Official Pistons Thread: Offseason

[Old Guy]

The Pistons seem to have assembled a ton of young, talented players. 

How long before it starts to translate to wins on the floor? Is .500 a realistic goal this upcoming season?

[Sllim Pickens]

1 hour ago, Old Guy said:

The Pistons seem to have assembled a ton of young, talented players. 

How long before it starts to translate to wins on the floor? Is .500 a realistic goal this upcoming season?

I think thats the question we all have.  Unfortunately Cade missed all of last year so he didn't get the much needed development he should have.  Ivey and Duren made solid progress during the season.  Getting Cade and Stew back healthy and having a year under Duren and Ivey should pay dividends, but not sure how much.  I don't think .500 is out of the question, but similarly to this past year, I think it will be a rough start and stronger finish while the young guys, including Thompson and Sasser, continue to develop and improve. Just hopefully not as rough of a start.  I think Monty is a huge move too and hopefully we see more growth than we did under Casey. 

[catcheryea]

3 hours ago, Old Guy said:

The Pistons seem to have assembled a ton of young, talented players. 

How long before it starts to translate to wins on the floor? Is .500 a realistic goal this upcoming season?

something like 32 or so wins next year and around .500 the year after would be pretty reasonable and encouraging i think

[Old Guy]

35 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

something like 32 or so wins next year and around .500 the year after would be pretty reasonable and encouraging i think

Is Cunningham coming back healthy? If so, 32 wins would be disappointing IMO. I think they got a steal from the Warriors in Wiseman. Between him, Stuart and Duran, that is three pretty good people. Not sure about Bagley but he'd be a bonus. Then you have the four stud, young guards and Brogdanovic. 

I have to think 500 should be the expectation. 

Edited July 25, 2023 by Old Guy

[catcheryea]

44 minutes ago, Old Guy said:

Is Cunningham coming back healthy? If so, 32 wins would be disappointing IMO. I think they got a steal from the Warriors in Wiseman. Between him, Stuart and Duran, that is three pretty good people. Not sure about Bagley but he'd be a bonus. Then you have the four stud, young guards and Brogdanovic. 

I have to think 500 should be the expectation. 

cade is healthy but it will probably take time for him to get back into game flow and for him and ivey to figure out exactly how they play together. wiseman sucks, bagley sucks a little bit less, and stew is fine but none of those guy are positive needle movers. if any of duren, wiseman, and bagley play significant minutes together you'll start to think 25 wins is ambitious. i'm not sure who you're including as the other two stud, young guards, but if it's hayes, he sucks, if it's ausar, he's not a guard, and he'll probably really struggle to score outside of transition, and if it's marcus sasser, i'm not sure if he's ready to play day one

their opening night starting lineup probably has four guys 22 and younger and by the end of the year all five could be that young. it takes time for young players to figure out how to play winning basketball, and for as good as duren and ivey were last year, they didn't play a ton of winning basketball. if cade is healthy and looks like one of the 20 best players in the nba, and everybody else stays healthy and is better than they were last year, sure, they could win 40 games. but i said the exact same thing last year and cade played 12 games, the team was fully healthy for literally zero (0) games, and maybe the second most important "core" player got benched and then traded for one of the worst players in the league

they should be better, maybe even much better than last year with cade back and adding real shooters to put on the floor with him and ivey, but i'm already talking about basically doubling their win total from last year and that's already really ******* hard. only 18 teams have ever 24 more games than the year before and almost all of them added an mvp candidate in that offseason

[Sllim Pickens]

20 hours ago, catcheryea said:

cade is healthy but it will probably take time for him to get back into game flow and for him and ivey to figure out exactly how they play together. wiseman sucks, bagley sucks a little bit less, and stew is fine but none of those guy are positive needle movers. if any of duren, wiseman, and bagley play significant minutes together you'll start to think 25 wins is ambitious. i'm not sure who you're including as the other two stud, young guards, but if it's hayes, he sucks, if it's ausar, he's not a guard, and he'll probably really struggle to score outside of transition, and if it's marcus sasser, i'm not sure if he's ready to play day one

their opening night starting lineup probably has four guys 22 and younger and by the end of the year all five could be that young. it takes time for young players to figure out how to play winning basketball, and for as good as duren and ivey were last year, they didn't play a ton of winning basketball. if cade is healthy and looks like one of the 20 best players in the nba, and everybody else stays healthy and is better than they were last year, sure, they could win 40 games. but i said the exact same thing last year and cade played 12 games, the team was fully healthy for literally zero (0) games, and maybe the second most important "core" player got benched and then traded for one of the worst players in the league

they should be better, maybe even much better than last year with cade back and adding real shooters to put on the floor with him and ivey, but i'm already talking about basically doubling their win total from last year and that's already really ******* hard. only 18 teams have ever 24 more games than the year before and almost all of them added an mvp candidate in that offseason

