Betrayer

They won the 1st and 3rd quarters with the three guard lineup. Nice to see Ivey get more playing time, but Monty's comment about "fluid lineups" doesn't make me happy. Taking a young lineup and giving them more instability and difficulty finding their role doesn't sound like a good idea. Ausar had a really rough game. Maybe it was the mask, but he's looked lost since being moved to the bench. He'll need to adjust or spend every day taking 1000 jumpers until he can provide some spacing. Best I've seen Duren look since injuring the ankle. He looked springy again. But yeah, we don't need the Andre Drummond dribble drives from him. I'll say it again: Stew's role is a bench big man. Sometimes playing the 4, sometimes playing the 5. He'll still get significant minutes and might even finish a lot of games at the 5 in switchable situations (and if we ever make the playoffs). You don't have to be a starter to be a locker room leader.

I called it in my season preview, but now it's looking more and more real. Ivey will be gone before game 1 next year or sooner. Monty has decided to make him this team's Ayton. Listen to him after the game when he says "Hayes and Sasser are the best compliments to Cade out there". He even talked about Hayes' ability to "knock down shots"! Everyone in Phoenix said that Monty would come here and pick a baffling favorite player that he'll give way too many minutes too and have a grudge against a young talented prospect - sure enough, here we are. Just trade Ivey now because it's obvious where this is going and his value will only go down from here. Maybe use him in a package to get a 3&D wing for this starting lineup. Monty also continues to take the wrong people out of the starting lineup. We all know it should be Stew coming off the bench. He's a solid backup but not a starter in this league. He also helps Bagley a lot by adding some muscle and defense to that bench unit as we saw last night when they staggered him with the bench a bit. You also gain the option to use him as the backup Center in certain matchups to allow for more switching and to let Ausar play in the dunker spot without crowding the paint. Speaking of Ausar, he relegated to 13 minutes last night and still got 7 rebounds in that time. So, that's two top 5 picks that are now on Monty's bench. Can't wait until we collect another one this offseason. On Livers: Why do people like him? The answer is simple. Weaver has constructed a roster full of players who can either shoot the 3 or play D...nobody that can do both. Livers is the one guy that projects as even a mediocre 3&D player. That's how desperate we are for 3&D players in the lineup.

The job is apparently to talk down to the fans who are the reason your job exists. Can't stand JEIII and his arrogance.

What a train wreck. That game was not fun to watch unless you're a Lebron fan. Weaver's roster makes no sense, Monty is playing guys who should be the 12th-15th player, and the players themselves look like their spirit is completely broken. National media is all over it now as well. I wonder how long Gores ego can handle this? He won't sell the team though, he'll do the corporate thing and find someone below him to blame it all on. Then you'll get a bunch of stories from JEIII about how this person that we never heard of before that day was the real driver behind all the bad things that happened.

That's ok, AD always kills us. He averages 30, 11, and 4 blocks against the Pistons since 2020.

Oh, that's even worse than Lavine. If we're taking Poole he better come with picks. A lot of them.

Truly pitiful. And that press conference was a travesty. Monty comes out and answers one question with an attitude as if he's mad at the media and it's their fault. Then the supposed leaders on this team throw Livers under the bus and send him out there after his second game back from injury. Something is truly broken about this team and this organization. Yea, it's a poorly constructed roster and Monty made it worse by throwing the first dozen games out the window, but it goes beyond that. National media is talking about this, so it's not going to be long before Gores steps in, if he hasn't already. Question is, what's he going to do? Fire Weaver? Fire the coach he just massively overpaid? My bigger fear is that Weaver starts to feel the heat and makes an SVG move to save his job. Say hello to Zach Lavine, aka the next Blake Griffin.

