'll play a decent amount at the combine and that we'll get access and hopefully there will be enough information coming out. Yeah, I mean, the unknowns for us is that we don't just, we don't have access to the information. But yeah, I'll play at the combine. Yeah, we just, the unknowns for it for us is that we just, there's very little that is known. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's purely based on his archetype and

with his projected skills. So moving on to the second one, what would it take from Marvin Bagway to be the pissed in the center of the future? Uh, That's a, well, it's not a tough one. He needs to somehow go through some sort of Zen transformation that made him just drastically increased his defensive acumen, because Marvin Bagley has been, has had just bad defensive acumen, a defensive IQ, whatever you want to call it, since even his Duke days when Shoshchowski had to run a zone to protect, you know, to shield him. And Wendell Carter Jr. also, but there's not an argumentary to defend the pick and roll. We saw this season when he played center.

He was awful on defense. It's just awful. So it would be a pretty big thing for him to take, for anybody to take such a weep in defensive acumen to make that work. So I think going forward, you're probably going to see him at power forward. Maybe you see him run on that center on offense. But yeah, I don't think he's starting center of the future. Yeah, I have nothing to add to that.

I think that's the crux of the issue. His defense is terrible. And that's the main reason that he shouldn't be a long term starting five. And as a power forward, of course, I mean, he's going to have to learn to shoot, period, just to come to make himself a worthwhile player despite his bad defense. And his defense, even on the perimeter, isn't great. But, man, can you imagine Marvin Bagley at center in the playoffs? I'm like, oh, dear.

No, I don't want to. I mean, the pistons would get sliced to pieces just from having it on the floor. Because in the playoffs, matchups get any weakness will get mercilessly exploited. I mean, it happens in the regular season two, but even more so in the playoffs. And, yeah, Bagley, we would. would just get, they would have to take them off the floor. He wouldn't be able to stay on the floor. And he's going to have to improve as a defender, even on the perimeter, even just play

power forward if you didn't play that in the postseason. He's a project. All right. Closing thoughts and social media. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. We haven't really made mention of this enough, but Mike has actually made these fantastic player cards that he's transcribed all this data by hand into an Excel sheet.

And it's a fantastic resource if you just want to quickly learn about prospects. There's player analysis, fit with the pistons, all the, their stats. It's really good. It'll be in the description under this episode. Other than that, our social media, our Twitter is at to the basket pod. It's T-O-the-BasketPod. If you're on Spotify, consider giving us a rating. If you're on Apple, consider leaving us a review. And again, thank you so much. As far as player cards, we have posted those in the descriptions recently. Unfortunately, some of the interfaces are not very kind and don't allow you to click the link. So we'll post, either before or after the lottery. Shortly after the lottery,

we'll post it in the episode, excuse me, in the podcast description. Also, if you're on Reddit, we'll post the link in the threads we make to announce each episode. So as Tommy said, thank you all for listening. We will catch you next time, which will be on lottery night.