Game Recap/Notes: Game # 21. Pistons 102 - Grizzlies 116. (2-19)

Hard to even say things at this point. It’s remarkable how this team consistently loses, and not just losing but losing badly. The Grizzlies are horrible right now and the Pistons still lost by double-digits.

Box score.

Cade Cunningham:

The one silver lining of recent games had been that Cade appeared to be getting on the right track with some very solid games, tonight wasn’t so bad that it does a ton to negate that but he certainly took a step back. 16 points on 6-14 shooting from the field with 4 boards and 10 assists, although those 10 assists came at the expense of 5 turnovers of which a couple were genuinely horrid passes. He had a couple of decent defensive moments which was nice. In the end I am less inclined, generally, to be hard on Cade because the situation remains largely impossible for him and he’s played better of late.

Killian Hayes:

Look, Killian Hayes has grown on me. He solidified himself as a high-level defender last season, his passing is legit, he does lots of good little things. But tonight feels like a fairly positive game (if you leave out Bane scoring 49 which Killian is far from the only victim of but still) but at the end he took more shots than he scored poitns and despite the solid passing he’s such a non-threat as a scorer that he doesn’t often create easy looks for others. He’s not good enough to play this much and the repeated insistence of Monty Williams to put him in the starting lineup and play him significant minutes is awful. I guess you have to play someone and this roster doesn’t have many good options but still, Hayes isn’t it. Like some others he’s probably going to have a decent career as a back-end rotation guy but he can’t be this.

Bojan Bogdanovic:

The thing that is funniest about Bojan is that he once again actually looked really good! Most of my concerns about how him coming off an injury and looking washed appear to be totally unfounded, 22 points on 8-15 shooting (4-8 from deep) and 7(!?!?) assists on the night, and even a couple of nice defensive plays. Bojan is still a really good player who clearly has plenty left in the tank. And yet, the team largely looks the same. Like this level of play is about as good as we could’ve hoped for and they still lost to a horrible Grizzlies team by double digits. The good news is that they can probably trade him for something I guess.

Isaiah Stewart:

Its time to stop pretending. Isaiah Stewart is not good enough to start. He is not good enough to play the 4. He’s too small to be an effective center but off the bench is workable. The organization’s commitment to Stewart is one of the most damning moves they have made. Consider all the different lineups and ideas the team has tossed around, and the one guy who the franchise seems unwilling to jerk around is Stewart. Like, you know how in football we often talk about how a coach gets fired because he picked the wrong QB? Stewart isn’t a bad QB but that’s mostly what is happening here. Stewart at the 4 somehow became a sacred cow for everyone in the building despite no evidence it could work and then they doubled down on it by extending him early. And it is very important to remind people that Stewart’s effort levels in games are often just as bad as anyone else, he’s a borderline NBA player who the franchise has treated like the 2nd most important piece on the team from just about day 1, Killian Hayes has been all over the place in usage, minutes, and role since being drafted, they shipped Saddiq Bey away because he just wasn’t the right fit, if not for injuries last season (including to Stewart) Jalen Duren likely would’ve barely played last season, and now Jaden Ivey is apparently the 11th guy in the rotation and is 8th in FGAs per game, but through it all whenever Isaiah Stewart has been healthy he has been the man and since last year he has been a 4. Maybe it’s unfair to Stewart, it isn’t like he should’ve refused the extension or willingly relegated himself to playing 15 minutes per game and he clearly works hard. But no matter how hard he may work, this is not working. There are other problems, but it’s hard to put a finger on a clearer thru-line of where THE problem is than Isaiah Stewart.

Jalen Duren:

I’m not pretending anyone on the team had a good defensive game but Duren was certainly having a positive overall night as he consistently found open space for alley-oops on offense to finish with 17 points on 8-12 shooting with 11 boards in 30 minutes while also being the lone Pistons player to finish as a plus on the night at +2. The bad news is that he appeared to have a bad ankle twist of some sort late in the game, which if he misses time will be the 3rd time already this year (if you count training camp and preseason) that he has had ankle issues put him on the sideline. Not good.

Isaiah Livers:

I really want Livers to succeed. The ideal version of him is a really valuable player, he’s a Michigan guy, by all accounts an awesome guy who works hard and is a great teammate. Any team that had a real NBA roster would’ve given up on him by now.

Ausar Thompson:

Only played 16 minutes, 5 points on 2-6 shooting with 4 boards. I think of the podcast Zach Lowe recorded with Bobby Marks a few days ago when they ended up talking about the Pistons and Zach Lowe wondered aloud: “What did Ausar Thompson do to get demoted to the bench other than being too good maybe? Its not like anyone else they are putting in can shoot so it can’t be that.” And I think that’s a pretty good question. The most bizarre thing about it is that it was like turning off a faucet. One day Ausar was one of the most consistent heavy minutes guys on the team (despite the last few games he’s still 3rd on the team in total minutes this year) and then suddenly he’s playing 15 per game. Doesn’t really make sense.

James Wiseman:

Had one nice putback. Played 8 minutes. Another truly bizarre rotation decision here. I have largely had nothing but disdain for Marvin Bagley since his arrival and even I was largely won over by Bagley’s play this year and now it appears Wiseman has won the backup center minutes. If you want to argue that they are giving him one last chance of consistent rotation minutes before totally giving up on him then I guess that is fair, but I don’t know what he’s done to earn one last chance.

Jaden Ivey:

Ended up playing 24 minutes despite not seeing the floor in the 1st quarter because he played so well that Williams really had no choice but don’t worry, it didn’t take long for him to become largely frozen out of the offense. The guy who is at worst the 2nd best offensive option on the team was tied for 5th in shot equivalents.

It is probably worth pointing out that the fact that there has not been an open revolution from Ivey on how he has been treated is pretty remarkable. The fact that he hasn’t just said after a game that he doesn’t get it is a testament to the fact that he probably isn’t causing issues in the locker room or off the court or whatever. He even made some nice defensive plays in this game. How he has been treated this season is an institutional failure from top to bottom, although I think it is probably mostly on Monty Williams. The only good reason for the bizarre rotation choice (an 11 man rotation where Ivey doesn’t play the entire 1st quarter, making him the last guy on the floor) is that Williams wants to bench Ivey outright and the front office told him he has to play him so Williams is doing it as some sort of protest. My guess is that Monty’s quotes from the post-game presser about how they need to have some hard conversations with the bench guys will mostly end up meaning that Ivey gets jerked around some more.

Alec Burks:

Been a total disaster since returning from injury. 3 points on 1-6 shooting in 17 minutes and he is gone fishing on defense.

Marcus Sasser:

Played 5 minutes. Did nothing.

General:

There is only one piece of good news and its that we are approaching the point where even an owner who isn’t exactly hands-on like Tom Gores will decide the entire franchise needs cleansing and fires every single person, and as absurd as it would be given the contract they gave him that should absolutely include Monty Williams. I don’t totally understand because I actually think Monty is a pretty good coach with pretty good evidence that he’s a good option for a team in the Pistons position, but the way he has coached the team is unacceptable. At the very least the front office needs to change. Weaver, Stefanski, and anyone involved in the creation of this roster must go. Tellum will be harder because he owns a stake in the team but he should be removed too but that should’ve happened the moment the team did favors for relatives and former clients.