Official Pistons Thread: Offseason

[Sllim Pickens]

1 hour ago, MOSteelers56 said:

Should have pulled out a W against the Bucks. I can't wait to see this team at full strength. Sasser can light it up. I want to see how Monty handles the guard rotation when Burks, Morris, and Ivey are healthy. 

I also just watched Giannis get ejected. That was a weak call. Giannis was rightfully pumped after that brutal poster he put Stew on. I can't blame him for getting hyped. That was nasty. 

Another stellar offensive night from Killian Hayes with 40% shooting and 0-3 from deep although the 40% raises his season average.  Similarly with Stew having a rough night shooting and defensively and rebounding wise.  I watched about 20 mins of the game and Hayes, Stewart, Rohden, Sasser, and Bagley were on the court together most of the time and it was hard to watch.  

Sasser is a nice surprise.  He definitely is earning some playing time even when others get back.  I sure hope that getting Ivey and Morris back will move Hayes to the bench permanently but I don't expect that to happen. Sasser should at least be a very solid bench guard in the future to provide some scoring behind Burks and Bogey if we can ever get healthy.  

Ausar is playing well too.  Shooting still leaves a lot to be desired but his D, rebounding and ability to get to the rim are going to play well for this team.  I really like what I see from him and excited to see how he develops and hopefully can develop a shot eventually.  

[catcheryea]

i don't know what the rotation looks like once everyone is healthy, if they ever get healthy (i feel like we're two weeks away from a "bojan will be re-evaluated in four weeks" statement), but i can't believe we're in year three* of cade and through horrible injury luck and even horribler roster management, we still can't put together five guys who compliment his skillset. reading about the end of the game last night, the bucks played a zone in the fourth and detroit had no answer for it because there's two other healthy guys on the roster teams have to care about shooting (one's a rookie and the other is a g-league player)

even if they don't go to a zone, teams very quickly figured out to throw three bodies at cade at the free throw line, clog the lane with at least one other low man to stop duren rolling and if stewart, killian, or ausar catch the ball, turn around and protect your heads

even the possessions where cade doesn't start on the ball, everyone in the arena knows he's coming off a screen to get it and then we're right back to square one

[catcheryea]

what are we thinking? troy gets fired when they hit 2-24? or gores lets him trade ivey for vucevic?

[Sllim Pickens]

4 hours ago, catcheryea said:

what are we thinking? troy gets fired when they hit 2-24? or gores lets him trade ivey for vucevic?

Weaver has to go. As does our training and health staff because we haven’t played a game with a healthy roster in like three years.  This is sad. Losing at home to a Hawks team without Trae.  Good work Troy and Monty. 

[catcheryea]

9 hours ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Weaver has to go. As does our training and health staff because we haven’t played a game with a healthy roster in like three years.  This is sad. Losing at home to a Hawks team without Trae.  Good work Troy and Monty. 

i actually looked that up last week. not counting two way players or guys sent to the g league, the last time they played a game fully healthy was march 15, 2022

[Sllim Pickens]

4 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

i actually looked that up last week. not counting two way players or guys sent to the g league, the last time they played a game fully healthy was march 15, 2022

Wow, thats nuts.  And who knows how many healthy games we had that year in total but it feels like not too many.  Grant only played 47 games that year, Cade played 64, Olynyk played 40 so assuming they all weren't at the same time I would say maybe 20% of our games that year we were healthy.  And by healthy I mean having your top 8 players available.  

