Will Detroit Pistons Play Cade Cunningham More OFF-BALL Next To Ausar Thompson and Jaden Ivey?

Will Detroit Pistons Play Cade Cunningham More OFF-BALL Next To Ausar Thompson and Jaden Ivey?

In today’s episode of Locked on Pistons podcast, we discuss JB Biggerstep’s comments about seeing Assar Thompson on Baltimore. Are we going to see Point Assar more this season with K Cunningham on the floor? We’ll talk about it today’s episode. Locked on Pistons podcast. You are Locked on Pistons, your daily Detroit Pistons podcast, part of the Locked On 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, Cahill. I’ve been covering the Detroit Pistons for the last four years with the Lockdown Network, manual media member over the last three years. I want to thank all of you guys making Locked On Pistons your first listen every single day. We are available on all your podcast platforms. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel at Locked OnPistons. 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. And today we are joined by friend of the podcast, Matt Griffin. You guys can find us over on the playback. Matt is always up there with me uh watching or hosting the Pistons live watch parties. Um again, we’ll link that down below for you guys if you guys want to join us for Thursday’s game, the second preseason game as well. Uh Matt, how are you doing, man? Appreciate you coming on, man. I’m good, C. Uh you know, I’ve been on the on deck circle here, a little bit of uh inside locked on Pistons. I’ve been on the on deck circle here for for 35 minutes. DJ DJ Kumo D has been messing around with audio settings. So, I’ve I’ve already this I’ve already done this whole podcast in my head, so I know exactly what I’m gonna say. Well, see, I’ll take you guys behind the curtains. We wouldn’t have these problems if Matt Matt still wasn’t without Matt’s been without a laptop, everybody, for like two and a half months. So, now I told him we can do it with you on your phone, but we got to test it out. And it took us like like he said 30 minutes to get the settings correct and make sure everything was good. But hoping everything’s working fine now. Everything’s good. It sounds good on my end. So hopefully everything’s good. But I Yeah, I apologize to viewers for if it if the audio is bad. To be fair, I told I was like, “Hey, I don’t know, man. I don’t have a laptop. I don’t know if it’ll work.” But no, it sounds good. If it doesn’t, I I’ll make sure I fix it. Tigers just won, so I’m in a good mood. Oh, there you go. I saw they won like what? Nine to three. Yeah. Right. Fair enough. All right, game five. Here we go. Um, you actually gonna watch that one? Game five. No, I’m probably not. Probably not. Sorry. Um, all right. So, we’re going to talk about point assar to start off today. Later on, we’ll talk about other game one takeaways that Matt had watching the Pistons. Obviously, it’s preseason, but there’s some minor things you can that were maybe impressive or some minor details that maybe you’re watching for moving forward. And then also, I want to talk about the battle for the 10th rotation spot by the Detroit Pistons. JBstaff’s talked a lot about that. But let’s start with Point Assaar. And the reason why we’re starting here is because just like usual with the podcast, we go through days of practice, day through training camp and preseason and whatever JB bigger staff and whatever comes out of camp is what I like to talk about during preseason. Regular season, we don’t that’s not really what we do. I have my own content. I’d like to go with my own takeaways, whatever from the games, etc., etc. But especially during preseason and training camp, I like to listen to what they’re saying and take away what they’re telling us during camp. Um, and JB Bigger Stafford talked a lot today at practice about wanting to see us Thompson on ball with Kade on the floor more. He says, quote, “That’s something that’s going to happen more because of the gravity Cade holds. People are hug up on him. Now you can take it. Now you can play advantages situations off of him.” I don’t know if they typed that right, but that didn’t sound right. Um, and he also said it makes Cade Yeah, I think that’s what they were trying to type. Maybe they mistyped it. Um, but it makes Cade a better offensive player. Then Cade was asked about playing next to Assar with him running the running the offense. And Cade says, quote, “It’s good to mix it up, giving him room to get more and more comfortable with it as preseason goes along. I think it will be a big weapon for us.” And then the final thing I’d like to say about it is JP’s quote saying, “The tempo that he plays with, sorry, that is where he has the ball in his hands and the threat that he becomes, it changes the way teams have to guard him.” So, with all that said, Matt, we obviously got a decent amount of Assaar’s minutes in game one where he was actually running the action when Kade was on the floor. So, what was your obviously it’s preseason, we’re not going too crazy with it, but just what was your instant first look reactions to how the Pistons were utilizing Assar with Kade on the floor? I thought it was I mean, I was honestly kind of surprised just how often he was on the ball. Assar being that being Assar. Um, I thought like we’ve me and you both I think have been clamoring for it kind of for a long time going back to the game, you know, going back to before he had that couple game stretch when Kate sat down where did kind of