Pistons Make ANOTHER Move… + The Underrated Lineup No One’s Talking About 👀

Pistons Make ANOTHER Move… + The Underrated Lineup No One’s Talking About 👀

Welcome back to the Pistons Jack YouTube channel. On today’s episode, we’ll touch on the Pistons roster as another player was waved earlier today. We’ll touch on some comments from Jaylen Duran and why I think this fiveman lineup is going to be key for the Pistons next season. And we’ll do a little bit on Cam Thomas with some new information that came out today as well. So, let’s get to it. [Music] Okay, so let’s start first of all with the roster movement from today for the Detroit Pistons. Uh, first of all, I want to clarify some information yesterday that ties in with, as you can see here, the Pistons player or Motor City Cruise 2-way player that was waved today in Ron Harper Jr. Uh so before I just talk about this a little bit more on yesterday’s show I said that um Colby Jones who was signed to a two-way yesterday would be um taking the position of Dennis Jenkins who Jenkins was a free agent and could be signed. That was obviously incorrect. I should have put two and two together. Um the Pistons two-way positions had been confirmed by Amaro Sanca. Um so in light of Ron Harper Jr. been waved today as reported by Keith Smith on the right. Amari confirmed that as of right now, the Pistons two-way players for the upcoming season are Dennis Jenkins, Colby Jones, and Tou Smith. Now, I just want to clear that off straight away. Um, and I should have honestly put two and two together like obviously Ron Harper Jr. wasn’t at Summer League, which was a surprise because all the other crews and two-way players were there. So, that should have been my first instinct, but I was wrong there. So, apologies for that. Uh it’s certainly whilst Dannis still could be upgraded to a full-time roster spot that I thought is on hold for the time being. Uh just in my my thoughts on this, I was actually kind of hoping I was really excited to watch Ron Harper Jr. at Summer League to be honest. Uh mainly because he was just a flatout volume scoring shooter at the Motor City Cruise at the G-League level I should say. So last season he had a game where he hit 11 threes which was a franchise record and still is obviously for the crews. I think he scored like 40 points maybe 38 in that game but on the season last year he was giving you 18 points four and a half boards three assists a steal and did so on 44% shooting from the field 39% on eight three-point attempts per game which is a pretty elite number and nearly 90% from the line. Now, he only played one pist one game for the Pistons, game 82 against the Bucks, which I think he scored a couple of buckets, but he didn’t hit a three. Um was one game in a pretty weird style setup in that last game of the season. But um look, obviously the Pistons have gone. Let’s we’re more interested in Colby Jones who’s replacing because as you can see with these two-way slots the way you want to have each of these set up is you probably want to have a guard at one a forward at the other or wing type player and a center. So obviously it feels like the Piston gone Kobe Jones 6’6 forward wing little bit of a guard we’re going to replace the 6’4 6’5 Ron Harper with him. Ron Harper is definitely a better shooter. I don’t think there’s any question about that. But um I think Colby is a little bit bigger, a little bit more athletic. Um without diving too much into either of their games to be completely honest with you, just looking at the numbers and watching some a little bit of tape, that’s what I can gather. Um so I think Colby has a bit more of two-way potential. So look, once again, the these moves won’t define the Pistons success next season, but it’s uh we’re we’re in late late July, so every bit of news is worthy on reporting. So let me know your thoughts on that. Um, like I said, I was kind of keen to see Ron Herr get a go at summer league and play some big minutes. Didn’t happen. So, maybe he’s going to the Spurs um G- League team on a two-way. That’s just my guess. But moving on, I want to touch on some comments from Jaylen Duren here. Uh so earlier this week, I believe maybe even on Sunday in Detroit, the big three hosted their threeon-ree uh competition at Little Caesars Arena and Jaylen Duran and Ron Ron about say Ron Harper, Ron Holland was sitting courtside um and Courtzside Buzz at Courtside Buzz on X were at the at the uh event and they went up and interviewed Jaylen Durham. As you can see on the right here, um Jaylen Duran was asked about the back court of Ivy and Kaden. JD said, “Sky’s the limit. They don’t have no ceiling, man. I feel like our team doesn’t have a ceiling. We’ve got a lot of young guys growing and getting better. Ron Holland, who’s going to get go into his second year and looking to make a big jump.” So, pretty some like look, these aren’t crazy comments, but um I wanted to just talk about Ivy here and Ivy and Cad’s fit, but um really what I’m I’m getting at here is Iivey’s fit with the young core because I feel like what we saw last year was we saw Kade, Duran, and Assar show for the most part that if you surround them with a fourman that can shoot like Tobias and someone that can shoot and you know be some sort threat from the outside the two that results in great like that’s a real thing you can build around and many smarter NBA minds than me have said that such like Zack Low for example was big on that trio and I feel like because we saw that and we saw it work in the playoffs that the Pistons had one of the best starting groups in the um per net rating in the playoffs the one that was Kade THJ Assar Tobias and Duran it was one of the best ranked starting fives and look they only played six games It was the Pistons best starting five last season um in anything that played more than like 100 minutes. And it got me thinking cuz I think a lot of us the fan base is quick to ride off Jaden Ivy because they’re like, “Well, we saw that you don’t need Ivy. You just need someone who can shoot at the two.” And um you know, we need to be looking more at like just a bigger guard that can shoot and support Cade more on defense. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I what I I want to push back on is in that. So, the big thing last season for me first of all was Ivy played 12 minutes with Assar. Pretty much when Asar got back to being a regular part of the rotation and playing more than like 10 to 15 minutes, Ivy went down with that broken leg as we all know to start the year. So they barely played last year and it feels like Assar was the real key thing to unlocking this team defensively because when he came back and was starting this was they were just a different team and I think the big problem they had when Assar was out is that they had to start Tim Haidway Junior at the three and Ivy was obviously at the two with Cade and those lineups struggled because the Pistons defensively just didn’t have anyone to take bigger ball handling guards. So, where I’m going with all of this is that while some might say, well, look, when Ivy was healthy, they their net ratings, their lineups, the win loss wasn’t great. And my push back is, well, yeah, cuz they didn’t have Assad. They didn’t have one of the best primitive defenders in the league. And then someone was and then when Assar was healthy and ready to be that guy who we saw, Ivy goes down with such an unfortunate injury and does we never get to see him really with Assaar. What I’m going back on is if you recall back in the season before, the horrible 14 win season that we don’t really want to think about, but there was one thing I was thinking about when I was drafting up my notes for this video and and because I was just trying to think how can I articulate this with some data and to back up my point that I’m a huge believer in Ivy K Desar Duran and Ron, but Ron’s still only in year two. Um, and I it got me thinking. thought back to when the Pistons traded for Simone Fonteo and Fontio came off the bench for the first couple of games, but he was quickly put into that starting group and inund I think they played I’ve got it here. Sorry, just one second. They play in 113 minutes in that season, the fiveman lineup of Kade, Ivy, Assafar, Fontio, and Jaylen Duran had a plus 3.8 net rating. Now, that’s not amazing. It’s good. Anything positive is good. And um it’s not the biggest sample, but it’s over 100 minutes. To have that net rating in that type of season where everything that could go wrong did go wrong is huge. And I think as a proof of concept, it shows that Ivy K Assad Duran plus shooting fourman results in a positive outcome. And let’s just remember this is rookie Assar that got this net rating. This is year two Jaylen Duran. This is year three K Cunningham. This is year um year two Jayen Ivy like these guys are much better players than what they were in that season almost two years ago or will be two years ago by the time next season starts. So it’s like these players have all developed and then the big upgrade is you’ve got Tobias Harris who is a major upgrade as we’ve seen from Fontekio at the four. So, I’m a big believer in that starting five for this season. And yes, Ivy isn’t the volume three-point shooter or hasn’t proven to be the volume three-point shooter that Tim Hardaway Jr. was, but he still shot 40% on five attempts last season. Gives you a lot more juice off the bounce. I think he gives you more defensively than Tim Hardway Jr. It’s not a huge amount, but THJ just has his limitations at his age. Shout out to him for taking those charges, but outside of that, he was quite easy to get by. Um, and but I not trying to slight him, but I just think Ivy was being considerably younger, has a lot more to offer defensively. So, I’m telling you guys, you should be excited for that. You should be very excited for that starting group because I think it’s going to be absolutely like like I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with that fiveman group and I expect that to be the starting five and it should be um barring any injuries or players um not being able to suit up. So, let me know your thoughts on that fiveman lineup. Am I crazy to think that that’s going to be electric? I think there’s some really solid numbers there, even if they are a little bit dated that show the proof of concepts there. We just got to see it and see them all together. So, I’m really excited for that. Let me know your thoughts on that. Where we’re going to end today’s show is an update on the Cam Thomas situation. So yesterday we did a video on Cam Thomas being uh or the Pistons being the odds on favorite to land Cam to Cam Thomas per I think it was Bvada Sports. I can’t actually access the website from here in Australia but it’s American