[catcheryea]

41 minutes ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Wow, thats nuts.  And who knows how many healthy games we had that year in total but it feels like not too many.  Grant only played 47 games that year, Cade played 64, Olynyk played 40 so assuming they all weren't at the same time I would say maybe 20% of our games that year we were healthy.  And by healthy I mean having your top 8 players available.  

those three played together in five of the first 50 games that year and it looks like as soon as they came back bagley, stewart, josh jackson, and frank jackson all missed time

and of course livers was healthy for two games before march. if you don't count him they probably played 10-15 games fully healthy, and if you count him i think march 7 and march 15 were the only two games where every single person on the roster was dressed

[MOSteelers56]

It's definitely harder to be as optimistic as I am typically. I guess, if I could see a glass half full situation in this crap heep, it's that Duren looks to be LEGIT. We have been noticeably crappier without him. Cade is really worrying me, though. I was pumped to see Cade, Ivey, and Duren this year. Two haven't taken their expected steps and the other is hurt. Pretty rough. 

[catcheryea]

25 minutes ago, MOSteelers56 said:

It's definitely harder to be as optimistic as I am typically. I guess, if I could see a glass half full situation in this crap heep, it's that Duren looks to be LEGIT. We have been noticeably crappier without him. Cade is really worrying me, though. I was pumped to see Cade, Ivey, and Duren this year. Two haven't taken their expected steps and the other is hurt. Pretty rough. 

i think ivey has been somewhere between pretty and really good (at least offensively). i would actually go as far as saying he's been one of the two best offensive players on team. but he's tenth on the team in mpg and eighth in fga and he's stuck in a role that almost never lets him handle the ball and use his athleticism, rim pressure, scoring gravity, and passing, all of which the team more or less desperately needs. ivey can do things with the ball that nobody else on the team can and yet he's stuck in the corner most possessions like he's georges niang

he's shooting 50/38/78, good for 61% true shooting, and despite that, we haven't heard him publicly complain about anything

[MOSteelers56]

27 minutes ago, catcheryea said:

he's shooting 50/38/78, good for 61% true shooting, and despite that, we haven't heard him publicly complain about anything

He has handled the situation like a champ, no doubt. 

[Sllim Pickens]

1 hour ago, catcheryea said:

i think ivey has been somewhere between pretty and really good (at least offensively). i would actually go as far as saying he's been one of the two best offensive players on team. but he's tenth on the team in mpg and eighth in fga and he's stuck in a role that almost never lets him handle the ball and use his athleticism, rim pressure, scoring gravity, and passing, all of which the team more or less desperately needs. ivey can do things with the ball that nobody else on the team can and yet he's stuck in the corner most possessions like he's georges niang

he's shooting 50/38/78, good for 61% true shooting, and despite that, we haven't heard him publicly complain about anything

Monty's comments on Ivey didn't make sense to me.  Its stupid to be honest.  Sure defense and rebounding are important.  But at some point you have to appreciate offense too and Hayes just does nothing there.  He is more of a negative to the offense than Ivey is to the D.  And he says he doesnt want to gift people minutes but I am sure the rest of the team sees what we do that Hayes is being gifted minutes.  And maybe if the team could score a couple buckets they would get a little more energy on the defensive end.  We are 2-10, worst team in the NBA with a 9 game losing streak.  What the heck is he expecting to change if he keeps running crap out there. 

Bottom line is Weaver needs to go.  He has wore out his welcome IMO.  Taking on bad contracts constantly instead of using cap space to try to win. Taking on players who don't fit but he liked in the draft 3 years prior and then paying them too much. Not trading guys when he should trade them.  Not getting any value in return in trades. He has sort of drafted well with getting Duren and Ausar but Cade and Ivey were easy calls at the times (although Scottie Barnes and Shaedon Sharpe would be nice right now) so its tough to give him credit for those guys.  Not to mention those draft picks have us at 2-10 and worst team in the league still. After seeing Presti build up, tear down, and rebuild OKC already, its obvious he was the brains in OKC and Weaver rode the coattails to a GM position. 

[catcheryea]

49 minutes ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Monty's comments on Ivey didn't make sense to me.  Its stupid to be honest.  Sure defense and rebounding are important.  But at some point you have to appreciate offense too and Hayes just does nothing there.  He is more of a negative to the offense than Ivey is to the D.  And he says he doesnt want to gift people minutes but I am sure the rest of the team sees what we do that Hayes is being gifted minutes.  And maybe if the team could score a couple buckets they would get a little more energy on the defensive end.  We are 2-10, worst team in the NBA with a 9 game losing streak.  What the heck is he expecting to change if he keeps running crap out there. 

