BATTLE: Cunningham vs Young HEATS UP Eastern Conference | Who Will LEAD Their Team to PLAYOFF Glory?

BATTLE: Cunningham vs Young HEATS UP Eastern Conference | Who Will LEAD Their Team to PLAYOFF Glory?

I believe K Cunningham and Trey Young will be compared to each other quite a bit this year as they try to lead their respective teams to a top four seed in the Eastern Conference. But I’ll tell you guys why in today’s episode K Cunningham has the edge over Trey Young. You are Locked on Pistons, your daily Detroit Pistons podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What’s the deal? Welcome back to another episode of the Lockdown Pistons podcast. Per usual, I am your host Cu. I’ve been covering the Detroit Pistons over the last four years for the Lockdown Network, been a congential media member over the last three years. And I appreciate all of you guys who make Locked on Pistons your first listen of every single day. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel at Lockdown Pistons. Hit that subscribe button or leave us a fivestar review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to us on. That’s another great way to support the podcast. In today’s episode, later on, we’ll discuss is Isaiah Stewart underrated? And then also Simony Fonteo puts up a crazy performance in Euro Basket. Will the Pistons regret moving on from Simone Fonteo? We’ll discuss that in today’s episode. But we’re gonna start off with some talk about Kade Cunningham and Trey Young and why I believe they are going to be compared to each other quite a bit this year. I’m going to break down why I believe Kate Cunningham is a better player than Trey and why he’ll have the edge over him this year. And what’s led to this conversation is we’ve talked about a lot already this podcast or on this podcast this summer I should say the Atlanta Hawks made quite a bit of moves this year to try to jump in the standings and I really like their offseason and I believe it’s going to be the Pistons versus the Hawks for that fourth seed. I think the top three seeds will go Cleveland, New York and Orlando and then I think it’s going to be Atlanta and Detroit fighting for that fourth seed. So because of that, I think that will lead to the best players from both teams being compared to each other, and that is Kate Cunningham and Trey Young. We’ve already seen a lot of people talk about this. I just saw um one of the national media outlets discuss Kade or Trey Young, I think even on that, I forget what show it is over on Fox Sports, I think it is, or FanDuel um with Lou Williams and Chandler Parsons, they discuss Kade or Trey Young, whatever. Um, so I want to give my thoughts on the comparison between the two players. And I actually am a pretty big fan of Trey Young’s. I’m I I I am aware that some people may not like his play style and the way he gets free throws, but he gets free throws nonetheless. It’s part of the game. I’m not asking whether you like him or not, his play style. I I am a I I I am a pretty big believer in what he can do for your basketball team. So, this is not me coming from an angle of, oh, I like Kade and hate Trey Young, so I’m just going to bash Trey Young. No, I think they’re both very good basketball players. Obviously, I just think Kate is better. But, I want to just point these numbers out quickly and and talk about why they’re actually pretty similar in players. Pretty more sim a lot more similar than I think people would s would think. And because they’re, you know, Kate’s so much bigger and that’s going to get brought up and, you know, Trey smaller, he takes more threes, he takes more free throws, you know, stuff like that. Um, but they’re both like heliocentric leaders of their offense. They are the offense goes as they go. They create everything within their offense for their respective teams. Cade creates everything for the Pistons offense. It all goes through him. Atlanta, all of their offense just goes right through Trey. If Trey’s not creating it, Atlanta doesn’t get nothing. If Cade’s not creating it, Detroit doesn’t get anything. It’s the same thing in both markets. I will say that there is maybe an argument that Trey Young creates better offense for his team than Kade does. This past year, the offense for the Atlanta Hawks were 7.5 points better with Trey Young on the floor than with him off. Now, this is something that goes throughout his career. When Trey Young’s on the floor, the Atlanta Hawks have a outstand or a very good offense at the very least. Second year in the league, the offense was 12.9 points better with him on the floor. You have numbers like 12 plus 12.9. second year, plus 12.5 his third year, plus 9.9 his fourth year. Like when he’s on the floor, he is generating open shots consistently, generating good offense, good efficient offense for the Atlanta Hawks. Whether it goes from him being able to draw free throws, which he does at the top of the NBA, around 95th percentile in amount of free throws he draws. So whether it’s because of how efficient he