1. Holiday and White
2. Luka and Kyrie
3. Ivey and Cade
4. Mitchell and Garland
5. Brunson and Bridges

I can see Maxey and PG maybe in there once PG suits up again

Am I trippin?

Cade had six minutes of rest at the end of the third quarter and still looked bad in the 4th

I think a starting line up of Cade Ivey THJ Harris and stew would be good for that five out offense

I want to tread carefully here

Duren is a better overall player than Isaiah Stewart,

But it’s going to be hard for me to forget how competent our group looks tonight on defense with Duren riding the pine.

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In order for the Pistons to have any chance of competing this year we need Beef Stew to be a dog. Create havoc every game.

One of the better extensions the Pistons have had in a while!

Who else thinks Ivey is a better guard than Cade? This will be evident mid-year. Cade has hit his ceiling, Ivey has not.

I think we can ask agree maxey is a very good basketball player.

But surrounded by this talent he is just very inefficient. Carrying that kind of attention and load is difficult. His efficiency and overall numbers are way down without his talented costars. I think it's just a nice reminder how much difference being surrounded by talent can make for players.

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Think it’s a good thing. He either gets to the line, or at least puts constant pressure on the defense. Just like Cade, Ivey looks better on offense. Would take some pressure off Cade too. Maybe help with turnovers.

We’ve been in every game. We just haven’t figured out how to close yet. They can. Just like a switch.

0-4 sucks. But this team just has to close some games. It’s just confidence.

Ivey puts constant pressure on the defense. Even if he doesn’t convert.

I’d rather see that than Tobias shooting jumpers.

5 Drafts and we have only picked 2 lottery picks (Cade and Ivey) who have contributed to this team

More or less we could have thrown our lottery picks in 3/5 drafts and would look about the same

Asaur is both a project and injured. Ron is a project who will not significantly contribute for another 2-3 years. Essentially we haven't drafted anyone in the past 2 years

And it all shows. This team is a reflection of a team that has not drafted 3 playable players in their past 5 drafts

Why is anyone surprised?

The draft should have transformed our orginzation but for 3/5 years we have wasted our chances

If Duren gets an extension next off-season, what do you think is reasonable?

I assume between beef stew (60) and sengun (185)?

Figure he will want about 150 for 5? But as is I'd only feel comfy paying him like 100?

Kinda assume he ends up being traded but just curious where everyone would feel comfy?

Overall

(Posting this about 36 hours later than usual due to illness.)

The Pistons let another close one get away. In what’s become a pattern, the roster made a real go of it in the middle two quarters before falling apart in the late going. Part of this is down to playing against much more experienced (and more talent) rosters. Some of it is due to bare player underperformance. Some of it comes at the hands of suspect coaching.

Where this particular game was concerned, however, it’s also worth noting that Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson shooting a combined five-of-19 from three, a lot of those opportunities of the wide open variety, went a long way toward allowing the Pistons to keep it close. All told, the Pistons got outplayed and outcoached, and only a single player in the rotation may be said to have had a particularly solid game.

​

Player Reviews

Cade Cunningham (24p/8rb/6a, 9/18 FG, 4/7 3PT, 2/3 FT, 5 TO): The good news was that Cade shot well from the perimeter on a difficult shot diet. The bad was that he turned the ball over five times (versus only six assists), gave up 12 points to the Heat by way of avoidable defensive errors and once again fell flat on his face in the 4th quarter; through four games, he’s shooting an abominable 28% from the field and 11% from three in the final frame, and has managed only two assists (versus six turnovers) in 37 total fourth quarter minutes. While he did score an efficient 24 points and certainly was the best Piston on offense, his snafus everywhere outside of the scoring column relegated him to the negative side of the value scale. He needs to be better, particularly in the 4th.

Grade: C-

Jaden Ivey (18p/4rb/1a, 6/16 FG, 5/9 3PT, 1/2 FT): Ivey’s positive from the night was his continued success from the perimeter; he converted on five of his nine attempts. However, he had a very rough time in the interior; he’d finish only one of his seven attempts within the arc, as he frequently found himself trying to score at the rim through close coverage (including that of Bam Adebayo), and he turned the ball over four times against only a single assist. The Heat did a stellar job of denying him any open lanes, and JB Bickerstaff made the strange decision to keep him away from the curl sets that had been working so well to this point. This was also his worst defensive game of the season so far, though he was merely poor rather than outright bad – and Heat coach Eric Spoelstra is the best in the business at everything, including running splendid sets that generate open shots.