Bottom line is Weaver needs to go.  He has wore out his welcome IMO.  Taking on bad contracts constantly instead of using cap space to try to win. Taking on players who don't fit but he liked in the draft 3 years prior and then paying them too much. Not trading guys when he should trade them.  Not getting any value in return in trades. He has sort of drafted well with getting Duren and Ausar but Cade and Ivey were easy calls at the times (although Scottie Barnes and Shaedon Sharpe would be nice right now) so its tough to give him credit for those guys.  Not to mention those draft picks have us at 2-10 and worst team in the league still. After seeing Presti build up, tear down, and rebuild OKC already, its obvious he was the brains in OKC and Weaver rode the coattails to a GM position. 

from what i've read, killian has been playing mostly fine the last few games (the last two especially seem like they were just horrific cade games, which you could argue is a byproduct of teams not caring killian is on the floor), but i saw a stat that the starters have a -10 net rating, worst of any team's that has played 100 minutes together. and their offensive rating is 101.8 (league worst right now is 104.4). to toot my own horn, basically what i thought would happen has happened. they have a slightly below average defense, and an offense than runs like an unoiled machine, and they won't change anything. they refuse to play ausar at the 4 and stew at the 5 to put another shooter on the floor. when stew does play the 5, they don't change anything about the offense and they continue to pretend he should be rolling. put stew in the corner and let ausar be the screener because he can actually dribble and pass and i don't feel like he'll travel 80% of the time he has to make a decision beyond shoot

if monty wanted to punish ivey for being a bad defender and cut his minutes that's one thing. but (i know i've said this multiple times now) i can't figure out why they use him how they do on offense. why do they let sasser, burks, and hayes all have their shot at running the offense while ivey is treated like the fourth option by his own coaching staff? and why is he seemingly the only one who gets bench for his mistakes? in new orleans, he helped cut the deficit from 23 to 8, he got a big block and dunk at the end of the 3rd, and he played two minutes in the 4th and monty closed with joe harris over him. it's unconscionable to me honestly. kevin knox has played more minutes in both of this games than ivey has in any of his

but yeah only real home run weaver has hit was turning grant into duren. lottery luck gifted him cade, ivey fell in his lap, ausar has been amazing but he was pretty much the consensus there too. like you said, he's blown cap space on bad contracts instead of useful players, he's had to trade picks to get off contracts he gave out, he's signed helpful players and had to trade them because he signed too many of one type of them and not another type, he's obsessed with trying to prove that he can fix lottery picks who have shown nothing in the nba. he hasn't put together a roster with shooting, athleticism, capable defenders, and generally high iq at the same time. obviously cade has to be much, much, much better, but it has to be infuriating to him to be on a team where he's started like 90% of his games next to cory joseph and killian hayes and every time he gets inside the arc he's seeing three or four bodies with nowhere to kick out while there are more than capable shooters on the bench. and even though that's something monty's in charge of, the fact that he's even in a position where he wants to play wiseman or killian is troy's fault

[Sllim Pickens]

Looking around the league, is being this bad is even more disappointing IMO. Of the teams that were tanking or bad when we were, all are well on the up swing at this point.  The Rockets, Thunder, Cavs, and Magic are the group I most closely compare us.  The Hornets and Kings can sort of be thrown in there as well.  Currently OKC is 10-4, Magic 9-5, the Cavs 8-6 with a playoff appearance last year, and the Rockets 6-6.  The Kings were second in the west last year and 8-5 this year while missing Fox a lot of the time.  The Hornets are still bad but just got Bridges back and are top 7 in the East in points per game. 
 

