This team is fun to watch. Looks like Cade and Duren are going to be guys you can really build around.
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Duren good god
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I had pretty much given up on this era of Pistons basketballā¦ Feels like Monty is a great fit for this team
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I watched a good portion (Iām a self loathing bulls fan)
I thought Cade spent a large portion of the game being way too ball dominant, and Really liked Iveyās first shift (he got Duren 2 dunks)
You can see Hayes just murdering their spacing
More Burks was good, he was red hot in the second half
Thompson made a bunch of good plays, wish he could shoot over 33%
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Iāll be honest mgl, Iām impressed with Bags. At least way more than I am with Wiseman
Also, count me as a serious believer in Stewart, he just constantly makes the right play at the right time.
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Hayes gotta go. I would be fine with starting Burks there if Monty doesnāt want to start Ivey.
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In a fun Way Too Early Stats story:
Jalen Duren is averaging: 18.0 ppg, 15.3 rpg, 4.0 apg, 0.7 spg, and 2.7 bpg.
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Bags has been good. So much better defensively. And heās always been a reliable scorer 15ft and in.
I agree with the take that they are winning in spite of some clunky lineups. But the defense across the board looks better and 2 of their top 7 players are out.
Through three games, Pistons are #1 in offensive rebound rate. And last in turnover rate. Hopefully they can keep the former while fixing the latter.
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I hate the Bulls (theyāre my favorite team)
Running back the 10th best team in the East (now with way more ennui!), paying the 11th best center last year a mint on the assumption that his career high shooting from floating range at age 32 wasnāt a fluke, not rostering a single two way playerā¦.
We tanked 4 years and all we got was the aforementioned 11th best center in the NBA, Pat Williams (who is terrible) and a Portland first round pick that seems destined to never convey (lottery protected through 2028!)ā¦and they canāt tank next year because the Spurs own their pick!
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Heās playing an acceptable role as a big off the bench instead of playing at PF or starting at C. Iām fine with his current role even though Iām not a big fan of Bagley
Iām kind of grimly enthralled by this race to the bottom that the Sox and Bulls are on. Theyāve both now done this exact We Think We Rebuilt And Now Weāre Competing Whoops Weāre Horrible thing twice in 10 years. Reinsdorf cementing his rep as the worst owner in sports.
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is the bulls one as shocking as the sox one to attentive observers? i remember thinking that the sox were THE next team, and then somehow it just never arrived. meanwhile, i havenāt really followed the nba in years and even so when i saw that zach lavine had 51 points in a loss to the pistons i thought āhuh, that sounds like a perfect zach lavine bulls gameā
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I think development tech in baseball is having such a ratchet effect that if youāre not making your guys better they fall behind really quick if youāre trying to 2002 your way thru the game? And thatās full stop how Jerry thinks the game should be played and teams should operate. Street smarts >>>> science, collaboration, institutional commitment to excellence, etc. Even still, I would say Iām taken aback to see it all happen so fast. I did actually have a lot of hope and itās difficult to remember what that felt like, ha.
Will add tho that basketball is much more at the early stages of that revolution. So Iād say if the Bulls truly fall to pieces thatās a pretty big surprise even if they were never very good to begin with. One or two guys are so much more important to team quality than in baseball and those (very mid) stars on the Bulls donāt even seem to have fallen very far off yet.
That said, Vegas at least got a whiff of this even as all the commentators I saw felt the Bulls would stay basically where they would. Ended up w like a 37.5 win O/U and a lot of folks were like, well they wonāt be good but surely they can beat that!
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Pelton had them under 30 wins this year and I thought he was nuts, but now I just donāt know.
This team just isnāt cohesive without Ball, DeRozan isnāt what he was two years ago (this is not an insult he was awesome), and they gleefully tossed all their tools for improvement out the window (like why have they not even filed a designated player exception for Ball??). Add in that these guys arenāt morons, they know they arenāt good, this is 1.5 years of Ball-less play, they know that best case theyāre average.
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It feels like they could do quite a bit for their future by flipping LaVine. Iām not exactly sure who the right trade partner would be (Knicks? Pelicans? Mavs?) but some team thatās good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to make it past the 2nd round.
On the flip side, Iām okay with them struggling. I heard that was the Pistons first win vs. the Bulls in their last 16 games. 
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