Betrayer

Yeah, pretty much that.

I think they knew that the odd, compacted schedule required for this travel game wasn't going to impact either of these team's playoffs hopes, so no issues there.

I'm guessing it's the same stuff that's going on in Detroit. Guy's not playing as a team, playing for their stats, not playing defense, etc.

The Knicks own us. If they played us 82 games they'd be 82-0. Didn't help that we were missing some players, but I think we know the outcome would've been the same. Nice to see Bey starting to shoot better from three...and right on queue his 2pt % is now falling off.

Shai is 24 years old, in his 5th NBA season. Cade is 21 years old, in his 2nd NBA season...which he is missing due to injury.

For me, the jury is still out on Weaver. I like a lot of what he did to quickly reboot that roster I hated a few years ago. Since then, he's done a lot of good things and also some confusing things. The best thing he's done might simply be fixing the cap situation. It's all about finding that superstar to build around and they have the ability to move in a number of directions due to the cap flexibility they have as well as the high draft pick coming this offseason. I also think he's made solid use of his draft picks, even though it's tough to call that so early in these player's career. There are things we can question in hindsight, but overall I think he's beaten the odds on that front. The current roster construction is questionable at best, but I don't think this is anywhere near the finished product. You're not locked into any of these players. This offseason is key. What happens with the draft and what happens with the cap space? If you land your 1A, then you can really start looking at roster construction and assembling a team to compete. Until then it's just a game of moving around assets and keeping things flexible until you find that core. The question is how many more years do you give Weaver to find that core player(s)? Cade is probably 1 of them, but I'm not sure he's the 1A. My bigger problem is with the coaching and system on both sides of the ball. I think it's hurting the development of the youngsters, teaching them to play selfish ball, and just making this an unwatchable product. If Casey has a front office role carved out for him as many have suggested, then it's on Weaver to make that happen at the end of this year. If he doesn't, then that's going to be a big vote against Weaver for me.

Considering they just announced that he got an extension, I don't see this happening. Doesn't mean your point isn't valid, just not likely. I'm just glad that Casey is starting to get more national media attention as a large part of the issue. Both the offense and the defense are broken. Here's the latest pod from Vecinie clearly calling out Casey as someone who needs to go "by the end of the year" (the 4:30 mark of the video):

Troy has already flipped the whole team once, but I don't think he's willing to do that with the team he created. It definitely wouldn't be a good look for him.

I'm honestly starting to question Bey's long term viability as part of this core. No point in selling low right now, but this season (and his three year trend) is not going in the right direction on either side of the ball.

Zero interest in Myles Turner for all the reasons Del mentioned already. The NBA is a 2-way wing league and this team has none. That's what you need to spend your money on.

More 30+ point quarters allowed. This defense is so bad overall, but you can't start Bey and Bojan together. I'm not even sure they should be on the same team.

Tatum Usage - 32.8% Brown Usage - 31.5% I just looked at those quickly, but I'm sure there are others. I don't think we want a Luka situation, and even we did, Cade ain't Luka.

I honestly think the best outcome is if they can grow to be a back and forth thing like Tatum and Brown, where either can initiate the offense (in very different ways), either can play off-ball, and you can stagger them so one of them is on the court at all times. The bigger problem is that I'm not sure either of them projects to be more than average defensively. And if you didn't watch last night's game, it cemented the fact that this is the worst defense in the NBA and certainly the worst in Piston's history. Some of it is youth, some of it is Casey's schemes, but a lot of it is also that these are simply poor defensive players - a team full of them. That has to be addressed before they can take a step forward and it will mean moving some players, especially these wings.

Vecenie struggles to evaluate Piston's rookies amidst "flawed process."

He played a nice game orchestrating the offense, even though his shot looked a little rusty. 13 assists to 0 zero turnovers is a great stat line. The team as a whole actually moved the ball pretty well this game with 29 assists. Maybe they saw my earlier post here and decided to make a change 😄 Notable game from Duren as well with 18 points and 11 boards on 7/7 shooting.

Let's talk about this offense for a minute (credit: Jack Kelly's Twitter) #4 - seconds per touch #2 - dribbles per touch (just behind Dallas!) #26 - total touches per game #28 - total passes per game No ball movement. No people movement. All iso-ball. Sure, blame it on young players, but can we continue to ignore that this is what every Casey team has been since Toronto? Does teaching your young players to play the wrong way help their development? This needs to be Casey's last season as a head coach. Second oldest coach in the league isn't changing who he is. It's time to move him into a front office role.

I'd love to see it. Bringing back some defense doesn't stop offensive teams from winning games, but it does create another strategy you could build your team around. Right now it's pretty one-dimensional.

It’s ok, Kennard has 3 points so far tonight. I’m not still bitter about that one. Nope. Not at all.

What has this world come to when I’m looking forward to Killian coming back to help this team.

When you’re starting a threesome of Ivey, Bey, and Bojan on the perimeter, you know you’re in for some pain on the defensive side of the ball. I’m honestly surprised the Bulls didn’t get 150 in regulation. The horrendous defense from this team would be funny if it wasn’t so sad and disappointing, especially for a team wearing a Pistons logo.

Burks absolutely on fire.

Killian might actually get a couple games for that hit in the back of the head. Worst part is we have to watch more CoJo now.

Nice first half. Finally held a team under 60. Hami played really well off the bench on both sides of the court. Bey had it going with 16 in the second. Duren with 10 rebounds already. And then a little scuffle after a Mo Wagner cheap shot checking Killian into the Piston bench. Orlando cleared their bench, so expect some suspensions coming for them from the league. Hami and Killian went back at Wagner. Killian dropped a forearm on the back of Wagners neck. All three got ejected.

I think his lateral speed is fine - or at least good enough for this not to be the primary limiting factor in him at least being an average defender. Right now he's one of the worst defenders in the league. His defensive IQ (recognition/anticipation is a good way to put it) and lack of concern on the defensive end is the main problem. He checks out, misses rotations, sags too far off of his man, and doesn't position himself to play sound defense. He's playing for the next offensive possession 90% of the time. You can tell how competitive he is and how bad he wants to succeed, but I do wonder how much of that is wanting himself to succeed versus wanting the team to succeed. I don't think he gets how those two are related, which is probably true of most kids coming into the NBA who have been able to dominate thus far in their lives. But on this team who's going to show him the right way to play? There's no Popovich and Duncan to set the culture and tone. We have a team full of guys who hit the court concerned about getting their own offensive stats (Ivey, Bey, Bojan, Burks, Bagley, Hami, Knox, and even CoJo). This team does not play for each other, they don't move the ball well, they don't help each other defensively, they just don't play winning basketball. A lot of that is on the players, but there's plenty of blame for the coach/system and the GM/roster-construction as well.

Yeah, they've been changing it up with some switching, some drop, some, ice, some doubling, some hard hedging, etc. But I'm not sure there's any rhyme or reason as to why they do which scheme or when, because our coaches couldn't find the word "strategy" if you handed them a dictionary. And even if they could, I see so much defensive confusion and so many missed assignments/rotations from the players that it really doesn't matter what scheme they're running. It's just flat out bad from coaches to players. I think Duren and Stew have solid defensive potential, but I don't know if any of these perimeter players will ever be good defenders (Killian is passable, but way too handsy and gets beat a lot off the dribble). I hope they all prove me wrong.