They would've lost anyway, but so much of this being a blowout is on Monty. When the 4th quarter started and I saw Cade out there I turned to my wife and said, "He's been carrying this team all night and now Monty's going to play him the entire 4th quarter. At about the halfway point of this quarter watch him get multiple turnovers and all his shots come up short." Sure enough. Also, he sat Ausar for almost the entire 4th and what happens? Indy had zero offensive rebounds the entire game until that point and they get about a dozen to blow open the lead in the 4th while our best rebounder sits on the bench. Ausar was a +6 and the only guy in the positive for the night.

You think Indy would trade Hali for Cade + Killian? I doubt it, but that's been everyone's justification for why it was ok that we drafted Killian over Hali because we wouldn't have been bad enough to get Cade.

Hearing that Monte Morris is now going to be out for 6-8 more weeks.

On paper you'd expect us to lose game against teams like the Nuggets, Bucks, and Suns. But when these teams are sitting (or losing) their best players, you're just throwing away gifts. It's also really painful to watch Monty slowly learn the things we all know. Took him 10+ games to learn that you need spacing around Cade. Now I see he needs to learn the lesson that Stewart can't play Center except in rare matchups. That stretch in the 2nd half last night was atrocious, just like last year when Bagley was out and Stew played a ton of Center. He also needs to learn that if you do wind up playing Stewart at Center, then Ausar is the guy in the dunker spot or setting the screen and Stew needs to be the guy on the three point line spacing the court, not the reverse. Some of those plays down the stretch were painful with Stew in the dunker spot and Ausar crashing in as well, so the paint just gets totally clogged. Edit: I should also say that this is on Weaver as well. We needed our 3rd center to be a rebounding veteran big man and we got Wiseman instead. He can't be trusted to play real minutes and now here we are with Bagley starting and Stew playing Center minutes.

This is getting pretty embarrassing.

So, nothing really changing other than Bagley is out so you needed someone (Knox) to fill a spot. Stubborn Monty (or prideful Troy?) still unwilling to move Killian to the bench where he belongs (and even that's a kind assessment).

Took him 12 games to figure out what we knew before the season started. Now watch this fool take out Ausar instead of Killian.

Not nearly enough. A chokehold is a dangerous move on it's own, let alone dragging someone by their neck for 9 seconds. Add in his history of altercations, escalations, and lack of remorse for anything he's done and you have someone that should've been sent a message. 10 games should've been the minimum and it still would've been disappointing to me. This is a joke.

It's getting rough out there. No matter where you look the fanbase has turned on this team and all the off-season hopes have gone down the drain. The reality is there isn't one answer here. No matter how you look at it though, some changes must be made. Both things are true: Cade has to play better AND Cade is getting absolutely blitzed every time he comes off a screen with no spacing around him. Get Burks, Sasser, or Ivey in the starting lineup for Killian or even Knox for Stew - or both - to create more spacing. Also, he shouldn't be leading the league in minutes and top 5 in usage in his first month back for what is effectively his sophomore season after missing an entire season due to injury. He looks as tired and frustrated as we are. Monty's legendary stubbornness can't continue. The fact that Ivey is averaging 19 minutes a game while Killian is averaging 30 is criminal. Weaver loves to collect big-men, but he's collected the wrong ones for this bench. We said it before the season started, and Duren's injury has made it even worse - we needed a veteran defensive big man on this team. Someone cheap (like McGee or even Biyombo) that you could have used instead of rolling out Wiseman (or Stew) at the backup 5. Monty's .5 offense is making a difference in both the negative and positive columns. The turnovers are up by 2.5 from last year, however the assists are also up by 5 from last year (from 23 to 28 per game). We're at game 12 in a new system that involves way more ball movement and we're rolling out a rotation where every player that's logged significant minutes is between and 19 and 24 years old. I have to imagine the turnovers trend down as the vets come back and the youngsters get more games under their belt in this system. On a positive note, the ceiling for Ausar is high. Dude continues to be a bright spot for the Pistons on most nights. He's top 5 in the NBA in rebounds (the other guys are all centers), is already making a case for an All NBA Defensive Team appearance, and simply stuffs the stat sheet. We're just 12 games into his rookie season and I continue to be impressed.