Then you have teams who never fully tore it down to the studs like Indiana, Brooklyn, Atlanta, New York, and Minnesota who have found a star player or two and are playoff teams every year now.  
 

Meanwhile we are now in year 5, still the worst team in the league with a roster that doesn’t work, a “star” player who is underwhelming so far but could be due to his supporting cast, and a bunch of meh.  I get some teams had draft luck like San Antonio and Orlando, but we did too when we got Cade. They have done it by drafting right, trading for the right players, and signing guys at the right time.  Orlando looked crazy going Suggs and Wagner and now they are both keys to their success.  Indiana had Sabonis, makes the move for Halliburton in a trade that oddly enough worked out for both teams, added Mathurin last year who is turning into a good wing and are on their way to being a very solid team.  OKC makes the trade for SGA and many thought they sold low on PG but now he is the better player and they find gems like Jalen Williams and Giddey and finding undrafted guys like Dort.  Houston has had similar luck to us but they have built a better cohesive team and added FVV at the right time. Something we should have been looking to do this year instead of taking on more dead salary. It’s just super disheartening. 
 

Admittedly I have been less attentive to the Pistons for a while but seeing how horribly ran they are is even a bigger concern.  Our director of player personnel is our VPs unqualified son who has a marketing background. Our strategy analyst is Weavers son who is extremely unqualified whose work experience before the Pistons was a camp counselor.  Gores and former players are often seen courtside drunk out of their minds. Gores and upper management really don’t care. It’s a fun little side gig for them to have fun with and it shows. Just like the Lions when SFH took over and cleaned house, we need the same here but as long as Gores is here hiring his buddies and their kids and not holding any of them accountable, I don’t really see it changing.  

[BigC421/]

7 hours ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Looking around the league, is being this bad is even more disappointing IMO. Of the teams that were tanking or bad when we were, all are well on the up swing at this point.  The Rockets, Thunder, Cavs, and Magic are the group I most closely compare us.  The Hornets and Kings can sort of be thrown in there as well.  Currently OKC is 10-4, Magic 9-5, the Cavs 8-6 with a playoff appearance last year, and the Rockets 6-6.  The Kings were second in the west last year and 8-5 this year while missing Fox a lot of the time.  The Hornets are still bad but just got Bridges back and are top 7 in the East in points per game. 
 

Then you have teams who never fully tore it down to the studs like Indiana, Brooklyn, Atlanta, New York, and Minnesota who have found a star player or two and are playoff teams every year now.  
 

Meanwhile we are now in year 5, still the worst team in the league with a roster that doesn’t work, a “star” player who is underwhelming so far but could be due to his supporting cast, and a bunch of meh.  I get some teams had draft luck like San Antonio and Orlando, but we did too when we got Cade. They have done it by drafting right, trading for the right players, and signing guys at the right time.  Orlando looked crazy going Suggs and Wagner and now they are both keys to their success.  Indiana had Sabonis, makes the move for Halliburton in a trade that oddly enough worked out for both teams, added Mathurin last year who is turning into a good wing and are on their way to being a very solid team.  OKC makes the trade for SGA and many thought they sold low on PG but now he is the better player and they find gems like Jalen Williams and Giddey and finding undrafted guys like Dort.  Houston has had similar luck to us but they have built a better cohesive team and added FVV at the right time. Something we should have been looking to do this year instead of taking on more dead salary. It’s just super disheartening. 
 

Admittedly I have been less attentive to the Pistons for a while but seeing how horribly ran they are is even a bigger concern.  Our director of player personnel is our VPs unqualified son who has a marketing background. Our strategy analyst is Weavers son who is extremely unqualified whose work experience before the Pistons was a camp counselor.  Gores and former players are often seen courtside drunk out of their minds. Gores and upper management really don’t care. It’s a fun little side gig for them to have fun with and it shows. Just like the Lions when SFH took over and cleaned house, we need the same here but as long as Gores is here hiring his buddies and their kids and not holding any of them accountable, I don’t really see it changing.  

