Preseason Discussion

[buddha]

do people like jeiii?  i like him, but sometimes i think he's very buddy buddy with weaver and/or casey.  very protective of this management team.

[Deleterious]

He almost seems employed by the team at times. Sort of like Langlois. 

[Betrayer]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

do people like jeiii?  i like him, but sometimes i think he's very buddy buddy with weaver and/or casey.  very protective of this management team.

His job is to write stories. In order to get quotes and interviews for those stories he needs to have a good relationship with the team and coach. You don't have a good relationship with the team and coach if you flame them all the time.

So, it's in his best interest to be a source of positivity rather than publicly calling out the horrendous on court coaching strategy.

He's not a fan of this team (the Pistons, nothing to do with this iteration of the team). He's said it numerous time on his podcast. This is a job to him and he's going to do what's best for his career.

[buddha]

19 minutes ago, Betrayer said:

His job is to write stories. In order to get quotes and interviews for those stories he needs to have a good relationship with the team and coach. You don't have a good relationship with the team and coach if you flame them all the time.

So, it's in his best interest to be a source of positivity rather than publicly calling out the horrendous on court coaching strategy.

He's not a fan of this team (the Pistons, nothing to do with this iteration of the team). He's said it numerous time on his podcast. This is a job to him and he's going to do what's best for his career.

i get it, i just think he would be better if he was a bit more critical and not just excusing everything or not speaking about it.  but i understand why he does it.

[Hart]

8 hours ago, Betrayer said:

Been a rough couple of preseason games. Ivey is legit. He's going to make a bunch of mistakes (turnovers), but he adds something we desperately need and will likely lead this team in free throw attempts.

Sad to see Bagley go down in preseason, but when has he ever been healthy for more than a minute? We knew this was coming at some point. Hopefully Duren can continue to gobble up rebounds in his absence and stake a claim to that starting Center role where he'll eventually belong anyway.

3 games into preseason and Casey is already driving me nuts.

Soft Switching is bad: It's good to be a team that can switch, or even a team that switches fairly often (Boston, Miami), but "Soft Switching" (switching everything, even before the screen is set) is a very bad scheme. It literally took 5 minutes for the Pelicans broadcast team (Antonio Daniels) to start talking about how easy it would be to expose this defense.

Opponent knows they can get whatever mismatch they want, whenever they want it. Rebounding suffers because you have Corey Joseph trying to box out Jonas Valanciunas constantly. You wind up having to double far too much. You put a lot of wear and tear on your guards trying to guard and box out people the size of Zion. And you constantly pull your rim protection far away from the basket leaving them in a bad position to guard the paint and contest shots.

Offensive Scheme is still trash: The offensive is so vanilla and does nothing to shift the defense. Three DHOs that don't move the defense at all, then a simple pick and roll at the end of the clock to try to salvage something from the play. It's funny (and sad) to see them run the play and then look up confused like they expected it to create something. Maybe it works in practice against our own bad defense since we're switching everything, but this offense isn't working at all in games. Zero creativity. Zero use of individual player strengths.

Rotations are the same garbage as last year: Should we get into his 5 man bench units with no staggering? One of Cade and Ivey should be on the court at all times, but that might require Casey to actually come up with a slightly more complex rotation scheme like every other team in the league. Right now, he's doing like I would in a video game.

This team isn't getting anywhere with Casey at the helm and they'll constantly underperform. I get that he's good at developing young players, but get him into a development role then. We need an actual coach or my 35 win prediction is going to be way off - and that's what really matters 😄

If we are one of the worst teams again this season, I don't see how ownership can retain him.  That would be four years in a row the Pistons are one of the worst teams in NBA. 

[Deleterious]

No fan of Casey, but has he really performed below expectations considering the rosters he has been given?

 

[1984Echoes]

This team just looks... sad. Disappointing. Weak.

Dysfunctional on offense. And on defense.

And...

the season hasn't even started yet.

[Hart]

25 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

This team just looks... sad. Disappointing. Weak.

Dysfunctional on offense. And on defense.

And...

the season hasn't even started yet.

My worry is Cade.  You can say preseason does not mean anything and that is true for some things but not every thing.  Cade had turnover and foul issues last year and was not exactly lighting it up from three his rookie season.  When he has those same issues in the preseason, I think it is justifiable to be concerned about his preseason play.  If this team is going to make any substantial gains, they need Cade to make a big leap.   

