Betrayer

I'll be at that game, so I really hope that's the one. I was stupid and bought the tickets before the season since it's only about a 5.5 hour drive and we were looking to book a couple of extended weekend getaways. Edit: Talking about the Hawks game.

Because the Lakers played.

Literally the words I was going to come on here and say. I think I said it in a previous post as well. How does this coach take 20+ games to figure out you need spacing around Cade? How does he take this long to learn how to use Ausar (roll man, DHOs, dunker spot)? How long to figure out Ivey needs to play more than 20 minutes? How long to stagger the scorers? How long to shorten the rotation to 8 or 9? How long to move Stew to the bench? How long to move Hayes to the bench? He either wants to go home and earn all this money from his couch or he just had more talent than people thought when he was in Phoenix and the guy from New Orleans is the real Monty. I'm beginning to the think it's the latter. I thought he was Casey 2.0, but he might actually be Casey 0.5.

It's even scarier considering that Weaver is under major pressure now so he's going to try to save his job with a Blake Griffin type move that's going to damn the franchise for years to come. Might be better to fire him now before he pulls an SVG on the way out the door. But even if you clean house by firing Weaver, firing Tellem, and negotiating a buyout with the coach who you overpaid to take a job he clearly didn't want, you still have the biggest problem lingering: Gores. A bad owner who likes to meddle at the worst times and thinks that basketball works like a corporation where you just hire the big name Exec that just left some other company to make the optics look good (SVG, Casey, Monty). This whole thing is a mess.

Haliburton has been phenomenal, no doubt. But most stats, especially counting stats, just don't make sense anymore. Just look at how many points allowed is considered a "good defense" now.

Monty is putting on a masterclass in how to get the bag and then go home to watch tv from your couch. This will be the third big name coach that Gores has hired only to watch them be even worse than everyone said they were when they got fired from their last job. Maybe one of the few things Weaver got right was to disagree with Gores about hiring Williams. Ivey the 11th man. Rolling out a lineup up of Sasser, Burks, Thompson, Livers, and Wiseman to immediately lose a 7 pt lead. Starting Stew and Hayes. Taking two months to realize Cade needs spacing. Taking an 18 game losing streak to say he needs to shorten the rotation and find time for Ivey. Never changing the defense when we're absolutely getting rolled by a single player. Never running an out-of-timeout or out-of-bounds play that works. Never running anything resembling an offense in the 4th quarter. Monty has already lost the locker room and we're not even a quarter of the way into the season. I knew he was just Casey 2.0 when we hired him. I wanted Udoka or Quinn, but I never thought it would be quite this bad. I'm not absolving Weaver here. This roster has been an abomination for 4 years, especially after all the offseason talk about wanting to win and then signing just Joe Harris and Monte Morris. No wings, no backup Center, and not a single 3 and D player to speak of. And now Duren is hurt (again) and it looks bad. That's the third ankle injury for him this season and he had them last year too. Someone get this kid some high tops, or tape his ankles, or get him some braces or something. Can't wait to hear JEIII say something like, "Let's wait until Duren comes back so we can evaluate this team."

If Monty has a say in it, I don't see it happening because if he thinks Ivey doesn't play defense he would go crazy with Lavine. But I'm not sure it's Monty's choice, and I'm not even sure it's Weaver's choice anymore. Gores has to be ratcheting up the pressure after all his preseason talk and the fact that he backed up the money van to Monty's house to try to win this season. It would be Blake 2.0. We'd probably get one fun season that goes nowhere before he's injured and then we wind up waiving and stretching the contract.

They won the 1st and 3rd quarters with the three guard lineup. Nice to see Ivey get more playing time, but Monty's comment about "fluid lineups" doesn't make me happy. Taking a young lineup and giving them more instability and difficulty finding their role doesn't sound like a good idea. Ausar had a really rough game. Maybe it was the mask, but he's looked lost since being moved to the bench. He'll need to adjust or spend every day taking 1000 jumpers until he can provide some spacing. Best I've seen Duren look since injuring the ankle. He looked springy again. But yeah, we don't need the Andre Drummond dribble drives from him. I'll say it again: Stew's role is a bench big man. Sometimes playing the 4, sometimes playing the 5. He'll still get significant minutes and might even finish a lot of games at the 5 in switchable situations (and if we ever make the playoffs). You don't have to be a starter to be a locker room leader.