get to to run the offense and he looked really good and there’s a lot of good things happening that we thought, hey, we can apply this when Kade is on the floor, too. Obviously, not to the same degree, but it excited me, man. I mean, it wasn’t perfect for sure. I think like the handle is always going to be kind of the thing that I come back to or the thing that I’m really watching for when we talk about his ability to to kind of scale up to sort of develop into being a guy who has an onball role. Um, and that’s still probably lagging behind where you want it to be when you talk about somebody who’s supposed to who you want with the ball a lot for a good team, right? Um, but still really promising to see nonetheless. I think that it’s as much about Assar getting those reps as it is about Cade getting those reps to me because um you know this this is a whole different this could be a whole different podcast really but I think like the identity or the identity shift within this year’s team versus last year’s team is just the amount of ball handling that they’re going to have at least to start the season, right? Like you bring in Caris Levert, uh Marcus Sasher is obviously on your bench. Jay Nivey is coming back hopefully taking up a bigger role. Duncan Robinson, you know, he’s not an oddball player, so to speak, but he can handle the ball. They obviously want to empower Jaylen Duran to continue uh handling the ball and making decisions with it um to buy obviously, you know, the whole team. But I I’m excited for that sort of portion of the offense, how different that how different that’s going to look. I mean, I think like I hope that people I’ll say I hope that people don’t overreact if Kate’s counting stats maybe or like his raw counting stats don’t match what they were last year just because his usage is down a little bit. I mean, that’s that’s how the game goes. Yeah. I I think it’s interesting because just a week and a half ago, JB told us that, you know, he was asked, “Do they want to take the K take the ball out of Kate’s hand more?” He said, “No, we want Kate to have the ball in his hands. We want our best player to have the ball in his hands.” Um, and now today, we’re hearing and we saw it in the games and we’re hearing today that like, hey, yeah, Kate’s going to be off ball a little bit with this. We launch CSR with the ball in his hands. And I don’t think those two I know initially people will think those two statements contradict each other. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I think what JB is more so insinuating here is that Kate’s still going to get the ball. Kage’s going to have the ball in his hands a lot. It’s just maybe going to happen in different type of ways where it’s not just him at the top of the key looking at a set defense every possession running pick and rolls. And we saw him I mean it’s a preseason game, but in 15 minutes he was uber efficient playing off of Assar in transition. It wasn’t just Assar as well by the way. It was also obviously Ivy. It also was Dan Jenkins a little bit. It was Caris Lever a little bit. Like we saw K get movement threes up in this game. We saw him get some like he was getting his shots up, he was getting his uchases, but it was in different ways. Yeah. Um and I think like just given kind of the configuration of the lineup, right? I think like the overlooming question for a lot of us is the backup four spot like you kind of have a lot of ball handlers and the forward is a little bit lacking like the big wing. I guess the cool part about Kade is that he can guard threes and fours as a point guard. So you might like you might run two guards with paid. Like you probably have to have that in your back pocket just given how the roster is constructed and those two guards are going to be be able to they’re going to be good on the ball. I have to assume Paris Lever is better on the ball than he is off the ball for example. So I think that it’s great man. I think that it’s just going to help us be more versatile offensively which was I think a huge problem for us last season. And like you said I think you know the the two statements are a little bit contradictory right? There’s only one ball. How can you give one guy the ball more and take the ball out of the other and not take the ball out of somebody else’s hands? But maybe the way to frame it really is that a star will be on the ball more. That doesn’t mean that Kade is Kade might be on the ball a little bit less, but he’s still going to be making the bulk of the decisions. even if like an advantage has he’s already been helped by an advantage created for him off of the ball. Even if he is getting the ball already getting downhill, whatever it may be, just just having varieties of getting your best player the ball in different spots and letting him make decisions from different areas. I think that that is a principle of a lot of the best offenses or a feature of a lot of the best offenses around the league. Like I think that that’s that skill set is what separates Hallebertton to me from a lot of guards that are just like able to run offense. just his capability of doing it without the ball and how constantly he’s moving and how Indiana can sort of shapeshift the way that they play offense around him. And I think like like Jokic is obviously a completely different position, but it is kind of a similar thing where like he he gets the ball in every which way imaginable, right? and he they they want to they want to obviously you