Wow I did not know that information starting the last paragraph.  What a freakin joke 

[catcheryea]

6 hours ago, Sllim Pickens said:

Looking around the league, is being this bad is even more disappointing IMO. Of the teams that were tanking or bad when we were, all are well on the up swing at this point.  The Rockets, Thunder, Cavs, and Magic are the group I most closely compare us.  The Hornets and Kings can sort of be thrown in there as well.  Currently OKC is 10-4, Magic 9-5, the Cavs 8-6 with a playoff appearance last year, and the Rockets 6-6.  The Kings were second in the west last year and 8-5 this year while missing Fox a lot of the time.  The Hornets are still bad but just got Bridges back and are top 7 in the East in points per game. 
 

Then you have teams who never fully tore it down to the studs like Indiana, Brooklyn, Atlanta, New York, and Minnesota who have found a star player or two and are playoff teams every year now.  
 

Meanwhile we are now in year 5, still the worst team in the league with a roster that doesn’t work, a “star” player who is underwhelming so far but could be due to his supporting cast, and a bunch of meh.  I get some teams had draft luck like San Antonio and Orlando, but we did too when we got Cade. They have done it by drafting right, trading for the right players, and signing guys at the right time.  Orlando looked crazy going Suggs and Wagner and now they are both keys to their success.  Indiana had Sabonis, makes the move for Halliburton in a trade that oddly enough worked out for both teams, added Mathurin last year who is turning into a good wing and are on their way to being a very solid team.  OKC makes the trade for SGA and many thought they sold low on PG but now he is the better player and they find gems like Jalen Williams and Giddey and finding undrafted guys like Dort.  Houston has had similar luck to us but they have built a better cohesive team and added FVV at the right time. Something we should have been looking to do this year instead of taking on more dead salary. It’s just super disheartening. 
 

Admittedly I have been less attentive to the Pistons for a while but seeing how horribly ran they are is even a bigger concern.  Our director of player personnel is our VPs unqualified son who has a marketing background. Our strategy analyst is Weavers son who is extremely unqualified whose work experience before the Pistons was a camp counselor.  Gores and former players are often seen courtside drunk out of their minds. Gores and upper management really don’t care. It’s a fun little side gig for them to have fun with and it shows. Just like the Lions when SFH took over and cleaned house, we need the same here but as long as Gores is here hiring his buddies and their kids and not holding any of them accountable, I don’t really see it changing.  

i don't disagree with any of the overall points, but just to nitpick, i don't really think this is year 5. the first year they were clearly planning to run it back but blake's knees were so ****ed he barely played at all that year and they realized they had to trade drummond and they got nothing for him. even the next year, which was weaver's first year, when they signed grant and plumlee, i truly believe they went into the offseason and the regular season hoping to make one last playoff push (misguided or not) before they saw blake could barely move and they finally pushed the button. by the end of the year they were definitely tanking but that was because the guys they were running out were not supposed to be playing heavy minutes

and none of this is to defend troy because i'm sick of him showing up every year and saying "well we first had to clear the books and now we can start building," because the books have been clear for two years at this point and all he's done with it is set the cap space on fire. but at least in orlando's case, the second most important piece on their roster was taken with chicago's pick. same with sengun and jdub. to an extent, i do think that's a big part of what sets them apart, but it probably doesn't matter because the only time weaver has had real draft pick flexibility, he tied up a 1st round pick for seven years so he could select isaiah stewart. honestly if any of his three 1sts in 2020 had turned out to be anything, we're in a different spot. obviously this is hindsight but any of mcdaniels, haliburton, maxey, vassell, even josh green or quickley would be better than any of the picks he made. and he passed on some of those guy more than once

i saw a conversation on twitter yesterday asking why is orlando so much better than us this year. and the answer is they decided they wanted to be good defensively, so they built a roster of guys who are good defenders. lots of their guys have plus positional size, they're mostly all versatile, can guard up or down, and they can play big or small.  they also have guys that have been around and actually know how to play and communicate and rotate in an nba defense

