Who is Detroit’s X-Factor for Next Season, Could Malik Beasley Return to the Pistons? | Podcast
On this week’s edition of the Palace of Pistons podcast, who is Detroit’s X Factor heading into next season at the Pistons look to make a major leap? Also, could Malik Beasley find his way back on the Detroit Pistons before the season starts? And lastly, we talk about a recent free agent that just signed elsewhere that would have been an ideal fit in Detroit. All of that and more on this week’s edition of the Palace of Pistons podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook and Leaf. Let’s get it. Good evening everybody and welcome to another exciting night of NBA basketball. The Pistons are digging in. They got the depth. They got the big man. They got the better basketball team. No doubt about it. Pistons need a three and they have just under 3 seconds to do it. Here’s Tony Phillips. Here it is. He’s got it. He’s got it. B hits the three. Overtime. Amazing. Detroit basketball. [Music] [Applause] All right, and welcome back to another edition of the Palace of Pistons podcast brought to you by FanDuel here on the Believe Network. I am your host, Aaron Johnson. Joining me this week is Jasper Appalonia. And Jasper, before we waste any time, like obviously we want you as you get on the show this week, we want you to go over to our Substack and subscribe to palace pistons.com. The link to do that is in our show notes wherever you’re watching or listening from. Obviously, we want you to hit the subscribe button. We want you to hit the follow button. We want you to leave a fivestar review wherever you’re watching or listening to the show on right now. We want you to do all those things. We want you to comment throughout the show, okay? We’re going to talk about Detroit’s X Factor this upcoming season. We’ve got to talk about a couple other topics as well. We want to know your thoughts. We want to know what everyone’s thinking. So, make sure to follow along. Help us out uh with with what everyone’s thinking as the show is going. We definitely want to be able to read comments and read what the people have to say. But, I don’t want to waste any other time talking about anything else. I want to get right into this because we want to hit on a couple things this week. We want to do it in a timely fashion. The first thing that I want to start with is this upcoming season for the Detroit Pistons. You look at this team and I would say that overall it is very much similar to the roster that it was last year. Uh it’s young core has remained throughout the off season. None of the, you know, whatever you want to call it, core four, core five, core six, whatever. All of those guys remain. They’ve made a couple changes, uh, you know, when we’re talking about role players and things like that, but this is pretty much the same group. And some of the stuff that we’ve talked about with this Detroit Pistons team this off season is if they’re going to take the next step, there is going to have to be someone or maybe multiple someone’s internally that take a major leap in their in their abilities, in their skills, and they go from being, you know, no longer just a good young prospect to a major high impact winning player. player that can really elevate this team and become kind of that maybe co-starish level player to Kade Cunningham. Maybe his his number two is number three guy. So, that being said, there’s there’s an X factor on this team somewhere. There’s there has to be if they’re going to take the next step in in this upcoming season, who would be your X factor on the Pistons roster right now that kind of would really unlock everything for Detroit and and hitting stride as a team? Uh who unlocks that for them? Well, Aaron, first off, uh if I was a betting man, uh I I would have to say for me, Jaden Ivy is the player that is the biggest X factor for the Pistons this upcoming season. And I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. There are like four or five different guys that if you were to say in response that weren’t Jaden Ivy, that I’d be like, “Yeah, that’s totally legitimate as well.” um you know this is a really young team and this is a team you said that has maintained the majority of it of its core but they have made some some big changes in their role players with Duncan Robinson and Caris Levert those are two guys I considered but at the end of the day I think it has to be Jaden Ivy and really it comes down to what we saw last year uh in the playoffs in particular and I think the Detroit Pistons would agree with me on this. Uh, they believe that they would have won that Knicks series had Jaden Ivy been on the court for them. Uh, I don’t know if they would have. I I I don’t know for sure. I think they would have had a much better chance with him or Isaiah Stewart in the fold. But for me, I just look at this roster and particularly when it comes to playmaking behind Kate Cunningham. There is some secondary playmaking there, but there really isn’t that true set it and forget it second guard, that real shooting guard. Right, Jasper, I think you’re on to something there, and I think our friends over at FanDuel would agree with you. When you look at the NBA’s most improved player award, uh, winners, and you look at who are the favorites to win that award, well, Jaden Ivy is not the number one