Detroit Pistons Front Office Questions – NBA Finals | EP 117

Detroit Pistons Front Office Questions – NBA Finals | EP 117

oh man you know what that’s that gets me the perfect place to segue because you’re talking about everything that this team has done to assemble not just a good foundation but they’ve built the first floor the second floor and they finished this house this building as it relates to Detroit Lions and another team that we thought was going to be able to kind of do this thing and they discussed you know starting at the foundation was the Detroit Pistons when they did hire Troy Weaver and we’ll get into our wood our Woodward Pistons segment right now so I will reset things you guys got to help me get this drum roll going for the legend Detroit News Ro beard let’s rock out hey yo shout out and welcome again to the legend Detroit News Rod beard brother you gotta Kick things off with Rod’s thoughts is Dallas really this bad or the Celtics this good you you look at the trades that that Boston made and how they remade their roster and you saw that they were right there and you it it shows again you’ve got to be aggressive and go after the pieces that you need and and I’ll admit in the beginning I’m like porzingis why are they doing this they don’t need him he’s going to upset the apple card and the the chemistry that they have but he’s been the Catalyst for these first two games of the finals so far so it’s just another uh lesson and pointing to even though you think you’re there and you’ve got enough continue to try to build that roster and get those um little the pieces that you think are the weakest continue to try to build those there’s no such thing as you’re right there you have enough go back and continue to build that roster yeah this finals has definitely been surprising and it’s completely gone against the narrative that I thought it would uh seeing uh Luca donic H hobbled obviously is going to play a big big big role in terms of how this finals is going to go but I didn’t think that uh Kyrie Irving would be slowed down as much as he has been you know what shout out to JB smooth we call him wber Sports MVP he he got his hand raised up right now as well definitely man I gotta definitely shout him because he said he said Drew holiday and he got the hands raised up again shout out to JB Smo uh he definitely said uh that Drew holiday would play a big factor in the series and when you got Luca kind of hobbled and now you got uh Kyrie Irving taken really out of the finals because of Drew holiday and the rest of that defense it’s had a huge effect it’s Expos their lack of depth oh absolutely and to kind of piggyback off of that Rod I trust you that you are a baller we all agree Rod is a baller so I have to ask you this uh question Jason Tatum in these first couple games is shooting the ball horribly he’s 12 of 38 that’s a 32% from you watching the series is he playing better than his stats indicate or is he just being carried by a good team he’s he’s playing better because he’s another player who can dish the ball his assists are just as important important as his points um and and Luca is the same sort of way that if he can get 10 or 12 assists with 20 points that’s that’s as effective as him scoring 40 um but in in Tatum’s case you’ve got Jaylen Brown playing out of his mind and their depth there with porzingis and um their bench that I mean their guards defensively are just dogging the Dallas back court where they can’t get anything else going and their front Court isn’t good enough to carry that team that’s where thought Boston had the advantage was that you can throw Tatum you can throw Brown you can throw any of those guys and and Drew holiday you’ve got four guys that you can throw at a faster guard you can throw at luk if you need to um and so again we we talked about this in previous weeks where is the the NBA right now it’s about wings and guards it’s not necessarily about bigs if you got a good big good for you but you’ve got to have wings and guards toble to advance and to play well in this league yep yep and you know what obviously the Pistons they got a long way way to go before they get into these finals here these NBA Finals but they believe that they’re starting on the right uh path again with the hiring of tra langon and obviously we’ll reset some of this news here uh there was the hiring of of of Blackstone as well as JR Holden into this front office um some of the positions we’re still waiting to see exactly what they’re going to be uh then there was the news as well of uh taan Prince being a candidate for the Detroit Pistons GM job it’s something we’ve talked about on this podcast as well as the wer Woodward show it would be something that I would absolutely like but again you got to ask yourself who are they going to be here we don’t quite know what decisions they had a role in playing in their previous stops we just know that there was success uh as well as some accolades in their previous stops but we heard the same with Troy Weaver so if we’re going to learn a little bit from that obviously we can be optimistic about it uh but we don’t really know how it’s going to pan out but tan Prince as a candidate would be awesome Kade Cunningham as well as uh some of the other Pistons news um it is uh via James Edwards of the athletic um reported that the Detroit Pistons will be offering or supposed to be giving Kade this Max contract this off season as well which really leads us