Betrayer

Broken bone is definitely the best case. Watching it live I thought his knee got blown out by that reckless dive. 3-6 months, which is better than the full year you usually see with ligament tears. Hopefully there was no damage to the surrounding structures. As for the team going forward, you're forced into a starting lineup change. When Ivey missed time previously JB started Beasley. Last night he closed with Ausar though. Maybe this opens up the door for more starting lineup changes to balance things out a bit. Start Beasley in place of Ivey and Ausar in place of THJ. You move THJ's spacing to the second unit since you're calling up Beasley to balance out the (theoretical) shooters and you can also have Holland backing up Ausar so you don't have two non-shooting wings on the bench sharing time on the court. As far as Ivey's contract, I think you basically punt that until next season now. Omari was saying the same thing on his podcast this morning. They'll want to make sure he makes a full recovery and all that. Ivey isn't a max guy, so they'll probably just deal with his contract in his final year instead of extending early this offseason.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: KD tries to lead a super-team and...

Curious to see how this plays out. Injured rental who going to want a huge new contract in the offseason.

Ausar for TJH is a good start and I think there's very little chance that Harris gets benched anyway. What you lose in perceived spacing from THJ you get back in many other ways on both ends with Ausar. Something has to be done about Duren though, because he's a real problem. His on/off point differential is staggering no matter which other center you put in there, and this starting unit can't keep digging a hole every game. If you factor in his turnover problem, I'm not sure you lose much offensively with him getting benched anyway. Dunks are nice, but it's not like he's giving you any spacing like Stew could. The org has to decide who the backup big man is - Stew or Duren. That guy stays on the bench in his future role and the other guy gets moved. Maybe they've already decided and that's why Duren is a starter until they move him...?

I probably would've brought Cade back when it got down to 7 pts. Take out Moore and let Cade run with Holland, Ausar, Reed, and Sasser so they can have a creator on the floor for the last 5 minutes. Starting lineup needs a change. Duren, THJ, and Harris - at least two of them need to be shifted to the bench for some combination of Ausar, Beasley, Stew (or even Reed). My guess is they're waiting for the trade deadline because those 3 starters are also the ones you're most likely to include in a deal.

Wow! That was a game! If you would've told me that they'd have a better win % in December than November when looking at the schedule a couple months ago I would've told you to lay off the drugs. Cade better be an All-Star lock. @Deleterious I'd call it 6 on 3 because Duren might as well be playing for the other team when he's on defense most nights. The defensive rating is 120 when he's on the floor and 111 when he's off the floor. That's an insane 9 point swing. It's not because Stew has turned into prime Ben Wallace either, because it's the same story when you put Reed in there. Pretty much any way you slice the numbers, they're better when JD is on the bench. And on the other end, his high turnover percentage isn't helping the offense either.

Del and I have been commenting about this starting lineup for a while, but it really needs to change regardless of these wins. Here are some interesting stats I heard today: Starting lineup allows 123 pts. That's 4 points worse than the worst defense in the NBA (Utah at 119). You can't have Duren, Ivey, and THJ together. Tobias is also a neutral to weak defender. It's great that Cade is becoming a better defender and taking on matchups like KD and Lebron, but that isn't going to cut it and his workload is too high on the other end already.

It's always fun watching the Lakers lose. Nice to see the team win on a night when Cade was struggling a bit. He still found ways to impact the game, but the bench was phenomenal, especially on the defensive end. Reed with zero points, but 5 stocks. Then again, maybe we should give that 1 pt to him for the technical he drew on AD. Holland with a nice game as well. Beasley doing his thing as well, of course. As far as when we'll see them stop clenching up during crunch time...when you're the 6th youngest team in the NBA, that's going to happen.

The duo that should have been if the NBA didn't put in a few lighter ping pong balls that year for SAN.

I'll let someone else do that. If Markkanen was the final piece, then yeah, but he's not. He's not a #1 or #2 option on a contender. He's a #3 and we still need a #1b or #2 to put alongside Cade. Once you have that guy, if you add Markkanen then you've got something, but it's not worth moving all your assets just to get an 8th seed.

No way. That's what you trade for an All-NBA player, not a 1x fringe All-Star. For that, you get a first and a prospect, as Del said.

Predictable loss to a bad team after stealing a win against Miami. Starting lineup needs a permanent shakeup once guys are healthy. West coast trip coming up, so things aren't getting any easier.

Good to hear day to day about Stew. That looked like it could have been bad.

Just came here to post this as well. Some good film breakdown of Cade's assists.

Thanks for posting this. Good stuff. I think the Pistons biggest role in trades will be as a facilitator for other teams rather than a buyer of a particular top player. I know fans don't wants to hear that, but they freed up cap space for a reason and in the offseason Trajan talked a lot about taking on contracts for assets.

Yep. Been saying this for 2 years now about Ausar. His most used play type last year was corner three because Monty never figured it out and put him in the worst possible scenario on offense. Hopefully JB will figure it out sooner. Not only should he be used as the screener, but let him be the DHO hub as well like the Warriors do with Draymond and the Pistons are trying to do with Duren (5 turnovers yesterday).