know the mid post is kind of his area and they run a lot of their their sort of pet actions from from him in that spot but or at the elbow but like they run him off they run him off of screens all the time right and it’s just so that he can make quick decisions because he’s going to make the best of him and it’s impossibly hard to guard Yokan on the ball is impossibly hard to guard him when he gets the ball moving and you hope that Kade can kind of have that same transition and make us be a little bit more of a dual threat in that sense. Yeah. And for those of you guys watching on YouTube, I’m looking to the side because I’m looking at Matt. My screen’s right here. I know I’ve been not doing that as much, but I you know, it’s kind of I don’t like just looking at the camera and not seeing who I’m talking. It is what it is. But um I I want to wrap it up with this. Uh so you gave like your quick thoughts on how Assar looked with the ball in his hands. You kind of answered this question. I was going to ask you this, but you kind of answered it already. But obviously, were you shocked that Assar was on the ball as much as he was? Cuz I was. Like it wasn’t just he got the ball a little bit more than like he was running a lot of the actions with or without Kate on the floor. He was again it wasn’t like he had the ball in his hand for 15 seconds or anything per possession, but he’s bringing the ball up the floor. Again, the action started them moving around like he was initiating a lot of what they were doing. I was a little shocked that they had him that much with the ball in his hands. We obviously you said you were, but kind of just dive a little further into how you felt that went. Yeah, I mean I I would be surprised if it was that if that was kind of how the the pie was divided in the regular season with line of sight. Like I expect Paris Levert to be on the ball a little bit more than Assar like in his minutes for example. I don’t know that they’re going to just hand sort of like the back of point guard keys to Assar very, you know, immediately, right? I think Ivy will probably have the ball a little bit more than he I don’t know. It it felt a little bit more like, hey, let’s try to establish this. let’s see where Assar is as opposed to like hey this is our new offense this season right so um I was surprised but I do think that it is a little bit more of like a it is the preseason so we’re trying something out a little bit we want to see how far along that this this can get because I mean you know if he if he is able to to develop into being like a full-fledged secondary ball handler like the sky really is the limit. Yeah, and I think it has a lot to do with like what Kade mentioned as well is that, you know, Kade kind of did this this past off or this past preseason when everyone was kind, you remember, everyone was like, “Oh my gosh, will we be concerned Kate’s not doing anything?” Blah, blah. He was more aggressive in this one, right? He was more aggressive in this game, but like he kind of mentioned that he’s kind of using this preseason, he wants Assar to get his feet wet. He wants Assar to feel comfortable. He wants his teammates to be feeling good going into the season. So, I’m sure it’s a lot to do with that. Like you mentioned that they’re giving Assar these reps. They want to see how he looks. They want him to feel comfortable. and maybe it dials back a little bit when the season starts, but when he is a called upon to do it because of how much he did in the preseason, he’s more comfortable and he’s feeling good going into the year. I’m sure it has a lot to do with that as well. But I like what we saw from Assar. I hope they continue to give him the ball. JB said they that’s something they want to do more of this year multiple times at media day. He’s done it in multiple practices and after this game. So, I think it is going to be a heavy emphasis for this team. They get Asar the ball in his hands. We talked about this during the live watch stream um that like it kind of looked like a sar ot how fast they were going off of misses even makes defensive like they were getting shots up in like less than six seven seconds on the shot clock. I have one clip I downloaded uh that you know Steu had a post up score with 18 seconds left on the shot clock like like they got the ball up so quick and he got a post up hook shot with third with 18 seconds left on the shot clock. They were just moving fast as ever. Um, and I think that suits a lot of the players play style. I think that’s going to make them a lot more explosive, especially in transition, obviously. Yeah. And I think that that’s that’s clearly the identity when they went out and got Carris Levert. Like that was my first thought. One, he is really good in transition. If you just take a look at like the numbers and how his team performed in transition when he’s on the court versus off the court, like there is a pretty a pretty real trend that he is boosting his team’s transition attacks. And you know, last year he started to well he started to round out his game a bit more and turn himself into like a more full-fledged kind of like real player, real role player. I felt like um and this year like there’s clearly an emphasis obviously on like you said going fast which is clear and that goes back to last season as well. But just grabbing and going like not really thinking about it too much. It’s not it’s not breaking any ground necessarily, but when you have Assar who’s a great positional