Official Pistons Thread: Offseason

[MOSteelers56]

Monty walked back the Duran at the 4 with Wiseman statement the day after he made it. He clarified that Wiseman and Bags will be competing for the backup 5 spot behind Duran. They might play together, but I don't think it'll be a lot. Probably just against Cleveland.

[BigC421/]

https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2023/10/6/23906527/detroit-pistons-center-power-forward-jalen-duren-isaiah-stewart-marvin-bagley-james-wiseman

 

https://apps.apple.com/app/id535886823?pt=9008&ct=iosChromeShare&mt=8

 

Refreshing

[catcheryea]

1 hour ago, BigC421/ said:

https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2023/10/6/23906527/detroit-pistons-center-power-forward-jalen-duren-isaiah-stewart-marvin-bagley-james-wiseman

 

https://apps.apple.com/app/id535886823?pt=9008&ct=iosChromeShare&mt=8

 

Refreshing

for as much as the monty and ayton relationship devolved because ayton wouldn't or was incapable of doing things monty wanted from him, it's really hard for me to imagine monty not getting fed up watching bagley and especially wiseman not rebound, constantly make late rotations or be completely out position defensively, take bad shots, not make simple passing reads quickly or at all, and specifically for wiseman, fumble passes that hit him squarely in the hands

i can't think of anybody off the top of my head, but as ridiculous as it sounds, trading bojan and/or burks and/or harris at some point for another center who is a proven nba player and defender wouldn't shock me. even if wiseman or bagley aren't part of that trade. i could genuinely see both of them totally out of the rotation by january if they're still trying to win games by then

of course, i could also imagine them being so detrimental to the team that they're so far out of it in january that wins and losses don't matter anymore and weaver demands wiseman get a bigger role

[Sllim Pickens]

Anyone watch the game yesterday?  It was right during the Lions game so I did not. 

Being a box score analyzer, it looks like Ausar played well with a near triple double but Phoenix's starters only played 15 minutes.  But he did have good numbers in the first quarter against the starters.  

Cade had a rough game shooting in his 23 minutes but did distribute the ball well.  He had a -24 +/- which was the worst on the team.  

Duren looks like he was ineffective with 6 points (2-6 from the FT line) and only 1 rebound in 15 minutes.

Ivey was 3-6 from 3pt range which is a solid sign.  Her played solid overall

Killian Hayes played well against their backups with 5 steals, 7 assists and only 1 turnover but still cant shoot from outside.  

Bagley didn't play against the starters and dominated against the backups it looks like.  25 points on 14 shots and 7 rebs in 22 minutes.  Solid line but we all know not to expect that against decent players.  Still could be a decent bench big that can get some buckets.  

Wiseman didn't score much but did grab 7 rebs in 16 minutes.  

Overall we were down double digits early against their starters and all of our starters had quite bad +/-.  Their starters had their way with our defense which is expected with three all stars and Nurkic.  

[MOSteelers56]

3 hours ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Anyone watch the game yesterday?  It was right during the Lions game so I did not. 

Being a box score analyzer, it looks like Ausar played well with a near triple double but Phoenix's starters only played 15 minutes.  But he did have good numbers in the first quarter against the starters.  

Cade had a rough game shooting in his 23 minutes but did distribute the ball well.  He had a -24 +/- which was the worst on the team.  

Duren looks like he was ineffective with 6 points (2-6 from the FT line) and only 1 rebound in 15 minutes.

Ivey was 3-6 from 3pt range which is a solid sign.  Her played solid overall

Killian Hayes played well against their backups with 5 steals, 7 assists and only 1 turnover but still cant shoot from outside.  

Bagley didn't play against the starters and dominated against the backups it looks like.  25 points on 14 shots and 7 rebs in 22 minutes.  Solid line but we all know not to expect that against decent players.  Still could be a decent bench big that can get some buckets.  

Wiseman didn't score much but did grab 7 rebs in 16 minutes.  

Overall we were down double digits early against their starters and all of our starters had quite bad +/-.  Their starters had their way with our defense which is expected with three all stars and Nurkic.  

Ivey didn't start. I saw that. I just watched the highlights, though. 

[catcheryea]

3 hours ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Anyone watch the game yesterday?  It was right during the Lions game so I did not. 

Being a box score analyzer, it looks like Ausar played well with a near triple double but Phoenix's starters only played 15 minutes.  But he did have good numbers in the first quarter against the starters.  

Cade had a rough game shooting in his 23 minutes but did distribute the ball well.  He had a -24 +/- which was the worst on the team.  

Duren looks like he was ineffective with 6 points (2-6 from the FT line) and only 1 rebound in 15 minutes.