makes the offensive offense because he’s able to draw free throws or if it’s because he’s one of the greatest playmakers in the league right now when it comes to lob passes, kicking out uh for threes, finding guys open in transition. Trey Young is a very very good offensive engine. Um but Cade also is. I think you could make the argument though for those who are in Atlanta or maybe think Trey is better than Kade. There is an argument for him to be over Kade as a pure offensive engine. This past year Kade plus 4.4 points better with him on the floor. Now you will point to the talent around Kade and say, “Well, the talent around Kade offensively does not match the offensive talent that Atlanta had even last year.” I think maybe you can make that argument, but I think where where Trey has Cade beat, I believe, is what we just talked about him as a guy who can draw free throws when his shot is not falling. He’s able to get to the free throw line and still try to maintain an efficient brand of basketball. However, one of the low-key sneaky things about Trey Young that doesn’t really get talked about or people kind of like it feels like the casual person doesn’t really know is that he’s he was built coming into the league as like this Steph Curry clone, right? Takes limitless range threes, great three-point shooter, but he’s really been quite inconsistent as a three-point shooter throughout his career. Um, coming into the league, he was at 32%. As a three-point shooter. Next year, he goes up to 36, then back down to 34, then back up to 38%, then drop down to 33. Then two years ago, 37%, then drops back down to 34. So, he’s been very up and down throughout his entire career from beyond the ark. Now, because of the volume he takes and because of the respect that he gains even when he’s not making shots, that still opens up the offense. But Trey has not been as efficient from the floor consistently as I think many people believe. Like this past year, he had a 56.7 true shooting percentage. That’s not straight inefficient basketball, but like that’s still league average efficiency, but that’s just right around where Kade was at because Cade was a better three-point shooter this past year. He’s a better finisher at the rim. He’s a better mid-range shooter than than Trey Young. he has more versatility to how he can attack offensively as a postup player. Um, getting to that hook range, that floater range. Well, Trey gets to that flo range well, too, but Kade is able to attack it in different ways and unlock different things for the team’s offense because of that. So, I think they they are either even offensively if you give me just one moment. My dog is losing their her mind. Let me I’ll be right back. All right. Apologies for that. my dog was losing her mind. I thought something maybe was going on out there. She’s just, you know, crazy. So, likes to waste my time a little bit. But my overall point here is is I think Kade and Trey are pretty even as offensive players. I think Cade has like like I mentioned, he has areas of the game offensively where he is better than Trey simply because of his size and his ability to get to certain spots and finish over guys, but I think Trey probably has him as a playmaker. I think he’s one of the best playmakers in the league. Um, and I think he he’s proven for a longer duration to generate consistent good offense throughout his career where Cade kind of just started to do that this past year. So, I think if you want to give Trey the slight edge as just an overall offensive engine, I would understand that. However, what wins Cade this battle and why Cade, and we’ve talked about this before on the podcast, why Cade’s going to be special and he will be different from all these other guys that quantify themselves as offensive engines is that most of these offensive engines are straight up bad defensively. Luca really bad defensively. Trey Young, he is not good defensively. Obviously, he’s very tiny. He doesn’t give much effort defensively. even know this past year, I’ve heard from Atlanta people that he did give more effort defensively this past year, but he just is so miniature that his defense is never going to be good. He’s always going to be bad. Um, a lot of these offensive guys, heavy offensive guys, are just straight up bad defensively. Whereas Cade is able to be that offensive engine while also being a good defender. I’m not going to call him a great defender, but he’s a good defender. And especially in the playoffs, I thought he was very good defensively. He’s especially as like a weak side rim protector. He knows how to utilize his wingspan, his length to help with the team’s defense. He stays in front of I think he does a good job staying in front of guys that are like wings. Now on guards, he’s not, you know, quick enough to stay in front of guards, though he’s not like just straight up bad. He is a good matchup against other wings. And again, he does a good job of providing some weak side rim protection. He’s one of the best uh guard rim protectors