rebounder and he can grab the ball and just go or Duran if he is able to get to a level where you trust him really to grab and just go. I know he just does it sometimes. Um so clearly the JB trust him with it to to some degree. Um that creates so many matchup issues, man. Like last year I feel like a great example is in the playoff series a lot like Josh Hart was you know he has his ups and downs offensively but I thought late into that series you saw him initiating a lot more offense and a lot of times it was off of transition where he would grab and go and then you know if you’re in transition if you’re trying to get back you can’t necessarily get the matchups you want you’re going to end up crossmatched and so if if working Kade off the ball if if having three or four guys that you trust to grab a rebound and just run the floor, the more likely Kade is to get a matchup that you really want. So, I I like I I think that they are building into that culture like the defense first and create transition. Obviously, you can’t have transition without the Well, I guess you can if you ask the Bulls, but you you can’t have as much transition as you want without the defense. And so, they’re they’re just building into their identity, man. They’re they’re constructing the team that they want to construct. And I’m I think the the pieces fit really well. Do we need more two two-way players? Maybe. Uh potentially yes. Are we one or two of those short? I think quite possibly. But I think otherwise I feel like all these guys complement each other’s play style. So very long first segment. I apologize Nick if you listen to this. David, a very long first segment. We’ll get to the ad break right now. Um coming back. I’m sure all you guys listening will probably really appreciate it. You guys enjoy like the longer segments. But again, sorry Nick. We’ll we’ll get to it coming up. I want to talk about all the other I want to get to all the other preseason takeaways that Matt had from the first game of preseason. and we’ll break it all down coming up. Today’s episode is brought to you by Quo. 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That’s quo.comonmbba. And if you got existing numbers with another service, quote will port them over at no extra charge. That’s quote no missed calls, no missed customers at quote.comonmbba. So, I want to thank you guys again. Make locked on Pistons your first list of every single day. We’re free to develop on all your podcast platforms. If you haven’t already, head to the YouTube channel at Locked On 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. But Matt, let’s get right into it because we did run a little bit long in the first first segment. What were some of your other takeaways from the first game of preseason? Again, we will echo it is the preseason. We’re not doing going too crazy overboard. it’s the first game, like whatever. But I do think that watching throughout preseason, you can pick up on maybe some details or maybe some some ideas of what the team is trying to do or maybe some ideal changes that JB’s trying to test out that he’s wanting to see. Just were there any of those takeaways that you had just from the minimal sample size we got from the first game? Yeah. Uh there were a couple. I think actually the the one that that pops to me now though is Isaiah Stewart. just kind his offensive process is always so interesting to me just because I just kind of expect him to I expected going into last year that he would shoot threes, you know, I expected last year that he would be a space that he would pop and that just um wasn’t really how they utilized him. And in that first preseason game we saw I think he he probably popped on almost every screen I feel like they said or uh and we saw him you know pump fake and drive one which was really nice to see on Jo I think it was on Jo Landale or at least met Joel at the rim. Um, I think that’s how I want to use him personally. I think that that’s kind of the the best way to utilize him, especially when, you know, if he’s sharing the floor with the star and Ron, for example, right? Definitely. Yes. You know, any space that you can get, you want. Um, I get that he’s a good screener and he’s a good rebounder and so it makes sense to use him that way and have him around the rim as much as possible. But, uh, I thought that that was really notable. And I just I thought overall I touched on Steu’s drive, but I just thought that there was kind of like a a stronger drive and kick element than we had last year. And I I mean, I guess that goes back to having the the more ball handling thing. Yeah. I think one of my bigger takeaways I I was going to actually mention that I was going to talk about Stu popping on almost every screen and it feels like Stu, at least not even just Stu himself. I Let’s just remove Stu. It seems like kind of going back to like the idea changes of it seems clear from what we were told at media day and throughout training camp and then watching the first game that they want to play Assar and Ron together this year. They want to have those minutes together. And something I brought up on the podcast over and over was okay well if you play them together I have to assume that you are going to tell ST to pop more. Like you’re going to need spacing on the floor. He’s not going to be able to just keep rolling to the paint. I don’t think you can really play them with Duran. That that would be an experiment. Maybe they try it but I think it’s going to be