Ivey was 3-6 from 3pt range which is a solid sign.  Her played solid overall

Killian Hayes played well against their backups with 5 steals, 7 assists and only 1 turnover but still cant shoot from outside.  

Bagley didn't play against the starters and dominated against the backups it looks like.  25 points on 14 shots and 7 rebs in 22 minutes.  Solid line but we all know not to expect that against decent players.  Still could be a decent bench big that can get some buckets.  

Wiseman didn't score much but did grab 7 rebs in 16 minutes.  

Overall we were down double digits early against their starters and all of our starters had quite bad +/-.  Their starters had their way with our defense which is expected with three all stars and Nurkic.  

i watched and i was going to wait until the end of preseason to give my thoughts so i wasn't overreacting but here are my takeaways, starting with individuals then the bigger picture, with the caveat that obviously this was just the first preseason game and who knows what's real and what isn't

tl;dr: i haven't written this much since college. for what this is, it's probably not worth reading

cade didn't look very good outside of the pnr with duren, the two catch and shoot 3s he took, and transition. settled for way, way too many mid range jumpers. even if they're shots he can make, he wasn't really looking to attack. it was either pocket pass or elbow jumper. more on this later

burks was pretty much invisible. seemed like he stood in the corner a lot and ran off some pin downs, but not really in a way that was helpful

ausar was solid to good. he was flying around cutting, making the right passes, competing on defense. all the stuff you would want to see. started the game on booker and got bullied a little bit physically but he did literally rip the ball out of hands once mid shot. seems wrong that his only three buckets were a couple drop off dunks and the 3 to tie the game but for his first game against real nba guys he looked like he belonged and he wasn't scared of his assignment

i'll get into this more but if stew isn't being guarded at all he can't shoot 1/6 from 3. it won't work. not only does he have to shoot it well enough to keep taking the shots, but he also has to shoot well enough to make defenses respect him even the slightest bit, and i don't know what that number looks like. i'm also more than a little concerned he'll just never have the ball skills to be able to handle it even the tiniest amount

somehow duren is the one who got hurt after burks landed on his foot after a jumper. hopefully he's ok. but they had him handing the ball and running dhos at the top of the arc a ton. he honestly might have initiated more possessions than cade. i'm not sure i'd go that far this early but see what you've got i guess

killian played well. had the ball in his hands a ton. still dribbled too much and still can't really get an easy shot for himself but once he hit one they started falling

ivey might have been the best pistons last night. aside from the two really deep ones he took, his shot looked really good from 3, including one off movement. looked unbelievably quick when he attacked the rim. defense was just ok. i think he's oscillating between thinking too much and not enough. i'm definitely talking about this later but he barely played with cade and especially in the second half, he didn't really have the ball in his hands very much. obviously those are both things i'd like to see more

harris was fine. i don't think you can ever play him and bogey together unless you're down 3 with 4 seconds left

monty yelled at wiseman a couple of times for not knowing which side he should be setting the screen on. he's still letting guys walk to the rim in drop coverage. he took a shot from underneath the backboard, that, shockingly, hit the bottom of the backboard. but he's actually making contact on screens now, even if it doesn't matter because he doesn't roll hard and drag any defenders with him. and he'd also rather just stand in the paint clogging driving lanes than come up and re-screen late in the shot clock. he's not posting up demanding the ball every possession, but once is too many, and he did it way more than once. but he did actually pass the ball a couple of times after getting it down low

sasser didn't really do much outside of fouling out but i don't think he was terrible. almost certainly won't be in the rotation from day one

i'm not sure bagley would've played at all if duren hadn't gotten hurt, but he played like he knows what the deal is. there's no reasonable way he wouldn't be the backup center if the season started tomorrow. he's still a terrible defender and not a good enough rebounder for his position, and he was a little bit selfish last night, but his teammates look so much more comfortable running pnrs with him than with wiseman. i think his first two possessions on the floor yesterday, he caught a lob from cade, and then a lob from ivey. if that's what the role is going to be, he should be the one doing it. but there's still three more games from wiseman to close the gap to a small enough distance for troy to demand he gets the minutes and not look completely insane

nothing worth mentioning from the g league/two way guys really. umude hit a couple big 3s but he's not an nba player

 

the one thing that stood out is the lack of wing depth. they played 5 guards, 4 bigs, and 2 wings, with harris being one of them. they played a lineup in the first half with sasser, ivey, killian, harris, and wiseman. obviously that's not something they'll use in the regular season but it speaks to the issue. there isn't a guy 6'8 or taller on the roster that can really handle the ball