favorite across the NBA, but he is within the top 10 and he is the Piston with the best odds on FanDuel sports book to win the NBA’s most improved player of the year award at plus 2,000. And so if you believe that he is not only a a contender for that award, but he is the X factor of this team, that means you’re getting a guy back into the fold that missed every moment of last season beyond January 1. You’re getting a guy in the fold that we’re not talking about him being a role player type of guy. you’re talking about him being a fringe allstar type player if he’s having that kind of season where he’s up for the NBA’s most improved player of the award because this is a guy that last year was averaging 17 points and four assists per game on 40% shooting from the three-point line showed some really nice improvements to his game. Definitely still room to grow for him looking at, you know, things like taking care of the basketball. you want him to be more of an off or more of a a ball ball capable guard, but if he’s going to take on ball handling responsibilities, you look at his assist to turnover ratio, he’s got to learn to take care of the basketball more, become a more efficient distributor. And then the defense, right? Can he continue to take strides defensively? I think there were some last year, but I still think there has to be some legitimate uh continued growth on that end of the court. But no, I like this. I like this Jaden Ivy idea. keep going. Yeah. I just think for me like he has he’s the one player on this team that if they are going to take that next step um and and I think Jaylen Duran is also maybe a guy you could throw into that discussion as being a borderline allstar level player. And I think that’s what they need from Jaden Ivy this upcoming season. Um, you know, they they need him to be like a CJ McCullum level of player like he was in Portland next to Damen Lillard in order for that offense to really hum like it can. He’s got to up his game. And if he’s giving them the same production he was giving them last year, sure, that’s good. But I think it does cap their ceiling a lot harder than it does for almost any other player. Like, you know, if say Assar Thompson comes out next year and gives you the same level level of production, they’re still going to be a really good team either way. But if Jaden Ivy comes out and gives you the same level of production, I don’t think you can really truly take that next step. Uh, you need somebody who’s going to take a little bit of pressure off of Cade. need somebody who you can stagger minutes for him. Uh, you know, you you can’t have Cade taking on the third largest usage in the NBA year after year after year. You can, but it but it limits you. It limits your roster. It limits what you can do and it limits what basically the the entire ethos of this Pistons organization is right now. It’s a very teamoriented uh structure that they have. Everybody’s got a role to play. And when you look at what Jaden Ivy did last year, was it an improvement from the year before? Most certainly on both ends of the court. But he has to take another step in order for the Pistons to really make that noise in say the top four seeds of the conference this year. If they’re going to get homecourt advantage, he’s got to up his game to something approaching allstar level um production. I I just don’t see any other way around it for Detroit. I think Jaden Ivy is a really good answer there, but I will I will give you mine as well. And and I think you said this kind of when you started when we started talking about it. You can name four guys on this Piston roster and I I wouldn’t be able to disagree with you. I I think this team, you know, when you look at the situation that they’re in, with the number of young guys that they have, with the just ample opportunity that all of these players have to take a major step forward in their careers this upcoming season, I think you could go down the list of this roster and find at least three, if not four guys that I would be very comfortable saying this is Detroit’s X Factor this upcoming season. And for me, that is Assar Thompson. Talked about Jayen Ivy, seventh on FanDuel Sportsbook as we record here on Thursday night in odds for the NBA’s most improved player of the year award at plus 2,000. Well, right behind him at plus 2500 with the eighth best odds is Assar Thompson. And I think that Assar Thompson is the Detroit Pistons X factor because I think at the end of the day when I look at all of Detroit’s young pieces outside of Kate Cunningham and I think about who has the highest ceiling, if everything were to break right for that individual, I think it is Assar Thompson. He is already proving to be one of the most elite defenders in the NBA. We saw it last year in the regular season and we saw in the playoffs just how much of an impact that he made for Detroit and that’s with him being a very flawed offensive player. But I mean I think back to game six of that playoff series and I think we’re going to a game seven had Assar Thompson not followed out in that game. So, I think he has the highest ceiling of any Detroit Piston not named Kate Cunningham. There is so much potential for him to grow. He already has on one side of the floor one of the most complete games in the NBA. But offensively that there’s just an oasis for