Betrayer

Sources tell ESPN

He thought he might get traded to the Pistons, so he decided surgery was a better idea.

Why doesn't Monty challenge that call against Ivey? Clearly an offensive foul and the game turned right there. I've never seen a team so terrible at using their challenges. Glad to see Hayes was a healthy scratch, but it doesn't excuse the fact that it took Monty over 40 games to realize that. Same with Wiseman. Why not go back to Gallo instead of Bogie to close? Gallo was having a way better game and his defense is no worse. The drop coverage with Duren is so bad. Gave up multiple wide open 3s to Mitchell in critical minutes because Duren is standing 10 feet away in the paint. I'm guessing that's Monty's scheme, although Duren's defense does still need a lot of work regardless. Ausar made a pretty big impact on the floor defensively and they showed a stat where the Pistons defensive rating goes from something like 122 to 114 when he's on the court. Yet Monty can find more than 18 minutes for him, even when Mitchell (who was 0-3 with Ausar guarding him) is steam-rolling us. And finally, this guy was more calm today but the line, "How does anybody watch this and feel good about themselves" about sums it up:

Terrible coaching indeed. Also during this stretch they stopped playing Livers and Wiseman while adding a backup Center who's got a pulse. Killian's minutes have also been going down. If you stop playing guys who don't belong in the NBA it improves your chances.

The Lavine stuff makes no sense. Getting past the bad contract and questionable player, let’s say they did actually want Lavine. How do you think you’re getting Lavine and keeping Ivey on the same team? How does that even work? It makes no sense at all unless you’re going to play Ivey 15 minutes a game at backup guard or play Lavine at SF alongside him…imagine that defense.

Nice to see a win but this game was ugly on both sides for a most of the game. Monty has said he doesn’t coach shot selection and yea, that’s pretty obvious. Duren is starting to get Drummond vibes with his offense at times and someone needs to step in and develop him properly not just tell him to go out there and score. Also his defense is just looking really, really bad. Maybe it’s the drop scheme they’re running, or the poor guard defense, but it’s got to be fixed because a non-spacing big who plays poor defense isn’t going to cut it. I love Duren’s potential, but he needs development on both ends and he appears to be regressing. Also, at one point in the fourth during crucial minutes he had Hayes, Ausar, and Duren on the court at the same time. Seriously Monty, I can coach my nba 2k team better than that and anyone can see that killian isn’t an nba player

Really wish I could watch this game without waiting 3 days for the blackout, but I live 3 hours from Charlotte so somehow that makes sense to League Pass even though most cable/streaming services don't carry Bally SE in Raleigh. Maybe I'll see if I can do a 7 day free trial to Bally Sports streaming and then cancel it after the game.

But if you create history as the worst team ever you get to keep your job because corporate heads like Gores don't want to look stupid after they give speeches all summer hitching their wagon to a new hire.

They kept it close until about the 2 minute mark when good teams do what good teams do...and bad teams make mistakes. Duren's new found freedom on offense is allowing us to see some things in his game, but it may need to be reigned in just a touch lest we start seeing Drummond part deux. Have fun with all those fancy footwork moves in the post, but no more sizing up your defender 1-on-1 and trying to drive to the hoop or mid-range jumpers. They brought Stew off the bench and it worked great, as we'd all expect. That's the role he should always be playing. I was excited for this positive change...and then Monty said in his press conference that it was just because Stew was injured and they were trying to limit his minutes. Just when I thought this coach might've learned something. Oh well, maybe in another 20 games he'll figure it out. Team's been more competitive since we stopped seeing Livers, Wiseman, and reducing Killian's minutes. Imagine that.

I'd love to see some real changes, like eliminating the corner three, but I doubt we'll see anything like that. Simple changes would be great too, though. Just give the defender as much respect as the offensive player and allow him the right to his space on the court. Eliminate fouls where the offensive player initiated the contact by driving directly into a defender. Also, get rid of the moving, leaning, and grabbing on screens (see Lopez and Giannis on every screen yesterday). Those two things alone would make a world of difference for the ability to defend. The pendulum has simply swung too far in favor of the offense. Sure, we want to see fun basketball, but we also don't want to see free throws all day. Let's not forget that better defense can also lead to more fast breaks, which can be even more fun.

Wonder how many flops and free throws it took Wilt to get those numbers? Also, 35 ppg is just the new 27 ppg. Historical comparisons of counting stats mean nothing to me anymore. Scoring is at an all-time high and defense is at an all-time low. I expect counting stats to just keep getting blown away until the NBA realizes they shifted too far and starts allowing some defense again.

No Stew. He injured his ankle in the last game.

So you’re saying there’s a chance?

Cleared, but returning..."next week"? How about Monte Morris' quad strain that was originally supposed to be a couple weeks. Dude's been out 3 months. You'd think he had surgery or was carried off the floor at some point.

2 Pistons on Shaqtin’ a Fool again:

They did Marvin in the off-season (July 6th, 2022), which is what makes it even more mind-boggling. They had already drafted Duren and acquired Noel by then. But I see what you're saying since they just bid against themselves and didn't give the market a chance to set his value before pouncing on a deal in the first days of free agency.

It would be totally on brand for Wiseman to sit behind Muscala for the rest of the season and Troy to sign him to a 13M dollar deal in the offseason anyway.

This was actually a pretty good game. Pistons hung in there most of the time and Ivey was spectacular. He even had some pretty nice defensive moments in this one. Muscala played over Wiseman and it really puts into perspective just how bad Wiseman is when a washed up DNP -CD candidate immediately looks like a much better player. At least the guy knows how to set a screen. Now if only Cade and Monte could come back so I could stop seeing Killian rolled out there.

That's what we should've been doing for the past 4 years. Instead we gave away draft picks in exchange for bench players. But now we're in year 4 of the rebuild and we either start acquiring picks and a new GM to reboot this rebuild, or we let this one make desperation moves. Sounds like Gores is going for the latter over the former.

Three firsts with no guarantee is pretty crazy for a Siakam rental. I didn't want Siakam anyway, but it just shows that Weaver didn't collect the assets needed to make a splash even if he wanted to.

Interesting. I really hope they get League Pass as well.

Isn't this when Morris was supposed to come back too?

I'm going to keep laughing at the fall of Golden State until the Piston's trade for Green, and then I'm going to cry.

This move has nothing to do with playing Gallinari or Muscala or them helping the team this year. It was Weaver trying to get off the Bagley contract he shouldn't have signed and get more expiring contracts so he can be a player when someone else wants to sell their overpaid "Star". Problem is he's terrible at asset management so he got fleeced again. He gave up draft picks to get Bagley and now had to give up 2 more to move off of him. And before we say that 2nd rounders don't mean anything, they actually have more value with the new cap rules because apron teams can't add players the way they used to. Also, the 2025 pick is the Piston's own, meaning it'll be a good one. On top of that, if you look at what the Wizards community is saying, both of these guys were potential buy-out candidates. They're healthy DNPs on the wrong side of the their career who are shooting terribly this year. So the Wizards got 2 first round picks for nothing and all we got was 1 less year of the Bagley contract that shouldn't have existed. The scary part of it is we all know Troy doesn't play in Free Agency. This money isn't going to be here for the next GM. He's going to use a huge chunk of it in trades before the deadline or before free agency. Get ready for moves from a bad GM trying to save his job. Here comes Blake Griffin again. This trade really means nothing other than proving Troy's poor asset management skills yet again, but the thing that makes me the most sad is that we made a trade and yet Killian and Wiseman are still on the team getting significant rotation minutes.

If it means I get to watch Beef Stew break Draymond over his knee, then I'm in. Otherwise, no thanks.