compared to orlando, troy and monty also talked about defense being the identity of the team, but with livers out and killian starting, there wasn't a single competent defender on the bench (sasser doesn't count). why does that matter? i'm glad you asked, monty. that's how you end up with jaden ivey, maybe the single worst perimeter defender in the league last year guarding sga, zach lavine, and cj mccollum, and then you're surprised he's giving up buckets. for all the jokes about how many centers weaver acquired, it's not great when the 19 year old gets hurt and suddenly you're relying on 48 minutes of bagley and wiseman to protect the rim because getting a veteran backup center who can actually play defense doesn't matter in troy's vision. wiseman works harder protecting the rim his team's trying to score on than he does on defense. and guess what else, you can't play stewart at the 5 and ausar at the 4 because the only other wing they had on the roster before signing knox was stanley ******* umude (not a knock on him). either the gm has to build a roster to match how the coach wants to play or the coach has to adapt how they play to the personnel he has at his disposal. neither one did either and they were shocked it didn't work

indiana drafts jarace walker in the top 10, he's played 41 total minutes so far because they've decided to completely throw defense out the window and let haliburton and his merry band of shooters run wild, and guess what, haliburton's been ******* amazing (also to the mathurin point, i'd definitely still rather have ivey, and i don't think it's really a question). meanwhile monty's trying to prove killian is worth play 30 minutes a night because it's leading to the 21st best defense in the league while cade is the drowning kid meme every time he comes off a screen that stewart doesn't make contact on. i know i'm preaching to the choir here but i said before the season i didn't really care if they were good, i just wanted them to be fun and play good basketball. instead they've played probably the worst basketball i've ever seen. they won 17 games last year and they only reason i'm not 100% positive that team would absolutely smoke this team is because wiseman played 25 minutes a game last year you can't win big doing that

i said this all the time when casey was coaching, and i genuinely can't believe it's been worse with monty. outside of duren (and they only even did it for half a season with him before they decided to give his minutes to wiseman) and debatably ausar, why is it so hard to put the young players on this team in positions to help them succeed? even with someone like mobley, cleveland figured that he wasn't and still isn't ready to play center full time and he's more helpful as a roamer, so they paid jarrett allen and let him deal with the big bodies while mobley flails his arms around for blocks and deflections. ivey was 6/7 in the first half against denver, he got one total shot attempt in the second half, and none in the final 20 minutes. play 5 out if you can, play fast, run offensive sets that make sense for the guys on the floor (or run any at all monty please), take advantage of having multiple ball handlers and elite athletes. why is the number one priority of this team to prove that isaiah stewart is an nba starter? it doesn't matter that it simultaneously negatively impacts cade, ivey, ausar, and duren, troy and monty both like his energy so he's the second most untouchable piece on the team. when bojan and duren come back, will it even be a question if stewart will get moved to the bench? of course not, they'll take out the kid who has already been a more impactful player than stewart ever has and is a better athlete, defender, passer, cutter, ball handler, rebounder, rim protector, hustles more, and has a higher basketball iq because weaver thinks stewart's arms remind him of ben wallace (or it'll be ivey because monty doesn't believe in advanced stats and 63 ts% means literally nothing to him)

but the last paragraph is the most important. it's nepotism all the way down. troy literally drafted a kid who was the son of a guy arn tellem did business with. and they kept him on the roster for two years. he did the same thing last year with buddy boeheim. the gm that was fired last year for sexually harrassing his assistant? troy weaver's friend who he helped get a job at syracuse after troy left. if they fire weaver tomorrow, my first thought would be, "how badly are they going to **** up the next gm search because the pool of candidates is limited to people who will do their bidding?" because arn's in the ownership group and even though his name isn't directly tied to anything that happens, he definitely has a loud voice in the room, and he's not going anywhere