into um something that flanel has been very passionate about as well in our first Pistons segment the direction of this team to Hey listen Kade is our guy let’s build around that and let’s identify what that right way is um but obviously uh some of the other news that’s kind of um blocking us from being able to understand exactly what’s going to happen is the lack of a press conference so foras Lang and those that have been hired I just need to be able to get your thoughts is this something unprecedented is something weird is there a strategy to this for the organization or for trasan langon and just be able to get your overall thoughts on it well I mean I think it could be something as simple as Tom gor’s schedule he might be out of the country or or not able to get and and legitimately that’s how a lot of things work with the organization you’re not going to have a press conference like that unless you have Tom gors there um and so you could just be waiting on his schedule or something to clear up or for him to be able to get in and and do all of that maybe they want to hire the GM first and just introduce the whole front office at the same time and if you’re waiting on uh Dennis Lindsley then you’ve got to wait a little bit more for for all of that stuff to happen so I think it I wouldn’t worry about it there are 10 reasons why it could be happening and I don’t think very many of them are bad you know what thank you for bringing up to Dennis Lindley lindsy uh Lindley news as well I know that he was a candidate for the position at treas Landing got but it was reported as well um I believe via Mark Stein too that um he’s a c a candidate to join Trent lon’s front office actually which I think would be also another move that I’ll would be highly optimistic about and just uh looking forward to seeing exactly how this thing works out but when you’re talking about this front office and their Vision one of the questions I wanted to be able to ask and I guess that’s going to be kind of the theme of this thing since we haven’t been able to have the press conference yet being able to kind of talk about the questions that we do have for treas and Landon and at first I thought my biggest question was how how quickly do you want to get this thing turned around or not are you looking to have your four to five years or are you looking to get this thing done in maybe two to three years which would obviously mesh well with a lot of the the fans and the supporters and The Observers but uh my biggest question is now how much uh does treaser langon value or how does he view the young collection of talent that is here with the Detroit Pistons right now because obviously we all have our own way that we look at it and when Monty Williams came in I don’t think anybody believed that he would undervalue Jaden Ivy compared to what we believed as well as overvalue a guy like Killian Hayes in ways that we definitely didn’t believe in even to the people that ardently would support akilian Hayes as at least a a basketball player that belonged in the NBA none of us believe that he should have been a guy that should have been starting and so my biggest question here is how exactly does he kind of view this collection of young talent and have we kind of overvalued who these players have been or what they could I I think the value is there it’s just how does it all mesh together because you you’ve got these great ingredients for this meal that you’re going to make but if it’s not going to taste good um when you put it all together then it just doesn’t work so it the individual pieces I think are fine but how do they play well and how do they play together and that’s going to be the big question is um just how do you my biggest question is going to be about culture what what kind of culture does he want to bring um to this team is it is it building with the young guys do you want do you need more vets to kind of augment this roster I hope that’s a yes um but what’s that mix look like and um what what there’s a lot what what what is different about it what do you if if Troy Weaver was about the um re restoring what is his outlook for what this team should be it’s not just restoring and bringing back former glory you can’t use that it’s got to be something different what does he wanted the his trademark for this thing to be yeah and I think part of this restore or maybe even getting the Pistons some sort of identity moving forward is just getting Kate Cunningham more help get that man some help I am bullish on Kade Cunningham as the franchise player moving forward and I think we even saw him a little bit unlocked towards the end of last season even when you had a guy like fonio playing because fonio was playing very very well and I think he was a good compliment to Cade how are we undervaluing as Pistons fan fans even some people how much a cade Cunningham could get unlocked just by even adding one Allstar caliber player to this team like a Brandon Ingram or a Zack LaVine right I think that’s what we’ve been saying all along is is he needs an Allstar he needs a complimentary player and maybe not a complimentary player that that is not as good as him he need somebody maybe better than him who can score um and just in talking to people like is people are wondering is he a point guard legit question to ask but let’s say you go you went out and got Trey young which I’ve heard some people kind of toss around yeah does does Kade play better next to