Pistons rebuild farther away than what people think?

[Uncle Mxy]

The Detroit Pistons are lost right now — and it is worse than you might think, according to one NBA expert.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2024/05/06/detroit-pistons-nba-rebuild-pistons-pulse-podcast-sam-vecenie/73569105007/

Huhh? Does anyone think that the Pistons are on the verge and just need to turn a little corner, work out a snag or two?
We're contenders for a title sometime in the 22nd century, at the rate we're going. It's worse than that?

[Invictus88]

The Detroit Pistons are lost right now — and it is worse than you might think, according to one NBA expert.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2024/05/06/detroit-pistons-nba-rebuild-pistons-pulse-podcast-sam-vecenie/73569105007/

Huhh? Does anyone think that the Pistons are on the verge and just need to turn a little corner, work out a snag or two?
We're contenders for a title sometime in the 22nd century, at the rate we're going. It's worse than that?

All you need to do is look at the Free Agency , Draft Prospect, Fire Weaver and HBO discussion threads to see that there are definitely some posters who think that.

I keep wanting to believe that we are somewhere in-between the catastrophe that some folks claim and the sunshine and rainbows picture that the ones above paint. But that reality is continuously challenged as the Pistons keep reaching new lows in terms of actual progression of players and wins.

We're a broken team right now. 3 years into the new regime. It's as simple as that.

[Laimbeer]

It's a failed rebuild. So, yeah, we're at square one.

[Billl]

Rent our cap space for minor assets? No. That's not a reasonable plan at this point. The team needs to start adding some guys who can actually play basketball.

We've got all the cap space in the world, recent lottery picks on the roster as trade assets, and a top5 draft pick coming, so it's not like we won't have a path towards making a big leap. I just don't trust current management to make good enough decision to get there.

Also, the direction duren takes is going to really define this rebuild. We need whoever got in Wiseman's ear last summer and got him to buy into a laser focus on defense and protecting the paint to be doing the same thing with Duren. The first 3 games of the season, he was out blocking shots, rebounding and generally looking like a beast. That was the best the team looked all season by a longshot. The rest of the year he was just flat out bad defensively.

[Kalamazoo317]

Rent our cap space for minor assets? No. That's not a reasonable plan at this point. The team needs to start adding some guys who can actually play basketball.

Yeah, if we're planning to focus on asset accumulation as our number one thing, then just trade Cade.

[JNewton]

It's a failed rebuild. So, yeah, we're at square one.

Absolutely. It sucks, but trying to build out this roster is a just an exercise in futility. It needs to be started over.

[joedumars1]

Oh yeah I could see this coming up this year by not showing much to minimal improvement, but I’m
Hoping that’s not the case. The big thing really hangs of if cade is injury prone or not

[bstein14]

The real question for me is how long before we're good enough to win a playoff game. Its been forever.... I don't think we should "rush the rebuild" this summer if its not going to result in being good enough to win a playoff game in the next year or two. I think we need to be careful not to mess up what we've got going for us (no negative value contracts) and be careful to make sure we're getting decent value on the guys we are signing this summer.

[theBigLip]

Count me in the crazy crowd

I like BStein's post on this. There are many steps to become an elite playoff team. We're still taking baby steps. What does a restart on the rebuild even look like? Trade Cade and hope we get a draft pick/player that is as good as he is? And if all of our players suck so much, we're not getting anything in return for them, so it doesn't make any sense.

I'd like to continue with what we are doing - getting young assets and keeping our cap under control. And it's not just cap space, it is not having bad contracts. We can always trade anyone as long as the contracts are not negative.

I posted this somewhere else, but what if we get Monk, Claxton and Miles Bridges each in the $20-25M range? We can do that without trading away any picks or players.

Cade/Sasser
Monk/Ivey
Fontecchio/Thompson
Bridges/Stewart
Claxton/Duren

That may not win any championships, but that's a start. And last year's starters are pretty much next year's bench. They don't look as bad in that light.

So call me crazy, but there's hope.

[theBigLip]

Did anyone actually read the article? Vecenie thinks we should:
- trade for Ben Simmon's $40M contract to get some assets
- do what we did last year and just get 1 year deals and kick our cap space down the road and try to be players in the 2025 draft

[Snakebites]

He’s right about the diagnosis of our issues, and right about how far off we are.