him to develop. And if he continues to become more comfortable with the ball in his hands, if he can start to get downhill for himself a and make plays finishing at the rim, we know he can play in the dunker spot. Can he play out of the pick and roll a little bit, be a lob finisher? What’s happening with the outside shot? We hear we’ve heard about it this off season that Assar Thompson has been locked in the gym. He has been in there every day. He has been working with Fred Vincent. He is getting very much stronger. That’s one of the big things that uh Trejan Langden talked about when he spoke about Ozar Thompson at the beginning of the July is that he has put on weight. He has put on muscle. He is in great condition. And the other thing that I’ll mention here is Sar Thompson did not have a true off season between his rookie season and his sophomore season. That was because of the blood clot issue that ended his uh his rookie season prematurely and then dragged out through the beginning of his sophomore campaign. So, this is going to be his first opportunity now with NBA experience behind him to have an entire off season to work on his game to evaluate what he did previously in in his in his second season in the league and build upon it and learn from it so that he’s able to come back in a better position in year three. And so for me, if Assar Thompson takes the leap that I think he’s capable of, and and and it could be a situation where, and it’s probably most likely to be a situation where it doesn’t all happen all at once, it rarely ever does for a young player, but I think there are levels that Assar Thompson can climb up. And I think if he takes a big big step this upcoming season, he swings Detroit’s ability to be a four, five, six seed in the Eastern Conference. An Eastern Conference that’s, you know, just to be honest, not all that great. And he turns them into a team that could potentially fight to come out of the conference. And I think in the grand scope of this conversation, it’s not just any one player that’s going to do that for Detroit, it’s going to end up being a combination of Jaden Ivy and Assar Thompson and Jaylen Dur, all these guys taking a leap. And that’s why I said at the top of this, and you said it as well, you could go out here and find three, four guys on Detroit’s roster and say they’re the X-actor uh for how far this team can go next season. I I think you hit on it right there, Aaron, because for everything both of us have said, if somebody came in here and was to be like, “Yeah, but you know, if Jaylen Duran takes a big leap defensively, that’s also the X factor.” And I’d be like, “Yeah, totally totally legitimate.” If Ron Holland becomes, you know, what he looked like in the summer league, which looks like he has the potential to be one of the more dangerous off thebench scorers in the NBA this year, if he can become that, I mean, how much of a leap does Detroit’s bench take from last season? Like, they they had some issues after Jaden Ivy went down with their bench scoring. We said it before, that is why they went after Dennis Shruder. So, like if if Ron Holland becomes a guy who you can put the ball in his hands, you know, on those second units and say, “Hey, go get us some points and he can do that consistently, that makes a gigantic difference.” We saw how much harder it was for the Pistons to score points with Kade off the floor last year. Um, and and I want to touch on, you know, what you said about Assar as well. I think this is really the key to Assar. uh you know, you hear mentioned so often like, yeah, you know, if he just takes that leap like his brother did last year, if he just takes that leap and I don’t think people really realize like statistically speaking how close he and Amen were last year. Uh there are definitely variances, but like Assar actually averaged more points per 36 minutes than Ahmed Thompson did. Um he averaged more than a steel per 36 more than Amen did. Amened like.7 more assists, one more rebound per 36. Uh they shot basically the exact same amount from the floor. Like it’s always really funny to me to have people be like, “Yeah, you know, Ahmed’s shot looks a lot better. He shot 27% from three. Assar shot 23%. Like it doesn’t there’s no difference there. I’m sorry. They there there there’s not really a meaningful. You don’t want either one of them taking a three-pointer for you. No. And like so for me when I hear that stuff I hear it because there was definitely a bigger impact from Amen on the offensive side of the ball. When you look at his playmaking, when you look at his dribbling, I will never disagree with that. That’s how I felt before the draft. I was like, you know, Amed is he’s a ball handler. Assar’s a wing. I still feel the same way. But I think it’s a lot closer than people really realize. And I definitely agree with you. Like if he’s locked in the gym, and I say if, but I know he is because he’s a Thompson twin and that’s just what those kids do. Uh the the the leap he has to make is not as big as some people think it is. and it’s not that hard for him to get there. So, yeah, I think Assar is a great option. And as you we’ve said, like there’s multiple other guys that completely fit into this mold as well. Like I could even hear an argument for somebody saying Carris Levert, like I think Caris Levert is going to be really important for this second unit uh this upcoming season. like he’s going to have to in many ways lead them off of the bench uh in in a very similar manner to what Tobias Harris did for the starting unit last season. So yeah, I I think that’s going to be I mean Duncan Robinson another guy who could say like how do you replace Malik Beasley shooting? Duncan Robinson is going to have to perform. He’s going to have to produce and he’s going to have to stay healthy as well. So tons of tons of good answers for this one. Well, as we move on here, you just brought up a name that I think is worth discussing, and that is Malik Beasley. He’s had a very tumultuous off season. If you’re living under a rock and haven’t heard yet, under investigation by uh the Federal Gambling Association, maybe even the FBI. I’d have to go back and double. I believe it it’s it’s the FBI. Um he’s under investigation for gambling on NBA games and player props. He had a three-year $42 million contract lined up with the Detroit Pistons. That offer was pulled off the table uh shortly after the report came out that Beasley uh was under set investigation. There’s been some other stuff in his personal life related to financial issues that have been brought up. I don’t necessarily want to go into those details. I think at a human level, like no one needs to be dragged in the mud like that. understand some of these things are public knowledge. You can look up things like evictions and things like that. It’s it’s public information. But for the sake of this show, I don’t think that’s something that we need to necessarily spend time on. What I do want to spend time on is this. Malik Beasley was on, I believe, Snapchat the other day taking questions, responding to people and and and he talked about playing basketball again and he said that he is waiting and and working to either come back to the Pistons and play for the Detroit Pistons or that there are other teams that are interested in him that he could play for. So, after hearing those comments, you know, I get texts and whatnot. Oh, it’s Malik Beasley coming back. The Pistons have left two open roster spots so far. There is definitely room on the roster to take in at least one more player before the start of the season, if not two. And so if you’re trying to put pieces together to the puzzle, are you sitting here wondering if the Detroit Pistons are keeping a roster spot open? Should Malik Beasley’s name be cleared by the FBI? Should he be cleared to return to an NBA team? And are the Pistons potentially keeping a roster spot open for Malik Beasley? And at this point, should they be doing that? Well, I from my perspective, I think it’s pretty clear that they have spoken to Malik Beasley in some capacity or another to him, his management, whatever it may be. And I think they’ve basically said, “If you can get this cleared up, we we want you back for another year.” You’re you’re still seeing him interacting with, you know, Pistons, current Pistons players on Instagram, like he posted a picture of him in a big shirt the other day and Jaylen Duran said that looks like that’s my size or whatever. Um, you’re hearing him in his own words say that he is planning on playing in the NBA, that he still wants to come back to Detroit. The fact that the Pistons have not one but two open roster spots as well, having just resigned Dannis Jenkins to that two-way and not to one of their open roster spots. To me, I again, I’m not saying there’s a fire, but I’m seeing some smoke. Uh, I’m sorry, but could I interrupt you real quick? I wanted to say because I I definitely thought coming out of summer league that Dannis Jenkins was about to get an NBA roster spot. I am I am actually quite stunned that he’s back on a two-way. I mean, it’s I I guess it is good for the Pistons that they were able to to keep him in the organization and still have an NBA contract and an NBA roster spot available, but man, he really did look the part in in summer league. So, you know, I wouldn’t it wouldn’t surprise me if he continues to to trend in the right direction and maybe it’s next year that it works out that he’s ready to take the NBA jump. But I mean, even part of me was wondering if there was another NBA team that was going to come to the table and say, “Look, we’ll we’ll we’ll take you in and we’ll give you a standard NBA contract.” But I was stunned by that news that came out probably early this week, maybe late last week, that he was back with Detroit on a two-way. There’s there’s just so many guards in NBA quality guards out there. Honestly, I I just think that’s the reality of the situation. And like a guy like Dannis Jenkins, I thought he played really well in summer league. But did he do anything in summer league that made me go like, “Oh, he’s got to get a roster spot.” Eh, not really. I still think between him and Marcus Sasser, like they are both very much borderline NBA players. And yeah, I that’s just how I feel about it. But yeah, I mean like the fact that he w he is staying on a two-way, to be clear, they can convert it to a to an actual contract if they want to. And if it does get converted, I think that’ll tell you a lot about their their plans going into next season for those open roster spots, you know, they only have to fill one of them, but they do have to fill one. They ha you have to