Trey young I can’t say that for sure but but but is Trey young the guy you want to go out and and swing and and and base every this rebuild on are you more comfortable with Trey young or with a Brandon Ingram I’m gonna say Brandon Ingram because that’s that’s where the league is you’ve got to have that guy you don’t need a Trey young if if somewhere down the road you wouldn’t got a Trey young I’m fine with that but you need guys who are going to be able to come and to um change the way this team plays change the way they defend change the the the when you walk off the bus you’ve got a Brandon Ingram now with a jayen Duran and with a um jade iy and with a cade Cunningham that looks a whole lot different than adding um another piece to to the roster um so I think that’s the way you’ve got to kind of look at it is is um what is this team going to be when you add that guy but also which guy are you adding which position makes the most impact for what you’re trying to do and I think it’s got to be a either three or four it’s got to be one of those guys yeah yeah I definitely agree as well and uh just uh Chase amley in the chat I just want to be able to kind of uh highlight this comment he says acquiring Zack LaVine would be like us trading for Blake Griffin all over again please no Zack LaVine please and the difference here in acquiring leagal Zack LaVine is that the Pistons are starting at the base level and they’re able to build around the talent that they do bring here and that’s something that they weren’t able to do when they got Blake Griffin whether it fit or not they just brought them in and they rammed themselves up against the cap space they had nothing else to be able to do anything else and they went went with this kind of double big look again and luckily Blake Griffin was just versatile enough to actually make that work but when you’re looking at what these Detroit Pistons can do right now to acquire Talent they can add more than just a Zack LaVine and be able to get so much talent here that the usage rates of players like Zack LaVine and K Cunningham can go down in the hopes that their efficiency goes up and and and I do I trust this team’s ability to playmake when you have the ball in the hands of a guy like K Cunningham even if he’s not your best scorer I do trust the fact that Kate Cunningham is going to be able to get the rest of the team involved and it’s something we’ve tracked R uh really uh from the beginning of this podcast and having a k Cunningham uh be that number one pick for the Detroit Pistons is the fact that he likes to probe he likes to look to get his teammates going early in those games he likes to come out of the halfs doing the same but when you get into kind of those last five minutes of the halves especially in the fourth quarter K Cunningham has shown the type of player to be able to take over and obviously all of us would love is if more of that is what we saw him grow into as you get some more Talent around him because it’s exactly what we saw at of Chanty bips when he got kind of the right coach and this is going to kind of lead into my next question um we saw Chanty bips become even greater player than he had shown in a Pistons uniform with the Detroit Pistons the other news that kind of uh popped up was that they’re assessing Monty Williams and if they’re going to have him around uh for this treasure Lane and rebuild I want to be able to get your thoughts on that as well mon Williams as a coach we’ve seen him come in and kind of uh start off with a very very rocky road as related to the handling of players like J iy as well as Killian Hayes we saw a little bit of that Faith kind of payoff with um I guess James wisman he looked better towards the end of the season but Monty Williams what is your thought as it relates to the assessment the Pistons are doing and what you think is the best course of action it’s a whole lot of money that is that is that is that is my first reaction is that’s a whole lot of money is that you’re you’re probably talking 50 to 60 to buy them out somewhere in there let’s call it 55 just for for kicks and Giggles if it’s 55 and you’re Tom goris and you just scratch out that check to buy them out you’re admitting the wrong in in hiring him in the first place um but then who are you going to get I mean that that’s that that’s always my question whenever you’re talking about firing somebody or trading somebody who are you going to get if you’re if you’re just going to get somebody then um if you’re going to get James burgo cool I mean that I think that’s a solid hire um but you’ve got to tell me what the plan is but you and and you’ve got to make it um a a coach that’s going to meld with these players and and you’re right when all of that stuff comes together that’s when you can achieve greater things without having the talent that you need but you’ve got to find the right coach that makes this all make sense and and I Monty Williams didn’t have a good year it’s one year and he didn’t have a great roster either so you you can you can make it you can make an argument that he should stay but I can also see the argument that he should go that it just wasn’t the right fit at the right time and he he told you as much like I didn’t want to be here I want to be uh with my wife and and spending time with my family and take this year off wait how many million okay well I mean that’s that’s that’s that’s a number I can’t turn down and and your your agent is