[Hart]

10 hours ago, Deleterious said:

No fan of Casey, but has he really performed below expectations considering the rosters he has been given?

 

Maybe not.  But do other franchises keep coaches in the 20-25 win range four seasons in a row?  I would guess it is almost unheard for a coach to keep their job when the team is performing at that level.  And that could be what we are staring at after this year.  

[buddha]

fesity game tonight.

[buddha]

theyre still such an unathletic team.

ivey and duren and....diallo?

[Hart]

I enjoy watching Ivey play the point.  Just so explosive in the open court when he gets the ball.  Actually a little bit like Morant as a player.  There is a ton of potential with Ivey and Cade as a backcourt combo.   

Edited October 14, 2022 by Hart

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Hart said:

My worry is Cade.  You can say preseason does not mean anything and that is true for some things but not every thing.  Cade had turnover and foul issues last year and was not exactly lighting it up from three his rookie season.  When he has those same issues in the preseason, I think it is justifiable to be concerned about his preseason play.  If this team is going to make any substantial gains, they need Cade to make a big leap.   

if shooting is going to improve you would expect to be as the result of hard off-season work. 

[Tigeraholic1]

I love that Beef Stew gets a 10' halo to shoot 3's.

[Betrayer]

On 10/13/2022 at 9:56 AM, Deleterious said:

No fan of Casey, but has he really performed below expectations considering the rosters he has been given?

 

Casey teams will never be better than their best star's ability to play hero ball. His teams will never be more than the sum of their parts. That said, the team is really young, so the W/L record is probably only slightly shifted with a better coach although the game to game competitiveness and watch-ability would be better.

More importantly, while I think Casey is great for development off the court, I think he's actually impeding development on the court. You have to put players in a position to succeed and he's not doing that. The defensive scheme, the platoon lineups, and the offensive system are all impacting the on-court development of these players by constantly putting them  behind the 8-ball.

[Deleterious]

8 hours ago, Betrayer said:

Casey teams will never be better than their best star's ability to play hero ball. His teams will never be more than the sum of their parts. That said, the team is really young, so the W/L record is probably only slightly shifted with a better coach although the game to game competitiveness and watch-ability would be better.

More importantly, while I think Casey is great for development off the court, I think he's actually impeding development on the court. You have to put players in a position to succeed and he's not doing that. The defensive scheme, the platoon lineups, and the offensive system are all impacting the on-court development of these players by constantly putting them  behind the 8-ball.

Which young guy do you feel hasn't developed as he should?  I think most are on track for what they projected to be.

[Betrayer]

When I watch Duren and Stew get dragged away from the paint on defense every play because opponents figure out they can get whatever mismatch they want all night, it doesn't make me feel good about their development. I want to see Duren in the paint, learning to box out big men and swat shots. Hard to do in a soft switching scheme when your big men are constantly on the perimeter. The same could be said in reverse for the guards having to guard out of position and stop Velanciunas from getting rebounds rather than being able to hit the gas in transition after the big man secures the board. Being able to switch is one thing, but doing it 100% of the time before the screen even arrives is a terrible system that puts every player at a constant disadvantage.

That's not playing to your strengths and maximizing your team's potential, and when you're playing to your weaknesses and constantly putting your players at a disadvantage it affects both confidence and development.

Same can be said on the offensive side of the ball. The lineups and offensive schemes aren't designed to play the strengths of the players we have. Running DHOs that don't shift the defense doesn't work and it forces guys to play hero ball, but we don't have a team built around one-on-one heroic players. We should be running action to get guys open with more movement and more off ball screens/cuts to free us up from defenses that overplay with tight perimeter coverage. This stagnant offense is forcing them into bad plays, bad habits, and ultimately impacting both confidence and development.

Killian's confidence issues and their affect on his development are a well known fact at this point. I don't think Cade has been put in a position to succeed at all. He's just good enough that he still put up numbers regardless. Bey is a fan favorite, but look at his efficiency and some of the things he was asked to do last year to try to salvage plays rather than playing the game the right way and playing to his strength. These kids are being forced to play a lot of Casey Hero Ball rather than learning to play the game "the right way", move the ball, find open cutters, and so on.

