That 16/23 at the line in a two point game sticks out
As does -7 on turnovers (Cade not great but Ivey’s 6 stand out)
Really wish last year hadn’t just been a waste of Ivey’s time, maybe he could have developed a little more as the lead ball handler when he’s asked to be
Any concerns with Ausar? I don’t need updates every day but just seeong clips of shooting jumpers doesn’t give me the idea he’s returning soon.
https://x.com/statmuse/status/1855813325956747497
jokic about to give the ultimate test to voter fatigue
He’s out until the league says he can return.
Ausar is legitimately worrying I think. I’m obviously not a hematologist but I’m not sure what the course of action is if this hasn’t been remedied in…8 months?
I don’t think his status about the situation being remedied. I think it’s about providing evidence it won’t happen again. The issue, as I’ve read, is that there is no specific diagnosis for why he had the clots in the first place. Without a root cause, they can’t show evidence that they’ve corrected the problem. So the risk it might happen again is why it’s taking so long.
I have my doubts he’ll play this season because there doesn’t seem to be any guidelines or actions they can take right now to prove he’s healthy.
And as it should be… 19 seconds after I said I don’t think Ausar will play this year …
This is really good news! He’s a likeable guy. I assume his cardio/etc isn’t up, so maybe some more time to go.
So, I’m sitting on an interminable conference call, so this is what I do.
I tried to use I think a better measure of turnovers and add some other context here (also, I reverted to last year’s stats because 9 games is had to say much about. Two exceptions - Morant, I went the year prior as he only played 8 games last year, and Ball I used career averages because his health record has mostly defied a single season large sample). I also added a few other “lead guard” types that occurred to me:
First - I don’t think Wembayana belongs for obvious reasons (he’s not a lead playmaker, he may not even be a good offensive player (for now), and he’s here just because he’s too loose with the ball, not because he’s trying to thread a playmaking/turnover needle like everyone else). Jokic obviously plays way differently from the others, but at least he IS doing those things.
Big picture: Cade’s TO rate (which is at 18-something this year) is on the higher side of the cohort but not completely abberrant. I also looked at NBA.com “potential assists”, and Cade doesn’t have a terrible meaningful gap between “potential assists” and “actual assists” vs. the cohort (ie, we can’t argue his assist rate is lower because the people he passes to are much worse at scoring). As I noted - his largest problem to date (and appears to be continuing this year) is less turnovers (a bit high but certainly not prohibitive of all-NBA) or playmaking but really his shooting (his three poin’t shooting is just sort of fine, but a huge thing is the lack of FTA).
Obviously, development arcs, etc., who knows what’s going to happen, but the comment was that he may not see Cade as an All NBA guy, which would mean he needs to be like…top 4 on this list? Top 5? (not every guard that gets taken will be a “lead” type - like Steph I think plays a pretty different way from this group). He can pass Fox, sure, but he’s not a reliable all-NBA guy. He’s a similar age to Maxey, and probably a little behind, but nobody talks about Maxey as All-NBA.
Long story short - things can absolutely happen, maybe Cade goes into overdrive, etc. Maybe the turnovers alone aren’t prohibitive but if they stay where they are, he probably needs to be a better scorer. Not saying you’re doing this, but there’s a tendency for people to react to a statement like “he may not be an All-NBA guy” with “why do you think he’s bad?!?!?!”. All NBA is top 15! That’s awesome! He can be really good and not be All-NBA!
I’d also argue that Cade is sort of getting sold out by his team generally here - he plays with a bunch of high-turnover players (Duren is awful here, Stewart has generally been ok when he’s been a 4 (when he was basically just catching and shooting) and pretty awful as a 5, Ivey is turnover prone, etc) - if the offense is going to function it’s really tough to combine a relatively high-turnover lead guard (though somewhat reasonable given his burden and what he brings to the table) with floor-mates who ALSO just kick the ball around.
Chet out 8-10 weeks pelvic fracture
Love the analysis. My reason to jump on this statement is because I’m a fan and as a fan we NEED Cade to get to that level otherwise it’s another 10 years down the drain. Cade was the #1 overall pick, so I need to hold out that hope that he can be the top guy on a team and one of the best in the league.
His turnovers are bad though, and always have been. His handle is loose and he attempts passes he shouldn’t make too often. I don’t think he’ll ever drop that number, but he definitely seems stronger this year where his finishing at the rim (watching some of the games, not checking the stats) seems improved.