Grade: C-

Tim Hardaway Jr (20p/0rb/1a, 5/10 FG, 3/6 3P, 7/7 FT, 5 TO): The aforementioned one Piston who had an above-average game was THJ, who scored an extremely efficient 20 points. On the other hand, he played his characteristically poor defense, and the sum total of his rebounds and assists was one. Nonetheless, his scoring was good enough to land him in positive territory overall. The Pistons could, however, do with less of his midrange pullups off closeouts (more accurately zero of them rather than merely less), but that’s on his coach to dictate.

Grade: B+

Tobias Harris (9p/10rb/1a, 4/11 FG, 0/3 3P, 1/1 FT): Want to talk bad 4th quarters? Tobias has thus far beaten out even Cade in final-frame futility; he’s currently managing an incomprehensibly dismal 8% from the field in the final quarter. And there’s certainly no double-talking the fact that he’s been simply bad for the Pistons overall thus far. He’s been a markedly inefficient scorer, an ineffectual playmaker, and – for the most part – a poor defender. He’s been effective only on the boards, and that’s nowhere near enough. All of this was true of him against the Heat, and he capped off another bad game by airballing a corner three at a key moment late in the contest. This wasn’t quite as ugly as his outright flop against the Celtics, but it wasn’t much better. Speaking of bad shots, his post-ups from the perimeter on in should be excised from his shot profile. Very few players can adequately convert on that shot, and he isn’t one of them. He’s being given too much latitude.

Grade: D

Jalen Duren (10p/11rb/2a, 5/6 FG): Duren’s saga continued unchanged through game four: poor, shoddy defense shot through routine and avoidable errors, and highly efficient but not high-impact offense. It’s worth noting with respect to the latter that Duren’s impact is being limited by his coach’s bizarre utilization of both centers, who are being kept away from their strengths on offense in favor of serving as paint-clogging rebound hunters; Duren, who really did improve last season into a strong finisher around the basket with some creation potential, has seen his field goal attempts slashed by more than one-third versus last season, and he’s seeing only occasional use as a roll man despite his proven potency in that capacity. Not ideal. This was his best game on defense so far, but his three blocks don’t adequately sum up what was nonetheless a slipshod performance; notable amongst Jalen's errors were two possessions, one of them at a critical juncture, on which he got left in the dust on switches by Butler with no difficulty whatsoever.

Grade: C-.

Isaiah Stewart (2p/15rb/2a, 0/3 FG, 2/2 FT): On paper, Stewart had a great night on the boards; he grabbed 15 boards in only 19 minutes. It was a bit less impressive in that two of his offensive boards came in the same sequence, he lost the ball immediately after grabbing a third, and he was matching up chiefly against Thomas Bryant. Still, he played his usual high-effort, high-physicality style and was rewarded for it, and he did fairly well on defense. Offense was a different story, as he had as many turnovers (three) as field goal attempts and ended the game with zero made field goals. Stewart is suffering far more from his deeply questionable utilization than Duren is. Given his weaknesses as a scorer around the basket, Stewart has much less capability than Duren to provide non-negative value in his current role, and he provided negative value even with his eight offensive rebounds taken into the picture. Oddly enough, he’s being used more as a roll man than Duren despite being very ill-suited to that role. He’s altogether being put into position to fail, and that’s unfortunate as it is irritating. More on that later.

Grade: C+.

Malik Beasley (3p/0rb/1a, 1/12 FG, 1/7 3PT): As Beasley himself noted earlier today, shooters occasionally have bad games. Beasley attempted seven threes and ten total field goals and ended the game with three points. This was a particularly brutal night even by the standards of bad shooting nights, but these things happen from time to time. Beasley is overwhelmingly likely to have more very good than very bad games as a shooter. You take the loss, forget about it, and move on to the next one. There’s no sugarcoating his performance: he was very bad. His value is tied up overwhelmingly into his shooting, and he missed a lot of shots. His defense was serviceable enough to spare him an F.