telling you you can’t turn this down well okay that’s that’s kind of what it is your coaching fraternity is telling you you can’t turn it down because look at what’s happened since he’s gotten his deal and now all of a sudden not do you have four or five other coaches now kind of lapping him going moving ahead of him as it relates to how much money coaches are getting but then you even get a guy like Dan Hurley in college and we know how great he is in the college circuit but he’s being offered $70 million and you know what I saw from different National Outlets that that was a lowball offer yeah oh yeah that’s that that’s what you know when you’re talking about the agents when you’re talking about your unions you’re talking about people who are like you know what this will do great for the generations to come as well as for what coaches are able to get right now and you’re right early on he told us and it wasn’t just then in training camp he told us this is not the type of team that I like to be able to coach I need a a few more vets this is a lot more young guys than I’m comfortable with so though he’s been credited with being instrumental in the development of some young players like we look at the Kelly UB he does get some credit for Mel Bridges he does get a little bit of credit for like Devin Booker but but he was already that guy uh but those teams were also surrounded and they had some good veterans on their squad as well so those things do make a difference he came to this team and it was literally bunch of young players and habble vets yeah so it’s interesting man but uh R any last uh words today no no no I think it’s just um these next couple of weeks are going to be really interesting to see um how things develop and um just how this franchise moves forward whether they get the GM that they want they know who’s going to be running the show and pulling all the strings but do they get the GM they want do they continue with the coach this is going to really be the the decision that’s going to shape these next maybe four or five years of this franchise is is how they handle the rest of the summer yep yeah it’s going to be interesting to see hopefully we get um the GM in place soon and we’re able to have that press conference as well as the pre-draft press conference so we can get kind of a feel for the strategy obviously they’re not going to lay out their entire board for us uh but we do we are able to learn a lot being in those press conferences about at least the type of guy he is how he kind of values Talent uh and what exactly he’s looking for uh with the Detroit Pistons and it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out like I said uh as a credential you know reporter and writer of the Detroit Pistons for w Sports um with this being now the second front office unit that I’m going to be able to have the opportunity to cover I’m going in it this time a little bit different you know uh whether there’s optimistic optimism or caution uh this time it’s more of a wait and see approach realistically um utilizing what we believe to be the best course of action forward and and seeing how whatever it does whether it agrees with what I believe what we believe what we say or not what type of success is he having and I do believe it needs to happen sooner rather than later more a two to threee window rather than a four to five year window so yeah no that’s sure that’s fair yep yeah well all right then Rod as always thank you so much for your time man we appreciate this every single week that we get the opportunity to be able to sit down and talk all four Detroit sports teams with you couple segments today Detroit News Rob beard sports editor and chief of the Detroit News need you guys to definitely go on ahead and tap in with the Detroit News support them they have great writers who are also great people out there in the media beat as well but as always Rod thank you for your time brother thank you Rod all right appreciate it thank you thank you and thank you to uh JB as well and broer for uh getting everything set up behind the scenes shout out to kg uh also um forgot to shout him out a little bit earlier on the show that’s our brother he will be back with us on tomorrow but um huh we got to get into some more uh into some more what lions talk lions tigers bears oh my tell them about lady James Kool-Aid I will tell you about lady James it’s pretty it’s really something awesome and awesome is when a guy can be a guy and get an amazing haircut that is Lady [Music]

Via Wake Up Woodward featuring Matt Broder (credentialed WSN Lions+Tigers Reporter), Brandon @DetroitKoolAid Dent (credentialed WSN Pistons reporter), KG on sounds, JB in the TD booth and Flannel Sam

Rod Beard (Detroit News) and Brandon @DetroitKoolAid Dent (Woodward Sports Network) join WAKE UP WOODWARD to discuss the Detroit Pistons at the NBA Trade Deadline. Like , Subscribe and leave your comment below!

Subscribe to Woodward Pistons Podcast:

SPREAKER: https://www.spreaker.com/show/5546494/episodes/feed
SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Df3L4wQmTKSjjfIxoQjPG
APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/woodward-pistons/id1662995059

Woodward Sports Pistons beat reporter Brandon @detroitkoolaid1585 Dent and Detroit News assistant sports editor Rod Beard.

#DetroitPistons #NBA #WoodwardSports #WoodwardPistons #detroitbasketball #Pistons #NBAPodcast #pistonsbasketball #JalenDuren #cadecunningham #ausarthompson