Betrayer

Nice game from Ron. He looked like a man among boys even though he just turned 20. So disruptive on defense and he was good on the glass too. Still a little out of control at times, but he can get to the paint at will. And more importantly the three ball looked really good. One game is a tiny sample size, but they talked about how that's been a focus for him this offseason and how he's working with Vinson a lot. Holland with a good three point shot would be a game changer for this team. It would mean you can play Ausar and Ron together and just watch opponents cry. Klintman has some really nice passing skills and his handle is pretty solid for a big man as well. I still need to see it come together against real NBA talent to believe it fully, but there might be a rotation player in there with some more development.

For sure, and he has much better form. But every offseason we get videos of players draining threes on an empty court. I wouldn't read too much into it. It's also just not a part of JB's system on offense. Stew is a perfect example of that fact.

We saw those same videos with Drummond every year too.

Stealing Herb Jones or Trey Murphy away from NO would've been huge. Maybe Weaver has two brain cells left if he's keeping those two.

Could be a heavily protected 2nd. That way you don't really give up anything. You just have to include something in order to make the trade.

Wonder if the holdup is that the Pistons are shopping Monk to see if they can move him along to someone else as part of this S&T for Schroeder. At least I hope that's the hold up and that we aren't serious about adding Monk to this roster.

Whitmore traded to the Wizards for 2 second round picks.

I feel like he's the new Doc Rivers. Not a good coach but everyone thinks he is for some reason.

I'm basing it on what I'm hearing from Kyle Metz (who is apparently a Pistons cap guru) on a podcast. I suppose it could be wrong, but he seems to know his stuff. I guess we'll find out in 4 days when all of these things become official.

With the moves the Pistons have made they still have the choice to approach this from two directions: Stay Over the cap: Kings have structured the Schroeder deal in a way that allows for it to be a S&T. This could give us a trade exception or allow us to bring in a player from the Kings or even rope in a third team. Go Under the cap: We would still have the 8M Room Exception to use.

After initially being super unhappy about this (mostly about missing out on NAW), your viewpoint is exactly how I've started to view it as well. And honestly, through that lens it's...fine. Not great, just fine. Robinson might actually be a tiny upgrade over Beasley. Gives you the same movement shooting in a taller frame so he can play multiple positions. Both bad defenders for different reasons, but Beasley is actually a bit worse because Robinson is a smarter team defender who knows where to be and how to rotate (he's just slow footed). Beasley was always lost off ball. Duncan is also a better rebounder, passer, cutter, and a nearly 90% free throw shooter. Good, tradeable contract too. Levert versus Schroeder (or THJ if people prefer to make that comparison) might be a bit better as well. I was done with THJ and there's not much more to say about that because it's obvious how bad his defense was and how little he offered when it wasn't that one game out of 10 where he was on fire from three. As for Schroeder, he's a poor 3 point shooter and even though he tried hard he was just too small on defense. Levert isn't lighting it up from three but he's better than Schroeder in that regard. He's also a bigger body on defense which is helpful. And he gives the team some much needed shot creation when Cade isn't on the floor with a good assist to turnover ratio. We'll see if he can keep up the offensive efficiency he had last year, because that's always been the big problem with him...not that Schroeder was very efficient either. Oh, and dumping Tek's contract is a bonus here. Every minute he's not on the court is going to be an upgrade from last year whether it's Ron, Ausar, or even Duncan playing those minutes. It's too early to say, but I think I'll enjoy seeing Lanier play over Sasser (hopefully) as well. His college numbers are pretty crazy (pulled from Woodward Sports): 2nd in nation in ppg off of screens, 4th in jump shot ppg, 95th percentile on unguarded C&S 3s, 94th percentile in isolation ppp, 82nd percentile in transition ppp, 84th percentile in halfcourt ppp, 91st percentile ppp in cuts. He could be a solid role player. None of this moves the needle in a huge way, but it actually does feel like a tiny improvement over the guys we had last year. It's disappointing because I was hoping for a real improvement on the margins and we didn't get that, but it takes two to tango in free agency. The sad part is that we'll probably slip down the ranking because other teams have improved. There's always the trade deadline I suppose...

Just saw a post that said you can't do a sign and trade for a 2 year deal, which is what was originally reported for Schroeder (2 for 30M). So, the announcement of this new deal for 3 years (the last year could be an option) might actually mean it's more likely that there is a S&T involved and that could have been the hold up with Sacramento trying to structure a 3rd year on the contract to make it work. Just speculation, but interesting.

Players have to want to come here. That's why playing in free agency is almost always a bad idea for Detroit.

Nothing gets signed until the 6th, right? They could pull a reverse-Boozer 🤣

I wasn't sad about the Beasley news when I heard we were pivoting to NAW. But now Trajan is learning what we all know: The free agents you want simply aren't coming to Detroit. Sounds like NAW is favored to go to Atlanta and so we've had to pivot to the table scraps (LaVert and Robinson). At very best those would be lateral moves from Shroeder, THJ, and Beasley in an offseason where you needed to be improving around your core, not taking steps sideways. Playing the Free Agency game in Detroit never works. Meanwhile we're getting leapfrogged by multiple teams who finished just a couple games behind us last year such as the Magic and the Hawks. Let's not forget that both of those teams had significant injuries to some of their top players last year and now they've taken steps to improve on top of returning their existing talent.