I called it in my season preview, but now it's looking more and more real. Ivey will be gone before game 1 next year or sooner. Monty has decided to make him this team's Ayton. Listen to him after the game when he says "Hayes and Sasser are the best compliments to Cade out there". He even talked about Hayes' ability to "knock down shots"! Everyone in Phoenix said that Monty would come here and pick a baffling favorite player that he'll give way too many minutes too and have a grudge against a young talented prospect - sure enough, here we are. Just trade Ivey now because it's obvious where this is going and his value will only go down from here. Maybe use him in a package to get a 3&D wing for this starting lineup. Monty also continues to take the wrong people out of the starting lineup. We all know it should be Stew coming off the bench. He's a solid backup but not a starter in this league. He also helps Bagley a lot by adding some muscle and defense to that bench unit as we saw last night when they staggered him with the bench a bit. You also gain the option to use him as the backup Center in certain matchups to allow for more switching and to let Ausar play in the dunker spot without crowding the paint. Speaking of Ausar, he relegated to 13 minutes last night and still got 7 rebounds in that time. So, that's two top 5 picks that are now on Monty's bench. Can't wait until we collect another one this offseason. On Livers: Why do people like him? The answer is simple. Weaver has constructed a roster full of players who can either shoot the 3 or play D...nobody that can do both. Livers is the one guy that projects as even a mediocre 3&D player. That's how desperate we are for 3&D players in the lineup.

The job is apparently to talk down to the fans who are the reason your job exists. Can't stand JEIII and his arrogance.

What a train wreck. That game was not fun to watch unless you're a Lebron fan. Weaver's roster makes no sense, Monty is playing guys who should be the 12th-15th player, and the players themselves look like their spirit is completely broken. National media is all over it now as well. I wonder how long Gores ego can handle this? He won't sell the team though, he'll do the corporate thing and find someone below him to blame it all on. Then you'll get a bunch of stories from JEIII about how this person that we never heard of before that day was the real driver behind all the bad things that happened.

That's ok, AD always kills us. He averages 30, 11, and 4 blocks against the Pistons since 2020.

Oh, that's even worse than Lavine. If we're taking Poole he better come with picks. A lot of them.

Truly pitiful. And that press conference was a travesty. Monty comes out and answers one question with an attitude as if he's mad at the media and it's their fault. Then the supposed leaders on this team throw Livers under the bus and send him out there after his second game back from injury. Something is truly broken about this team and this organization. Yea, it's a poorly constructed roster and Monty made it worse by throwing the first dozen games out the window, but it goes beyond that. National media is talking about this, so it's not going to be long before Gores steps in, if he hasn't already. Question is, what's he going to do? Fire Weaver? Fire the coach he just massively overpaid? My bigger fear is that Weaver starts to feel the heat and makes an SVG move to save his job. Say hello to Zach Lavine, aka the next Blake Griffin.

They would've lost anyway, but so much of this being a blowout is on Monty. When the 4th quarter started and I saw Cade out there I turned to my wife and said, "He's been carrying this team all night and now Monty's going to play him the entire 4th quarter. At about the halfway point of this quarter watch him get multiple turnovers and all his shots come up short." Sure enough. Also, he sat Ausar for almost the entire 4th and what happens? Indy had zero offensive rebounds the entire game until that point and they get about a dozen to blow open the lead in the 4th while our best rebounder sits on the bench. Ausar was a +6 and the only guy in the positive for the night.

You think Indy would trade Hali for Cade + Killian? I doubt it, but that's been everyone's justification for why it was ok that we drafted Killian over Hali because we wouldn't have been bad enough to get Cade.

