Betrayer

Give me Quinn from that list. Too bad Atkinson isn't on there.

YES!!!!! Langdon has earned a lot of trust with this one.

Maybe a better term is "front-bench". Those guys are the ones who the head coach hand picks as part of his crew. Usually they're tied to the coach and are cleared out when the coach leaves. Then there's the developmental and health guys that sit in the back row (or don't even appear on the bench) and work with the players. Those guys are often independent of the coach and are more likely to stay with the team regardless of the current coaching staff. Vinson falls into the latter category and was clearly a Langdon hire which is why I question the "joining William's staff" wording.

Good, maybe we can unload some of these players to the Wiz in exchange for draft picks.

Exactly. Getting this guy was a huge win. One of the most respected and desired shooting coaches in the league. I know we said the same thing about Dan Burke as a defensive guy last year and that dude looked at this train wreck and decided not to show up to work for "personal reasons", but seriously this is a great hire. He's credited with making shooters out of a lot of poor-shooters (Lonzo, Herb Jones, etc). And like you said, it's a Langdon hire. I'm just curious why it's being reported as "Vinson being added to William's coaching staff". He's a behind the scenes guy, not an on-the-bench guy. I wonder if that wording is officially from the Pistons and they're just trying to pretend that the whole "Monty decision" isn't a thing, or is it just JEIII trolling the fans again.

I guess we should keep refreshing his bio on X to see if he gets the job.

They've made it a lot farther than I thought they would, but the heliocentric offense just isn't it. Watch Boston move the ball, find the open man, and consistently get good looks while Dallas dribbles the air out of the ball with everyone else just watching Luka (or Kyrie). Sure, it's fun to see them make a lot of tough shots, but they call them "tough" shots for a reason - it's a bad offense plan to rely on those shots possession after possession.

You're definitely right. I consume all the Piston's podcast/youtube content out there and there isn't much hype at all. And with the team keeping everyone in a holding pattern for so long on a press conference or any news about Monty, there really isn't much to talk about on any front.

Wait , they’re not just going to keep throwing more money at him until he reluctantly says “yes”?

Everyone is out there talking but nobody has any real info on this. Before the end of the season JEIII said Monty was probably gone and Weaver stays. Now he's saying 50/50 because he has no idea. The part of me that questions this organization's seriousness and ability to do anything right thinks they'll bring Monty back because of Gores ego and pocketbook. It's the wrong move, so the pessimist in me says that's what they'll do because they're a clown organization. But if you look at the pattern of events, all signs would point to him being gone and us getting another Friday afternoon press release followed by a press conference announcement (finally). I can't really think of any other reason they wouldn't have had the press conference announced by now. They're trying to make certain they can come to the table with all the answers and if they were keeping him then what's the hold up?

Thinking more about all the smaller guards we kept getting linked to (Monk, Harris, etc), I'd prefer if we don't add a guy who's shorter than Cade. Instead we should lean into the advantage of having a big PG and add a bunch of 6'6" to 6'9" guys around him to fill out the 2-4 spots. Find a fringe All Star at one of the Forward spots to pair with Cade (have to be a trade since there are none in FA). And then you have Ausar who's 6'6" and can play 2-4. Fontecchio is 6' 7" and he can play either forward spot. Stew is 6'8" and very switchable. Grab one more 3 and D guy in FA like Derrick Jones Jr or Naji Marshall - if I strike out on those guys I might drop down to 6'5" for a versatile wing defender like KCP or Trent Jr, but no shorter than that in the starting lineup. Then you need a starting Center who can defend the paint like Claxton. Stew is my backup Center who can space the floor a bit, making lineups with Ausar work better until he learns to hit that corner three. For a third string Center Jalen Smith or Precious Achiuwa could be cheap options. Obviously, in this scenario Duren, Ivey, and the pick are all on the trade block to bring in that fringe All-Star forward (Let's say KAT, Ingram, Mikal, or Grant because I can't think of anyone else right now that could be on the block). At least two of those assets would get moved in the trade, possibly all three. The rest (Claxton, 3&D wing, and backup Center) is done with the remaining cap space (some of it will be eaten in the trade). Of course, none of this matters if we don't get a new coach. Someone smart enough to know the Killian Hayes isn't an NBA player, teams need spacing, lineups don't have to include 12 players every night, if you only have 2 ball-handlers you have to stagger them, and Ausar Thompson's most used play type at the end of the season shouldn't be "spot up 3". That's not asking much, is it?

