Saddiq Bey Game Log
Game 1 - DNP
Game 2 - 6 minutes
Game 3 - STARTS
lol
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I wonder if Joe was great in those early years evaluating existing players because heād actually played against them. He retired in 99 and was in the GM office a year later.
I agree about him being an underrated drafter when you donāt count lottery picks. Lots of late-first/second-round value. But he followed up that stuff with some mystery moves. IIRC Afflalo and Amir Johnson were moved to make room to sign Chris Wilcox. Both went on to have solid careers. I know there were bigger expectations attached to Johnson, but just because he wasnāt a budding star doesnāt mean you dump him to sign a just-a-guy kind of player. Solid rotation guy. And obviously Afflalo was a solid starter.
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Joe was so-so and did better outside the top-10 without question. His only real hit within the top-10 was Andre. Monroe and Knight had okay NBA careers but neither became stars. Rodney White and Darko were busts. KCP was okay but if you look at who Joe passed on to take him (CJ, Giannis, Schroeder, and even Burke, to an extent), plus the fallout of having a young SG on your team so you pass on a Devin Booker, it makes that pick look suspect too. The fallout-issue also makes the Stuckey pick one that didnāt help the franchise.
The domino-effect may not be fair to pin on those picks but neither KCP or Stuckey turned out to be more than slightly above-average NBA players.
And the 2nd round steals all wound up having their successes on other teams. Okur was a contributor here and Joe didnāt give up on him so much as choose the resign Sheed, which didnāt allow for fitting Okurās money in there too. The other guys that blossomed (Afflalo, Middleton, and Amir) were given up for little return (Knight was the main piece in the Jennings deal) so does Joe get that much credit for them being smart draft picks?
Maxiell, Jerebko, and Singler were guys that got starters minutes on our bad teams and then became deep bench guys for other teams.
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Forgot about Middleton. Cringe. Booker was SVGās mistake. If Joe were willing to listen to me, I would have told him about Brandon Knight well in advance.
I think you still give him a lot of credit for drafting them. And blame him for misevaluating their value at the time of trading or letting them go. Most 2nd rounders barely see anytime in the NBA. He obviously saw something in them so I think you give him credit.
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How far down the rabbit hole can we go with this? You could just say that if Joe had taken Kemba instead of Knight, we never trade Middleton. However, if Joe had read Stuckey better as a combo guard off the bench, we get a few more years out of Chauncey and probably arenāt A) drafting so high in 2011. B) Looking for a PG wherever our draft slot was. Maybe we take Klay or, gulp, Kawhi? At the very least, we almost assuredly donāt bother with the Ben Gordon and Charlie V signings.
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That seems fair.
I think as a draft-evaluator, Joe gets a C-/D+. In other player-acquisition moves, he gets an A for his first 8 years and a D- thereafter.
Keith Langlois just had an interesting tweet. Pistons have 3 players (Hayes, Doumbouya, Stewart) younger than anyone on MSUs roster. Crazy to think about.
I didnāt fact check, fwiw.
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Crazy and also fun to think about
I was just about the post the sameā¦
Heh, this seems to be a theme today.
Anyone wanna revisit the Jerami Grant disdain? Heās been phenomenal the last few games.
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Grant is a great pickup.Wish I thought that when he was signedš¤
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Heās the perfect pickup to tell the NBA āhey, weāre not blatantly tanking for Cade!ā While also not being even close to good enough to actually harm the tank efforts. 24 points on 26 shot equivalents? Heck yeah. I think heās good for what the Pistons desire 
Although they did pull off the victory tonight, once they unload D Rose (bless his heart he deserves to be on a contender) the wins should slow down even more.
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He has been great. He went cold on O in the 2nd half tonight (also couldnāt get a call to save his life) but still played solid D and made two big FTās to get us within 1 with under two minutes to go.
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LOL wait, youāre saying Grant isnāt good enough to translate to wins, but Rose is? Or am I reading that wrong.
(I have been drinking)
Do the Piston have another pg option ? Put Killian on the bench for awhile to settle him down ?
They wonāt and shouldnāt do that. Has to be able to learn on the fly. To answer the question though, itās Hayes, Derrick Rose, Delon Wright and 2-way rookie Saben Lee at PG. If it came time to sit Hayes, Wright would play less at SG and more at point.
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Iām saying the combo of them and Blake sometimes is, not that any of them individually will. Obviously they wonāt be trading off Grant this year due to the new contract, thus my comment regarding Rose. And my position for the organization right now is very anti-win.
Iām not optimistic about Hayesā long-term potential because I doubt heās ever going to shoot enough to be an asset.
That said, I think rookies are going to look particularly useless this year, and this whole class is going to deserve a mulligan - they had no summer league, an abbreviated training camp. I think it would not be an exaggeration to say Hayes has no idea what heās doing right now (through no fault of his own).
In other news, Christian Wood, who the Pistons were outbid on, is averaging a 24/10 on 61% true shooting in his first four games. To the āgood stats on bad teamā folks, they are also nearly 7 pp100 possessions better when heās on the floor (tiny sample clearly).
Because itās clear Iām not a fan of what Detroit did this off-seasonā¦credit where it is due, the Josh Jackson pickup, even if it failed, was worth doing just because heās a talented guy off the scrap-heap. Heās been their best player short of Grant (who is way more productive than I would have guessed).
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