have 14 players on your roster. You don’t have to have all 15, but you do have to have 14. And so like there is going to be another move. To me it seems very clear like yeah they’re going to see what happens with this Malik Beasley situation. There is definitely still room in the rotation for him for a player of his skills. Like if you can get him and Duncan Robinson. Hey man, I’m totally cool with that. You think it makes sense to try to wait out Beasley a little bit here and see how long this investigation continues? Why not? Why not? Let let I it does not look great. Let’s be honest. But the way he is moving it’s I don’t know. I It could be all bluster. That’s for sure. But I would think his lawyers would tell him not to do that. Like I don’t know. I’m I’m not a lawyer myself. Uh, I’ve been in the back of a few cop cars in my day, but never got in front of the dock. Back pop after dark to get never got in front of the docket show, but but truly like it does seem as if they are definitely like there is still a relationship with players on the team. Um, there is definitely still interest on his side. I can’t imagine that if they can get it somehow cleared up that they wouldn’t want him back on this team. He was a big part of it. And like I know there has been a lot of word of mouth, he said, she said, hearsay coming out about people being like, “Yeah, I believe everything about Malik. You know, he’s a dumbass. Oh, blah blah blah blah blah.” Sure. But it really seems like he vibed with that locker room last year. and even after the situation has come to light, like he’s still interacting with dudes who are on that team. So, I don’t know, man. I think the situation is is still pretty fluid for Detroit. Um, but we should we should probably also talk about, like we said, there’s two open roster spots. Yeah. One of the guys we discussed a couple weeks ago about potentially being one of those those players signed is off the table now for Detroit. Yeah. And and I we can get into that. I just want to say I I agree on the Malik Beasley stuff. I think Detroit should keep that that lane, that door, that avenue open. I don’t know how long the investigation will take, but if you know, when you look at the free agent market right now, are there two guys out there that Detroit needs to sign before the ball tips off in October? No. And can they get a guy in the open market right now at the caliber of a player that Malik Beasley is? This was a finalist for the NBA’s six-man player of the year award. Uh was second in the NBA in three-pointers made with over 400 made last season. Uh can they do that in the open market? Can they get that kind of guy in the open market right now? No, they can’t. So, I’m all I’m all for Detroit if this is what they’re doing. if this is maybe a secondary plan for them to hold out a little bit and see what happens because I mean Malik Beasley was about to get paid $42 million. Like he is a good player. He was arguably a what top four top five player on the team last season. So, if you’re able to still bring him back and now maybe it’s even at a discounted rate because of everything that’s happened, it it it it makes a lot of sense. And there are some other issues off the court with him like I mentioned there. It’s the financial stuff, but that does not matter for this case. We are strictly the league is strictly focused on this gambling related investigation. So, if that clears itself up, if Malik Beasley is cleared, I think the Pistons should absolutely try to bring him back. I know they got Caris Silver. I know they got Duncan Robinson, but you can never have too much shooting. You can never have too much guard depth. And he is a beloved member of that locker room. you know, for all of the negative stuff that has come out about him in the past couple of months, I know that last year in that locker room, he was very wellreceived. He was very much an impact player, and he was very much adored by a Detroit Piston fan base that really rallied behind him. So, if there’s an avenue to bring him back, I do think it makes a lot of sense. I don’t know how much longer the Pistons can wait. You know, they have time before the start of the season, but if you get to October and there’s really been no update on the situation, maybe things change and maybe the Pistons have to bite the bullet and move on. But for now, I don’t think there’s any problem waiting on on this Malik Beasley stuff. I I was going to say if he does get cleared like somehow before the season starts, it could sneakily actually work out for them better. Like cuz they could potentially sign him for the for the mid-level exemption, which is $14 million, which would be less than what they were planning on signing him for. And they’d get and they’d have Duncan Robinson on the roster. Um, and the MLE is only for a year, so they’d actually have more flexibility going into next off season as well. Um, where they could move on from from Beasley if you know it it doesn’t work out for this season. So like or or they could sign him to a long-term contract then too. Who knows? Like, so yeah, that is there is a way in which this potentially very very devastating situation for both Beasley and the Pistons turns out to kind of be a boon for for Detroit. We’ll see if it happens though. You know, there’s there’s obviously like when the FBI is