Betrayer

That Memphis game - I was about to flip over to the Dallas/Utah game and then suddenly it did a 180. So much fun to watch. And yep, KAT is such a fake star.

The Kennard pick was the one that I'll never let go. It was so obvious that Mitchell was the pick. Things were a bit more murky with SJ. Most people wanted Winslow (myself included) when he fell to us.

Doesn't help that Booker went out with a hamstring injury. He had 31 in the first half before leaving. Suns aren't winning a championship without Booker, let's see how long this injury lingers.

Marcus Smart is the guy I tend to think of when I imagine where Killian could take his career with the tools I've seen him display. You can see the defensive potential and I think Killian is already a better passer than Marcus, but can he take his defense to the next level and also get his three point shot to a respectable point? That's going to be the question for the 20 year old over the next season or two. If so, then he can become a highly valuable bench PG that might close games due to his defense.

Who are the big money or top 5 pick centers that can do that? You might find one or two but not sure that gamble is worth it when you’re better off spending that money/pick on a perimeter player in this league and getting a bargain Center that can fill a role.

And it begins already. Clippers getting beat down in the first half. The adjustment? Bench the Center so you can switch more easily against Ingram and CJ. Clippers go on a huge run and take the lead immediately. NO getting beat in the second half and what do they do? Bench their Center (JV - arguably their 3rd best player) in the 4th and go on a run to make it a game and pull it out. Could argue that the same thing happened in tonight’s first game although not by choice. Capella goes out with an injury on an already smallish team and the Hawks turn the game around to win it against a giant Cleveland front line. This has been a trend in the playoffs with even big names like Gobert, Ayton, and Lopez being taken off the court during crucial minutes because they get exposed against the perimeter oriented playmakers in todays game. Its a perimeter league. This is why I’d rather not spend big money or a top 5 pick on a Center in today’s NBA.

It's a mixed bag for me. I like Jabari and Ivey if we're in the 1-4 range and Mathurin or Sharpe in the 5-8 range. Most of the other candidates just feel like low ceiling rotation guys (like the Luke Kennard pick). I think we need to swing hard for another star next to Cade in this draft. You only get so many chances to draft a potential star and Detroit isn't likely to attract Free Agent stars.

If by "slow building" you mean to continue to be bad and get high lottery picks in order gain young talent, I think that's off the table and this is going to be the last time we have a high lottery pick for a while. We were a .500 team since Feb 16 if you remove the last 3 tank games where played all G-League guys. I doubt we see this team in the bottom 5 next year and being in the mix for a play-in game isn't out of the question. This is a huge offseason for Weaver. It could very easily be THE defining offseason for what this team becomes and the most important of Weaver's tenure in Detroit. A lot of key decisions such as Grant's contract/trade, high lottery pick, dollars to spend on a weak FA class, Bagley's contract, etc. The dream outcome for me would be to get lucky enough to draft Jabari Smith Jr (PF), trade Grant for Portland's higher pick and grab an athletic guard next to Cade (Ivey, Mathurin, or Sharpe). Now you've got your young core with Cade, [Rookie Guard], Bey, and Jabari. You still have a decent amount of FA money that could be used to address your starting Center and/or add bench talent. That's a team that won't skyrocket to the top because they'll take time to mature, but it's "slowness" is based upon player development of a young core with a very high ceiling, not GM development of a bad team still searching for their core.

Cade's numbers in March were way better than Barnes and it's not even close, yet they gave Barnes rookie of the month. I shouldn't be surprised - the media has their story and their sticking to it. It'll be the same for Rookie of the Year. Cade tweeted out, "Detroit vs Everybody", and he's not wrong. Suddenly wins matter for RoY and being the 3 or 4th option on a team with All-Stars is comparable to being the #1 option getting double on every play on a team with almost nothing. Whatever, we got the best player and the top 25 under 25 shows that as well.

This is how I felt as well. I'm happy both LA "super" teams are now eliminated. Now I'm looking forward to Minnesota getting swept in the first round and Beverly getting ejected in at least one of those games.

If CLE gets knocked out during the play-in, does Mobley still get Rookie of the Year? Isn't this whole narrative of why he'd get it based upon the success of the team (never mind that he's playing with 2 all-stars and the success of the team shouldn't matter for RoY)?

Funny how the other two, one of which will probably win rookie of the year, are much further down the list. At least somebody gets it.

I hope that's just a way to generate a higher price.

It's really too bad we're paying Deandre Jordan 8M and Dewayne Dedmon 3M to play for other teams. I wonder which big man Weaver will pay not to play for us this season?

I take those types of reports with a grain of salt. I highly doubt that anyone's big board is set at this point, long before the draft combine. I also highly doubt any team would be sharing their big board with anyone. That would take away all leverage for trades going into the draft.

Davis in the top 3. Um, no.

Great night last night with the OKC win and the Lakers loss. Now I just Philly and Brooklyn to meet in the second round so one of them gets eliminated before the ECF.

I just hope he keeps sitting to give OKC a chance at that game on Friday.

I wasn't saying it was a wise move to wait on trading Grant, but I also have no idea what was on the table. I'm just hoping we trade him in the offseason and don't extend him. I highly doubt we go into next season without one of those two things happening and I'd prefer not to pay a guy like Grant 112M at this point in the rebuild.