tough. And then in the first game, I feel like you kind of saw it already like Stu like like you mentioned, Steu was popping on every screen. He was known as or not known, but he was playing as a spacer for them on the floor. And then you played him with Duncan Robinson and Caris Levert. So I feel like just removing the the outcomes of the possessions to the side like just removing that. I feel like you can look at that from what we like the lineups decisions. I feel like you can get an understanding of JB’s like, okay, it seems like the idea is they want to play Ron and Assar together, maybe with another ball handler for if those things go sideways, they have a veteran ball handler and like a like a a calming presence. So like if maybe if Assar starts turning the ball over, Ron starts turning the ball or whatever, they have another guy they can go to like, okay, like get us back on track, whatever, that kind of thing. And then they play him with Duncan, who’s their best spacer, so they give him the best spacing possible. and then playing with Steu because Steu is the only other big on the roster that can space out to the three-point line and kind of provide some of that spacing. So, I feel like you got that idea. I I feel like a lot of it was uh I speculated about that quite a bit. I don’t feel like it was rocket science to assume that, but we got to see it play out in the first preseason game. Um, the other thing that I really liked seeing or that maybe not even just really liked, just I I it was it was uh interesting to see was just how like the emphasis there there was on running. Like I I know they talked about it, but like the it it truly felt like they were trying to run even on makes even on makes they were just trying to get the ball out and keep it going and just keep running. And there’s so much talk I this is kind of I guess the angle I want to go with. There’s a lot of talk from a lot of fans in the Pistons community that feel like Kade is bad in transition like and that he just plays too slow. That’s like I feel like that’s completely incorrect and he plays really well into it and he didn’t feel like two different sentences too. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, go ahead. I was I mean playing well in transition versus playing slow. I mean, I don’t think that he’s like I guess I’ll say there are definitely guards that I think are better in transition that than I think Kade is better than like I don’t think that that is necess like when I talk about how you know all the all the best qualities of Kade. Transition isn’t kind of one of the first things that I would say for sure. Not really or one of the things that I would say but I don’t think he’s bad in transition, right? Like he can fill the wing. He can obviously uh make whatever pass that you need him to. Like he’s a he’s a pretty good decision maker in transition. And I think that the finishing thing maybe pops up in transition a little bit more than than some other than it does for some other guards. But I think that the playing slow point makes some sense, but it doesn’t feel like he slows down our transition attack. I think that he plays slow in the half court. Like I think that he is very Yes. You know, he he controls the pace in a way. Um, and he’s very deliberate and a lot of times like he won’t cross the three-point line until there’s like 11 seconds on the shot clock. And that does take that takes me off a little bit. I I just feel like the faster you go like the tougher it is to play defense a lot of the time, right? The more the more that the defense is on their heels, the better um for a number of reasons, but I think that he is pretty slow and deliberate in the half court, but I’ve never considered Tade bad in transition. Sorry to cut you off. No. Yeah, I know. Well, I think you were correct in the way you obviously the way you talked about it like there’s he definitely plays to his own pace within the half court, but he loves pushing in transition, kicking the ball ahead. He does that quite a bit and he loves playmaking in transition. You saw him doing that a little bit in this first preseason game. So, it feels like you really just got the sense of what their identity is going to be and how much of an emphasis that is that part of the game is going to be on their identity. I guess the other thing I wanted to ask you about was were you at all like I’m this is another thing I’m going to be interested to watch for throughout preseason. Ivy played quite a bit off ball in this game like even when Kade was off the or he wasn’t on the floor with Kade which I don’t think was very much he wasn’t on the floor a ton without Kade. Um but just in his minutes that he did play he was off the ball quite a bit. Do you were you shocked by that at all? And do you think that maybe it’s something we could see play out during the preseason? like what like with the as many ball handlers they have, do they try to have him just kind of play into what his strengths are, which as I’ve talked about this a lot, how great he is off ball, catching, shooting, attacking cuts and attacking gaps, I should say. Like, do you feel like that maybe is like a sign of like how they want to use him moving forward or maybe, you know, just did you take anything of that? Did that reach your radar at all from watching the first game? Not a ton because like you said, I think like I see him just kind of as an off guard right now and you hope that he can grow into being able to take a little