Are the Detroit Pistons Ready To Take A Leap? | The Hoop Collective

Are the Detroit Pistons Ready To Take A Leap? | The Hoop Collective

Part of that is like the lack of a juggernaut in the East, right? I mean, I think we’d all agree it’s wide open in a sense. So, and and not just that, my my general question is, and I don’t know if you were going here, Wendy, but there’s no second tier or defined tier 2 in the Eastern Conference where you were talking about, well, how does Milwaukee look? How does Cleveland, I mean, not Cleveland, how does uh Chicago look? How does Philly look? How does Detroit look? Sure. Like there’s no defined team that’s behind Cleveland in New York as like, okay, this is who’s chasing those teams. To me, that’s what makes the next two and a half months really interesting in the Eastern Conference because Milwaukee doesn’t have the assets to make a move. Like they’re up against the Second Apron, right? If you are one of those teams, if you are say maybe the Detroit Pistons, and I’m not saying it’s because it’s everything else. No, no, but but just in general, if you are a team that has the assets, the picks, the players to go and make an impactful personnel move because you see an opening because you’re not afraid of Cleveland and New York. One of those teams is going to step up. Like the rosters that we see now are not not going to be the rosters that we see come the trade deadline. Like let’s say Orlando gets their stuff together. Atlanta’s a team to watch. That’s because of the Trey Young stuff. But if you are a team like Detroit, do you say, you know what, let’s call Danny A and see and see if we can get Danny A on the phone and see what it would take. It would take everything, right? Because Danny Angel is going to rob you, right? But what would it take for Li marketing? All right. See, Slater, we were having a nice little early season podcast. Yes. And did I do something? No. No. Vinnie just He deadlined it up. No, he just he poured some uh he he’s like, “Listen, we’re going to we’re going to downshift.” Yes. Yes. This is not the first time I’ve had this conversation. Um could Detroit Okay, so first off, Detroit is six and two. um and not playing well offensively. Kade is is his numbers are ordinary. I mean, they’re good, but they’re like ordinary. Jaden Ivy’s not really doing much. Um he’s not playing yet. Yeah, Jaylen Duran and uh and Isaiah Stewart are having some games. Um but they’re six and two. Um and they kind of have to look around and say what you say what what you just said. And like it’s not the first time it’s been raised to me. They control their draft picks, right? Um they’ve got tradable contracts on their roster. Um you know, the uh for example, the Duncan Robinson contract was, you know, they they signed him, you know, it was a it was a sign and trade maneuver. It was an effort to to fill in some of their three-point shooting loss. I mean, but that contract was signed to be able to be used in a trade after December. It was basically a quiet quiet version of the Kaminga contract, right? I mean, it’s not not as much bluster, but kind of the same tool. Well, it’s it’s I it’s a contract that, you know, that I don’t think I’ve ever really seen before, which is that I mean, maybe it’s happened before, but it’s um it’s it was three years and like 45 million, but only the first year was guaranteed. Mhm. You very rarely I mean you see some big non-G guarantees out there but you rarely see only the first year of a three-year contract that level be guaranteed and then of course and by the way I think with I don’t want to Tobias Harris is a similar deal. Yeah. Tobias Harris I don’t want to like say like oh yeah yeah just trade him because he plays an important role there. He’s really helped them. But right real talk Tobias Harris on an expiring $26 million contract. If you want to talk about something that might happen you know you talk about that. Also, the contract they signed Caris Levert to in the summer. It was a two-year contract if they had to. Very tradable. So, you know, Tjan Langden and Dennis Lindseay like they think this team might be able to do something. But if you’re looking for a team that can that can that might be sniffing, Detroit’s on the list. And so now you’re bringing it up on November 6, Vinnie. So like uh you know but but I’m I’m in agreement with you. I’m in agreement with you. I I think in the last two fourth quarters K Cunningham in Memphis and last night home in Utah. So take it with a grain. 19 in the fourth quarter in both games. Like he’s he the overall numbers he got to a slow start especially shooting. But that whole clutch thing and recognizing oh a game is here for the taking. I’m going to take it. like that is an element that of maturity that you’re seeing in him and he’s doing this without a second guy. Like Duncan Robinson is shooting 40 from three but on very low volume relative to today’s game just because he’s older and can’t get to the open shots the way that he that he needs to. And their defense I think is really really you know really good. You can play bigger now in today’s NBA. Like you can play Jaylen Duran and Isaiah Stewart together and you know Ron Holland and Assar Thompson Assar Thompson. I think guys we’re we’re we’re going to be seeing something here. We can pay a lot of attention to Amen Thompson, but Assar Thompson ain’t far behind. But I think there’s a way there’s a world for them to keep the Assar Thompsons of the world and the Ron Hollands of the world and to get a bonafide second score that can aid Kade Cunningham. And the question you just generally have to ask K Cunningham and not just K not K Cunningham Tan Langden and JB Bicker Staff and owner Tom Gores is are you happy with the internal growth from everybody and maybe get to the second round this year or do you want to go for it because you are looking at the East and saying this is for the taking. Should maybe ask Kate Cuttingham too. He’s probably rising to that level where he should I manage. It’s kind of comparable. I mean, I Orlando Orlando doesn’t have a player like Cade. They don’t have an AllNBA. Well, I don’t know. Well, Paulo’s supposed to be that. Okay. Okay. Let me take a step back. They might. Cade has proven to be a I think a cut above Paulo. I think Paulo can get there, but Orlando had this same sort of set of circumstances and they went out and got Desmond Bane. Now, they like Desmond Bane because he they liked how he fits. By the way, Orlando’s off to a very rough start. they are they are getting no offense. We’ll talk about them at a later time, but um uh Orlando had the same sort of circumstances and they they were like, “Okay, we’re going to go get