involved, it’s not generally like a good thing. No, it’s it’s it’s not. But for the sake of it being the uh beginning of August and NBA basketball being months away, we can we can definitely talk about it as a potential possibility of Malik Beasley returning to the Detroit Pistons. Okay, let’s move on to our final topic here and you kind of mentioned it as well. There was a free agent that we’ve talked about previously on the podcast that did just end up signing with another team earlier this week. That is Chris Bucher. He was with the Toronto Raptors uh for the last seven seasons, but just signed a one-year $3.3 million deal with the Boston Celtics. Look, we’ve talked about Buché as an ideal candidate for the Detroit Pistons in free agency. A guy that you could in theory plug in at the four or the five, has a little bit of shooting ability, but you know, is not just a a stretch big. he can do some other things. This felt like a contract that if it was on the table and you knew it was available, considering the the two open roster spots that Detroit has, this felt like an opportunity to bring in a guy that even if he was your your fifth big, I think he’d end up being their backup four. When I look at the roster currently, I would have made this move and not thought about it twice. It feels like a really good contract for a guy that last season averaged 10 points and four and a half rebounds per game on over 36% shooting from the three-point line. Again, as a guy that could play the four or the five. Yeah. And he’s not the greatest defender in the world, but like he blocks shots, he gets steals, he can rebound a little bit. Um, and he can score as well. Like for me, this this was a bit disappointing, especially when you see the number and the team that he signed to because Boston’s not going to be good next year. Um, and when you look at the Pistons, is there anybody on any level of like national, local, media, a guy on Reddit who doesn’t think the Pistons have a hole at their backup power forward position right now? like it it’s hard and it and like we said like he seemed like he could have fit with there too like you think about okay you know Isaiah Stewart is a really really good defender but he does definitely have some weaknesses I think Buchet would have made up for them kind of well and I think vice versa would have gone the same like Buchet is a slight you know he’s a skinny guy he’s not the strongest he’s he’s not the you know the the most impactful rim defender despite the block numbers. Isaiah Stewart’s kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. Not the greatest block numbers in the world, but he’s a very impactful rim protector. Um I I thought that could have potentially been a really nice nice pairing. So that’s off the table now. And where does that leave Detroit for filling that very very obvious roster deficiency? I don’t know. I’m looking at who’s out there and it seems to me the guy that I said a couple months ago, Trey Lyles looks to be about the only option at that backup stretch four that really would fit with this roster. So, I don’t know. I’m a little I’m a little worried about it. Like, I’m not going to lie. I I kind of thought that they were gonna wait and see what happened and maybe make a deal like this, like bring in a bouchet for 3.3 mil. H it’s a little it this this for me is like if they don’t address this, it’s going to be the first like significant miss of the Traan Langden era in my opinion. Yeah, I I would have liked Buché at this number. You know, it’s a one-year contract. It’s uh you know, you don’t lose anything if it doesn’t work out because it’s just such a small number that you don’t even you don’t even think about it. And then you look at what’s left on the market and and I’m in full agreement with you that I think they need to add here. I think they need to add at this position. And the market’s just there’s just not much out there. or the cupboards rather bare. So yeah, you’re talking about Trey Lyles who in his first stint in Detroit was not good. He was not necessarily very good for Sacramento last season either. And then after Trey Trey Lyles, it feels like you drop down to an even lesser tier of names that are available and it’s, you know, Precious Aua, it’s Marke Morris, it’s PJ Tucker, you know, Marke Morris is on ESPN. Even in the league. So, I I I just I don’t know how Detroit gets that position fixed up. Um, unless it is Trey Lyles. If it’s not Trey Lyles, does it become something where they’re working the trade market? Um, I think that would make some sense because the the options that are on the open market are just not ideal at this point. um not for you know a a playoff team, not for a potential top four team in their conference. So yeah, it was uh disappointing to see Buché uh sign elsewhere, especially at that number because it just it would have made a lot of sense for Detroit, but I I still think it’s it’s a a part of the roster that that needs to be addressed. The good news is there’s still time to do it. It just is probably gonna have to be done in a more creative way than just signing someone off the open market. And I know Lyles isn’t like a sexy option by any means. Trust me, I was not a I was cool with them trading him for Marvin Bagley. Like I think that should tell you exactly how much I loved his first stint in