Meet Jaden Ivey

Little late to the party but I wanted to try and be sure no more trades were going to come through so lets meet the new additions. (this basically ensures that a massive trade will now happen but lets start with the guy least likely to be heading out)

Who is Jaden Ivey?

Jaden Ivey is a 20 year old, 6’4 guard out of Purdue where he spent two seasons. Ivey was born and primarily raised in Indiana, playing all of his high-school careers there. He is the son of a former WNBA player (including playing for the Detroit Shock) and current Notre Dame women's coach, Niele Ivey. His father is Javin Hunter, who also played for Notre Dame but in football and spent several seasons in the NFL. Ivey’s grandfather also was a professional athlete who played for the Detroit Lions.

After earning a 4-star recruit status Ivey elected to attend Purdue University for college, where he spent two seasons. In his freshmen year, he was slow to start, shooting poorly from deep and scoring just 11 points per game. Last season, his sophomore year, he fulfilled his potential and lead a very good Purdue team with 17.3 points, 3.1 assists, and 4.9 rebounds per game on a TS% of 58%, all significant improvements on his first year. As you all know, he was drafted 5th overall by the Detroit Pistons.

Offense:

This is where the goods are, Ivey projects as some degree of highly dynamic scoring guard. His burst is exceptional, he hangs in the air for an eternity, and can finish from all sorts of angles. Other things will obviously impact where he ends up, but this will be the bedrock of his game, a classic slasher who is also a monster in transition.

Part of the slashing for Ivey is that he also draws heaps of fouls. At Purdue he had a free-throw rate (number of free-throws per field goal attempt) of 47%. For reference, the only non-bigs in the NBA last season to have a higher free-throw rate were: James Harden and Harrison Barnes (and Barnes plays almost exclusively as a 4 these days) and Ivey took the 3rd most free-throws of any player in the Big 10 last season. Obviously it’s not totally fair to extrapolate that from college but drawing fouls is one of the most consistently translatable skills from college to the pros and that is such an absurd amount of free throws for a guard, its immensely likely he will spend plenty of time at the charity stripe. This is also nice given that an inability to get to the line was a serious problem for the Pistons last season.

The good news here as well is that, while he has plenty of question marks, his athleticism and finishing are at such an elite level from day one that it puts a bit of a floor on him as a player. Even if Ivey never develops his other skills, his worst case scenario is something akin to a Colin Sexton/Will Barton type of player, which would be a disappointing outcome but still a pretty useful player who theoretically fits next to Cade Cunningham.

It’s a small thing but worth pointing out that Ivey was a willing and intuitive cutter with Purdue, which isn’t a shock given how Matt Painter coaches, but still good news for his future fit with Cade.

So what about those downsides

Downsides is a strong word here so lets go with “question mark” and talk about his three-point shooting. He improved dramatically after his first season up to 36% from deep on high volume and a high degree of difficulty last season, his shots occasionally get a bit wild but he showed capability as both a spot-up and off-the-dribble shooter.

So why is shooting a question mark?

The 26% from his freshmen season is still staring right at us, and Pistons fans have plenty of examples of why you shouldn’t trust solid shooting on less than 200 attempts, Stanley Johnson shot 37% from deep in his lone college season, Jon Leuer shot 37% before joining Detroit. I think Ivey will be at least a serviceable shooter, but he was not really billed as a shooter before college so larger sample size is needed. If last season was for real and he’s going to be a plus shooter then he will probably score 20+ per game out of the gate.

Now downsides?

Yeah. The biggest downside is, unquestionably, his decision making with the ball in his hands. At times he looked totally lost, and occasionally makes genuinely baffling decisions with the ball, not just as simple as “tried to squeeze in a pass that he shouldn’t have” but rather “threw the ball directly into the defenders chest”. This does come with the caveat that Purdue does not, and never has under Painter, play a style that is overly conducive to slash and kick guards. For comparison here, in Carsen Edward’s legendary junior year he had more turnovers than assists. Purdue likes to have giants in the middle and often doesn’t prioritize spacing and shooting, so Ivey spent a decent amount of time driving into clogged lanes.

That said, Cade Cunningham played with a genuinely bad collection of teammates and even though the passing numbers were not great, it was clear from watching that he was a whip-smart passer being held back by a lack of spacing. Many of Ivey’s bad passes cannot simply be waved away with “well its bad spacing”.

The poor decision-making is the scariest part of Ivey as a prospect. Players can, and almost always do, improve with their ability to see the floor over time in the NBA, but there is unquestionably a degree of either having it or not when it comes to feel for the game and where players are on the floor. I hate to even bring this name up to Pistons fans but there is a universe where Ivey’s total lack of feel for his teammates brings back visions of Brandon Knight. Knight wasn’t as physically dominant as Ivey is, but Knight was also a phenomenally talented guard who could score in buckets and put up good numbers but his inability to make teammates better with his passing was a terrible cloud that hung over what was actually a pretty decent player before he started getting injured.

The good news is that the Pistons already have Cade Cunningham, so if the worst comes to be then they can tell Ivey to not worry about anything other than scoring and roll with that.

There is one more downside that can also be somewhat classified as a question mark, the total lack of mid-range game. Ivey never took midrange shots at Purdue, straight up. This likely contributed to some of his bad passes because when he dribbled into trouble he never pulled out a shot and instead tossed terrible passes to nowhere. While the modern NBA calls for fewer and fewer shots outside of the arc and the rim, its still important for lead offensive options to have at least something in the bag there, and it is entirely unclear if Ivey has it. The good news is that he clearly has the scoring chops to develop this skill as time goes on, but it is something to watch early on. Because as athletic as he is, Ivey will need to occasionally bust out floaters and pullup jumpers from the free-throw line area to beat defenses.