Just looking at @mgl’s table, I’d guess if you did a scatterplot of AST% to TO% of NBA player seasons above X minutes and drew a trend line, Cade would be below that line.
Meaning that perhaps in some sense he is above what’s theoretically possible, but I would imagine that adjusting for style of play he is already above average at preventing turnovers.
Whereas adjusting for usage it sure looks like he’s a below average scorer in that table.
The extent to which either can be improved on, I dk. I know shooting gets better with age. Turnovers probably too. But I’d guess the shooting is much more relevant to overall player impact.
A reasonable stretch goal for Cade: have league average TS% by age 26 on the same or better usage he’s at now.
Yeah, think the main thing is to get that TS% into the high 50’s and things start looking a bit better. Also seems like he could actually take more usage? He has the lowest true shooting on that list.
I didn’t put it in the table, but I also just looked at the ratio of ast% to to% on the list (ie, aiming at the ratio of assists to turnovers), Cade was 7th of the 13 non Wembanyana players. Because this is obviously an elite group, that means he’s far better than most NBA players, but again the bar discussed was “All NBA”.
Some of Cade’s turnovers are so avoidable and need to be drilled out of him. One hand bounce passes to initiate the offense that are weak enough that the defender can jump them.
Some turnovers he won’t be able to correct. He doesn’t have a great handle and good defenders can get into him. I like that JB has leaned into posting him up more instead of having him drive.
I don’t watch enough Pistons games to offer anything useful here, but love the data and deep dive. I am wondering what people think about the relative lack of FTA for Cade relative to his peers. Is that something about his style and not attacking the rim? Is he getting a last-place whistle by the refs?
I think if he could get to the line more you start to see this discussion come into focus a little more.
Cade gets a bad whistle for a star. Maybe it is because he plays for a bad team so there is no backlash, but it has been a talking point and very noticeable in the Pistons community. It isn’t like he avoids contact and doesn’t attack either.
Same with Ivey, though he’s not a star.
I’ve had the theory that Cade gets a bad whistle because he’s a bigger guy who doesn’t flop. He’s not a high flyer athlete like Ja that causes violent collisions where you need to blow the whistle. He’s more crafty, but because he’s bigger than a guy like Brunson it doesn’t look as bad when he takes contact. And he doesn’t flail around (or get the star whistle) like Luka.
Ivey doesn’t get the whistle either, but he often looks out of control and complains a lot so refs probably don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
So I went WAY too down this rabbit hole lol
I looked at play tracking/play types on NBA.com stats site.
If you do guys who play 20+ mins a game, and toss out Dejounte Murray (1 game) and Zion (6), Cade is third in the NBA this year in drives per game (behind Shai and Brunson, slightly ahead of but comparable to Doncic, Morant, and Trae Young.
FTA’s for that group off of drives:
Shai - 4.5
Brunson - 3.1
Cade - 1.8
Doncic - 4.2
Morant - 3.6
Young - 1.8
So that definitely lends some credence to the idea he gets a light whistle - I know that refs have potentially over-corrected on Trae to the point he gets punished at this point, so.
Another factor here though is that Cade doesn’t really push the ball. After drives, the most high-volume FTA play type is transition - Shai and Morant specifically really pile up FTA’s here.
Ja is in transition 7 times per game and gets FT’s 20% of the time
Trae 5 times, fouled 13%
Shae 4.5 times, fouled 10%
Maxey 4.2 times, fouled 19%
Cade doesn’t land on the list (Luka does, but is only fouled 3% somehow, wild). Ivey does - in transition 4.4 times per game, fouled 24% of the time.
The other thing that occurred to me is that Cade is a different kind of driver than these guys. They all play out of iso way more than Cade, who is almost always in a pick and roll (I think largely because he’s just less explosive than Shai, Morant, et all) - could the separation caused by the pick reduce the fouls?
FINALLY, the “fouls on drives” were not quite as pronounced last year:
Shai - 23 drives per game, 4.4 FTA
Brunson - 19.5 drives, 2.5 FTA
Doncic - 17.8 drives - 3.5 FTA
Cade - 17 drives, 2.3 FTA
Trae - 15.6 drives, 2.5 FTA
So definite not SGA, but roughly in line with most other high level guys.
I think pretty much everybody on that list is pretty well known for being at least savvy if not a full blown grifter when it comes to drawing fouls? It’s a skill to learn, unsporting as that may be.