is that better than 3 teams realizing they’re actually rebuilding when they thought they were competing?
hahaha, not sure! maybe get back to me in a few years? i can only speak to my present feeling but it feels hopeless when you spend five years thinking you’re on the right track, making the right decisions, etc and it turns out it might’ve all been fool’s gold
The pistons thought they were competing!
Don’t know if you caught it, but Nate and Danny said it’s time the Pistons blow up the rebuild, there’s nothing here worth building around.
Practically, I think that means “if someone offers something of value for Cade do it”, and “don’t worry about drafting over anyone”. Probably primarily it means “fire every executive”
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Ugh that’s so grim. But yeah when you fail this hard you have to completely clean house. But like also, when things go this horribly wrong that’s not a people problem, that’s a you problem and you need to take the hint and sell. Still waiting on Jerry and the McCaskeys…
Firing Weaver and Monty won’t be enough (I would throw in Arn and Ed), but Gores is the main problem unless he stays the f away from personnel decisions and hires competent people.
Gores passes the first test of being an owner - he’s willing to spend money.
But he’s hired mostly bad people and then gets involved (the Blake Griffin disaster)
Who are Nate and Danny?
Dunc’d on pod - Nate DuncN, Danny Leroux. John Hollinger
Ah. I’ve never listened.
I know Hollinger and have heard of Nate Duncan. I’d never heard of Danny.
Danny is basically the cohost
They’re pretty smart, obviously not infallible. I’m not sure what “blowing it up” even means at this stage because you won’t get much really for anyone here other than maybe Cade. I think, for starters, from a player personel view, it would mean “don’t extend any of these at the rookie extension max”. Their view, largely, is that Cade’s top outcome at this point is “low-level all-star” and if thats true, you generally don’t build your franchise around that at the center of it all.
The Pistons net rating is currently -11.7
This would be the worst since the strike-season (2011-2012) Bobcats who were -15.2. That team’s best player was Gerald Henderson. I’m a major nerd, and I baaaaarely recall such a player existing. DJ Augustin was probably 2nd?
Then it’s the '99-'00 Clippers (20 year old Lamar Odom, 23 year old Maurice Taylor (wolverines represent), 23 year old Derek Anderson as the most used players)
So we see a team sink this low maybe once every 10/11 years basically. This year is unique in that the Spurs (-11.5 net rating) are basically matching the Pistons.
Henderson went to Duke good player there. I believe he’s the one that tried to send Tyler Hansbrough into another dimension with a terrible elbow…
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Yeah at first I thought you meant to say Gerald Wallace. I certainly never remember a time where Gerald Henderson was the best player on an NBA team. That’s very bad.
My “Gerald Henderson Mental Notes”
Were:
Went to Duke, did ok
Left too early
Vanished
If you’re the best player on a team at age 25
And out of the NBA at 28
Well that says something about the team
Last I’ll put on the issue for now, but I’m stuck at the office on the last day before a major Holiday, ie, just doing NOTHING
There are 4 teams in the modern era worse than the Pistons by net rating - The Bobcats and Clippers I referenced, the '97-'98 Nuggets, and the '92-'93 Mavericks.
I can find 3 players that featured vaguely prominently on those 4 teams that would contribute prominently to winning at any level:
-A 19 year old Lamar Odom, who would cut 7 points off his usage a decade later to become the 3rd best player on a two time champion
-A 21 year old Kemba Walker, coming off the bench for those Bobcats. He’d become the best player on a very fringe playoff team.
-A 31 year old Derek Harper, who would move from the highest usage player on that Mavericks team to being the backup PG for the Knicks finalists who lost to the Rockets (think he was starting by the end after Doc Rivers got hurt)
This isn’t a scout of Cade or Duren or Ivey or anyone, but history says that at most 1 guy on this team will ever be worth a thing in terms of winning.
I’m just not sure that’s a particularly great way to look at it. I think the main takeaway is how impossibly horrendous of a job Monty and Weaver did putting the roster together
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We’ll see obviously
But generally in order to be this bad you generally don’t have anyone very good, and the guys featuring very prominently in all that losing are historical footnotes
Not like the Clippers and Mavs were well put together either
Looking at just worse teams is unfair, it should be a number of teams around the same Net rating if you wanted to do that.
As you mentioned the spurs are nearly as bad. Are you now discounting Wemby? Or writing off Sochan and Vassell and the others?
I think what you mentioned is interesting but I don’t think the takeaway is “ the pistons maybe have 1 future good player”
As a big “players not fit” guy I think it definitely stands to reason that teams that are historically awful probably do not have many future all stars on it.
It does seem like Monty is a huge problem when it comes to effort and D on this team, but the Q is whether or not those other teams that flirted with replacement level seasons had similar. Probably yes, I’d guess. Likewise, pretty sure there were fit problems on those other historically doo doo teams.
Just for fun, here’s what those young Spurs are up to plus a some benchmarks. May well be time to write off Sochan as not a future all star.
The argument was not based on future all stars but future “players that can do anything for a winning team”