What about his handle? I’ve heard some people knock it.

Could be a bit tighter but I have not totally understood the concern about his dribbling. He occasionally lost the ball in traffic but when you spend as much time in traffic as he did that’s understandable, the number of times he lost the ball in a crowd was worth the number of times he got to the free-throw line. This is also an area where the presence of Cade makes this kind of a moot point. If the Pistons were bringing in Ivey hoping for him to be their full-time point guard I’d have a slight concern, but that’s not the plan, he handles the ball just fine it just isn’t a big strength for him.

Defense:

This may be a big swing area for Ivey. He has the tools with his length, quickness, and hops to be a high-level defender. If you watch the above highlight reel you will see plenty of eye-catching blocks. The problem is that he was not always engaged on that end with Purdue and he is not such a gifted player that he can be a plus defender without committing to it. If Ivey commits to being a defensive player he will give even the best offensive guards trouble while also being able to provide a nice touch of rebounding and rim-protection for a guard, if he doesn’t commit then he will just be mediocre, there doesn’t seem to be much in between.

Intangibles:

Got to talk about Mom here. It’s not just that Ivey comes from a lineage that has elite athletes everywhere. Jaden’s mom is the head coach of a serious hoops program, that has to count for something when you consider how likely he is to be a good pro and attack his game in a way that helps him to max out his potential. I also can’t help but mention that going to Purdue, the type of school that isn’t exactly “NBA superstar U” is a small point in his favor as well. He did not arrive in West Lafayette and get the keys to the team on day one, he had to work through a tough first season and learn to play as part of a team. We don’t need to get into the cliches but a guy of Ivey’s stature doesn’t go to a place like Purdue if he is a fundamentally selfish player.

Beyond that, its hard to find anyone say a bad thing about Ivey’s work ethic or desire to be great. Time will tell, but pretty much all of the things you can see from the outside suggest that Ivey is going to be a good professional who will treat his career and craft seriously.

Best Case Scenario:

The shooting is there from day 1, Casey gets him to play defense, and the fact that he played with giants all the time at Purdue really did make his decision making look far worse than it really is. He fits in seamlessly with Cunningham as option 1b in the offense while also being a plus defender. Ivey and Cade solidify themselves as one of the best pairs in the league and lead the Pistons to championship glory.

Worst Case Scenario:

The shot is never that good, the defense never gets better than the occasional “wow” play, and the decision-making is bad enough to keep him from ever being trustworthy as a genuine offensive engine. He’s a good enough scorer that the Pistons can’t afford to give up on him and just keep hoping he figures the other stuff out but he never does, he eats up tons of cap space and never gets past “Good scorer who doesn’t really make your team better” until he eventually ends up on a small contract for a good team where he operates as the 6th man on awesome teams somewhere else.

NBA doppelganger:

Not Ja Morant, they look similar but Morant is a passer on a level that Ivey can’t even sniff.

As such I’m going with Donovan Mitchell but tall. Super athlete who can score inside at will, a high volume but not great three-point shooter, middling as a creator for others. Hopefully the “but taller” bit pushes Ivey to a level Mitchell has yet to reach.

Upshot for rest of the roster?

Shouldn’t be anything shocking here. Cade now is pretty much set into more of a point-guard role and Ivey is the off-guard. The only person this can really impact is Killian Hayes as its possible Ivey’s arrival pushes him away from any chance as a long-term starter. Although even with Hayes, the reality is that with defensive versatility, if Hayes is highly improved there’s no reason you can’t start Hayes/Ivey/Cade next to each other, you can even theoretically bump Saddiq to the 4 here but that seems a step too far most likely. In reality Ivey’s arrival does not end Killian’s chances, it mostly means that at least one of Hayes/Ivey/Bey is not going to end up lasting as a long-term piece. Cade is versatile enough you can swap him between either guard/wing spot, but I doubt Saddiq can work as a 4 full-time.

If you wanted to be more optimistic though, Killian or Ivey could theoretically work as high-usage 6th-men. Perhaps a theoretical future Pistons team doesn’t want to play Bey as a power forward all the time but when its winning time they roll with Hayes/Ivey/Cunningham/Bey/*insert center here.

Basically, its most likely that one of those three doesn’t develop the way the Pistons want and they won’t be part of the future either way, but if they all did then there is a chance to make it work anyways. So more than Ivey’s arrival signaling the death-knell of Killian Hayes in Detroit, it moreso just puts pressure on him to take a step that wasn’t there before.

My short-term guess is that Ivey starts and Killian is a high-usage bench guy given that Killian as 6th man seemed to work pretty well last season.

The Verdict:

Ivey was clearly the pick to make at 5th which is one nice thing, even if Ivey doesn’t work out you can’t feel bad about it. He seems likely to never be worth much as a facilitator but will be completely unstoppable as a scorer and will take his defensive role seriously enough to be a force on that end. My guess is that his final form is actually closer to Zach LaVine than Mitchell because I think Ivey is going to be hyper-efficient in a way that LaVine has reached but Mitchell never has, I also doubt Ivey will ever be as ball-dominant as Mitchell. On the downside this does mean that Ivey isn’t likely to ever be anything approaching a proper point-guard, but as stated before this is okay as long as Cade Cunningham is around.

Why didn’t you pick LaVine as his doppelganger then

I think that’s closer to where he ends up. Out of the box I think he’s closer to Mitchell. The LaVine endpoint is putting a lot of faith in Ivey developing as a shooter because Mitchell is an ok shooter but LaVine is elite.

What do you think? Will Ivey shoot well? Can he survive off-ball? Whats the ideal starting lineup?