PISTONS SIGN TOBIAS HARRIS 2 YRS $52 MILLION! TRADE FOR HARDAWAY JR! HIRE NEW COACH JB BICKERSTAFF!

PISTONS SIGN TOBIAS HARRIS 2 YRS $52 MILLION! TRADE FOR HARDAWAY JR! HIRE NEW COACH JB BICKERSTAFF!

welcome to the Piston fanatic I’m your host Dave Dalton and I’m excited to share my passion and perspective of our Detroit Pistons as we go on this Fantastic Voyage together I’ve been a Die Hard piston fan since the days of Dave Bing and Bob laner I’ve also been the varsity basketball coach of a very successful program in northern Michigan I want to thank you all so very much for listening Please Subscribe well piston fans we got we signed a free agent we signed Tobias Harris to a two-year 52 million contract so I love Tobias I’ve Lov Tobias since when he was with Orlando back I I wanted the Pistons to get him I knew he was available the year before we even got him when he was in Orlando when he was just a youngster I couldn’t understand why he had these good numbers and he was so talented and did these things and then why would you want to get rid of a young player that talented but we ended up getting him a year later and he came to the Pistons he was my favorite player he played super well and then I was crushed we traded you know again I was so much against the Blake Griff trade because he was old he always got hurt and he had a Max contract and we gave up our at that time Tobias was a young player with lots of potential and we traded him along with the first draft round draft pick for Blake Griffin and we did get one great year out of Blake but we gave up you know our best young player and a number one draft pick so anyway I was I was very disappointed that we did that move so I again I loved him and he went on he played unbelievably well for the Clippers and then he he got traded to um 76ers and he’s played really solid basketball for them you know the last five years or so but here’s one question I have for you we were paying him two years 52 million so 26 million a year who were we bidding against nobody nobody wanted Tobias Harris and he’s a good player he’s a really good NBA player he will be the second best player on our team instantly and he will make us a better team there’s just a few challenges you know he so he average 17 points a game six and a half rebounds which is good you know it’s good for forward and 3.1 assists which is outstanding so he can move the ball so he you know on their offense he didn’t touch the ball they had Maxi handl the ball and Harden handle the ball sometimes or and be gets the has the ball a lot so three assists is really solid he shot 49% which is really good and but he shot 35% on threes so we got a floor spacer that’s what the NBA league averages for three point shooting 36.6 so he’s slightly below League average on threes so he’s a floor spacer but he’s he’s a good shooter and he 88% on the free throw line so that that’s a really good player the the thing is he’s he’s goingon to be 32 years old July 15 so he’s on the downward Trend so these guys like him and Hardaway they’re both 32 and NBA players I mentioned this before I now I can’t remember exactly what the stat was but in the the final four teams that were in the NBA playoffs had like six guys that were at least in the rotation that were over 30 so it’s a young players league and you know these guys never were great Defenders he’s he’s not a great defender he’s good solid but’s not good and he’s declining but we only sign him for two years so that’s the thing you know he’s going to help us have some solid players in our lineup somebody that could score somebody that’s going to take attention away from Cade he’s going to you know defenses have to guard him at this 3.9 so even though he’s below League average so again I use the example Isaiah Stewart was 38% nobody guarded him he created no floor space w Harris will create floor space so the other thing is we have this two-year contract and so at some point some playoff team might say we need him and they somebody might want to trade for him or in the second year somebody might want his expiring contract so there’s other things that can happen in me time he is a great guy he is a kindy of guy that every team wants to have on their team he’s 68 he can play the three and the four so that gives him versatility the only thing that I can question about that is ponio 68 I mean some of the MC’s uh Heights you can question assar 67 and Ron Holland is 68 so we got those three young guys that need to play and I guess they can all play the three or four I again I I really wanted us to get a 69ine 610 guy to play the three or four so but we didn’t get one so anyway he um it’s going to take a lot of minutes that’s the thing with him and Hardway both they are veteran players who are respected and what are they going to do you know the coach is going to play them the coaches respect older players it’s like we we had Victor Martinez the Tigers had Victor Martinez the manager did not have the guts to take him out of the um cleanup spot you know when Cabo was betting third and so anyway he couldn’t protect him he he he didn’t hit with any power by the end he had he was plug the bases up so anyway don’t want to talk about baseball we’re piston podcast but anyway it’s just a thing that those older players that coaches you don’t want them in the locker room a guy that’s been a good player in the NBA like Tobias Harris and you know oh okay we’re only we’re we’re gonna play ponio and assara and Holland so you’re GNA only get 20 minutes or 25 minutes you know so that’s that’s a thing so we’ll we’ll see what how they work it out so but I was disappointed because I really wanted n Mar and 67 