Monk doesn't inspire me. He's basically what I would project Ivey to become in a few years. An athletic bench sparkplug with no defense. I don't want to spend 30M on that guy to be my starting #2 next to Cade when what I really need is a wing or forward. Would he improve the team? Yes. But that's not saying much and I'd prefer to spend the money elsewhere. Claxton would improve the frontline defense but I wonder what his price point will be. You could have Duren come off the bench and develop, which might also make him cheaper come extension time. Then again, you don't have a lot of assets and you need a good wing/forward, so you'd probably have to move him anyway. There are better role players than Harris to pursue: KCP, Trent Jr, Brown, Oubre, Martin, Jones Jr, Marshall, etc.

I hear ya, but I'll take a 3 and D guard that can handle all the secondary ball handling duties and be staggered to run the bench when Cade sits. Especially if he's got that Heat culture mentality as most people are saying. Feels like the perfect fit to me. Everything we wanted Ivey to be but now know he won't be because he doesn't do the 3 or the D and his turnover rate is higher than Cade's.

100% you're right. They want to have answers to all the questions before they get in front of the media. Problem is that most of these questions could have and should have been answered weeks ago, if not months ago during the losing streak.

Well, MIchael Blackstone updated his Twitter bio to "Executive VP of Basketball Operations DetroitPistons", so I guess that means he's hired. We should all just refresh Twitter to find out what this organization is up to. I wonder what Monty's says?

In this draft, I honestly wouldn't have a problem with that. Once Sarr, Risacher, and Sheppard are gone I'm not sure there's much difference between 4-12. Someone will come out of that group, but it's a total crap shoot.

I've been talking about that guy for a while now as someone I'd love to see us trade down and grab. I doubt he even works out for us now if he has a promise from a real organization. He's going to make an All-Rookie team.

I'm with you 100%. Also, the Langdon situation gives me Weaver vibes. I was listening to a New Orleans reporter talk about his role and they basically said that there's no way of knowing what to attribute to Langdon since Griffin is the guy out front taking all the credit and that Langdon is happy to just hang back if there are other people who want to be in the spotlight. Of course they followed that up with, but "he's said to have a great basketball mind." The whole thing smells a lot like Weaver behind Sam Presti. Also touted as a "great basketball mind." Then you factor in Gores 0 for 5 track record on hiring GMs and Coaches (not counting the Dumars years) and it gets scary. I was pulling for Hammond or Connelly because at least we know what those guys have done and they've done it at more than one location. I guess time will tell. Langdon can buy some immediate trust from me if he fires Monty.

Do they hold press conferences to announce a President of Basketball Operations? Yes, of course they do. We're going on two weeks since the news "leak" and Trajan subsequently updating his X profile to Pistons PoBo. Have you seen a press conference scheduled? The Suns hired a new coach and held a press conference within 48 hours. An actual press conference with media. And yes, I'm sure they'll have one eventually. The point is that just like this entire season, the organization continues to be run like a company that's doing their best to avoid hard questions and hide rather than an actual NBA franchise. It's been a frequent story on every show that covers the Pistons. Have you been paying attention all season or are you just looking for a semantic argument about how different companies utilize their press releases?

2004 rules? I'm going with the Pistons. I'd love to see Draymond try to kick Ben in the balls or choke him out - even now. But in the current era that team wouldn't make it past the first quarter without everyone fouling out. The NBA got soft.

Yes, I spent many years in corporate leadership, I understand how press releases work. For that reason, I also understand how firms operate when they want to avoid the hard questions and duck the media. Friday press releases with carefully crafted illusions of open information are a great away to avoid the heat when your organization has been run like a clown show for years and you don't want to actually face your customers or the media. Lets not forget how they avoided the media all season when people were screaming for Tom or Troy to come out and discuss the state of the franchise during the losing streak. Or that they sent the players out there alone for exit interviews and nobody heard from Tom, Troy, or even Monty. Here we are 2 months later after hiring a PoBo and firing the GM and still we have nothing but under the radar Friday press releases and social media drops. Even the new PoBo updated his X account bio before this organization got around to making the announcement. Absolute clown show.

"Said Pistons owner Tom Gores" Who did he "say" this to? Where do these quotes come from? Was there a press conference where people actually got to ask real questions of this guy? Nope. It's just how the PR team decided to write it up to make it look like an interview happened and they aren't completely ducking all the media smoke as an organization.

What a joke of an organization. Friday news drops. No press conference. Tom had his PR team write up some blurbs to post to social media.

The two knocks on him are his abysmal defense and his age (23). He would be a legitimate scorer in year one but only plays one side of the ball and is probably pretty near his ceiling. In any normal draft he'd go somewhere in the 15-30 range, where he'd be a great fit for an already contending team needing a bench scorer that requires less development.

How many first rounds picks do we get with the salary dump? Sucks to start over, but I guess we could actually start doing what Weaver should've done from the start.