Bottom line, I feel that when you're putting your players at a disadvantage on both ends of the court rather than playing to their strengths, you're negatively impacting their development.

Obviously this isn't quantitative, because we have no way of knowing how they would develop under LB or Carlisle or whomever. But I just don't see how being trained wrong and constantly put at a disadvantage can help your confidence or development. These players are developing despite Casey's on court strategy (and I'm sure partially because he's good off the court), not because of it.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Betrayer

[Deleterious]

Sounds like you want 1987 basketball back.  As an old guy, I totally understand.  But the days of C's playing in the paint are over.  Well, except in Minnesota I guess.

[Hongbit]

perdre tous les matchs

[Betrayer]

4 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Sounds like you want 1987 basketball back.  As an old guy, I totally understand.  But the days of C's playing in the paint are over.  Well, except in Minnesota I guess.

Not at all what I'm saying, and I'm pretty sure you know it.

Look around the league. Even teams that switch heavily aren't running a Soft Switching scheme 100% of the time. 5 minutes in and everyone - including the opposing broadcast team - knows how to get the mismatch they want on every play for the rest of the game. Pretty sure the rest of the league isn't living in 1987, but they certainly aren't running the same simplistic scheme as Casey, so clearly there are other options.

I'm also pretty sure from the discussions we've had over the years that your BBall IQ is high enough to see this and also see how bad this offensive scheme is as well. Knowing that, it would impossible to think that it doesn't affect player development in a negative way.

Keep him on board for the off-court stuff that he's good at, but we need a better coach on the court both to make these games more competitive and also for the sake of continued player development.

[Deleterious]

Your first sentence is complaining about our C's getting dragged away from the paint.  That is modern basketball and has nothing to do with Casey.  Outside of the times you play Denver and Philly, a C wont be playing in the paint much.  That is why I assumed you were complaining about new basketball.

And Golden State has won 4 titles running the exact defense Casey runs.  OK they don't switch 100% of the time, but they also don't run out a bunch of rookies and young players.  Almost all younger teams will switch everything since it is so much easier.

His offense is bad.  His ATO plays are brutal.  How do you run an inbounds play at the end of a game and not set a single screen?  Basically all of this exact stuff was said about him in Toronto.  He had Siakim, VanVleet, and OG as young players and they all turned out fine, and probably above where most figured they would end up.  I see that path here as well.  Casey builds the foundation and then another coach comes in to finish the job.  Install more complicated defenses/offenses and build off the foundation Casey built.

But if they fired him today I wouldn't be upset.  Especially if it was to bring in someone like Atkins.  

[Betrayer]

Don't judge a book by its cover and don't judge my post by the first sentence. I know I'm guilty of writing long posts, but I expanded upon my complaints after that  😄

GS won 4 titles with MVP(s), All-Stars, and a genius offensive coach. If we had 1/3rd of the offensive movement, screening, and cutting that GS has I'd be elated. Their defense was very good as well, but it's a lot easier to play defense when you get to set up in the half court every time. And, like you said, they don't soft switch everything. Being able to switch is great for this era - doing it exclusively is simply bad basketball that screws over your players. Especially when you don't have the personnel for it like Boston (long, athletic wings and the DPoY that can switch up and down).

This stuff was said about him in Toronto because it's true. He's just not a good on-court coach. He didn't win Coach of the Year until Nurse came along and fixed his offense. The Raptors saw it and finally let him go.

He's great for turning kids into men and keeping a happy locker room - 100% credit to him for that. But the word is that he'll be moving into a development role to do that for the team after he's done coaching anyway, so you won't lose that aspect of what he brings. That being the case, why not make that transition sooner?

With something this obvious, I get impatient and just want to rip the band-aid off. If they wait any longer than this offseason to make a move, they're just wasting time (and player development years, in my opinion). At the very least, I'd love to see them bring in an assistant coach like Nurse to save us from watching this offense in its current state.

"But if they fired him today I wouldn't be upset.  Especially if it was to bring in someone like Atkins."

Yup.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Betrayer

[Betrayer]

 

[Deleterious]

Teams average 110 points per game.  The offense is going to score now and then.

[Betrayer]

On a more positive note, here's a nice breakdown from Bryce at Motor City Hoops of Jaden Ivey's passing and creation skills as show during preseason: