Now that Klay and KCP are taken, which SG should the Pistons go after in Free Agency?

2KWiz

I love Stew, and I’ve been thinking about how we can get him minutes at center while also getting him near 30 minutes a game/starting him alongside Duren. Well, with Toby back he probably won’t start I guess. I just hope he’s not the odd man out because I want him to stay for the long term.

I’m not an expert on coaching/lineups, but I think this makes sense to me. Say Duren can play 30-33 minutes a game (w/ optimism on his health). Then, that gives him 18-15 minutes at center, and he could maybe pick up an extra 10+ minutes playing alongside Duren too? Is that as feasible a situation as I think?

Any input on how Toby or others players might stop that from being possible I’d love to hear too.

It obviously doesn't make up for the pain we went through on the whole, but I believe we're gunning for a serious increase in the W/L column to ~30 wins give or take just based on what our starting 5 is slowly morphing into. Tobias and THJ as the first two moves are gonna be big difference makers.

All this cap space and these young players with upside outside of Cade are really making for a situation where Langdon has a lot of runway to Bring in a few key pieces from FA, make a few trades, sign coach JB and instantly make a competent basketball team.

I'm not suggesting we'll make a ton of noise, but the fact that we can simply play actual NBA basketball with actual spacing on the floor is going to be huge for this franchise and our soon-to-be maxed PG in Cade.

This will be the first step forward that will make us competitive in the future years.

After signing Tobias Harris we still have about 25 million left in cap space and a 8 million dollar room exception to sign someone without it affecting our cap space.

Trajan has made it clear he intends to take on bad contracts in exchange for assets (the THJ trade), but if he strikes out on that I would like to see us go after Tyus Jones and Bitadze.

Maybe sign Tyus to something like a 2/34 - 40 million dollar deal with a team option on the second year and use the room exception to go after Bitadze.

How are you guys feeling about Jaden Ivey next season?

With the additions of THJ and Tobias Harris, what are you expecting from Jaden Ivey this upcoming season.

Some people want THJ to start over Ivey, which makes sense. But even if he does start, he won't be a priority in half court offense unless he takes a step forward in shooting.

Off the bench, I would hope that he could come in and provide some energy, point production and facilitating.

In either case, I would like to see a jump in efficiency and defense.

It's not super realistic that he'll jump up to being a superstar player, but maybe he'll find a solidified role on the team.

What are your thoughts?

Is it Tobias by default? Do you see one of Ivey, Duren, Ausar, or even Holland to a degree stepping up?

Cade
Lavine
Tek
Tobias
Duren

Ivey
Holland
AT
Stew

...you telling me thats not fun??

You get a REAL first, to add to the cupboard. You still keep your young core while adding the best player Cade has ever played with for a couple/few years before its time to pay any of these other guys. Why the fuck not??

The dude can shoot threes. We could have had a true five out lineup!

PG Cunningham, Sasser

SG Ivey, Hardaway Jr, Moore Jr

SF Fontecchio, Thompson, Holland

PF Harris, Klintman

C Duren, Stewart

Great spacing now at the forward positions, and the 6th man, THJ.

Langdon still has time to take on another big salary for draft capital, but if he doesn't, all that remains is to sign another PG and PF to compete with Sasser and Klintman, and a 3rd string big, maybe a summer league guy makes the roster. This is certainly a vast improvement from last year and we may be able to make a turnaround and compete for a play in. That is the best case scenario. Holland will get plenty of time to develop in the G league and at the end of the season.

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The big domino fell in PG going to Philly. What teams out there still need cap relief? Lakers need to make a trade if they want to bring in Klay? Can Pistons get in on that? Sacramento may need a lot of help to make Ingram trade happen…Atlanta cap seems okay. Where are we looking?

I’m from the UK, like he is, I know he got undrafted then joined you guys but all I’ve seen is a few news clips that they’ve played over here. How is he actually doing

I have the following

• Matt Millen

• Troy Weaver

• Randy Smith

• Al Avila

Would Troy Weaver make the all-time Mount Rushmore worse including all sports teams next to Matt Millen? He destroyed this franchise.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4427677/2023/04/19/cavaliers-junkyard-dog-chain/

I found this article while reading up on our new HC.

Here is the interesting tidbit. There is more and I would encourage you to go and read the full article.

"When Bickerstaff took over as interim head coach in early 2020, he began to instill a defense-first approach. The 2019-20 season was eventually cut short, but the players gravitated toward that idea. That approach, combined with that underdog mentality, has shifted the culture in Cleveland. Bickerstaff wanted to find a way to celebrate this, to honor his team’s commitment to doing the little things that have taken them to the next level.

