About Last Season

Welcome, it is officially season preview time. Last year I dove headlong into season previews with individual players but there were requests by some readers for some sort of recap of the previous season for people who may just be deciding to hop on the bandwagon for the coming season. Since we are all about being the type of place that has its gates open I think that’s a good place to start this year. So if you are well versed in the previous season then this probably won’t be all that useful for you but for anyone who tuned out:

1. Good for you I am jelous

2. Lets get you caught up and whether you are reading on the substack or on reddit please ask any questions.

So last year sucked

Yep. It wasn’t the most miserable season in memory but…. not far off. Basically the only bright spots were Jalen Duren looking far better than expected and watching Jaden Ivey slowly come into his own and quietly have an awesome rookie season. The main reason, of course, for the misery was the lack of Cade Cunningham. Cade had an exciting but far from perfect rookie season two years ago, and we came into last season excited to see him sand down the rougher sides of his game and take a big step towards becoming the star the Pistons need him to be, then his knee started hurting and that was the end of it. Cunningham played just 12 games and he was supposedly not feeling right for any of them so it is hard to take much away.

Once Cade went down the season lost most of its interest. We all knew the team was going to be bad but at least we were going to get to see the future cornerstone grow some into his own, not only were we depraved of that but with him out the roster made far less sense and the team was objectively worse. Do not buy into the handful of people who will suggest that a healthy Cade would’ve made the Pistons a play-in contender but they would’ve probably at least been a somewhat watchable form of very bad.

In addition, Cade was not the only injury. Isaiah Stewart, Bojan Bogdanovic, Isaiah Livers, Alec Burks, and Marvin Bagley all played less than 60 games with various injuries. And while that isn’t exactly a murder’s row of awesome players, they are all pieces to creating a season where many nights are spent watching full lineups on the floor without a single NBA caliber player.

BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE

Yeah injuries were not the only issue. The biggest non-injury disappointment came in the form of Saddiq Bey, who coming into season was pegged by many (not me FWIW I gotta take my victories when I stumble into them) to be a breakout performer. Bey looked pretty good out of the gate but quickly trailed off. His fit was awful as he was one of the more pass-averse perimeter players in the league, his efficiency was bad and he would flip flop between being totally invisible on one night and chucking far too many bad shots the next. To make matters worse, with Jermi Grant having finally been traded last Summer and the team without any sort of size/defense on the wings, Bey’s total inability to defend was brought fully into the light. After a few months the form was mediocre and the fit looked awful so the Pistons shipped Saddiq Bey, who they traded Luke Kennard, Bruce Brown, and a pair of second rounds picks to draft less than 3 years prior, was traded straight up for James Wiseman. Even if you don’t mind Wiseman (you will have to wait for his season preview to even enter those waters) there is no doubt that it was a huge disappointment. I was a certified Saddiq Bey hater coming into the year and even I was disappointed by the end. It also didn’t help matters that after he arrived in Atlanta he shot 40% and looked much better but that isn’t a huge shock given that Atlanta is a semi-functional basketball team.

That’s a lot of bad stuff.

Yep. To recap the bad:

• Cade Cunningham basically lost an entire season

• Saddiq Bey flopped hard and was traded for a single spare part that may well not even be in the rotation this season

• Marvin Bagley got hurt again and looked bad when he did

• Isaiah Stewart had some flashes but got hurt and also had some awful stretches with the injury eliminating the chance for much conclusiveness (but don’t worry the front office decided that the good flashes definitely were the real Isaiah Stewart and paid him as such)

• The Pistons ended up with the worst record in basketball and almost their worst season in franchise history and ended up with the 5th pick (even though we all are excited for Aussar that still sucks)

Lets hear the good news

Yes lets.

JALEN MOTHER FUCKING DUREN:

Not just an awesome rookie year for the big man, but also a great bit of business to aquire him. The Pistons drafted Duren 13th overall as a wider part of the Jerami Grant trade and also got back Alec Burks (and Nerlens Noel who basically never played) for their trouble. Even though part of my brain still think “we paid Jerami Grant $40million over two years to get a 13th pick?” but hey thats how it works.