The talk around this today is crazy. So many people defending Draymond, and Kerr's comments after the game were absolutely laughable. With his history and the fact that he literally dragged someone in a choke hold, Draymond should be gone for half a season or more. A choke hold is far more dangerous than a punch. They need to put an end to it. But we all know the NBA won't do it for the same reason they won't take a stand against domestic violence - the dollars matter more and, in this case, the California viewer market.

Just saw a post that said the Pistons have only won 4 games since they traded Saddiq for Wiseman. My brain went, “No, that can’t be right…” “…oh hell, it’s true.”

Sounds like the Bulls have finally realized what everyone else knew ages ago: That team isn't going anywhere.

Can't do it. I watch too much G-League ball already with the Pistons.

It's even crazier than that. 9 people played last night. Sasser (age 23) was older than all of them except Bagley (24) and the two G-Leaguers (also 24).

I hear fans blaming Cade and that's just wild to me. The dude had 33, 8, and 8. It's his third 30 point game of this season already. He carried the team in the 2nd and 3rd quarter until Sasser came in and lit it up in the late 3rd and early 4th. Also, the idea posted here that Cade should've stayed on the bench in favor of Killian is just bonkers. If you want to know what actually happened to lose this game: 1. On defense the Buck went to an aggressive zone that we couldn't score against. Why? Because it meant multiple defenders on Cade or Sasser as soon as they dribbled past the three point line. With no respected shooters the spacing was terrible and even when Cade got it to an open man they missed it (3 times in the corner for Stew and once for Ausar). 2. On offense the Bucks went to a high screen and roll with Dame and Lopez. We all know Lopez moves on every screen (not called) and if you touch Dame he throws his body into you and gets the call. But the bigger problem was the lack of adjustments from Monty - and this is the type of thing that Suns fans complained about. We continued to play drop coverage with Duren against the exact same offensive set over and over. Guess what? We got burned over and over because you can't play drop against Dame when he's cooking. He's either going to shoot an open three if the big drops too far or come at your big with a head of steam and get a foul call. You have to switch or trap the ball out of his hands and rotate defensively. That probably also means changing personnel to a faster lineup, which is how most big men get played off the court in the playoffs. Sure, Cade needs to clean up the turnovers, but let's look at the big picture here: Cade is currently 4th in usage across the entire NBA and averaging 5.4 turnovers (he had 5 last night). The other ball handler who's top 4 is Luka averaging 4.9 turnovers per game. The other two in the top 4 are big men and even they both average 3.7 (Giannis and Embiid). The 5th guy on the list? Durant averaging 4.3 per game. So let's not act like Cade is that far off from those other high usage guys. Yes, you'd like him to cut it down by 1 or 1.5 per game, but he's also working with no spacing, getting multiple defenders every time he touches the ball, and has just played the 85th game of his entire career. This loss was painful but Cade was actually one of the few bright spots, along with Sasser. In regards to Giannis getting booted, I hear people calling it weak and I don't understand that. He dunked the ball and then took steps towards Stew while staring directly into his face standing 6" from him. That's a Technical Foul all day long and has been for years. If they didn't call a tech that would've been some serious star treatment. Maybe people are forgetting that Giannis already had one tech earlier in the game so this was his second of the night?

Ausar is 3rd in the latest Kia rookie ladder. The fact that he's outrebounding both Wemby and Chet is pretty amazing, as well as his 5x5 potential. Amen isn't on the list. Sasser is 8th. https://www.nba.com/news/kia-rookie-ladder-nov-8-2023-edition

Wow. That's just painful.

A few early draft podcasts that I've listened to have continued to say that. But, the college season just started and there's usually a few risers over the course of the year. Also, there were similar narratives around the 2020 and 2022 drafts, but there are still plenty of players in those drafts that we'd love to have (Edwards, Haliburton, Maxey, Bane, Banchero, Holmgren, Murray, Sharpe, JWill, etc).