oh this is terrible
The Pistons won their 5th game in a row and are 4 games over .500. Itās their first 5-game winning streak in nearly 6 years. IF theyāre able to win at Atlanta on Sunday, it will be their first 6-game win streak since the '14-'15 season when they had that run with Brandon Jennings leading the way. Over that late-December/early-January streak they won 7 in a row and 12 out of 15, right up until Jennings tore his achilles.
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A fun exercise I like to play sometimes - which player currently on the pistons would guarantee Michigan wins the natty if they joined for March Madness? Would Cade Cunningham playing on Michigan this March guarantee Michigan a natty? What about Jalen duren? Ausar Thompson? How far down the roster could you go until it would not be a guarantee Michigan wins a natty with a pro joining their team? Marcus Sasser? Ron Holland? You can play this game with any nba team really!
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As far as guarantee? I think only Cade does it. But maybe Iām massively underrating NBA players in general? Cade would be the best player in college by a wide margin. Donāt think thatās the case for any other Piston.
Edit: like are you confident that Jalen Duren is better than Cooper Flagg? Duke is probably like a 10-15% chance of winning the title?
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Not guarantee, but Michigan with Beasley playing 100% of Gayle/Jones minutes would make the offense pretty unstoppable. Not sure how far past that guarantees a title, but put Ausar or Holland or Harris or Sasser on the wing and itās likely a Final Four team at a minimum. Sasser was a stud in college and obviously would be even better now after developing in the NBA (and heās probably the worst of those 4). Adding healthy Ivey would win a title too.
I donāt know that Duren would guarantee a title because he would just be upgrading one of their strongest positions already without improving the weaknesses. That said, there wouldnāt be rebounding issues with him.
I donāt know. The more I think about it, this Michigan team has a pretty solid baseline so just adding a decent NBA player might do the trick to put them over the top.
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In a given rookie class something like 1 or 2 will play at NBA league average or so every year. It basically guarantees youāre a HoFer to come in as a 20 yr old and be a good starter. And nearly all of those drafted were top 50 players in CBB their draft year. Many of the non frosh playersālike, say, Dalton Knecht or Zach Edeyāwere top 5-10 in the country.
So there are a huge number of NBA players that would almost certainly be something like or perhaps much much better than the best player in the country.
Is there not an element here where the best rookies just play and look worse just because the rest of their team is awful? Do we actually feel confident that if you plugged Cooper Flagg on this Pistons team, heās not an average starter atleast?
Itās universally the case in other sportsāeven those without draftsāthat itās exceedingly rare to find 18-20 year olds that are good starters in elite pro leagues.
His stats I think are good enough to suspect thereās a pretty good chance he will be next yearācheck his KP page vs other Duke top 5 picks, itās basically (1) Zion (2) Cooper and then everybody else. e.g. Tatum not close to either. But that means thereās somewhere between some and a lot less chance he is this year. These kids improve an enormous amount year over year this young.
Cadeās the obvious choice but I think a lot of the vets would add a ton. Beez or Hardaway for their shooting, Isaiah Stewart or Ausar for their defense, a healthy Ivey for his speed and clutch buckets, and so on. Proās learn so many tricks and have a higher level of strength and conditioning.
But Cadeās all-around game and playmaking puts him above the rest.
Plus, success in the NCAAās almost always relies on PG play.
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God Iām so ashamed I remember the Brandon Jennings streak.
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It was exciting basketball!
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Hah omg Mich needs one decent guard. Cade would be fine. I could see him fitting it, maybe backing up Rubin. Kind of similar games.
Love the discussion! What about five year pro Jordan Poole on this Michigan team? Does he make a difference enough to win Michigan a natty?
Poole would have like 40% usage and 70% TS. Heād wipe the floor w Jase.
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Yes but would he guard him?
I say cade. draw up the papers and weāll make this happen
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What former Wolverine whoās currently in the NBA would help this team the most?
Hmmā¦Duncan for his shooting? Levert for his scoring?
People will say Poole and that might be the answer, but he isnāt often a winning player.
Iād take Caris. Given our strength in the frontcourt it obviously has to be a ball handler and I canāt imagine teams figuring out how to stop him and Vlad and Danny in various combos of p&r
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