sports betting company. Um and the reason why I’m bringing this back up is because it was reported by Jake Fischer today as you can see on the right that the Brooklyn Nets offered Cam Thomas a 2-year deal with $14 million team option. Now, we all thought Cam, well, Cam Thomas wants 25 to 30 million. I did not think the Nets would lowball him that bad. I thought they would probably do something around 20 million. But the reason we’re talking about this is we don’t care really about the Brooklyn Nets. But the reason I’m talking about this is because I brought up the idea yesterday um of the Pistons using their $14.5 million trade exception to acquire Cam Thomas. And it did seem very unlikely even just then discussing it because I think everyone just thought there’s no way Cam Thomas is going to only make 14 million which is basically the mid-level. But as you can see that’s the offer he’s got in front of him and because he’s a restricted free agent another team’s got to throw something at him or something better to get that for him to make anymore. So cuz he’s kind of stranded unless like Yeah. So, so the way the Pistons, the reason I bring all this up is how the Pistons can acquire him because in light of this information came out today, I’ve seen a lot of Pistons fans saying, “Oh, let’s put Sassa and the trade exception together and get Cam Thomas.” I just want to reiterate the trade exception, you cannot send back a player. You cannot combine Sasa’s salary and the trade exception. You can only use the trade exception’s value. Hence, to do a sign and trade, you have to send a pick out. So for the Nets still sign and trade with the Pistons, you have to send out at least a second round pick because that’s the lowest rating like as like pick you can send out. Obviously you could send a first, but the Pistons in theory can acquire can promise in a sign and trade with maybe multiple seconds and the 40 million or a first and that. Not saying they do that, just saying that’s how they can acquire him. They also can acquire him. The only salaries they can really use to get him for anything close to 40 million is Jaden Ivy and Marcus Sassa who combined for 13 million. Um but Cam would have that would have to be less than this deal which I can’t imagine Cam would want to sign. So because the Pistons the only Carris Levert’s making 14.5 million but himself any player that resigned or signed with the Pistons can’t be traded until December 15th. So those guys Duncan Robinson um Carris and Paul Reed you can’t use their salaries. they can’t be your part of a trade until December 15th. So, that’s enough on how they can acquire him. I just thought it was all worth bringing it back up because of what we’re seeing the reported offer to him and how it fits with Detroit. And maybe when you put it all together, because I I put this in the comments on last video, but um a couple of weeks ago, we did a video and spoke about a rumor in relation to the four restricted free agents in Giddy, Kaminga, Thomas, and Grimes. There was a rumor that a Pistons staff member had said at a golf day that the Pistons are interested in one of those four, but it’s probably not going to happen. And I thought it was Kaminga, but maybe this is all coming together that this is why Cam Thomas has been rumored to the Pistons or not rumored that disregard that why he’s an odds on favorite to go the Pistons is because of this type of intel that seems to be floating around. And to be honest, when I didn’t talk about Cam’s fit on the team, I think if Cam Thomas does come to the Pistons, I certainly don’t want it to be for Jadden Ivy. But if he does, I think Marcus Sass’s it would be in Marcus Sass’s like that role. I think he would obviously play more minutes. He would take minutes. It just it doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but um because him and Levert it feels like would be if they’re both coming off the bench, it feels like they’d be playing a very similar role in terms of at least how much they have the ball. Um so, look, it doesn’t make a lot of sense at all, but I just wanted to address it to to wrap up the show here. So, hope that makes some sense. Hope that clears up how they can acquire him. Um because the Pistons have no cap space. They’re over they’re an overthe cap team. They can only use a trade exception, the 5.1 million bannual exception to sign someone or vet mins. They are over the cap. They had to be an over cap team to get the trade exception, I believe. So, that’s going to do it for today’s show. Hope you enjoyed. Appreciate all the support, all the love on the channel recently, and we’ll be back soon with another video. But until then, as always, go Pistons. [Music]

The Detroit Pistons just waived Ron Harper Jr. and signed Colby Jones to a two-way contract — and the front office isn’t done yet. In this video, I break down what the Colby signing means, why Harper was let go, and what it signals for the rest of Detroit’s roster.

We also dive into Jalen Duren’s comments about the Pistons at a recent BIG3 event in Detroit.

To close, we explore the buzz around Cam Thomas. The Pistons are the betting odds favorites to land him… but is there a real path to get it done? And would he even fit?

📌 Topics Covered:
Ron Harper Jr. waived
Colby Jones signing
Underrated Pistons lineup
Cam Thomas trade rumours

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