I think 32-35 is reasonable for this year, but if we are .500 the year after I think this rebuild is doomed.  We will still be young but we will then be into Cade's extension and will mean that the youth is not developing as we had hoped.  Like OKC drafted KD and then won 20 games.  Drafted Russ and then won 23 games.  The next year they drafted Harden and won 50 games and the year after they won 53 and went to the finals.  I'll give us an extra year because Cade got hurt, but by the 24-25 season if we are not comfortably in the playoff race, I am not sure we will ever be with this core.  I think we need to be around 35 this year and then can add a piece in trade or free agency along with another year of development and should be a playoff team by then.  I don't think Cade will be KD great or Ivey will be Russ but we need them to become All Star level players by the 24-25 season for us to think we have a chance with this roster.  If not we will just be the T-Wolves of the East.  

[catcheryea]

3 hours ago, Sllim Pickens said:

I think 32-35 is reasonable for this year, but if we are .500 the year after I think this rebuild is doomed.  We will still be young but we will then be into Cade's extension and will mean that the youth is not developing as we had hoped.  Like OKC drafted KD and then won 20 games.  Drafted Russ and then won 23 games.  The next year they drafted Harden and won 50 games and the year after they won 53 and went to the finals.  I'll give us an extra year because Cade got hurt, but by the 24-25 season if we are not comfortably in the playoff race, I am not sure we will ever be with this core.  I think we need to be around 35 this year and then can add a piece in trade or free agency along with another year of development and should be a playoff team by then.  I don't think Cade will be KD great or Ivey will be Russ but we need them to become All Star level players by the 24-25 season for us to think we have a chance with this roster.  If not we will just be the T-Wolves of the East.  

yeah the actual win total is arbitrary. i just want to see them stay healthy and get better. if they're playing meaningful basketball in january or february and beyond and they're in the vicinity of competing for a play in spot, i'll take that. that could be anywhere from 30 to 38 wins depending on how long they're hanging around and if they ultimately decide to shut guys down once they get eliminated

if they can do that next year, i'd hope they take next step in 24-25 and are fighting for the 5, 6, 7, or even the 8 seed if it's a strong year. somewhere around 42 to 45 wins. i'd still consider that essentially .500 but 45 wins was the 6 seed last year. but aside from wins, i'd like to see cade and ivey really assert themselves and actually take over and win games and for the team to be competing with the best teams in the league and winning some of those games. those things don't have to happen every night but enough to prove that they're tangibly better than the year before

like i said, if cade or ivey take a (probably unrealistically) gigantic leap one of these next two years and make an all nba team they'll probably be ahead of that timeline and maybe significantly ahead. but yeah it's definitely reasonable to think cade needs to make an all star team at least by the end of his rookie deal

[Sllim Pickens]

13 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

yeah the actual win total is arbitrary. i just want to see them stay healthy and get better. if they're playing meaningful basketball in january or february and beyond and they're in the vicinity of competing for a play in spot, i'll take that. that could be anywhere from 30 to 38 wins depending on how long they're hanging around and if they ultimately decide to shut guys down once they get eliminated

if they can do that next year, i'd hope they take next step in 24-25 and are fighting for the 5, 6, 7, or even the 8 seed if it's a strong year. somewhere around 42 to 45 wins. i'd still consider that essentially .500 but 45 wins was the 6 seed last year. but aside from wins, i'd like to see cade and ivey really assert themselves and actually take over and win games and for the team to be competing with the best teams in the league and winning some of those games. those things don't have to happen every night but enough to prove that they're tangibly better than the year before

like i said, if cade or ivey take a (probably unrealistically) gigantic leap one of these next two years and make an all nba team they'll probably be ahead of that timeline and maybe significantly ahead. but yeah it's definitely reasonable to think cade needs to make an all star team at least by the end of his rookie deal

I agree that the win total doesn't mean as much as the play.  But that being said, that kind of play usually leads to wins.  So I get we will have growing pains, and likely be inconsistent, but we need to make strides and someone needs to step up and become a star.  Even the Wizards had some relatively quick turn arounds when Wall and Beal were young although they got stuck in that 45 wins a year range because of missing on picks and injuries.  I feel like if we aren't fighting for a 6-4 seed in two years, we are going to be starting over again, or stuck just like the Wizards were.     

[catcheryea]

40 minutes ago, Sllim Pickens said:

I agree that the win total doesn't mean as much as the play.  But that being said, that kind of play usually leads to wins.  So I get we will have growing pains, and likely be inconsistent, but we need to make strides and someone needs to step up and become a star.  Even the Wizards had some relatively quick turn arounds when Wall and Beal were young although they got stuck in that 45 wins a year range because of missing on picks and injuries.  I feel like if we aren't fighting for a 6-4 seed in two years, we are going to be starting over again, or stuck just like the Wizards were.     

agreed on the bold. hopefully we'll be watching games the next couple of years and with 4 minutes left we'll know we have the guy who can win the game

the problem washington had is that they didn't really put a team around beal and wall. between drafting wall and beal, they took jan vesley, and after they drafted porter they only "made" one 1st round pick in the next five years so once they maxed porter, that was it (i think this was coupled with the one time cap jump which extra ****ed teams that planned really poorly for the future). obviously porter wasn't worth that money and they got stuck

we could obviously still end up like that if cade doesn't end up close to being worth what his extension will probably be and nobody else becomes the guy, but weaver has already made more 1st round picks in 4 years than washington made in the entire 2010s. at best he can go 6/8 but at least he's taking the shots. and we're still going to lose our pick in the next two or three years, but hopefully it's closer to being in the 20s than the lottery. and if someone gets desperate he has more assets he can flip for extra firsts, which we know he's being trying to do with bojan

at the very least, in two years, when cade is about to be on the first year of his extension, ivey, duren, ausar, and next year's pick will still all be on their rookie deals, so they could still have a ton of cap room that summer to try for one big swing before the cap starts getting totally eaten up

again, this group could definitely max out at second round playoff exits, but nobody thought that was washington's future when they were the 5 seed in porter's first two seasons. but they didn't have enough other internal development outside of wall and beal to carry the team beyond that. i guess that ultimately comes full circle back to how important the bolded point is

[Sllim Pickens]

15 hours ago, catcheryea said:

agreed on the bold. hopefully we'll be watching games the next couple of years and with 4 minutes left we'll know we have the guy who can win the game

the problem washington had is that they didn't really put a team around beal and wall. between drafting wall and beal, they took jan vesley, and after they drafted porter they only "made" one 1st round pick in the next five years so once they maxed porter, that was it (i think this was coupled with the one time cap jump which extra ****ed teams that planned really poorly for the future). obviously porter wasn't worth that money and they got stuck

we could obviously still end up like that if cade doesn't end up close to being worth what his extension will probably be and nobody else becomes the guy, but weaver has already made more 1st round picks in 4 years than washington made in the entire 2010s. at best he can go 6/8 but at least he's taking the shots. and we're still going to lose our pick in the next two or three years, but hopefully it's closer to being in the 20s than the lottery. and if someone gets desperate he has more assets he can flip for extra firsts, which we know he's being trying to do with bojan

at the very least, in two years, when cade is about to be on the first year of his extension, ivey, duren, ausar, and next year's pick will still all be on their rookie deals, so they could still have a ton of cap room that summer to try for one big swing before the cap starts getting totally eaten up

again, this group could definitely max out at second round playoff exits, but nobody thought that was washington's future when they were the 5 seed in porter's first two seasons. but they didn't have enough other internal development outside of wall and beal to carry the team beyond that. i guess that ultimately comes full circle back to how important the bolded point is

I get Washington had limitations, but it doesn't mean we won't.  We do have our 1sts other than the one to New York whenever that settles.  But pretty much we need stars, thats what wins and we need someone to at least turn into Beal/Wall. But then obviously need someone else to be better than Porter.  Whether that be Duren or Thompson, or whatever we draft next year, and those others need to be at least good role players.  Like better than Stew/Hayes/Bey.  So I am not confident it will work out, but hopeful.  Really just need progress this year. 

I guess looking back and guys like Steph, Bam, Giannis, Tatum, Harden, Butler, Kawhi, Jokic, etc took 3-5 years to really develop, and some of them were older coming to the league.  Not everyone comes in and is Lebron adn Luka.  Even AD, Morant, Booker, SGA took big steps in year 2 but didn't reach peaks until years 4-5.  So I guess I can calm down on my doomsday if we suck longer, it just sucks because we have sucked so long already. 

And based on the 32/33 wins, we would have the 5th worst record in the NBA.  That is growth with actual wins, but not overly exciting other than once again having a high draft pick.  