but he unbelievable on defense where Tobias is average at best and probably below average now he’s slowed down and so and the same thing Hardway has never been a good Defender and he’s worse now so we got these guys and aar’s great on defense Howen can play defense fantu is better on defense than them and so you know there there there’s got to be minutes for them somewhere if they’re going to develop so but I wanted Marshall though and so he plays great defense he’s only 26 years old he shot 39% on threes so he signed for three years 27 million so a third of you know he signed for way less he signed um for about for three years what um to Tobias Harris is gonna get for one year and the same thing with my next guy I wanted Jaylen Smith so Jaylen Smith signed with the bulls najim Marshall signed with the Mavericks and and then Jaylen Smith signed with the bulls he shot 59% last year 42% on threes he’s 6’10 so he can play the four and the five and we don’t have anybody like that so he you know he could play with Duran still spread the floor he could play with Stu and still give us two big guys and you know there could be some good floor spacing there but 24 years old three-year contract $27 million so I don’t know if that’s a mid-level exemption three years for 27 million it might be but anyway he just is I wanted him you know he’s young but he’s been they two guys have been in the league around and they you know are way cheaper and then we got rid of Grimes so we trade Grimes and you know I don’t see nothing wrong with the little quitting Grimes but we traded him and so it broke my heart to tell you the truth and I’m for traan langon I went on records saying I thought he was a good hire I’m not liking some of these moves though I mean I just thought there’s things I like better and you don’t know what you can get so maybe Naji Marshall I I think and Jaylen Smith what if if we offered them we got all this cap space what if we offered them three years 30 million are they going to turn down that are they going to turn down $9 million we would give them $9 million more in over three years and it still wouldn’t hurt us at all that little money and yet we pay you know like again I I would be thrilled to know who we were bidding against for Tobias Harris two years 52 million I think that’s kind of what the market thought that he his respectfully he should make somebody that’s been as good of player as he’s been in the league you know he was overpaid there he was he was like a Max contract before that just ended he was making like 39 million year I think so anyway but Grimes we got um hard away and we’re going to talk about him in a minute but you know we got three second round draft picks so but uh I just wanted to see what Grimes could do for a year we he was $4 million a year we were paying for this year we would have and then he would be a restricted free agent if he played great this year so his first year rookie he played pretty good second year he was amazing he shot 38% on threes he’s a incredible Defender he’s way above average Defender he just bust his but we even in the brief glimpse of the Pistons you could just tell and you know we so we did we gave him away for Hardway to get three second round draft picks and so we traded boan boan and um Burks to get crimes basically so but Tim Hardway so I’m not a Hardway fan and I could tell you that much he he’s he is a good player and he can make tough shots he’s a tough shot maker but he’s a tough shot taker so he takes bad shots a tough shot is a bad shot and you still need guys that can make tough shots but the thing with my in my mind with Tim Hardaway between him and his dad they’ve always think that he’s an All-Star they’ve always thought that I mean I’ve read things over the last how many other years that he thinks he’s an All-Star and he averaged 14 points a game this year and he shot um shot 40% from the floor and 35% on threes which is low League average but he takes tough ones you know it’s not like he’s sitting out there like Ste and AAR wide open you know if he did that but he he just I don’t think he’ll ever see himself as as just a regular player he thinks he’s an elite player and so he takes those bad shots so um we knew need more NBA players so those guys are real NBA players and like I said Tobias haris will be our second best player I confident and he’s really good but what is our goal and I was excited you know we we drafted Ron Holland why did we draft Ron Holland because Treon saw that he had the most highest upside of anybody in the draft well Tobias Harrison Tim Hardway Jr are not upside moves you know and we do have to spend the money so that is the thing and again we everybody’s so upset we got Joe Harris but we have to spend this money so we have like 25 million left I think and you know we can help help other teams make trades we can take on bad contracts if they give us assets that’s the goal Treon talked about that in his first press conference you take on those contracts when you have cap space you can take on bad contracts where other teams can’t and then they can just dump the salary with the Pistons and but they have to give us assets so again we got assets for Hardaway which we would have to they just want to get rid of him so you know they wanted to get rid of him they the Mavericks wanted to get rid of that salary they could get nothing for him but they got Grimes that’s that’s the only thing that kills me about it so uh and like I said Tobias Harris who knows who else if there was anybody else in the NBA that wanted him even though he is a really solid NBA player so um we have better depth we have a much better deeper team than we did