bit more of that on ball responsibility. Um, and I kind of expect him to I think he’s going to have to at some point. Um, but it didn’t it didn’t shock me a ton. Again, it goes back to our point earlier like it is kind of preseason. It’s his first competitive basketball game in, you know, I don’t exactly know how how many months off the top I had, but a long time. Um, so he’s still getting his legs. You could tell I think that he’s still getting his legs under him. A little bit frantic, a little bit fast, you know, kind of quick quick to quick to drive into some gap help, which is not not I think we might we might have just lost Matt. Matt froze. Matt froze for a minute. All right. If we did lose Matt, I am perfectly capable. You guys know this, I host the podcast every single day. I am capable of going on. That’s a quite the screen uh freeze we got for Matt. We’ll take him off the off the screen. If he comes back, I can bring him up. But we’ll wrap it up there. I just thought I I my to wrap that point up. Uh I am definitely interested to see because they have so many ball handles. We saw so many people handling the ball in that first game. They didn’t have Jaylen Durham. We saw K. We saw S. We saw Ron. We saw Caris. Like we saw so many guy and then obviously Ivy had the ball in hand a little bit. But I feel like I’m just going to be watching for if the Pistons brought in and then obviously Dannis and Sasser whatever like and all those guys aren’t going to play. That that’s not my point. My overall point is is that I am going to be interested to see just how much do they increase the uses of Ivy on ball in preseason or do we start to see maybe are they trying to have him just play to his strengths as he gets back to maybe where they want him to be. Maybe we see him get on ball a little bit more deeper into the season. But I I it’s just a little point I want to watch for the rest of preseason. May I I just want to see how they utilize him within the half court uh throughout the rest of preseason heading into the season. But coming up, I want to talk about the battle for the 10th rotation spot with the Detroit Pistons. There’s been a lot of talk from JB about how deep the rotation is, and I just talked with Dan Jenkins Trainer this last episode. If you haven’t checked that out, we want to talk about the the battle for the tennis rotation spot, who’s in competition with it, and how it could work out. We’ll talk about it coming up. Today’s episode is brought to you by Price Picks. Every day we make decisions, but on Prize Picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don’t miss the excitement of this football season with prize picks when it’s good to be right. Playing prize picks is such a fun, simple way to add more excitement to football. You just pick more or less on player projections like Josh Allen’s passing yards or Saquon Barkley rushing for a touchdown and you’re in the game. I love how quick it is. You can make your lineup in just under a minute. And my favorite part is prize picks just added stack. So if I want to ride with a player, I can select their pass yards, rush yards, and touchdowns all in one lineup. It’s also fun to follow other players in the app and copy their labs with one click. Download the Price Fix app today and use code locked in NBA to get $50 in lamps after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code locked in NBA for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup price picks. It’s good to be right. So, I want to thank you guys again. Make locked on pistons your first list of every single day. We are free to 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’s another great way to support the podcast. Matt is still not back. It looks like something might have happened over there. We really got to help Matt out, man. He don’t got to he he doesn’t have a laptop. He’s struggling with the Wi-Fi over there. You know, he power going out. You know, don’t even know how he’s going to watch the Pistons this year. It’s going to be a struggle for Matt over there. We got to help him out somehow. Um but to wrap up the podcast, I want to talk about this tense rotation. about. We’ve talked about it quite a bit over the last few days. Um, but it seems like this is a reoccurring talking point from practices, from quotes, the interviews that we’re seeing with players or not with players, but JB Becker staff how much he’s talked to. Oh, and Matt is back. We can bring him back on stage real quick. Um, welcome back, Matt. We’re we’re going to get you some We’re going to get get you some help at some point. Um uh but anyways, what I was saying was this is a common talking point that we’ve seen from JB Bigger Staff over the last few weeks about this 10th man uh 10th man or not even just the 10th man more so about how deep the roster he feels like it is. So man, I’ll let you you came back. I see I are we now at your oven. Is that is that where we’re at? Are we No, we’re we’re we’re maybe nine inches away from where we were before I had to, you know, plug in the truck. No, fair, fair enough, fair enough. But go ahead. Um, talk about how you feel about the the the depth of this team and do you think there is going to be a battle for the 10th rotation spot? Who do you think’s fighting for that? I think the depth of I guess I’ll just start by saying I think that the depth is like a big positive. Um, I don’t know. Have you talked about the 10th roster? Have you have you introduced the the candidates for the 10th roster spot, so to speak? I have not. I have not yet. We just started. Well, you joined right at the perfect time. Sorry. Oh, okay. Good. Good. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I feel like like our third point guard, I’ll just say I don’t know. I guess I don’t know exactly what you would qualify Marcus Sasser as. But let’s just say it’s third point guard or first point guard that’s out of the rotation, so to speak, like or 10 or, you know, vying for the 10th spot in the rotation. He’s got to be one of the better third point guards in the league or one of the better sort of 10th 11th man point guards in basketball. Um, and then you look at like I think Paul Reed’s got Paul Reed’s probably the best third string center in the league. Uh, or Orlando would have something to say about that, but yeah, like I think the depth is one of our strengths, especially throughout a regular season. And that’s kind of when I uh taking these off when when I was kind of buying, you know, marking out how do I think that the Eastern Conference is going to go, how many games do I think that this team can win? Depth matters a lot in the regular season. Like you’re gonna you’re going to run into obstacles. You’re going to need to to hit the 10th, 11th spot in your rotation. And whether that be one of those two guys, if Javvonte Green has to step up, he’s played like decent minutes sort of in that role or at least based on what you can expect from a guy in that role before. So, I don’t know. I It’s just so It just is so fluid based on who’s playing and who’s not, what who the 10th rotation spots be, I feel like. So, I won’t read this quote from JB talking about the depth of this team. He was specifically talking about Dannis Jenkins and Tou Smith. He says, quote, “I would have confidence putting all of our two-way players into an NBA game. They can help us get that done or we they can help us get something done.” Um, obviously, we saw I I talked with Dan Jenkins uh trainer in this last episode of the podcast. If you guys haven’t checked it out, go check it out. Um, talked with Jeremy Hart. That is he is the assistant coach for SMU and he also obviously is Dan Jenkins trainer. Um, were you impressed from Danis in the first preseason game? Um, I know we’ve talked about how we were impressed with him from summer league. It seems like every time we get to see him, he plays well and continues to get better and better. Would you be shocked at any point if he ends up finding a way to crack that tent spot or do you think it’s just such a long shot for him? It’s highly unlikely to happen. It just feels like one of the It’s nothing negative to Danis to say that I don’t know like I don’t really expect him to get rotation managers for this team this year. I agree with you. He’s he always looked good when I watch him and I can’t say that I’m I’m hawking uh you know Cruz games. I know that there are some people that are, but every time that I’ve seen him throughout summer league or preseason or in the spot minutes that he has gotten in the regular season when, you know, guys are out at the end end of the year, whatever, like he just knows how to play point guard and he just knows how to impact the game and he makes shots and I I agree with with JB like I’d be totally confident if Danis had had to, you know, hold down a 12minute stretch in a game for us. So, I guess the question I want to actually ask ask here is, do we think there’s going to be a 10th rotation spot? Because JB throughout his career has went to nineman rotations. Even this past season with the Piston, I know there was times where he played 10 guys, but either one uh either in one he just didn’t play 10 guys or two, usually the 10th guy maybe played like eight minutes and a half and then that was it. So, like it wasn’t like it was something that they loved doing as much. It’s not something he’s loved doing throughout his entire career. Again, I I I’ve said this before, things can change when the depth of your team gets so crazy that obviously that changes things. Do you actually think there’s going to be a 10th rotation spot or do you think we’re going to see basically a nineman rotation? I think in the regular season in the NBA, if you can afford, if you have 10 playable players, if you can afford to go deeper, you should always go deeper to me. Uh just be I mean, it just feels like basketball at this point, man. By the time the playoffs roll around, I mean, who’s healthy and who’s not? Like, it it feels like that is, you know, 40% of the series, 35% of the series. It’s it’s in a it’s a it’s a war of attrition. It’s 82 games. I’ve I know I’ve sent coup the the graph of, you know, players run an extra mile every game compared to how how much they ran, you know, 15 years ago and the pace is only going up and teams just watch the Pacers make it to the finals and the Thunder make it to the final. I I think that you should you should really be trying to like squeeze every ounce of depth as you can uh in the regular season. Get, you know, if if Kade plays 32 minutes instead of 36 minutes and I those are bad uh figures, but if Kade plays 32 minutes instead of 36 minutes a night and it cost us one or two wins, like you you I pro I’d deal with that if if I can just Hey, like he’ll be he’ll be fresher than Jaylen Brunson is, you know, when it’s playoff time. All right. So, to wrap it up, who is your if you had to pick one player to be that 10th rotation spot more the most consistently throughout the season, is it Marcus Sasser? I think it’s Paul Reed. Oh my. Okay. How do you think that works? How it works is tough. All right. So, one, Jaylen Duran, I think, led the league in fouls per possession last year. Like fouls per 36. Uh, but he led he fouled a lot essentially. We know Isaiah Stewart prone to missing a game here or there for really any number of reasons. Prone to starting out here there. I thought you were talking about I I was about to say I talked about him being injured quite a bit the last few years to be honest, but then I realized you were really you really talking about potentially, you know, telling someone we want to meet him in the locker room. I mean, it happens. It happens. You don’t get Isaiah Stewart for the 78 games if he doesn’t get thrown out of four, you know. So, I I like I think And I think Paul Reed’s pretty good, man. He uh he Nobody in basketball created more turnovers than he did on a per possession basis last season. He I mean, he just plays with so much damn energy, dude. And it it shines on both ends of the floor. LA yesterday. I mean, he was doing some decision- making. He was He’s running his handoffs, throwing, you know, uh back door passes. He likes he likes to put it on the deck a little bit. He trusts himself to do that probably more than anybody else trust him to do that. But I mean, he’s he’s an animal on the board. He he’ll get outrebounded by he’ll get out he’ll just get outmatched sometimes. There are other centers that could just outmatch him physically. He doesn’t bring as much to the table as a lot of NBA centers do, but I mean he just has so much dog um so much hustle creates those turnovers. Man, I can I mean, we talk about all the time these these random Paul Reed blitzing blitzes and roll. I feel like it creates a turnover every other time. And like Ty Ger is just like a half court like what just happened? Um I think I I think he should play like he he earned minutes last year. Hell, we had to we had to rely on him in the play come playoff time, right? Like I he’s the guy that I think that because of who the two players are in front of him, he’s the most likely that we’ll need to like play super high leverage minutes. And so I think that you just you just keep that engine running as much as you can. Yeah, it’ll be interesting. I think I think this is the year at least it should be the year it’s Marcus Sasser. Sasser should be consistently in the rotation if he wants to carve himself out NBA career. Um he we know he’s a good shot career. We know he can get get to his spots. We know he can score the ball. But if he’s not at this point where if he’s not at this point developed in the other areas to where the Pistons trust him to be that consistent 10th guy and create minutes for him in a rotation, I think that says something about his future with the Pistons and his future in the league really. So, I I feel like it has to be this year with Sasser um for him. I know that’s something he’s talked about a lot that he wants to be a part of a consistent rotation. That’s where he wants to get to. Um so, if it doesn’t happen for the Pistons, I think he could be a prime candidate to be traded. Um but Paul, look, Paul Reed, I can’t disagree with you. Paul Reed impacts the game every time he comes onto the floor. I just question how much he’s actually going to get to be on the floor with the two guys in front of him. But like you said, Durank gets in foul trouble and we know Steu, like you said, Stu is Stu. So, um, we’ll see what happens, but we’ll wrap it up there. Appreciate you guys making Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. We’re free to all your podcast platforms. If anyone wants to, you know, has a spare laptop hanging around that they want to send to Matt. Uh, we’ll we’ll Yeah, DM Matt over on Twitter, Griff1. He’ll give you his address, whatever. Don’t stalk him or anything, but he’ll send you can send it you can send it out to him, whatever. Help him out because right now it’s it’s a struggle for my for my guy Matt right now. We might have to give him some Wi-Fi, too. It’s just it’s just not it’s just all bad. Good, man. I was I’ve been connected strong all day. Uh haven’t had any problems on the Xbox with the Wi-Fi. We’re we’re good in that department. We we made it’s you know it’s you know it’s bad for him when he says yeah we have no problems all day today like that that’s like a that’s like a rare occurrence. So but like I said appreciate you guys make lockdown pisses your first listen. We’ll catch you guys later. Thank you guys. Appreciate all of you. Until next time, I will see you guys later. Peace out everybody.

Ausar Thompson’s on-ball role expands. Is this the game-changer the DETROIT PISTONS need?

Ku Khahil and Matt Griffin dissect the Pistons’ evolving offensive strategy, focusing on Thompson’s increased ball-handling duties alongside Cade Cunningham. The duo analyzes key takeaways from the first preseason game, including Isaiah Stewart’s three-point shooting and the team’s emphasis on pace. They debate the 10th rotation spot, weighing Marcus Sasser’s potential against Paul Reed’s defensive impact, while considering Jalen Duren’s foul trouble and the implications for roster management in the long NBA season.

Tune in for expert insights on how these developments could reshape the DETROIT PISTONS’ fortunes in the upcoming NBA season.

SUBSTACK: kukhahil.substack.com

PLAYBACK: playback.tv/watchpistons

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