in the NBA. And that points to, like we talked about earlier, the onoff difference between, you know, offensively how the offense gets so much better when Trey’s on the floor for Atlanta. Well, the defense for the Pistons gets better with Kate on the floor as well. You can’t say the same thing for Trey Young. When Trey Young is on the floor for the Atlanta Hawks, their defense gets 3.2 points worse this past year. And that’s throughout his entire career. You’re looking at numbers like 3.2 points worse, 4.3 points worse, 4.2 points worse. the defense consistently is getting worse when he’s on the floor because he can’t contribute at all. So Kade is able to maybe not at quite the and I think he’ll get there. But let’s just stay right here. Kade maybe doesn’t get to quite the peak as Trey Young when it comes to just give me whoever and I will just generate the best offense possible because he is a better playmaker right now and he’s able to draw free throws and get easy points to the line at a much more consistent rate than Kade. He may do that slightly better than Kade at this point. Fair. That that’s true. But Kade makes up more than the difference by his team’s defense being good with him on the floor and being able to craft a good defense around him. Whereas Cade or not Kade, Trey loses a lot of that value he provides offensively because he gives it up defensively. Now, both of these guys I believe you can build a contender around. I think they did that a few years ago with Trey, and I think you can do that. I’m not, again, I like Trey. I am a fan of Trees, but I think Cade has him edged out. I think that will be the Pistons hope for why Kade will be a what 10 plus year top 10 player in the league because maybe he doesn’t get and we’ve said this on the podcast before. Maybe Kade doesn’t get to the Luca level offensively. He’s probably not going to get there. Luca is one of the greatest offensive players we’ve ever seen. Like as as pure as offensive as it comes to offensive engines, maybe Cade won’t reach that peak of offensive engine where he’s Luca. uh name some other Jokic like whatever those guys at the top of the NBA when it comes to you know the top five players when they’re that great offensively maybe he doesn’t peak as high as them offensively but he will peak a lot higher than them defensively while also bringing quite a bit offensively as an engine himself. So that’s where Kade will edge out Trey Young. And I think that will be the Pistons argument for how they or how they build their team to beat Atlanta this year and get to that fourth seat is that Atlanta may be a pretty good offensive team this year. I actually think they will be as long as they stay healthy. I think Atlanta will be really good. I think their offense will be really good. The Pistons though will say, “Okay, you guys might have an Let’s say, you know, just for conversation sake, let’s say Atlanta has a top seven offense. The Pistons have a top 13 offense. Okay, let’s let’s hope that’s where the Pistons hover around, right? That the Pistons will say, “Okay, we’ll take that because we’ll have a top five defense and you guys will have a top what 20 defense, 21 defense, and we’ll just make up the difference.” That’s how the Pistons are going to build their team. And that’s why that’s the perk of drafting someone like Kade with size at the point guard position, with length and activity defensively, while also being an offensive agent himself, is that he doesn’t have to, again, I think he can get there, but he’s not there yet. The point is he doesn’t have to get to that peak offensively because he’s raising the ceiling defensively as well. So that’s my argument for Kade over Trey. Even though I like both players, I think Cage’s better than Trey and he will do a better job leading his team than Trey over the next, you know, however long Cage with the Detroit Pistons, 10 plus years, whatever. Simply because of size, defense, and because Cage’s already this good and he has a lot more to go to improve. So let me know comment section down below or over on Twitter. How close do you guys think it is between Cade and Trey Young? Who do you think is better and why? Let me know comment section down below or over on Twitter. Coming up, is Isaiah Stewart underrated? We’ll discuss that and I’ll tell you guys the answer is absolutely coming up. Today’s episode’s brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season is almost here, just a few days away, and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Remember, this is a new deal. This is a this is a can’t miss offer you can’t get. It’s $300. Now, with the $5 bet, and if it wins, you get 300 to use across the entire app. I’ve told you guys this many of times. I’ve been using FanDuel for years now. It’s super fun to use, super self-explanatory. I didn’t know what I was doing when I first got into it. Super easy to use. It’s very self-explanatory, but obviously the most important part is it’s super fun to use. So, head over to FanDuel and if you are ready to play, download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanduel.com to get started. That’s fanduel.com to place your first $5 bet. And if it hits, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Again, that’s with FanDuel. $5 bet. It hits $300 in bonus bets. Check it out over on FanDuel today. So, I want to thank you guys again for making Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. We are free and available on all your podcast platforms. Excuse me. I want to thank you guys for making Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. We are free and available on all your podcast platforms. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel at Lockdown Pistons. Hit that subscribe button or leave us a fivestar review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to us on. That is another great way to support the podcast. But now, let’s get into Isaiah Stewart, a fan favorite, someone who has I mean, people who have listened to the podcast for a while know this. Someone who has had um kind of like a a very meteoric rise in the opinion of the person who hosts this podcast because at the beginning when Isaiah Stewart was drafted, he was fine, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of his. And then definitely after his second year, I felt like everybody else was way too high on Stu and it ended up resulting in me being seen as a guy who wasn’t very high on Stu. That was pretty low on Stu. We now sit here in 2025 and I am very high on Stu and I think he’s an incredibly valuable basketball player and I think he is incredibly underrated by he is underrated by everyone that is not in an NBA front office because we have heard rumors now for back-to-back seasons that there have been really good teams that have wanted to trade for Isaiah Stewart. Now, part of that is because his contract is great, but what makes the contract great is that you have a really good player on such a small contract. That’s part of why they’re they’re interested. Isaiah Stewart is incredibly underrated. It’s because I mean, I wrote about this over on the Substack over I think it was in February I wrote about this. Everyone just views Stu as a fighter. He is now viewed by the NBA fan base and by uh the NBA community at large as a guy who just goes out there and fights people. That’s what he’s viewed as. Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s wrong, by the way. It’s wrong. But that’s just what it is. There’s no real changing that. He’s kind of gotten that reputation. Once you get that reputation, it’s hard to um change that reputation. And for what it’s worth, Stude is a obviously I I don’t need to explain this. Stu is a very physical player. He will rough it up with people. He will get ejected from some games. He will, you know, he is he is very physical and he does kind of tow that Draymond Green line where it’s like he will cross that line sometimes. Like that’s the kind of player he is. So I’m not going to see him act like, “Oh, how where is it coming from? You guys are just making it out of thin air.” Like no. Okay. I understand it’s not made out of nothing. he is, you know, that that is going to be part of Stu’s reputation. But that has allowed people to then take that and twist it into that’s all he does on the floor. All Steu is is a fighter and he doesn’t actually provide any real basketball value. He’s not actually a talented basketball player. He’s just a straight up, you know, um he he’s just a guy who goes out there and roughs it up and just going push you around. can’t really shoot the ball, can’t really do anything involved in basketball because he has to resort to fighting and that’s just flatly incorrect. And the reason why this has really come up, you guys know I’m a 2K player and I saw Steu’s rating on 2K and it made me mad. Now, I have 2K pulled up in my second monitor here. Before we talk about Steu real quick, I saw another rating on here that kind of up made me really upset. Again, a lot of you guys who don’t play 2K are probably like, “Cook 2K sucks. Why do you care?” Listen, I play 2K and I happen to go through the ratings and when I see something like this, it’s just like what are you watching? Cage post hook is at 60. Cage one of the like he we talked about that on the podcast. I forget what the exact percentage percentage is, but he was the best guard in the league. Non bigs on hook shots. Shot like 57% on him. 60 is crazy. Post fade 62 post control 60 when Cage one of the best postcoring guards in the NBA. He a lot of his offense came from that and he just had none of it. That that’s just it’s it’s stupid to me. Abs. absolutely dumb. But anyways, Stew, get back to the topic at hand, was rated a 74 on here. And that resulted in me talking about it. I saw a lot of other Pistons people talking about on Twitter. And then that resulted in a lot of NBA fans from other fan bases and overall community talking about, oh, he just fights. What do you want him to be? Blah, blah, blah. Listen, man. These are the players they have