Yep. You know I've been on that bandwagon for a while now. His defense was outstanding (5 stocks, point of attack defense, weakside rim protection, rebounding), and he just knows how to make himself available on offense with cuts and smart plays even though he's a bit raw on that end. Blew a couple easy ones early otherwise his numbers would have been even better. That dunk was (almost) ridiculous. This game also shows why Beasley should be starting. Having that pure shooter who can do it off the catch and off of movement is just a huge benefit to Cade and the team. It's no coincidence that Cade got 18 Assists tonight with Beasley in there instead of Ivey. I'd hate to bench Ivey and reduce his trade value, but if they aren't planning to trade him then that's the answer. EIther way, the starting lineup needs some changes because it's been bad this season.

Sounds like the whole thing was just to free up a little extra cap space going into trade season. I'll judge this move when I see what they do with it.

I agree with a lot of what you said and I don't particularly like Lavine (although I'd still do the deal). However, I do need to call this comment out. Lavine's athleticism absolutely helps his scoring, but the dude is shooting 43% from three on 7.5 attempts per game. That's elite shooting regardless of his dunking ability. Of course, it's required that anytime you say something good about Lavine, you have to follow it with "when he plays."

Mister Glass

Is the choice only between signing Ivey long term versus bringing in Lavine? As of right now that's 2.5 years of a bad defender who's injury prone but is a perfect offensive fit next to Cade versus 6.5 years of a bad defender who's best role is probably 6th man but the team will treat him like a 2nd option? In that case, I'm leaning towards Lavine, as painful as it is for me to say. Lavine does one thing legitimately well, and that's score. Everyone loves what Beasley is doing this year, right? Well Lavine is shooting 43% from three compared to Beasley's 40%. He's money from outside and has an eFG% of 61 which is significantly better than Ivey's 50%. Cade will find him for threes all day and when Cade is getting tripled or sits down, Lavine will do what we were all hoping Ivey would do - take over the offensive load. He won't play defense, but let's be honest, trying hard doesn't make Ivey a good defender either. His health is the only reason I'd even have to think about this for more than a few minutes. It gives me pause, but you take the better player in the deal and run every time and that's clearly Lavine. We'd have to match 33M of that contract since we only have 10M open. THJ's and Ivey is only 24M. Maybe you could toss Reed in there. Now, if you're giving me the 3rd option of moving Ivey in a different deal, then I'm probably taking that instead - and no, not Ingram. I'd rather have Lavine than pay Ingram 50M/yr.

I agree about your draft night reaction and I had Ivey #2 on my board. I recall making the Jalen Brown comps as well, but in practice I'm seeing that his lack of height and defense will always keep him from hitting that type of ceiling. Malik Monk may be his actual outcome and Monk is getting about 20M/yr at 12% of the cap as their 4th best guy. Seeing how he fits with a team that is already inconsistent, poor defensively, and turnover prone doesn't make me feel good about this team's odds with him as the #2 or even #3 guy. At this stage of the rebuild, I'm not interested in paying 30+M/yr for the #4 guy. Also, investing that much in him sets up a situation where you almost have to treat him like the #2 guy whether you should or not. Like I've said before, I'd start Beasley over him today, but no way the org would do something like that if they just signed him to a 30+M dollar extension. Coming at it from the other direction, the team really doesn't have many tradeable assets yet at some point you have to find a way to get a second star. That means packaging some good players and Ivey is a player I'd consider in that mix. I'm not going to name specific target players, because it's so easy to make up and shoot down trades. We've all been around long enough to see the crazy deals that seem totally lopsided, so our opinions on "what's fair" don't matter to NBA GMs anyway. And as far as trading for draft picks, I wouldn't be doing that so we could draft the player ourselves 4 years from now. It'd be about collecting assets in the war-chest to bring in a star when the opportunity arises. As you said initially, I'm not selling low. However, I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for a deal if I'm Trajan.

Below average shooter, below average defender, too many turnovers. He'd fit right in, but no thanks.

Nah, I'll pass on that. December 15th is right around the corner, and every game is pushing me more and more towards the "trade him now" side of the fence as he trends downward from his hot start. Last night's game against Boston was a shinning example of this. I want a bigger 3 and D player at the other guard spot. Not someone who's going to be a small'ish average defender (at best), an inconsistent 3 point shooter, and a guy who turns it over too much for his role. He'll be a fine 6th man candidate someday for a team who already has their stars in place, but paying him to be the #2 player in this core isn't it. I was pretty excited on draft day, but this past offseason I said that they needed to trade at least one these 2022 guys before they become extension eligible. If anything, the clarity that we now have about these guys after seeing them on a semi-competent team has only served to solidify that viewpoint for me.

I mean that in the short term the Pistons are better when Beasley is on the court and in the long term I'd like to see a longer, more switchable lineup to take advantage of Cade's size...so where does that leave Ivey? Do you extend him for big money this offseason and lock in this duo as your 1A and 1B players going forward? As much as I like Ivey, I'm not sure I see that future working out. You also have to consider the fact that you probably can't afford to extend all of these high draft picks for the next three years. At some point you have to consolidate and waiting too long often means being stuck with a bad signing (Drummond), having to sell low (Duren), or just cutting the player when the value bottoms out (Killian). The other option is to use his success this season to package him in a trade to bring in that 1B star, move up in the draft to get that player, or acquire future picks that could be packaged for a 1B star later on. I'm not saying give up or sell low on Ivey, I'm just saying if I was GM I would have my eyes open for the right deal if it came along.