Yea, I'm hoping for an OKC win tonight, which could seal the deal. I'm also hoping for the Portland trade to come through on draft night to give us a second lottery pick. My guess is that Weaver didn't see a point in rushing to make the trade before knowing where the pick would land or if protections would push it down the road a year or more (New Orleans pick only conveys between 5 and 14). On draft night, all cards will be on the table and Portland needs Grant to help rebuild around Lillard in a hurry.

I believe the rule was passed that summer, so it started the year after.

Yep, about half of the Superstar-type guys come from outside of the top 4 like Steph, Kawhi, Lillard, Giannis, and Jokic as well as the next tier of guys like DeRozan, George, Butler, Klay, Booker, Mitchell, Gobert, and Trae. That's before we even get into guys that are borderline All-Stars like Siakam, Murray, Lavine, Green, Lowry, and others. Point being, you can get a good player outside of the top 4, so I guess we'll have to trust in Weaver to pick us another Bey and not another Hayes.

For those of you (like me) who might be disappointed to watch the Pistons slip in the draft lottery standings... I've been looking at re-drafts of the top 4 players from each draft from 2005 until 2018 (I want to make sure we have at least 3 full seasons so I stopped there) and the data is pretty interesting. I've included all the data below if you want to see it, but here are some findings: Of the 56 total players 33% were from picks 1-3 41% of them came from picks 1-4 59% were picked outside of the top 4 20% came from picks 5-10 16% from picks 11 -15 23% from picks 21-48, showing the importance of late first round and early second round picks that some GMs like to give away Never have the top 4 picks wound up being the top 4 players Only 2 times have 3 of the top 4 picks become the top 4 players of that draft 6 times only 2 players were drafted in the top 4 5 times only 1 player was in the top 4 picks Once (in 2013) none of the top 4 players were drafted 1-4 Some data on individual picks... #3 tops the list with 8 players #1 is right behind it, with 7 players Picks #2, #4, and #5 have each yielded 4 of the top 4 players in their draft #8 is the worst. Not once did it yield a top 4 player from 2005-2018 ----------- Data dump below in case you want to have fun poking around ------------- Year Re-Draft Player Picked 2005 1 Chris Paul 4 2005 2 Deron Williams 3 2005 3 Monta Ellis 40 2005 4 Lou Williams 45 2006 1 LaMarcus Aldridge 2 2006 2 Kyle Lowry 24 2006 3 Paul Milsap 47 2006 4 Rajon Rondo 21 2007 1 KD 2 2007 2 Marc Gasol 48 2007 3 Mike Conley 4 2007 4 Al Horford 3 2008 1 Russell Westbrook 4 2008 2 Kevin Love 5 2008 3 Derrick Rose 1 2008 4 DeAndre Jordan 35 2009 1 Steph Curry 7 2009 2 James Harden 3 2009 3 Blake Griffin 1 2009 4 DeMar DeRozan 9 2010 1 Paul George 10 2010 2 John Wall 1 2010 3 DeMarcus Cousins 5 2010 4 Gordon Hayward 9 2011 1 Kawhi Leonard 15 2011 2 Kyrie Irving 1 2011 3 Jimmy Butler 30 2011 4 Klay Thompson 11 2012 1 AD 1 2012 2 Damian Lillard 6 2012 3 Bradley Beal 3 2012 4 Draymond Green 35 2013 1 Giannis 15 2013 2 Rudy Gobert 27 2013 3 CJ McCollum 10 2013 4 Steven Adams 12 2014 1 Jokic 41 2014 2 Embiid 3 2014 3 Zach Lavine 13 2014 4 Clint Capela 25 2015 1 Devin Booker 13 2015 2 KAT 1 2015 3 Kristaps Porzingis 4 2015 4 Dangelo Russell 2 2016 1 Jaylen Brown 3 2016 2 Jamal Murray 7 2016 3 Pascal Siakam 27 2016 4 Brandon Ingram 2 2017 1 Jayson Tatum 3 2017 2 Donovan Mitchell 13 2017 3 Bam Adebayo 14 2017 4 DeAaron Fox 5 2018 1 Luka 3 2018 2 Trae Young 5 2018 3 SGA 11 2018 4 DeAndre Ayton 1

Ties split their lottery balls and if there's an odd number of balls it is randomized. (Source: https://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds) I expect that DAL and MIL will still want to win when we play them...76ers game could go either way by then. We really need OKC to win against POR at home. That's would lock us into 3rd if we lose out and it's OKC best chance at a win. My concern is not about the odds of getting top 4, it's about the odds of slipping to 6, 7, 8, or even 9th in this draft. I get that there's no clear cut #1 superstar, but I also don't want to be picking 6-9 after all the losing this season.

This year they seem to be overly concerned with the team's record, as if this is the MVP race and not the Rookie of the Year race. Because Mobley and Barnes are on playoff teams they've been getting more love all year long and since people don't like to be wrong with their early season "hot takes" they're just going to stick to their guns and give it to one of those two. Fact is that Cade has been seeing more doubles than most of the stars in this league, has absolutely ridiculous on/off numbers, and is shouldering more responsibility than any of the other top rookies. His numbers since January have been RoY worthy (10 of the last 11 who had those numbers won the award - with Magic Johnson only losing to Bird) and while Jalen has also come on lately, it took him a bit longer and his stats are more one-dimensional. I don't think it's clear cut that Cade is most deserving, but the case is a lot stronger than most people are giving credit and of all awards, RoY should be the least impacted by team record. But it's fine. RoY is meaningless so let's give Cade that Detroit vs Everybody chip on his shoulder and hopefully he'll come back even better next year.