Wrong about the cure.

[theBigLip]

He’s right about the diagnosis of our issues, and right about how far off we are.

Wrong about the cure.

Agreed, and that’s where we are at. What are we going to do? We can debate forever on what picks we should have taken or players we should have signed, which is all much easier after the fact. But it’s much more interesting to look forward and think about what we should do. And yes, the first step is to fire Williams and Weaver and have Gores sell. Even if all of that happens (and I personally don’t think any of those happen this summer), what should the next regime do?

[JennetteMcCurdy]

I listened to the podcast - you can play it at 2x speed because he speaks slowly and clearly.

He said:

Cade is a franchise player
Everyone else should be shopped around because at best, only a couple of them are great fits with Cade.
This offseason is not the offseason to get three good players and win 32 games because the 2025 draft is loaded at the top
Starr is his number one - for the Pistons, everyone else scares him.
He doesn’t think Weaver will ever draft Reed Sheppard because he doesn’t fit Troy’s mold. So Troy better be demoted or gone if Reed is to be drafted.
He thinks long term having Ivey could be more important than Duran
Thompson was a lousy pick and he and Duren should never be on the court together
Monty was stupid to play Killian over Ivey - he thinks Ivey might have done something to get in doghouse early
Absorb a bad contract or two if assets are attached

In short, we’ve sucked for four years now, what’s another year to get a bite at the top of the 2025 draft?

[JennetteMcCurdy]

The real question for me is how long before we're good enough to win a playoff game.

I still think that zero of these players will be on the team when Pistons win a series

[Invictus88]

Count me in the crazy crowd

I like BStein's post on this. There are many steps to become an elite playoff team. We're still taking baby steps. What does a restart on the rebuild even look like?

Easy.

It starts by hiring a head of basketball operations that then lets go of the current management chain and hires their own. i.e. everyone under Gores / him is gone. Donezo. One that takes an actual objective view of what we have and makes hard cuts where they are needed.

A lot of the problems we've faced up to this point have been a reluctance to move on from failed experiments and/or realistically acknowledge deficiencies of players that we have. I mean looking back now it's absolutely laughable how the current GM and coach thought that our roster heading into the season had any real shot of competing given how badly it was constructed.

Even before that the flat out refusal to dump some of our players that actually had value even when they really didn't serve much of a purpose to us (e.g. Bojan last year) is super damaging given what we could have gotten back vs. what we did.

So yeah. In the crazy crowd you are.

[Snakebites]

He’s admitted we had first round pick offer for Bojan last year.

We kept him and tanked the season anyway.

It’s hard to describe how bad the asset management has been.

[guldakot]

I want this scenario to happen.
Draft Shep. Get back into the draft and get Clingan.
Come back next year starting Cade Shep Ausar Tek and Clingan.

Move whatever you need to to make that happen, outside of giving up our pick next year which is earmarked for a shot at Cooper.

I dont know if its possible, but in a 'weak' draft can we get back in at 5 (if we get a top 2 for Shep) to get Clingan using Duren Ivey Stewart plus cap relief for garbage contracts?

That starting 5 would have i3 shooters (Shep and Tek and Cade) and 2 incredible defenders between Ausar and Clingan. Shotblocking Galore, with plenty of room to grow. Fill out the bench with whatever. I know were kicking the can again, but this would be a great foundation moving forward IMO.

[Canadafan]

Did anyone actually read the article? Vecenie thinks we should:
- trade for Ben Simmon's $40M contract to get some assets
- do what we did last year and just get 1 year deals and kick our cap space down the road and try to be players in the 2025 draft

Can we actually kick the space down the road though? Cades would-be extension messes that up no?

[guldakot]

Did anyone actually read the article? Vecenie thinks we should:
- trade for Ben Simmon's $40M contract to get some assets
- do what we did last year and just get 1 year deals and kick our cap space down the road and try to be players in the 2025 draft

Can we actually kick the space down the road though? Cades would-be extension messes that up no?

If we wait until the last second to extend cade we can, it would just be his caphold. Not quite as much cap (I think 8m less?) but still a decent amount.

[JennetteMcCurdy]

There’s no need to extend Cade - wait a year and keep flexibility.

Just like there was no need to extend Stewart last year….