ahead of Steu real quick just to stay on 2K. Duncan Robinson, Levert, Ivy, Tobias, I’m in. Oh, no. I’m in. Why did I say I’m in? Assar, Darren, and Kate. Steu is not worse than Duncan Robinson. He’s not worse than Caris Levert. He’s just not. I don’t care. I don’t care what anyone says. But anyways, stay away from 2K. Let’s just stay to real life. Now, Stu is one of the better defensive bigs in the entire NBA. He should be all NBA defensive team, but because of the minutes restriction, because he’s a backup, he’s not going to cross I what is it? You have to play at least 20 minutes per night in 50 or so game or 65 games. That’s going to be tough to do. He’s not going to get it. But he is absolutely a qual an allNBA defender type of guy. Just won’t get the accolade. The Pistons defense this past year, we talked about this a ton. It was 2.4 points better with Steu on the floor. The previous year during the year that was just a year from hell, 5.3 points better with Steu on the floor. It’s been that way his entire career. So much so that a lot of people have said openly that if Steu was healthy during the New York Knicks series, they believe the Pistons might have won. Because while they did struggle to guard Cat, it was because the person most equipped to guard Cat maybe in the entire NBA was out for the entire series. The Pistons defensive backbone, one of their backbones, him and Assar, he was gone for the entire series. and it allowed allowed Cat to get off. He doesn’t do that without Stu. Stu is able to check uh uh stretch bigs. He’s one of the best rim protectors in the entire NBA. The field goal percentage at the rim is at the top of the league when it comes to him contesting. He’s a great rim protector and also he’s one of the best switching bigs in the entire NBA as well. He is a very versatile defender. That is incredibly important in 2025. In the NBA, when the NBA is about space and pace, you’re just constantly trying to space the other team out. And if you have players on the floor who can’t guard and space, they will get attacked over and over and over again. We’ve seen players like that get attacked on the Detroit Pistons. Stu is not one of those. And to have that your five position is incredibly valuable, especially again going back to the Knicks series. If the Pistons had that option for when Duran would struggle with Cat, they could have went to Stew and then been like, “Okay, this is just a Stew series.” But they didn’t have that option. I say all this to say that. And and by the way, actually, I almost moved past this. I don’t want to move past this at all. I want to make sure I give Stu the credit he deserves. This past year, he had one of his the best season of of he had the best season, my goodness, of his career shooting at the rim. He finished 69% of his looks. That’s a careerhigh. Took a lot more of his shots at the rim this past year as well. 61%. That’s the most he’s taken at the rim since his second year. He converted the most of them in his in his entire career. He bought into a role, exceeded in that role, played great defense, helped lead the Pistons to a top five, seven defense after January 1st along with Assar. Stu is a player and and he also has potential to be a three-point shooter as a big. Now, we know it. We saw it go away this past year. They just didn’t ask him to shoot it, but we’ve seen him shoot 38% on decent volume for a big. I’m sure that’s what other teams are seeing from him. They think it’s a look at this. You got a guy who is a switchable defender, who is a one of the best defenders at the position in the league, and he also provides potential spacing uh on the offensive end of the floor. That’s an incredibly valuable basketball player for $14 million 100%. So I think Stu is very easily underrated. If going back to 2K now for a quick second, I would have had him at least a 7879 coming off the bench because of how good he is defensively. Stu is 100% underrated. A lot of it has to do with the reputation he’s built himself as this, you know, fighter, I guess. But don’t let that take away from his overall game. He is a very impactful basketball player. He’s impactful. He’s physical. He gives it everything when he’s on the floor. Every single time he touches the floor, he’s not scared of anybody. And I I think he’s going to be a Detroit Piston for a long time. And everyone should be happy about that because Stu is a very, very good backup center in the NBA. One of the You can make the argument he is the be best backup center in the NBA. You can make the argument. Not saying he would win it, but he’s he’s in the conversation. He’s a very good basketball player and he deserves respect for that and not just to be talked about as some physical fighter on the court every time his name gets brought up. So, let me know in the comment section down below or over on Twitter, Cuckaro. Do you guys believe Isaiah Stewart is underrated? Let me know. Comment section. Twitter. Coming up, will the Pistons regret moving on from Fonteo after he has a historic a historic game in Euro basket this week? We’ll talk about that coming up. So, I want to thank you guys again. Make locked on Pistons your first listen every single day. We are free and available on all your podcast platforms. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel, Lockdown Pistons. Hit that subscribe button or leave us a fivestar review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to this on. That’s another great way to support the podcast. And real quickly, we have an important request. Lockdown wants to hear from you. We’ve put together a survey to learn more about our listeners and make your favorite podcast even better. This is your chance to tell us what you like, what you don’t, and answer questions about our advertising. Go to lockdownpodcast.com/servey to get started. Everyone who completes the survey will be entered for a chance to win one of 10 $100 Amazon gift cards. Again, that’s lockedonpodcast.comservey. You can also find the link in the show notes or you can scan the QR code on the screen if you’re watching this over on YouTube. Thanks for helping us all out. I appreciate all the help from you guys. But let’s get into Simone Fonteo, who the Pistons traded in a sign and trade deal for Duncan Robinson this past year or this off seasonason after a very disappointing season um for Stu. A very disappointing season. Give me just a second. Let me grab that so I can actually have it up on the screen. But a very disappointing season for Simone Fonteo who had a very a very good season for the Detroit Pistons once he was traded for by Utah or from Utah. Shot 40% with the Pistons, above 40% with the Pistons, averaged around 15 points a game. He looked fantastic for the Pistons and so much so that last off season you heard myself talking about is there a world where Vonteo maybe starts? That’s how good he was for the Pistons this that his first year with them. And then this past year was nothing short of a flatout disappointment. He dropped to 33% from three, only averaged five points a game, shot 40% from the floor, didn’t ever look comfortable on the floor at all. Um it was like he almost looked like he didn’t know what his role was or he didn’t feel comfortable in whatever his role was. Um his turnover ratio went even higher. And I felt like every single time he got on the floor, he tried to put the ball on the ground for some reason. He was trying to dribble too much. He was turning the ball over. It felt like every single time he touched the ball, you could bake in a potential turnover when he didn’t shoot it. Like it was just it was a very disappointing season for Simone Fonteo. So they had to move on from him. They traded him for Duncan Robinson, who is a proven commodity. You know what he can give you. You know what he can’t give you. But you know what he can give you. And now Fonteo will have a chance in Miami to do whatever he can do. Two days ago though, as I’m recording this, he broke into the record books in Euro Basket, scoring 39 points on 13 of 20 shooting, eight rebounds, seven threes made, and he broke Italy’s single game scoring record in Euro Basket history. So that led to people wondering, will the Pistons end up regretting getting rid of Fonteo? This is my stance on Simone, who by the way is a great guy. Wishing him the best in Miami. Great dude, great teammate. The Pistons had no choice but to move on from him. They had Traan did not have a choice in that. He had to move on from him. There was no way they could come back into this season with him as part of the rotation and not moving him. Will I be shocked if he shows up in Miami and all of a sudden is shooting closer to 40% again and he’s looking more like the player he did two years ago? No, I will not be shocked. I will not be shocked about that because that player is in there somewhere. He’s shown us that. Now, it was for a very limited sample he showed us, but he showed us and that’s the kind of player he is a good three-point shooter who should be able to get threes up at a heavy volume, attack closeouts, and just do that. That should be what he’s able to do. He showed us he’s able to do it in his first year with Detroit. He did it in Eurob basket. We know that’s something that he should theoretically be able to do and we’ve seen it. So, I won’t be shocked if he’s able to tap back into it one year away from this foot surgery he had, the toe surgery, I believe it was. Maybe it was that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t have a good year. Maybe it was simply because of that. And now a year removed, he’s in better shape. He’s more healthy and he has a great year. Will I be shocked about that? No, I will not be shocked. That doesn’t change the fact that the Pistons didn’t have they could not bank on that as a team going into a year where you just made the playoffs and gave New York everything you had. A player who was a part of your rotation for the whole year but was so bad during the season. He was taken out the rotation completely in the