a guy that we think matches with our group of players.” You know, they’ve got Palos signed long term. They’ve got Fran Vagner signed long terms. They’ve got Jaylen Suggs signed long terms. They go, “Let’s go get a guy who signed long term, who fits our group and does that.” And so I think Detroit like I don’t think like what you’re saying I don’t think you go rent a player. No. You know you you’re not going to go say hey let’s try to do this in 25 26 necessarily. But if you can find a player that you think fits next to Cade and next to to Duran and uh you know those young guys you know today is not the day where this would happen but this is a conversation that other people are going to be having. I think let’s put it this way. This is a conversation that Vinnie brought up that smart people in the NBA are having and and I’m not that smart. It wasn’t me. Like somebody who I think is really smart said it to me this week. What about Detroit? Could Detroit get, you know, you know what what should happen? Detroit should go for player X, which I ain’t going to say right now because I ain’t looking for aggregation. But is player is player X a pretty spicy name? Would it? No. No, it’s not a spicy name. It’s a name like Desmond Bane who you didn’t necessarily see being traded but would would fit and you know would fit with them. So like because you know we didn’t see Bane getting traded that came kind of came out of nowhere. Um and they paid a premium. Well Detroit’s in position where they could pay a premium and but because they’re in good position on the aprons and because they control all their assets and they got expirings they can do they could do something like that. But you just had a you just Hey, Slater. Yeah, Vinnie is a verified ESPN guy now because he had a sit down interview. He had a sitdown interview with Kade Cunningham. That’s cute. Tell us about it. Oh, well, I mean, I guess that was a segway. No, he’s he’s not quite certified ESPN yet. That was that was the promote it with. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s that’s a new thing. Um No, few days ago now, but No. Yeah, it it came a few days ago. I did the sit down like a couple weeks ago actually. So, it kind of left it w it was uh one of those weird sit around for four hours days. It was it was a day that a bunch of rallies were being held nationwide. I’m not sure if y’all remember that day. A lot of a lot of a lot of things were held that day. The head coach of the team I primarily cover went to uh one of those. One of the questions that I posed to K Cunningham, and I don’t know if it made the final cut, so maybe this whole thing can be repurposed, but I asked him like, “Hey, you’re not happy being one of the most improved guys in the league.” He’s like, he’s like, “It’s not beneath me, but I’m consider myself somebody who should be in the conversation for MVP.” Like, I’m not shy, you know, to say that. And I think when you look at this guy in his pedigree, number one pick, only worked out for one team going into that draft, you know, the the Kevin Durant, the LeBron’s, the Steph Curry, they’ve all given him the certified stamp. Like he is of a pedigree in a way that we don’t see guys being of of pedigree anymore. Like homegrown American-born players, like that sort of thing doesn’t really exist as much anymore. And I think he I will say this guys and you guys see if you guys rock with me on this one. Players of today’s generation who come up through the AAOU program are by and large so exhausted that they don’t want to be team leaders and franchise guys when they come to the NBA. There’s so it’s too much basketball. It’s too much of the system. I think that’s kind of why you see the Johns, the Zion Williamson sort of are just out of nowhere burned out. Cade has like this diplomat element to him where he understands I’m the franchise guy. Everything revolves around me. Not in like an arrogant way. Oklahoma State. Got to be Oklahoma State. Maybe that’s what it is. Them Cowboys, right? The only problems from Kade is that he’s from Dallas. Like that’s the only issue with Kade is that he’s a Dallas guy and he’s a Cowboys fan. Like that’s that’s the only thing. Other than that, he fits the profile of everything that we say we want out of an NBA superstar. Go to college for a year, take your team to the tournament, go to a bad franchise, lift them up year after year and get there. And he’s kind of on this trajectory where I mean he’s he’s if you think about him in the mode of a Shay or Luca Dantis in terms of big guard, volume, can dominate a game from a bunch of different ways. He’s in that category. Maybe not at that level, but he’s at that category now. Improving significantly, too. Um I I would am not ashamed to admit I really watch the NBA through a Western Conference lens. Um and I tuned into two Pistons games. Coastal Elites. There we go. Yes. Um, I tuned into two Pistons games recently, not because of the Pistons, um, but they were in Mexico City facing the Mavericks, and I wanted to see this situation in Dallas, which I think Windor is probably you got you got a segment maybe coming up on the on the Mavericks game. You guys don’t don’t be getting ahead on the rundown here, okay? This is all organic. Nothing is talked about beforehand. This is just we just have all this information ready at our fingertips. So, don’t pull back the curtain. you know, I watched them, you know, close out the Mavericks in Mexico City. It was like a late night game. And then I want to see what’s going on in Memphis. It was it was Jaws first game post suspension. And so I’m tuning into the fourth quarter to just see the Jaws situation that, you know, that’s why I’m watching the game. And and within that game, I think it was like a a pretty fascinating juosition of two teams and two star guards going in opposite directions is like, you know, that fourth quarter was going on. You just kind of just feel the Jarant era in a lot of ways slipping and within that they were it was slipping that night because Kade Cuttingham just seemed so stable, you know, and and so on the rise and just like in control of his team and his franchise and his situation. And again, I’m watching this because I’m trying to watch a franchise that it feels like it’s it’s kind of going the opposite direction and and just within that, you’re like, man, like I’m just like, wow, Cade looks unbelievable in this fourth. And it’s not this stat line that we’re all going to talk about the next day, but it’s just you can see where it’s going and you can see it’s going that way because of that. It’s control. That’s what you see. You see the control.

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