Former Piston Could Return?! + Exciting Prospect Re-Signs 👀 | Pistons Jack Reacts

Former Piston Could Return?! + Exciting Prospect Re-Signs 👀 | Pistons Jack Reacts

Welcome back to the Pistons Jack YouTube channel. On today’s episode, we’ll talk about the Pistons newest signing. We’ll also touch on a former Detroit Piston that could be returning to the Motor City. And finally, we’ll touch on Caris Levert’s first press conference as a Detroit Piston. So, let’s get to it. [Music] All right, first things first. Let’s get straight in to the first piece of real news for the day. And per Keith Smith of Spot Track, Keith Smith NBA on Twitter, the Detroit Pistons have resigned Dannis Jenkins for the upcoming season on a twoway deal. So Dannis was actually a free agent, which uh this was something I figured out in the past week or two weeks. Whenever the Pistons recently signed Colby Jones, that’s when I became aware that oh wait, Danis actually wasn’t signed for this upcoming season. So Dennis Jenkins though there was some conversation about will he be on the main roster because the Pistons still have two roster spots to fill but it looks like at least for right now he is going to be playing once again on a two-way contract for the Detroit Pistons this upcoming season. And I mean this is very much deserved. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Dannis signed a regular contract and was the 14th or 15th man on this team. Uh just to very briefly recap, uh Dannis last season was the best player on the Motor City Cruise. In the games he played for the G- League team, he averaged 22 points and seven assists. And then he was one of the absolute standouts at Summer League, not just for the Pistons, but in the entire tournament itself. Uh, I’ve heard plenty of national media uh mention his name and talk about him uh as a guy that could and probably should be on an NBA roster on a on a a regular NBA deal. But in the first four games of summer league, he averaged 17 points, seven assists, had a 20point first half against the Houston Rockets. I think he shot like well over 40% from three. Um I don’t have those numbers in front of me, but he was incredibly efficient. And the in the fifth game, those numbers for every player brought down their averages. That’s why I’m not including them because every player only played a half. But he was magnificent in those first four games. And uh you know, I’m not sure how it works exactly with two-way players um once they signed this deal. Like I do wonder if they can still wave Darmus and then sign him to a regular deal in training camp. But for the time being, he’s a two-way player, and to my knowledge, that is what he will be for the upcoming season, which is an incredible value get for the Pistons to have him on a two-way deal. Um, so shout out to him. I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise he’s back, but it’s official now. He will be on a two-way contract, and he’s with the Detroit Pistons. Uh, just to round out this segment here. Uh, so that now leaves the Pistons, and I’ve checked this on spot track. So, these are the three contracted players on two-way deals. Colobby Jones, who we spoke about a couple of weeks ago. You can go and watch my video on that. Um, Dennis Jenkins, obviously, and Tou Smith. Now, I tried to do some digging around, but I I’m pretty sure Spottrack they had Dennis Jenkins as a free agent prior to today. So, he’s now signed and Tou has been signed the whole time for the upcoming season. So, believe that is the three two-way players. But moving on, let’s move to some more uh betting odds. And NBA Central generated some buzz around the Pistons in Cam Thomas a couple of weeks ago with these odds. And this time the Pistons, once again, this was a few days ago. This came up for me. And I probably should apologize. Sorry for the lack of videos last week. I was not at home in my normal kind of setup here as you can see. and the lighting just was pretty bad and it just wasn’t great for recording videos. So, we’re catching up on some topics here. But, I did come across a few days ago, I woke up and similar to how I woke up to the Cam Thomas news, I woke up to Chris Middleton rumors to the Pistons and I was like, “What? He’s on the Wizards. I’m pretty sure he’s contracted. He’s not a free agent.” Uh so as you can see on the right here uh NBA Central tweeted this out and they had the Pistons as the second most likely team per bvada official to be uh a Detroit Piston. And I still thought, well, I looked up Chris Pton still hasn’t been bought out, but after doing some digging on some Washington Wizards blogs and sites, it sounds like Middleton, after picking up his $33.3 million uh player option, that the Wizards, they are trying to trade him, but it’s more likely they’re going to buy him out. And the Phoenix Suns are the current favorite uh because they lost Kevin Durant, because they lost Bradley Bill. I know they got Jaylen Green. I know they got um Dylan Brooks, but um they could use some more help at the forward position, which is where Middleton played last season. And I just want to spend a minute I don’t want to