Early in the 2021-22 season, Mark “Cobra” Cashman — the Cavs’ director of team operations — reached out to Shelly Cayette-Weston, the executive vice president and chief commercial officer of the Cavaliers, about potential corporate partnerships for the Cavs’ idea. This led to a discussion about a potential collaboration with the jewelry brand Jared and The Jared Foundry — the company’s custom design studio.

Then began the design process of creating what would become the initial Junkyard Dog Chain. The Cavs had seen other examples of chains in college football, such as the University of Miami’s turnover chain. That served as a point of reference when imagining the concept.

The initial chain is made up of 14k yellow gold and 1,702 natural garnets. On the back, the pendant is etched with elements specific to Cleveland and the Cavs, such as the ‘216’ area code, the JYD (Junkyard Dog) acronym, Cavaliers logos throughout franchise history, the phrase “Let ’em know,” 2016 champs, as well as their five core values: details, toughness, together, compete and 1 more. 

“It was a combination of things where we wanted to make sure that the Cavaliers logo was a central focus of the piece,” Bickerstaff told The Athletic. “But we also wanted to make sure that the symbolism behind it was included. And that’s how, like on the back side of it, those different pieces that are a part of it, were all things that the guys believed in and bought in, and we valued and thought were important. And so we found a way to kind of mesh it and put it all together.”

I hope he and Langdon can come up with something that fits the Pistons History and gets the same type of buy in from the players. "Bad Boys" gold chain would be dope.

The more I am reading about JB the more I like it. Still a lot to dislike (the offensive system, or lack there of), but he got buy in from players, established a culture, and is a defensive minded coach. This seems like a step in the right direction.

We have 50M left in cap space. Not only is Detroit not a FA destination in the first place, but the rotation is already getting bloated (as it stands today):

Cade

Ivey

Thompson

Holland

Duren

Stewart

Fontecchio

Hardaway

Sasser

That's already 9 players; unless you're Monty Williams, you don't play more than 10 on a given night. I'd guess Holland and Sasser would get the least amount of playing time out of these. Trajan could still trade people away of course.

So I wouldn't expect 3 more "legit" players amongst the 50M signed as Free Agents. And why would FAs come here if they know they might not get as much playing time with the young guys also needing playing time? It might be just 2 guys Trajan absorbs for cap space making 25M each.

This was never the summer to be a big FA player in the first place. Apart from that, even championship teams in recent years haven't signed big FA - Boston, Denver, Milwaukee. None of these teams' major players were signed in FA.

I thought it would be helpful to scour the interwebs and find articles and information regarding our new HC.

Here is his transaction record:
November 18, 2015: Appointed Head Coach by the Houston Rockets.
November 27, 2017: Appointed Interim Head Coach by the Memphis Grizzlies.
May 1, 2018: Hired as Head Coach by the Memphis Grizzlies.
April 11, 2019: Fired as Head Coach by the Memphis Grizzlies.
February 19, 2020: Appointed Head Coach by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
(Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/bickejb01c.html )

In CLE (5 Seasons) he went 170 and 159, (.517 winning %)
In the playoffs that dropped to 6 and 11 (.353 winning %)

According to this article his original offensive system (2021) was "predicated on a ton of ball movement and body movement", which they got away from when Mitchell joined and they wanted to move back to that.

Notably “It’s going to be asking everybody to be a little more dynamic, to be a little harder to find. When you’re chasing an elite player like Donovan, he’s got the advantage automatically. Now he’s just got to make the play.”

According to this article Bickerstaff ran a shallow 8 man rotation early in the season and was forced into 10-11 man rotation with injuries to Mobley/Garland.

I'm not going to cite it, because almost every article that I read highlighted and were positive about JB's defensive schemes. This Twitter/X post of Coaches Corner highlights a brief snippet of Coach Bickerstaff's Defensive philosophy.

According to this article it was rebounding that was at the core of Cleveland's win streak in December. In November they were 19th in Offensive rebounding % (27.7) and 21st in overall rebounding % (49.7), but in December they rose to 6th in OREB% (32.2) and 8th overall (51.3)

That article cites Tristan Thompson increased minutes as the reasoning for this. As well as Allen's stellar play.

In November they averaged 14 second chance points (20th) and 17.9 second chance points (1st) in December.

So what does any of this mean?

According to the articles I read (some of which I didn't share/cite) it was the offensive system that was the problem. Which only became a problem after the Mitchell trade. Before that it seemed that it was less of an issue with Lauri.

Defensively no problem. Every article I found was high, or at least neutral on his Defensive philosophy.

Also, he found a way for his players to generate more rebounds, especially when Mobley and Garland were injured. That's not nothing.

So what should we as fans expect. Good Defense, and a high movement (both ball and bodies) Offense. And great rebounding.

Hopefully. If any of you are like me, I am very meh on this hire. But I am trying to find some positives and dialogue about it.

We need someone like him to make the lineups make sense and allow these young guys develop properly.