It is too early to call Duren the steal of the draft (Walker Kessler was taken 22nd) but he was certainly a steal. It took a bit of time before he cemented himself in the rotation but once he arrived he was there to stay. He is tenacious, ahletic, strong, and showed genuine flashes of skill with his finishing, ball handling, and passing. I’m not saying that he’s going to become Nikola Jokic but Bam Adebayo is a realistic upside for Duren.

His defense will need to make huge strides because despite plenty of highlight blocks he looked every bit of 19 years old on the defensive end most of the time. that’s fine, young big men usually struggle defensively, but it is an area he needs to improve upon. Snagging a guy who looks every bit like the center of the future, who is not just look really good but in ways that fits great with your other young pieces is awesome, even more-so when you get him at 13th overall.

JADEN MUTHA FUCKIN IVEY:

It was a bit quieter with Ivey because the 5th overall pick had higher expectations than Duren and had some struggles out of the gate, or more accurately after a strong start he fell into problems for a couple of months.

Ivey bottomed out for two months in Novemeber and December, where over 28 games he averaged just 15 points and 4 assists while shooting just 40% from the field and 30% from deep while turning it over 3 times per game, as an extra kicker his defense was not just bad, it was totally lacking in effort at times.

While he still had flashes of brilliance, it wasn’t just the stat-line that was poor, Ivey looked lost on the floor and uncertain of when to attack and when to lay back, it was rookie struggles in every way. The good news is that his reputation as a grinder came into full view at this point. Ivey put his head down, went to work, even going so far as to go out of his way to the coaching staff to help him with his defense.

Things were still far from perfect, the efficiency wasn’t always there and the defense was still sloppy but he was playing hard, with more confidence and assertiveness, and started to grasp how to fully utilize his super-human speed. He got stronger as the season went on and topped it off with a 12 game stretch to close out the season (before which he missed a few games with a knock) where he averaged 20 points and 7 assists while shooting 42% from the field, 38% from deep, and turning it over just over 4 times per game. Those are good numbers regardless of context, when you consider some of the truly embarrassing lineups he was playing with at that point it becomes pretty remarkable.

We will see how Ivey looks playing next to Cunningham this season, but Ivey had a very good rookie year where he showed that some of the biggest questions about his game coming into the league (namely his shooting and passing) should at least be good enough to not hold him back and could well even end up being genuine strong-points of his game.

What else beyond those two?

Those two guys are the main things. Killian Hayes looking like a genuine NBA player is a victory but its a small one because he remains totally incapable of putting the ball in the hoop. I am personally ecstatic to see Dwane Casey no longer be the head coach but his moving to the front office was a move that had been highly telegraphed for a couple of years. There is plenty to be excited about for the coming season, but as far as a recap goes Duren and Ivey are really the only solid positives to take away.

What are the 10 most important things to know from last season if I didn’t watch at all?

1. Cade Cunningham is being hugely slept on because he was hurt but all signs point to him being that dude.

2. Jalen Duren needs to improve defensively but he is unquestionably the center of the future.

3. There is a non-zero chance Jaden Ivey is actually the best prospect on the team and a very good chance the Pistons have an all-star back court pairing.

4. It was well past time for Dwane Casey to go.

5. This team looks way better with shooting on the floor.

6. James Wiseman and Marvin Bagley are probably not NBA players unless they make significant leaps this season.

7. Killian Hayes does not suck because he’s a legit all-defense caliber defender and can really pass but his scoring is such a huge hole he can’t work as more than a defensive specialist on any team trying to actually win games.

8. Bojan Bogdanovic came here to get buckets not assists but he’s pretty damn good at that.

9. If Ausar is not as ready as we would all like him to be the Pistons will, for like the 5th time in 7 seasons, put one of the worst wing rotations in the league on the floor each night.

10. Last season felt an awful lot like rock bottom. So if you’re hoping onto the team now and are disappointed by the team winning like 30 games but people like me are bordering on tears with joy, just understand that last year was probably the least watchable Pistons team I have ever seen AND LET ME TELL YOU I’VE SEEN SOME SHIT.

    

    Programming note: This is the only Pistons season preview piece this week. We will be coming hard and fast with written posts and weekly podcasts after labor day. The rest of this week will be Big 10 football preview and I may even write a preview of the NASCAR playoffs. But I felt it would be weird to announce the full start of season preview stuff with it not being Pistons related.