Grade: D-.

Simone Fontecchio (6p/4rb/0a, 2/9 FG, ⅕ 3PT, ½ FT): Simone pretty much just didn’t have a good night. Simply put, he needs to hit his shots, and he’s not yet playing the plus defense he provided to the Pistons last season.. Speaking of player utilization, however, his hasn’t been ideal either; he’s being used in a shoot-or-nothing fashion in having him consistently shoot on the move in the manner of Beasley and Hardaway rather than have him occasionally spot up toward the end of attacking closeouts, at which he’s pretty good.

Grade: D+.

Ron Holland (6p/2br/0a**, 3/6 FG, 0/1 3PT): Holland made some uncharacteristic errors on defense – though this isn’t saying much, he’s the best perimeter defender currently in the rotation; he ranks as above-average even at this early stage (though he certainly doesn’t occupy the acumen level of, say, Ausar Thompson) – and was his usual leave-him-open-on-the-perimeter self on the other end. He continues to be unready for the NBA. Will that change across the course of a season? Possibly, but it rarely does in situations like this.

Grade: Incomplete

​

Takeaways

• Bickerstaff’s utilization of his centers deserves mention and criticism. His baffling insistence upon routinely using both close to the basket and effectively clogging the lane instead of operating in a way both much more conducive to scoring and much more fitting to each player’s individual talents is an overt negative and is absent of any common sense. It’s a major hindrance to Duren – it’s a waste to not have him on the roll more, vertically spacing the floor more, and, in general, being fed in good position around the basket more – but it’s particularly damaging to Stewart, whose proven ability to shoot the ball at a good percentage from the perimeter is both a major asset and – given his weakness as a scorer around the basket and on the pick-and-roll – an absolute necessity for him to provide non-negative offensive value. Have we ever before in the spacing era seen an NBA coach take a stretch five and reduce him to a traditional big? Probably not, because it’s utterly without sense. The value equation is objectively awful.
• Using a stretch center effectively is extremely easy. Dwane Casey was no offensive mastermind, to be sure, but he had no trouble making good, basic use of it:

https://reddit.com/link/1gfr7b5/video/l5te3j6h9xxd1/player

• That brings us to another point: how Stewart and Holland are used in conjunction. Holland has thus far played the vast majority of his minutes with Stewart. This makes perfect sense on paper, as he cannot shoot but Stewart can, and therefore a bandaid can be slapped on Holland’s offensive game by utilizing Stewart as a shooter and Holland as a screener/roller. But what makes perfect sense on paper isn’t being done in practice. Instead of utilizing Holland as a screener/roller and Stewart as a shooter, Bickerstaff is utilizing Stewart as a paint clogger and Holland as a spacing liability. It’s an absolute lose-lose decision.
• The above is also terrifying, because newly-hired coaches who make inexplicable and damaging decisions of this sort early on are exceedingly likely to continue making them. We’ve seen it time and again in Detroit. Is this some weird early game of Bickerstaff’s? Let’s hope so.
• Tobias Harris has been terrible through his first four games with the Pistons. Much is made of regressions to the mean among NBA players. In Tobias’s case, we’re overwhelmingly likely to see a progression to the mean. Over his last six seasons, Harris has averaged 18 PPG on good efficiency, including 38% from three. Does he have his flaws? Yes. Is he likely to revert to his typical standard of play? Also yes. Extremely likely.

​

​

Rotations

• Nothing to note here.

​

​

Shot Selection

https://preview.redd.it/4mksfxtb7xxd1.png?width=326&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4dc66742f5923055766830ecafd23b79f4e7e51

• After a night of judicious shot selection against Boston, the Pistons reverted into a mess of inefficient shots against Miami. It’s on Bickerstaff to stop this from happening.

​

​

Facts of Note

• Isaiah Stewart currently sports more turnovers than field goal attempts on the season. That statistic becomes less impressive when one takes into account that he has a whopping eight FGA across four games. Both his low volume of shots and his number of turnovers (nine) are a product of his utilization; many of the latter have come on the pick-and-roll (one of his major areas of weakness), the result of his poor hands.
• The Pistons have thus far averaged 4.8 steals per game. Their opponents have averaged 11.8 steals against them. Those numbers are the least and the most in the league, respectively.
• The Pistons logged an absolutely dismal 14 assists against the Heat, by far the worst in any game so far and just over half what they managed against Boston.