playoffs. Because of that, there was no way you could convince yourself, the players on the team, the fan base. you were not going to be able to convince everybody to be like, “Okay, we’re just going to bring him back and bank on him returning to form and have that be like your move of the offseason or one of your moves in the offseason.” You could not do that confidently going into a season now with expectations. If you were going into a season without expectations, if this was three years ago, four years ago, then yeah, you can bring Tech back and just be like, “Okay, we’re going to just bet that he returns to form and if he doesn’t, it is what it is. But if he does, that’s great for us.” If there’s no expectations, that would have been fine. There are expectations on the Pistons this year. They need their rotation from rotation spot one to rotation spot nine 10 to be impactful and guys you can trust will deliver whatever you’re asking them to deliver. You can trust that from Duncan Robinson. You know what you’re going to get from him. You know what you’re going to get from Caris. You know what you’re going to get from every other player we we’ve talked about in the rotation. We know what you’re going to get. Bontekeo, it was a massive question mark and you could not come back into this season even if you have some belief that he could turn it around. You could not come into a season with expectations of going maybe around deeper into the playoffs trying to compete for a top four seed by just bringing him back and risking him actually just not being that good of a player and now your rotation being just as weak as it was last year. You could not risk that. They had to move them. So, I’m just I’m bringing this up more so to say this. If Vonteo has a really good year in Miami, I am begging you guys, please do not pull the oh, the Pistons give up on everybody too early. They never just have patience on other situations, other players. That’s fair. This one, Tan Langden could not do that. If if imagine what would have happened if he did not trade for Duncan Robinson. Malik goes on this, you know, has his whole investigation happen. He keeps Fonteo and his message to everybody off seasonason is well, we believe Fonteo will be better this year. That’s why we didn’t make a move. How would you guys if it was just Caris Levert and maybe they signed a veteran or something, whatever, and then kept Fonte and the messaging was we believe Fonte will turn it around. One, how would you guys have reacted to that? And two, imagine if they season started and Fonteo didn’t have a good year. Now they’re just screwed. Now, now they’re just screwed. And now they have another weak spot of the rotation. If he has a good year, just be happy for Tech. I hope he does have a good year. I hope he turns it around. But the Pistons just couldn’t risk it. They’re not in a situation when they can risk that kind of thing and and and not take the the possib the the the opportunity that was presented to them to get a proven lights out shooter like Duncan instead of rolling the dice on Fonte happen to turn it around again. Just couldn’t do it. So, I wish the best for Fonteo. I hope he has a great year in Miami. I hope he turns his NBA career around. I hope last year was just the was was the uh outlier and not the season he had the first year with Detroit. I hope that is the case, but the Pistons just couldn’t risk to find that out. So, let me know comment section down below or over on Twitter, Cuckoo Hill. How do you guys feel about Tech? Do you guys think they may regret moving him or you maybe regret the Pistons moving them or do you guys, you know, just wish the best for them and agree with me? Let me know comment section down below or on Twitter, Cucker Hill. That’s all I’ve got for you guys today. Thank you guys for making Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. free available on all your podcast platforms. Hit that subscribe button to the YouTube channel. Leave us a five star review, whatever podcast platform you’re listening to us on. And until next time, I will see you guys later. Stay safe out there and peace out, everybody.

Cade Cunningham vs. Trae Young: Who’s the actual offensive engine? Detroit Pistons’ rising star faces off against Atlanta Hawks’ sharpshooter in a battle for Eastern Conference supremacy.

Breaking down the Cunningham-Young matchup, this analysis explores their offensive capabilities, defensive impact, and overall value to their teams. The discussion shifts to Isaiah Stewart’s underrated contributions, highlighting his defensive prowess and potential as a three-point threat. Simone Fontecchio’s post-trade performance takes center stage, with insights into the Pistons’ decision to move on from the Italian forward.

Tune in for expert insights on the Pistons’ roster moves, player development, and strategies that are shaping their playoff aspirations. Will Cunningham lead Detroit to new heights? Can Stewart silence his critics?

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