Betrayer

As Del said, they actually do need someone who can attack and get his own shot in that bench unit. He's also shooting 39% from 3 on the season, which this team sorely needs. As far as running the offense, he's actually pretty solid at that and makes some great passes when the defense collapses. He's had games of 12 and 15 assists this year when Cade has been out, and he doesn't turn the ball over much. Defense is fine for his size. He's aggressive and goes for homerun plays , but that's most of this team, especially the bench with Ron and Javonte in there. That's their identity. He's not going to be a 6th man candidate or anything, but he's a solid enough backup to play 15 mpg behind your star player.

Unlikely, though it's tough be sure at ages 22-24. Then again, there's only 1 championship team each year, so it's pretty unlikely for any core in the league. Did anyone think the '04 team was a championship core at the time? I was on this message board (yes, I'm old) and I can tell you they didn't. Imagine if before the season you asked if this core would be the #1 seed in the East by 5+ games in February. Think anyone would have said "yes"? I didn't see anyone but the most blindly optimistic predicting even the #3 seed and most were predicting #4-#6 or even a big falloff after losing Beasley/Shroeder/Hardaway. I'm sure your point is that they'll need a second star to truly compete at some point, and overall I agree with that. Hell, I think they might need a better in-game coach. But I also understand Trajan wanting to be patient with such a young team if the right deal wasn't out there. For now, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that the right move hasn't come around yet.

I’d sit Cariss. But then I’d sit Cariss in the regular season as well. Starters plus Stew, Daniss, Ron, and Javonte. Everyone else is just in case you need them for certain situations. But I’m also playing Ausar 30+ a night and JB won’t because he’s bad at lineups.

Maxing him would be a mistake.

Where are all the people on here who didn’t think Daniss could hold down the backup PG minutes? 😁

So they just ignore that forearm that everyone can see?

He’s on the bench, saving us from Jaden Ivey minutes.

Ausar blocked that with his elbow.

No foul even though replay clearly shows Cade getting hit on the wrist by Shamet.

Refs got the call to get the Knicks back in this.

So Ausar is older than Brunson and has to come out before him to get his rest I guess.

Anyone take a look at the schedule for the next month? I wish it was last month to give this front office a bit of a wake up call going into the deadline. We're about to find some things out for real... Knicks x2 Spurs x2 Cavs x2 Thunder Raptors Magic Hornets (won 9 of last 10) The only truly easy game is against the Bulls from now through March 6th.

Ugly game. Pistons looked lost and disinterested from the start. They had a chance and made a massive comeback when JB doubled down on defense with the Ausar and Ron combo (+10 in their minutes together), but Washington was hitting some of the craziest shots in the second half and the hole they dug was too deep. Hopefully they're saving it all for tonight against the Knicks. If Duren's out we might actually be able to guard KAT.

The cap makes no sense to me. Spotrac shows the Pistons as having a maximum possible cap space of 49.7M. I'm assuming that's partly because Duncan is only guaranteed 2M and Reed and Bobi are non-guaranteed, but that's not enough to make up the difference. Does Duren's 19.5M hold make up the rest? Make it make sense.

Bottom line, this trade wasn't about Huerter. It was about moving Jaden Ivey. He clearly wasn't happy, he never improved in the areas that matter (defense, finishing, turnovers), there was no room for him to develop here, they weren't going to give him the money he wanted this offseason, and he had a 30M dollar cap hold that would have hurt the team's flexibility in the offseason. There was obviously no trade market for him, so they go what they could get before this stretched into the offseason. That said, Huerter is a better player than Jaden Ivey. It's marginal, but he is. Better finisher inside the arc, better career 3pt shooter, better playmaker, and a better defender. He's also an expiring contract, which is better for the team this offseason. They also have the potential to move from 29 to 22 in a good draft. That's actually a significant jump whether you're drafting cheap talent or using the pick as an asset in a trade. I'm disappointed they didn't trade him sooner to get more out of it, but let's be realistic. Jaden's injuries complicated the trade situation big time and every team in the league was seeing the same thing we were seeing every time Jaden stepped on the court.

Boston - If you're talking about a healthy Tatum, probably not, but that's a problem for next year. Also, any Boston series is just going to come down to whether or not they're hot from three. That's their entire gameplan. Cleveland - Probably. Orlando or New York - Yes (as long as Stew is healthy this time). Trajan is sitting here with the #1 seed in the East by a wide margin who's just behind the #1 seed in the league by a tiny margin. None of the young core is even 25 years old yet. I think he views this season as playing with house money. Unless there's a slam dunk of a trade I doubt he's going to risk crippling the future on a risky/bad trade just to do something. As much as I think you have to shoot your shot while you can in sports because you only get so many chances, I can see his point of view of trying to stay patient and financially flexible as long as possible to see this team develop in the playoffs and find the right trade.