​

Assorted Video

• THJ continues to be used as Bickerstaff's go-to finisher on out-of-timeout plays, and he continues to do pretty well at it.

https://reddit.com/link/1gfr7b5/video/c29r751r9xxd1/player

• Though these reviews have frequently pointed out Duren’s poor defense, his switch defense against Butler on this play deserves special mention (and criticism); it was truly and deplorably awful. Butler is not a bursty player, but he got past Duren and scored with virtually no interference and no difficulty – and this was an absolutely vital possession late in the game.

https://reddit.com/link/1gfr7b5/video/3rdqggrkhxxd1/player

• Cade continues to regularly get caught ball-watching and/or position poorly and consequently give up open shots to his assignment on the perimeter. These errors subtract, sometimes heavily, from the points he generates on the other end. He’s a smart player; why does this keep happening?

https://reddit.com/link/1gfr7b5/video/b1fftn5r7xxd1/player

• Play of the game:

https://reddit.com/link/1gfr7b5/video/yty6fkxp7xxd1/player

​

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this recap! Were there things you liked? Things you'd like to see less of? Sections I could add to make these more entertaining to read? Let me know in the comments!!

​

This is super late but wanted to get it done. Hoping that going forward I'll do this each Sunday. I want these posts to look at the team performance in comparison to the rest of the league. I also want to include some lineup data and individual player analysis, but for the sake of just getting this written this week, I'll just focus on overall team performance with maybe some individuals being mentioned if relevant. In addition, now that week 1 is over with, future weeks will also include stats for the whole season so that we can capture improvements or regressions for that week in comparison to overall performance in weeks prior. So to be clear, this does not include the game vs Miami, that will be in the writeup this upcoming Sunday.

Traditional Stats

|| || |Stat|Pistons Performance|Pistons Rank|Last Season Rank|Top Performance| |FG%|46.3%|14^(th)|24^(th)|54.5%| |3PA|35.5|18^(th)|27^(th)|51.3| |3P%|34.6%|19^(th)|26^(th)|44.2%| |FTA|22.3|25^(th)|15^(th)|42| |FT%|80.6%|5^(th)|12^(th)|83.3%| |OREB|9.7|20^(th)|15^(th)|17.3| |DREB|31.7|18^(th)|18^(th)|41.7| |AST|24.7|18^(th)|22^(nd)|36.5| |TO|17|22^(nd)|28^(th)|9.3| |BLK|4.7|20^(th)|20^(th)|9| |STL|4.3|29^(th)|30^(th)|16.5| |PF|21.7|16^(th)|28^(th)|15|

Just some general takeaways from some traditional box score stats. For week 1, I also wanted to show where we ranked as a team last season and then at the end, the top performance is referring to what the number for the best team in that category was in week 1.

So first off, one of the goals was to improve spacing by adding more shooting. In turn, you would expect that to improve our overall percentages and that's exactly what happened. We're much closer to average in both our FG% and 3P% and that's with the team not shooting as well as what we were expecting. A big reason for the FG% leap is now that Cade and Ivey have more space to work with, they're getting easier finishes and cleaner looks on their drives as opposed to having to deal with 3 defenders in the pain at all times.

Other notes, our free throw rate needs to improve as we just aren't getting to the line enough. Our uptick in 3PA is fantastic to see, as you need to be getting those attempts up in today's NBA. Last thing I'd mention is that it would be great to see an uptick in steals. I though we would be better in that category from watching the games but clearly we are not performing the same as most the league. With that in mind, I wanted to look at some other defensive stats.

Misc. Defensive Stats

|| || |Stat|Pistons Performance|Pistons Rank|Last Season Rank|Top Performance| |Deflections|9.3|30^(th)|30^(th)|26.5| |Charges|.33|19^(th)|27th|1.5| |Contested Shots|44.3|2^(nd)|2nd|47|

Not as much to look at here, but I really thought that our defense had improved from last year and was expecting some sort of trackable stat to capture that. That being said, nothing to really show here. Deflections are low, charges aren't really telling me anything this early in the season, and contested shots don't really seem to be indicator of much considering we were 2nd in the league last year as well. My best guess for why what I'm seeing doesn't match anything being presented by the numbers is likely just due to an improved defensive scheme and improved effort. I'll mention that more in the next section.