[catcheryea]

1 hour ago, Sllim Pickens said:

I get Washington had limitations, but it doesn't mean we won't.  We do have our 1sts other than the one to New York whenever that settles.  But pretty much we need stars, thats what wins and we need someone to at least turn into Beal/Wall. But then obviously need someone else to be better than Porter.  Whether that be Duren or Thompson, or whatever we draft next year, and those others need to be at least good role players.  Like better than Stew/Hayes/Bey.  So I am not confident it will work out, but hopeful.  Really just need progress this year. 

I guess looking back and guys like Steph, Bam, Giannis, Tatum, Harden, Butler, Kawhi, Jokic, etc took 3-5 years to really develop, and some of them were older coming to the league.  Not everyone comes in and is Lebron adn Luka.  Even AD, Morant, Booker, SGA took big steps in year 2 but didn't reach peaks until years 4-5.  So I guess I can calm down on my doomsday if we suck longer, it just sucks because we have sucked so long already. 

And based on the 32/33 wins, we would have the 5th worst record in the NBA.  That is growth with actual wins, but not overly exciting other than once again having a high draft pick.  

right, someone has to become a consistent all nba caliber player. we hope it's cade because of his draft spot but it could be wiseman for all i care, either way there has to be at least one of those guys. and then the other high picks have to either become secondary stars or the elite of the elite role players. obviously none of them have reached the level that wall and beal did but at least on paper there's more young talent on the roster than washington or those types of teams in general had. and like you said those two early years where they won 44 and 45 games were wall's fourth and fifth seasons. obviously okc has more young talent and more draft assets than we do, but their big jump this year came because sga was one of the 10 best players in the league in his fifth year. they probably don't keep everybody together without any real signs of success for this long, but there's a non zero chance we're here in five years having the same conversation and then jalen duren turns 25 and realizes he's the baddest **** on the planet and wins mvp and dpoy

genuine question, if cade had been healthy but not an all star last year and they won 27 games would that give you a more positive outlook? that's a better season in terms of wins and the actual basketball would've probably been better and easier to watch, but that wouldn't seem like a successful season to me personally. plus we wouldn't have gotten to see ivey get as many on ball reps as he got and show that he can actually run an offense and improve as much as he did as a passer and shooter. last year was absolutely a wasted season and i'm not going to pretend it was some blessing in disguise or anything, but we're still basically in the same spot as last summer. if cade (or anyone else) can become what cade was drafted to become, last year won't matter. if not, you're right, we'll be trading for the 2029 version of avery bradley convincing ourselves he's the savior

i also feel much better about cade/ivey/ausar/duren than cade/ivey/saddiq/stew

[Sllim Pickens]

6 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

right, someone has to become a consistent all nba caliber player. we hope it's cade because of his draft spot but it could be wiseman for all i care, either way there has to be at least one of those guys. and then the other high picks have to either become secondary stars or the elite of the elite role players. obviously none of them have reached the level that wall and beal did but at least on paper there's more young talent on the roster than washington or those types of teams in general had. and like you said those two early years where they won 44 and 45 games were wall's fourth and fifth seasons. obviously okc has more young talent and more draft assets than we do, but their big jump this year came because sga was one of the 10 best players in the league in his fifth year. they probably don't keep everybody together without any real signs of success for this long, but there's a non zero chance we're here in five years having the same conversation and then jalen duren turns 25 and realizes he's the baddest **** on the planet and wins mvp and dpoy

genuine question, if cade had been healthy but not an all star last year and they won 27 games would that give you a more positive outlook? that's a better season in terms of wins and the actual basketball would've probably been better and easier to watch, but that wouldn't seem like a successful season to me personally. plus we wouldn't have gotten to see ivey get as many on ball reps as he got and show that he can actually run an offense and improve as much as he did as a passer and shooter. last year was absolutely a wasted season and i'm not going to pretend it was some blessing in disguise or anything, but we're still basically in the same spot as last summer. if cade (or anyone else) can become what cade was drafted to become, last year won't matter. if not, you're right, we'll be trading for the 2029 version of avery bradley convincing ourselves he's the savior

i also feel much better about cade/ivey/ausar/duren than cade/ivey/saddiq/stew

Well we would have had Duren either way so not sure what your last point is implying.  My thoughts are I would have rather have seen Cade play last year and improve.  If he made strides as a shooter and distributor, took a leadership role on the court and led us to more wins, then yes I would feel better about this year. 12 games is such a small sample but he was better all around other than outside shooting but such a small sample size you can't knock that.  But we lost a year of development and improvement from Cade while on his rookie deal, albeit the #1 pick which isn't exactly cheap. 