spend too much longer on this, but a minute um theorizing what Middleton could look like on the Pistons and how it could work. Obviously, if Middleton is bought out, he’s an unrestricted free agent, which means the Pistons could sign into a vet minimum or they could use their by annual exception of $5.1 million. That’s how they can acquire him. Or they could technically trade for him for him right now, but um with the Wizards, but that’s not going to happen. Uh that’s how they can acquire him. Chris Middleton, the player. So, this has got me intrigued. I went and looked up and I was like, where did he play? Because he was a true small forward and even more of a shooting guard earlier in his career, but with where he’s at athletically at 34 years old in the injuries, uh he’s definitely a pure forward now. And last season in 23 minutes a game he played 48% of his minutes at small forward and then 52 at power forward. And we know the Pistons are missing a backup four. And look, I think we all hope Bobby Clintman can get there, but I think Bobby uh is still, you know, a work in progress when it comes to being a backup four on a true playoff team like we all expect the Pistons to be. Now Chris Middleton, they’ve played a lot of backup four last year. He was still, like I said, in 23 minutes a night, uh, he only played 30 something games last season for the Bucks and Wizards, but he averaged 12 points, four rebounds, four assists, and still did so. Won 48% from the field, 36% from three, and he’s always been a good free shoot free throw shooter at 85%. So, in theory, I think whether he goes to the Suns or or Pistons, if he does become an unrestricted free agent, like I think he’s coming off the bench, even for teams like on the right, you can see the Lakers, I’m pretty sure he’d come off the bench. Um, I think all of those teams there, for the most part, he would be a bench piece. Uh, not Yeah, he would be definitely for the Bucks. So, uh, you know, I think the Pistons could say we could give you a decent role here. Uh but I and I think he would fill the backup four not badly. But uh as we discussed on the the live stream on Saturday, I do now just think that these last two roster spots, I think the Pistons are just going to keep one of them free like they did last year for more flexibility at the trade deadline. And then I think that 14th roster spot, I think they are holding that. This is pure I don’t have sources guys but pure pure guessing game for me but I truly think maybe they are holding that out and hope that if Malik Beasley this situation is cleared with the gambling incident and he’s um innocent that they could sign him. Um I think that maybe why they’re keeping it open because I don’t really know why else. Um but I don’t suspect we’ll see much happen with the Pistons roster in the next few weeks. uh because I believe a lot of the basketball ops side of things are currently away and on leave. So obviously the NBA is always moving, but we we’ll see. I do think just with the backup power forward thing as well um that those minutes I truly think they’re going to try and give those to Ron like for him to go because I don’t think there’s many minutes uh for Ron definitely at the the backup like he is I guess in theory the backup three behind Assar but obviously Assar you want him playing 28 minutes so um to 32 so I think for Ron to go from his 15 minutes a game to low 20s mid 20s a lot of those extra minutes are going to come at the backup four. So, I do suspect that’s what they’re going to do early on. And then if Ron for some reason isn’t fulfilling those minutes or isn’t up to playing back up four minutes, then I think that’s where they could pivot early in the season to go grab a player there. But that’s my thoughts on it. Chris Middleton, like in theory, I could see it working, but I think it would take away from Ron’s minutes expanding and um yeah, I just I don’t think it’s going to happen. But wanted to bring that one up. And then we’re going to round it out here with uh some comments from Caris Levert, newest Detroit Piston. I Caris Levert, like we’ve heard from Duncan Robinson at summer league. We saw Duncan Robinson at summer league. Um but we haven’t really seen or heard anything from Caris Levert at all. I don’t even think he posted anything on Instagram about being a Piston. Uh it seems like he’s just been off social media and all that kind of thing, which good on him. That’s what he should do in the offseason. Um, but we finally heard from him and saw him at the Pistons facility. Uh, last week he was there to do a press conference or introductory. It was kind of a pretty casual one, like it wasn’t televised or it was just a bunch of uh the beat reporters surrounding him at the facility, but uh, a couple of comments stood out here. Um, shout out to Hunter Patterson of The Athletic. This is one from his article. But on the right here, you can see I like these comments from Caris Levert. He said, “JB brought out a different part of my game, and I’ve always said that. Once I went to Cleveland, I was asked to play defense,” Levert said with a laugh as he addressed local