Advanced

Some things to mention from this, our offensive rating, to no surprise, has jumped from bottom of the league to average, which is great to see. Defensive rating meanwhile has remained unchanged, which is probably why those defensive stats above are not really showing anything. So while effort has improved and defensive scheme is better, the team still doesn't have any great defenders in the rotation currently. I will say that there has been a big improvement from Cade, Ivey, and Duren on that end in terms of effort, especially Cade and Ivey. We do have some pretty good defensive lineups when Stew is involved, but I'm not quite ready to dive into lineup data this week. As for the rest, we see that we're right in the middle in terms of shooting percentages. Our pace has a big drop off, but this is likely due to them getting into offensive sets more often as opposed to taking early, ill-advised shots last season. Not an advanced stat but something I wanted to include was points off turnovers. going from 30th last season to 16th while having a slower pace is shows some growth in decision making. We're pushing the ball and taking advantage of situations such as turnovers, but otherwise not letting it affect the general pace they want to play with. That being said, I would still like to see some improvement with the team's pace as the season goes on.

Misc. Shot Data

Last section, thank you to those still reading! None of these stats are a guaranteed indicator of anything, though I thought they could give some general insight. I also didn't include last seasons rank for most of this. First, looking at FGA with 0 dribbles. Main reason I wanted to see this is because we're talking about purely catch and shoot jump shots or lay-ups off of cuts where you're catching near the rim. These are theoretically higher percentage shots and so I was a little disappointed to see us rank so low in these attempts.

For FGA that occur within the specific range of time on the shot clock, I did confirm something that I was thinking based on watching the games and that is we have a lot of shot attempts near the end of the shot clock. This isn't ideal, because it typically means we're going through our sets and not creating a clean attempt and so we have to get one off before the shot clock expires. Not always the case with 4-7 seconds left on the clock, but I would like to see a shift to more attempts occurring in that 7 to 15 range. For closest defender during a shot attempt, something to note is that we actually get a lot of looks compared to other teams where the shot is either open or wide open. This typically means we are doing a good job of generating open looks, though not always, as is the case last season they were just open because no one was guarding half of our players. Note that last year we were 12th in number of wide open attempts but last in percentage on those attempts. This year we are only 23rd in wide open, but 6th in percentage.

Final Takeaways

For this week, that's all I have for now. I have noticed a lot of people talking about how bad this team is, but hopefully this shows that the team is moving in the right direction. Most of these stats are indicating that at least offensively we are moving towards the middle of the league and based on the eye test, we're at least headed in the right direction defensively. I think something I haven't seen talked about is the lack on continuity this team has. Teams we've lost to, have had pretty much the same rotations in place from the previous season and 2 of the 3 teams had the same coaching staff in place. This means that there doesn't need to be a lot of trial and error with figuring out minutes and those teams also already know how to play off of each other. The only real continuity we have this year is between Cade and Duren. Ivey didn't get the reps he should have last year and didn't run the offense almost at all, Stew is adjusting to a different position after being at the 4 almost exclusively last season, Tek only played 16 games with the team, and the rest of the rotation are new to the team. As continuity grows, I'd like to think that this will mean continued improvement offensively as players adjust to their roles and playing off of each other and more so, improvement defensively, as I would expect adjusting to a new defensive scheme to be an even harder adjustment for a team of guys that are largely just now starting to figure out how to be effective on that end.

Thanks for those that stuck with me to the end, for the next week if you have any requests for stats or anything you'd like to see added let me know. I'm hoping to add some looks at a few individuals too so let me know if you want to see anything there as well.

I have 4 things I want to discuss in this post.