It really makes no sense. The eye test and the stats back up Ausar's immense value to this team on both ends of the court. His minutes should mirror the star player he's assigned to shut down unless he's in foul trouble. Jamal Murray is 28 and Ausar is 23, yet JB treats Ausar like he's on a minutes restriction.

JB tries to throw this one away again by benching the defensive player of the month and the best perimeter defender in the league for most of the critical 4th quarter minutes. The guy is +9 (second only to Cade), got you 5 extra possessions, and had Murray in jail most of the night yet JB thinks that making the offense marginally better (theoretically) is more important than stopping the opponents clutch player and getting easy buckets from transition and put backs even though every stat shows otherwise. The only person surprised that Murray went on a scoring run when Ausar was on the bench was JB...once again. This is getting really tiresome. I'm glad one of the reporters asked JB about it after the game. His answer was terrible, but at least someone asked.

Zero interest in Coby White. I wanted Ayo in the deal, not because I wanted him to be a starter, but because he can hit the three and play some defense. We don't have any of those, not even mediocre ones, and we need to start upgrading our 1-way players to 2-way players.

Even more importantly, they get Piston killer, Vucevic. If you wear #0 in Detroit he's guaranteed to look like prime Dirk against you.

When I first read that we were in a trade with Chicago involving Ivey I assumed Ayo was the return. Imagine my disappointment when I saw it was Red Velvet. After some time to digest this, I'm going to come at it from the other angle because I think I can understand what they're doing here. The trade value for guys like Ivey (Monk, Sexton, Simons) is in the tank in the NBA. You can't move them. Ivey is a worse player than any of those, so his value was terrible. Your only chance to get anything significant was to package him with other players or picks and maybe those deals just weren't out there. You weren't hanging on to Ivey in the offseason with what he probably wanted to make, so he was gone for whatever anyone wanted to offer him if you wanted to drag it out or nothing if you didn't drag it out. Based upon the rumors over the past few weeks he could very well have asked out. You could tell he didn't want to be here. A trade had to happen for all of those reasons. Plus, every time he stepped on the floor it was a mess this year. You really couldn't pair him with anyone and make a competent backcourt. Sad to say it, but Huerter is a better player. He's had some struggles shooting on a bad team, but he's a career 37% shooter who doesn't require his feet set and 15 seconds to set up his shot like Ivey. He's bigger. He's a better defender - he's not a good defender, he's maybe a neutral one, but he's not Ivey who was absolutely terrible. If I'm looking down the bench and both Ivey and Huerter are there, I'm putting in Huerter. Sad, but true. I'm disappointed that the 5th pick was traded for a mediocre player, but at the end of the day it's an upgrade in my eyes. Side benefit is Huerter is another expiring contract which is more flexibility for the next 2 days or for the offseason.

They score a lot of points in the paint, but I think Del was pointing out that they shoot a poor percentage from the paint as well. They win games because they win the possession battle by forcing turnovers, getting offensive rebounds, and limiting opponents shots. Offensive efficiency is a real problem for this team in nearly every phase of the game, even from the free throw line.

Does anybody watch the "celebrity" game anymore? It's terrible and there's rarely any actual celebrities in it.

Suns did to us what we do to everyone else on defense and it worked. This is what the playoffs will look like when other teams really lock in defensively and play as hard as we do every night. I actually applaud JB for benching Ivey who looked terrible in the first half on both ends of the court. Bad timing if you want to trade him, but he's been total trash this year. That said, how do you not put the best perimeter defender in the league on the other team's best player who's having a career night? It makes absolutely no sense. And why take out Duren and Ausar out so soon in the third when you've actually made a run and cut it to 3? Are these guys 40 year old vets or in their early 20s? Duren was dominating in this game and he doesn't even crack 30 minutes. Ausar is at 25 minutes. Jenkins nearly played as many minutes as those guys and he was having another bad night yet we didn't try out Sasser when we couldn't hit a three to save our lives? Mind-boggling stuff from JB, who's done a phenomenal job creating a culture and will probably win CotY due to the record versus expectations, but is failing left and right at in-game management. As everyone knows, shooting is a real problem, but the solution isn't more Duncan Robinson types. We have zero 3 and D players. You have 1 guy who can shoot that gets hunted by the opposition every time on defense, and then a bunch of guys who can defend but can't find the bucket on offense. Getting some 2-way players HAS to be a priority for the trade deadline if you want to compete past round 1 of the playoffs.

Denver's revenge game coming on Tuesday.