Detroit. Okay. I was like, “Yeah, let’s go get Marvin Baggley for him.” Um, but like yeah, I I think the difference this time around and even the difference between like this and his stay in Sacramento is like he’s going to be the least important. I mean, he’s what going to be like the 10th most important offensive option for Detroit this season. Like he’s going to fit a very niche specific role and that’s all they’re going to need him to do. It’s not like, you know, a couple years ago he was playing like significant minutes in the playoffs for the Kings. Um, and and did okay in them for what it’s worth, but like that’s not necessarily going to be the same situation here in Detroit this season. Like you have, you just look at the bench, like you’re going to have Duncan Robinson, you’re going to have Caris Levert, you’re going to have uh uh Ron Holland, like all those guys. And then, of course, you’re going to still be staggering those Kate Ivy minutes. Um there’s just a lot of guys who are going to have offensive roles on this second unit. Trey Lyles is going to be at the back end of that. I think the only guy who’s going to be like a regular rotation player that would have less of a offensive impact is probably going to be Isaiah Stewart. So when I look at that like I think Trey Lyles becomes a more appealing option the less you really need him to do for your team in that case. But they still do need somebody for that role. And yeah, I mean, if they don’t address it, I I’m yeah, I I’m not going to be like cool with that. I’ve been very very um you I’ve really defended Tjan Langden. I know you haven’t been a huge fan of his off season. I think he kind of got I think he got his hands tied for, you know, to a large extent. Like they went after a lot of guys they went after they just couldn’t get like they couldn’t do anything about the NAW situation. They couldn’t do anything about the Santi Alama situation. like your hands are tied. The Malik Beasley thing, like I think they did the best they could, but if you don’t get somebody, I I think you’re putting your team in in a tougher situation than they need to be in going into next season. Fully agree. Fully agree. I’ll be I’ll be interested to see if Detroit’s able to work something out soon to kind of quell those concerns because it is it is still a part of the roster that I think needs help. I know there are people out there that think they can just slide Ron Holland up to the four. I I don’t think that makes sense offensively or defensively. So, I I I I think they need to make an ad there, but there’s just not a whole lot more to talk about in terms of what’s available, what they can do. It’s going to have to be done via trade unless they’re signing Trey L or they’re signing one of these, you know, lower lower tier free agents. But Jasper, are you good? Anything else that you want to add on before we wrap up here? No, that’s that’s about it for me this week, Erin. Uh it’s it’s just nice to be back. You know, I’m I was off last week is very sad, but I always love coming on here and chopping it up with you. And uh it’s it’s just like getting through these dog days, man. It makes the the season when it rolls around, it just makes it even more worth it. We’re actually, you know, we didn’t very small thing. The Pistons preseason schedule got released. Their first game is going to be on October 6th. So, we are ex almost exactly uh two months away. So, it’s like we say every single year, it feels like the summer’s never going to end, but next thing you know, we’re going to be looking up and we’re going to be watching Pistons basketball again. So, I I can’t wait. Stay Stay strong, folks. We’ll be there before you know it. go out and enjoy the Hey, as the kids say, touch grass before uh you’re not able to and it’s it’s snowing outside and it’s dark at 4:30 in the evening. So, that is going to do it for this week’s edition of the Palace of Pistons podcast. Before you go, please make sure to leave a like, leave uh leave a rating, go ahead and hit the follow button, hit the subscribe button, wherever you just watched or listened to today’s show from, we really really appreciate it. Again, you sub can subscribe to palaceofpistons.com, our free newsletter uh in the show notes wherever you’re watching or listening to uh the show from. That is going to do it for this week’s edition of the Palace of Pistons podcast brought to you by the FanDuel Sportsbook and our partners over at Leave. Thanks so much. We’ll see you guys next time. [Music]
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In this episode of the Palace of Pistons Podcast, hosts Aaron Johnson and Jasper Apollonia dive into the biggest question marks and opportunities surrounding the Detroit Pistons heading into the new season. Who is the true x-factor that could elevate this young roster — and is it finally time for someone to step up?
The duo also discusses the latest free agency buzz, including whether Malik Beasley could still find his way back to Detroit, and which notable free agent signing the Pistons missed out on — and what that says about the front office’s direction.
Tap in for insight, analysis, and a candid look at where Detroit stands as the offseason winds down.
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2 comments
There are several of them.
I hope Beasley can return