last year so we have real again last year we we had a whole bunch of guys that were not NBA players hardways NBA player and Tobias is a really good NBA player but so that adds a lot and then if if Holland can if um Ron Holland can pop at all and be a contributing player that’s an upgrade from what we had last year for sure so we need you need to have a good bench you know we you need to have even three deep at each spot where at least you have an NBA player that you can put in the game because there are always injuries so there’s always going to be injuries we’re who knows what we’re going to do at the center position there’s all these guys in free agency that everybody talked about people are still talking about getting G Gary Harris well Gary Harris is a really good player but now what are you going to do if you have to play Hardaway and Harris and Ivy and you know there’s you just gotta look at how many minutes it’s like we have all these 68 forwards 66 6768 forwards that we have to play all of a sudden we never had any we we didn’t have any good ones and now we have now we have four and so we’ll see I mean just it’s going to be interesting what happens and so now we’ll go to the coaching hire so I am to be honest disappointed in was JB bicker staff gonna be a good coach he’s gonna he could be a great coach I’m not saying he’s not I I’m not in the interview room with those guys when I’m not researching them and their background and knowing everything about JB bicker staff all I know is he was a coach at Houston he’s a coach at Memphis he’s a coach for Cavaliers now he’s the coach for Pistons so this his fourth stop he’s won 46% of his games through his career and I watched his dad coach his dad was a really good coach 30-year career like in the NBA unbelievably long career 44% of his games he won does that mean anything about his son no it doesn’t but I’m just saying that’s that’s the only worry is that he’s a guy that can be a decent coach but I’ve seen the the trend in the NBA with a really good coaches are that Oka the Celtics hired him and he did great he had never been a head coach then he got fired for messing around with somebody in the front office a woman and then Joe moula they hire and after adoka Le gets fired and he’s done great and he had never had a head coaching job taylor Jenkins he done great with um the Grizzlies he’s been phenomenal and they’ve had you know so many injuries last year but before that they were like the second best record in the league he’s just a young guy that never had had coaching experience will hardy for the Jazz he is really great coach I mean the the thing with the jazz is they’ve been trying to tank a lot of times they trade away the good players and he still finds a way to win and so he’s a good coach you know Eric spoler he started a lot of these guys started in the film room and then they maybe were Player Development and they were assistant and then they get to be a head coach and they’re still young just like spola and that’s how a lot of these coaches have started NBA coach of the year mark dagnal same thing just this young guy coached the g-league team was in the film room assistant and now he’s easily regarded one of the best coaches so we had Sean Sean Sweeney that was there we don’t know why I it would be interested to know why you know some guys dropped out of the running for it and I don’t know I just like I said I I just had different ideas in my own head and we all have guys that we want and we hope that they get and then things don’t always happen the way we want so I’m hoping for the best for the Pistons I will always be a piston fan I’m a little underwhelmed at the moment hopefully we can at least make some move and get a some good assets we’re going to be a better team for sure than last year but you don’t want to be in the middle you don’t want to be the Washington finally blew it up but you you don’t want to get you know you get players like Hardway and Harris and if they can get you you keep get a bunch of those players that are a little aging and limited defensively and not you know just slightly below a League average on three-point shooting you can maybe get to the middle but the middle is not where you want you want to Leap Frog the middle you don’t want to be a 35 to 45 win team well I guess I’d want to be a 45 win team but 35 to 40 win team if you get there and I still don’t think we’ll get that far but you’re you know you you win a few more games and it we piston fans deserve to win more games because we lost so many games it’s so frustrating to lose all the time but if Holland’s not playing and aar’s not playing because Tobias has to play a bunch of minutes and fonio then you know that’s something and if we so if we get the ninth pick in the draft instead of the if we you know had the fifth worst record then maybe we would move up in the lottery because the fifth worst record and especially the fourth rest record has almost the same odds as the bottom three best records worst records excuse me and so you have that chance to get that high pick again once again and I and I want to win every game we can but it’s just at you know what are we doing for sure I you know I think that that’s the way that um Tran talked in the press conference it sound like he’s not wanting to get to the middle that he’s not trying to make just a jump to make a jump so but we’ll see again we’re there’s more moves ahead I want to thank you all for listening be the reason that someone feels better about themselves go out of your way to do it and go Pistons

After trading for Tim Hardaway Jr they sign free agent Tobias Harris! Was JB Bickerstaff the right coaching hire?