reporters at the Pistons practice facility. “Before then, I wasn’t really asked to play defense, and I think that’s one of the stronger parts of my game now. Those things really helped me take my game to the next level. Before I went to Cleveland and played under JB, I was a different player, and I think he challenged me to be a more well well-rounded player that player I am today. So, I definitely looking forward to this time around. So, um, apologies for my poor reading there, but I found that very interesting because I think we all forget that Caris played under JB for two full seasons. Uh, and I think in his first season with the Cavs, he was traded there midway through the season. But in two full seasons under JBustaf in 29 minutes, he came off the bench most nights and put up 134 and four, a steal, 43% from the field, 36% from three. Um, which pretty much is in line with what he did last year. the numbers are just slightly down last year because of the lesser minutes. But um it really stood out to me the defensive side of the ball because I think that’s where Carris Levert whilst fans are worried about the shooting leaving with Beasley and THJ um I think what you are getting with Levert is more size, more shot creation, but more defense. Uh Levert, I’m not going to say he’s an elite wing defender, but I think especially coming off the bench, he’s a really good uh perimeter defender. He’s 66 67, good wingspan, decent athlete. Um, you know, definitely not like a saw or Ron as an athlete, but I think, um, just good size. He’s been in the league now for a while. And I think the other thing I didn’t realize, um, and this was mentioned in the article, but Trajan was actually the assistant jam of the Nets all the way back in 2017 when they drafted Carris Levert. So, I think maybe I we shouldn’t have been surprised by this signing. I mean JB with the ties in Cleveland and Traan was a part of the front office that selected him. So um Caris Levert like I I think he’s going to help this team. I think him and Duncan Robinson are probably both kind of underrated signings for the Pistons. I do agree with fans who say we lost a lot of shooting with THJ and Beasley, but I do think Duncan Robinson helps replace a fair bit of that. And then I also think Caris, if he can maintain how he shot the ball last year at around 37%, I think um that that will go a long way to helping replace that offensive punch we had with those two former Pistons. Um but I think defensively and just the size overall, I’ve spoken about this a lot, but Duncan Robinson’s like 67 68 as well. I know he will get targeted defensively, but um I think just being bigger overall is going to help because at times in the playoffs I just against the Knicks, especially on the perimeter on the wings when Assar was off the court, um Ron didn’t feature much in the playoffs outside of a little cameo here and there like we just felt a bit undersized with Ta Bees um out on the wing especially when it would be like Cade Schroeda and Beasley like you’re just a little bit small Um, so getting Levert, getting Robinson just a bit more height. Um, and then Levert, who I think is a a slightly above average defender, I think that’s really exciting. And I love these comments about JB just challenging everyone, like challenging not only Caris, but I feel like he’s challenged a lot of the Pistons to be two-way players. Uh you if you go back and listen to a lot of Pistons podcasts and even probably myself, if you go back to the YouTube channel previewing last season, everyone was concerned about the defensive end of defensive side of the ball for the team we had and JB had them as one of the best defenses for at least a third of the season in January through March. Um so he has an ability to bring out the best particular on defensive side of the ball. So even for someone like Duncan Robinson, let’s let’s see what he can do there. I know Duncan played under Eric Bolster who’s arguably the best coach in the game, but uh we we’ll see. We’ll see. But uh JB is definitely a guy that’s going to get the most out of his roster and Caris has only backed that up. So let me know your thoughts whether on Caris Levert, Chris Middleton to the Pistons, or even some thoughts on Dannis Jenkins. But we’ll be back tomorrow with another video. We are going to be back to normal programming over on the channel. So I appreciate you sticking with me. Appreciate all the new subscribers. But as always, go Pistons. [Music]

In today’s episode of Pistons Jack Reacts, we break down the latest roster news out of Detroit:

– The Pistons have re-signed exciting Summer League standout Daniss Jenkins to a two-way deal for the upcoming season.

– Betting odds suggest that Khris Middleton could make a return to Detroit if bought out by the Wizards — would this move actually make sense?

– Plus, Caris LeVert opened up about joining the Pistons and why he believes this group is ready to take a leap with JB Bickerstaff at the helm.

Let me know what YOU think about all this movement — would you want to see Middleton in a Pistons jersey again?

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