If we were going into this year with Cade in a true year 3 after showing improvement, Ivey and Duren in year 2, I would feel much better about being a 35-40 win team this year with adding Ausar or another wing depending on our draft slot (or maybe Vic).  I just wanted to see growth, and I would assume the team would have grown during the year.  Cade would be a better distributor playing with Bogey and Ivey as he developed throughout the year.  He could have moved off the ball some and worked on his shot.  Maybe Ivey wouldn't have had the on ball time but should have had enough when Cade was off the floor.  With top picks you dont like to lose time early.  It can still work out but just wish we had more info and support that Cade will be what we want/need him to be.  

[catcheryea]

22 minutes ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Well we would have had Duren either way so not sure what your last point is implying.

just that those were the four young guys in the starting lineup to start last year and that we didn't really know how quickly duren would be playing consistent minutes. there was some speculation he'd be behind noel and would start the year in the g league. so to go from the first group being the young players we're counting on to the second group in however long it takes to move bojan is a big jump in talent level

25 minutes ago, Sllim Pickens said:

My thoughts are I would have rather have seen Cade play last year and improve.  If he made strides as a shooter and distributor, took a leadership role on the court and led us to more wins, then yes I would feel better about this year. 12 games is such a small sample but he was better all around other than outside shooting but such a small sample size you can't knock that.  But we lost a year of development and improvement from Cade while on his rookie deal, albeit the #1 pick which isn't exactly cheap. 

If we were going into this year with Cade in a true year 3 after showing improvement, Ivey and Duren in year 2, I would feel much better about being a 35-40 win team this year with adding Ausar or another wing depending on our draft slot (or maybe Vic).  I just wanted to see growth, and I would assume the team would have grown during the year.  Cade would be a better distributor playing with Bogey and Ivey as he developed throughout the year.  He could have moved off the ball some and worked on his shot.  Maybe Ivey wouldn't have had the on ball time but should have had enough when Cade was off the floor.  With top picks you dont like to lose time early.  It can still work out but just wish we had more info and support that Cade will be what we want/need him to be.  

even on the stress fracture he was starting to show the stuff we talked about taking over games. it's an even smaller sample size, but the middle four games he played (what an outrageous thing to say) he averaged 28/8/7.5 on 56% ts even though he was only shooting 28% from 3. he's said that being on the sideline helped him see some of the bigger picture stuff about the team he couldn't have if he was playing and focused on individual gameplans. also that he spent a ton of time reworking his shot base since that was all the physical work he could do that he otherwise never would've had the time for. so hopefully he can take both of those things and actually be better for it

i totally get being apprehensive about him basically losing a full year but if he's really been dealing with his shin since high school this might be the first time we've seen him fully healthy on an nba floor and it shouldn't have any lingering effects based on what i've read. mostly what i'm hoping to see next year is if he can turn that four game stretch into eight to ten games and do that four or five times. those are the types of flashes i'd be really encouraged by. if they're not playing him with two non spacing bigs for 28 minutes a night he's either gonna be on the floor with a bunch of good shooters or a couple eilte athletes and cutters, and both of those should allow him to do the things that's he good at but never had the personnel to show off regularly

like if they're running lineups that can capitalize on his gravity and he's regularly making this type of pass to ivey or ausar this team is going to be really fun to watch

all that said, i still think they're going to suck on defense, especially with bogey and ivey in the starting lineup and wiseman or bagley as the backup center and that'll cost them at least a handful of games. but as long as the defense is just normal bad and not one of the worst in the league again i won't be too worried about it going forward

as far as the ivey thing, i'm not sure casey was going to let him be a lead ballhandler until they ran out of bodies and it forced his hand. i think the second hawks game it looked like he realized he need one of them one the court all the time but he was really just staggering them because ivey was getting over the flu and on a minutes restriction. the next game he went right back to running full bench lineups with killian and cojo in the backcourt. and now our starting backcourt both know what it's like being the top name on the other team's scouting report and if that helps them share the load i'll think it'll make both of their lives easier

[catcheryea]

i saw a highlight reel of duren on twitter and my two takeaways are as follows:

saddiq played such an ugly brand of basketball

i can't wait for december when wiseman is racking up dnps

[MOSteelers56]

1 hour ago, catcheryea said:

i saw a highlight reel of duren on twitter and my two takeaways are as follows:

saddiq played such an ugly brand of basketball

i can't wait for december when wiseman is racking up dnps

I wish Saddiq would have joined the team this off-season. I feel like he thought he had to do too much. If he would have joined after Cade it would have worked better I think. Either way, I like Ausar a lot more. I just liked Saddiq’s hard nosed demeanor.