 

overall, i just didn't really understand what the offensive game plan was. i get the whole ".5" thing but most of the time it looked like guys, especially the starters, were more focused on getting rid of the ball quickly than doing something constructive like trying to attack and draw help. which is a nice segue to wonder why ivey wasn't starting. maybe it's because bogey was out, and starting ausar for bogey, meant monty wanted at least one real shooter on the floor, which theoretically makes sense. or maybe they're trying to drive home that he needs to be a better defender or he's being punished for something (and if he is, he didn't act like he was mad about it, so good for him). but personally, i would want to see if the two young guards on my roster can play with and off each other. it also made cade the only ball handler on the floor with three guys phoenix was absolutely not respecting at all as shooters

so with one and a half ball handlers and one and a half shooters on the floor, the spacing was atrocious and the actions they ran were just as bad. multiple times they had stew and asuar in the same corner and then ran stew into a dho with duren without a handoff, before running ausar into a dho with the handoff. what's the point of that? what the hell is stew going to do if he gets a dho? the cade/duren pnr looked good, but again the spacing was terrible. multiple times they ran it with stew or ausar in the strong corner, allowing their defender to freely help off and clog the driving lane. they were clearly trying to get guys moving off ball but aside from ausar (he might be one of the best cutters in the league already) it was chaos and did more harm than good

one way to help cade, especially if he can knock down his catch and shoot opportunities, and the offense in general, would be to put another real ball handler out there, like ivey, who can initiate, attack, and create advantages. don't force cade to do everything on ball and have someone else with some gravity. and if stew can't figure out what he is offensively, he shouldn't be a starter because it's hurting the other four guys. right now i wouldn't be mad at a cade, ivey, bogey, ausar, duren starting five on opening night

 

and defensively, just yikes. there are going to be lots of 2, 3, and 4 man combinations they can't play together. and yeah, ivey and bogey are probably one of them, but what can you do

 

 

[catcheryea]

ok i need to know what he did

 

[MOSteelers56]

39 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

ok i need to know what he did

 

I think it was a calf strain. 

[catcheryea]

Just now, MOSteelers56 said:

I think it was a calf strain. 

lol not bogey. i need to know what ivey did to get benched

[MOSteelers56]

11 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

lol not bogey. i need to know what ivey did to get benched

Ooooooo, that makes sense. Maybe Monty is trying to motivate Ivey by not handing him the starting gig?

[catcheryea]

26 minutes ago, MOSteelers56 said:

Ooooooo, that makes sense. Maybe Monty is trying to motivate Ivey by not handing him the starting gig?

i hope that’s all it is because a cade, ausar, bogey, stewart, duren lineup somehow has even less floor spacing than any other starting lineup cade has been in

[detfan782004]

Ivey coming off the bench this year will be hard to watch if that ends up being the rotation.  Love his game

[catcheryea]

if the logic of ivey not starting is that they want to be better defensively because "the best offense is a good defense" or whatever, and they think getting stops will let them get out and run more for easy buckets (true!), then is the opposite not true?

if they're starting three players who won't be spacing the floor, or creating their own shot, or creating shots for other players, and the offense is one of the worst in the league, then does it really matter how good the starters are defensively if the other team will be running off misses and turnovers the whole game?

and literally as i type this, stewart turns the ball over on a post up on the first possession

Edited October 13, 2023 by catcheryea

[MOSteelers56]

14 hours ago, catcheryea said:

if the logic of ivey not starting is that they want to be better defensively because "the best offense is a good defense" or whatever, and they think getting stops will let them get out and run more for easy buckets (true!), then is the opposite not true?

if they're starting three players who won't be spacing the floor, or creating their own shot, or creating shots for other players, and the offense is one of the worst in the league, then does it really matter how good the starters are defensively if the other team will be running off misses and turnovers the whole game?

and literally as i type this, stewart turns the ball over on a post up on the first possession

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Ivey off the bench either. I think we're destined to stink again this year. A lot of online fans were proclaiming we were making the play-in this year, but I don't see it. I'm not calling anyone here out, I'm speaking mostly of reddit fans. We're still pretty clunky. Hopefully Monty uses this year as a culture building year, we can get a top 5 pick, get off some bad contracts in the off-season, bring in some solid vets. Then we can push for the playoffs next year. Gonna be another stinker for Pistons fans, I'm afraid. 

[detfan782004]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:44 AM, MOSteelers56 said:

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Ivey off the bench either. I think we're destined to stink again this year. A lot of online fans were proclaiming we were making the play-in this year, but I don't see it. I'm not calling anyone here out, I'm speaking mostly of reddit fans. We're still pretty clunky. Hopefully Monty uses this year as a culture building year, we can get a top 5 pick, get off some bad contracts in the off-season, bring in some solid vets. Then we can push for the playoffs next year. Gonna be another stinker for Pistons fans, I'm afraid. 

And it doesn't matter as the lottery this year is not as good at the top