Whistle: I’m aware someone just made a post about it, and yes I’m going to mention it still. For a team that gets to the paint a lot (Ivey, cade, duren specifically) we don’t get many calls. This was a huge issue last year. A lot of those games during the streak, we had 10 or more less free throws than the other team. Part of it surely is the defense we play, and part of it is that sometimes both Ivey and cade tend to try an avoid contact when going up in the paint. But I can’t lie, even so far this seas as the free throw difference hasn’t been too high, there have been a lot of calls in favor of the other team that are 50/50, that then don’t get called for us. That’s the part that gets me. That we can get clobbered at the rim, there be a no call (I’ve noticed it happen a lot with Ivey), and then literally the play directly after, there will be a 50/50 call. Super frustrating. I will never say the refs are the reason a team loses, but it’s definitely difficult when the other team is allowed far more physicality.

Usage of stew: we’ve spent the last 2ish years playing stew at the 4 and trying to turn him into a stretch. He showed promise last year. Yet, he’s now only taken 1 three this season. I’m thinking JB doesn’t like his big guys stretching the floor? I’ve heard Mobley is now shooting more threes without JB there. If this is how he plans to use stew, I will be very disappointed. He has no other real value offensively, as he’s a terrible roller due to not being able to catch passes or get up for lobs. I think stew could hold some real value for this offense, with Ron being a non shooter, and eventually Ausar hopefully coming back. That’s the REAL main gripe I have with JB as of right now.

Sixers game: would it be fair to panic if we don’t win this game tonight against philly? I feel it would be. We’ve dropped a few games and if we can’t win this one, I’ll be pretty convinced this season won’t involve much winning.

Potential usage of ausar: I’ve touched on this before, but I wanna talk about it briefly again. This does tie in directly with my last point, as I believe duren and Ausar can’t play extended minutes together. With that being said, I’d expect to (hopefully) see more lineups involving stew and ausar. With the way their using stew, it makes me worried that JB won’t utilize ausar correctly. I’d be interested to see more lineups where ausar is a screener and a roller, and stew could play a stretch 5 roll. I fear it won’t happen. If ausar develops a reliable jumper, which I’m not a believer in just yet, it won’t matter. However, most guys don’t go from shooting 18% to league average. Of course none of this matters until we see how bickerstaff plans to use ausar and if ausar has improved as a shooter.

The pistons are 14th in the league in percentage of points scored in the paint

The pistons are also 30th in the league in fouls drawn

I know this isn’t a fully direct correlation but there is some correlation. I don’t like bringing this up to complain but cmon man I’m tired of this shit. Our players shouldn’t get treated differently because they are younger

Let's trade for some young talent that has proven promise: Jaden Hardy (22 years, Dallas Mavericks), Moses Moody 22 years, Warriors), Naz Reid (25 yers, Timberwolves). They are young with upside, have proven some, and have veteran experience for their age.

We have to pay either duren or Ivey, unless we trade both (not going to happen.) who is it going to be?

I feel like duren is far more likely to be traded. You can find a guy like him fairly easily in this league.

If we lay both this summer, we will be locked up financially for a while, and it would be pretty awful if duren ends up being a worse Drummond, which is what it’s starting to look like.

Ontop of that, Trajan didn’t draft either of these guys. It wouldn’t surprise me if he trades duren. I’m assuming he’s going to pay Ivey. He looks great. Better defensively, shooting pretty well from the field, and he’s been able to unlock his playmaking. Only thing concerning me about Ivey is his shot, which still looks better than last year.

Lastly, duren and ausar can’t play together. This isn’t a factor immediately, as ausar is out. But assuming ausar doesn’t become even a below average shooter (32ish%), it’s going to be a problem offensively. And I value ausar far more than duren, if he’s able to be healthy.

My final verdict is, duren will be gone. He hasn’t shown a REAL jump defensively. He’ll play good defense for a few possessions and then just stop. Maybe it’s a conditioning problem? Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s worth giving him a huge bag at all.

My expectation was JB would use Stew as a backup stretch 5 in pick and pop actions, to widen driving lanes among the 2nd unit, and to serve as a release valve when defenses collapse on Ivey or Cade.

Instead, against the Heat Stew rolled in PnR actions or fought for inside position for offensive rebounds, allowing Bam to sit in the dunker's spot and smother Ivey. I love Stew, but he isn't a lob threat and doesn't have the hands to excel in those sets.

Does anyone have any insight into what's going on or speculation on why he's not shooting them this year?