Hearing that Monte Morris is now going to be out for 6-8 more weeks.

On paper you'd expect us to lose game against teams like the Nuggets, Bucks, and Suns. But when these teams are sitting (or losing) their best players, you're just throwing away gifts. It's also really painful to watch Monty slowly learn the things we all know. Took him 10+ games to learn that you need spacing around Cade. Now I see he needs to learn the lesson that Stewart can't play Center except in rare matchups. That stretch in the 2nd half last night was atrocious, just like last year when Bagley was out and Stew played a ton of Center. He also needs to learn that if you do wind up playing Stewart at Center, then Ausar is the guy in the dunker spot or setting the screen and Stew needs to be the guy on the three point line spacing the court, not the reverse. Some of those plays down the stretch were painful with Stew in the dunker spot and Ausar crashing in as well, so the paint just gets totally clogged. Edit: I should also say that this is on Weaver as well. We needed our 3rd center to be a rebounding veteran big man and we got Wiseman instead. He can't be trusted to play real minutes and now here we are with Bagley starting and Stew playing Center minutes.

This is getting pretty embarrassing.

So, nothing really changing other than Bagley is out so you needed someone (Knox) to fill a spot. Stubborn Monty (or prideful Troy?) still unwilling to move Killian to the bench where he belongs (and even that's a kind assessment).

Took him 12 games to figure out what we knew before the season started. Now watch this fool take out Ausar instead of Killian.

Not nearly enough. A chokehold is a dangerous move on it's own, let alone dragging someone by their neck for 9 seconds. Add in his history of altercations, escalations, and lack of remorse for anything he's done and you have someone that should've been sent a message. 10 games should've been the minimum and it still would've been disappointing to me. This is a joke.

It's getting rough out there. No matter where you look the fanbase has turned on this team and all the off-season hopes have gone down the drain. The reality is there isn't one answer here. No matter how you look at it though, some changes must be made. Both things are true: Cade has to play better AND Cade is getting absolutely blitzed every time he comes off a screen with no spacing around him. Get Burks, Sasser, or Ivey in the starting lineup for Killian or even Knox for Stew - or both - to create more spacing. Also, he shouldn't be leading the league in minutes and top 5 in usage in his first month back for what is effectively his sophomore season after missing an entire season due to injury. He looks as tired and frustrated as we are. Monty's legendary stubbornness can't continue. The fact that Ivey is averaging 19 minutes a game while Killian is averaging 30 is criminal. Weaver loves to collect big-men, but he's collected the wrong ones for this bench. We said it before the season started, and Duren's injury has made it even worse - we needed a veteran defensive big man on this team. Someone cheap (like McGee or even Biyombo) that you could have used instead of rolling out Wiseman (or Stew) at the backup 5. Monty's .5 offense is making a difference in both the negative and positive columns. The turnovers are up by 2.5 from last year, however the assists are also up by 5 from last year (from 23 to 28 per game). We're at game 12 in a new system that involves way more ball movement and we're rolling out a rotation where every player that's logged significant minutes is between and 19 and 24 years old. I have to imagine the turnovers trend down as the vets come back and the youngsters get more games under their belt in this system. On a positive note, the ceiling for Ausar is high. Dude continues to be a bright spot for the Pistons on most nights. He's top 5 in the NBA in rebounds (the other guys are all centers), is already making a case for an All NBA Defensive Team appearance, and simply stuffs the stat sheet. We're just 12 games into his rookie season and I continue to be impressed.

The talk around this today is crazy. So many people defending Draymond, and Kerr's comments after the game were absolutely laughable. With his history and the fact that he literally dragged someone in a choke hold, Draymond should be gone for half a season or more. A choke hold is far more dangerous than a punch. They need to put an end to it. But we all know the NBA won't do it for the same reason they won't take a stand against domestic violence - the dollars matter more and, in this case, the California viewer market.

Just saw a post that said the Pistons have only won 4 games since they traded Saddiq for Wiseman. My brain went, “No, that can’t be right…” “…oh hell, it’s true.”