What is up, fellow thermonuclear a efforts. I am Dama Valley coming at you with an emergency podcast. I might be attached to another podcast except not on YouTube, speaking of which, before we dive into the Detroit Pistons and the impact of the Ki Cunningham injury, just want to remind you, beg you, implore you, plead with you. Subscribe to us wherever you're watching us. If you're on YouTube checking us out for the first time, hit that sub button, liking comments, health the algorithm, love us back. We put out a lot of content on YouTube, and so you want to definitely sub there, but also subscribe to us an Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play to help us continue grow the actual podcast, which is the meat and potatoes of this operation, and cross subscribe. Definitely have us subscribe to an audio podcast player as well as being subscribed on YouTube. If you've done both of those things, please consider telling people about this podcast. 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Kay Cunningham is going to miss the rest of the season after deciding to undergo left shin surgery. This felt like it was kind of inevitable, even though the decision took a little while to get there. This immediately puts Detroit in the wemen Yamas weavestakes, even though that they were already in there. When you look at the standings, they will probably finish without you know, look, they are people quibble about the value of Kade's game, but like now that Kade Cunningham is just not part of it. The Pistons have the worst record in the league right now. I will be semi shocked if they wind up not having one of the bottom three records and one of the top three odds at getting fittor oneban Yama. They might have always been there with Kade or close to it, and so I don't really think this materially impacts their draft position at all. I do think it materially impacts the rest of this season and the roster as a whole, And so I wanted to touch on a few important points, the first of which is I hope Kay Cunningham's rule covering will be fine, the fact that his game is not prided on all this Above the rim explosion. Shin injuries can be fickle, especially when you're undergoing surgery on them. I think that it will just end up, you know, we shouldn't see any Maybe it takes them a little while to get back into the swing of things next year after missing so much time, But this is not something that I view is like damning to him moving forward. I also think that he got to a point where he was underrated because people started to harp too much on like the efficiency or the waxing and waning of it all. He elevated the play of those around him, especially when you gave him spacing to work with. I'm a little bit disappointed, and this is we'll touch on one of the points that I'm going to get into that we're not going to get to see him more. With the Isaiah Stewart Jen Durn front court, which the Pistons are finally starting, I think that made just so much sense when you surrounded them with Boyan mcdonovitch being there, and then you probably want to round that out with Ja and Ivy to get more information long term, but you can sort of like if Sadik bay is a part of that with Kade, maybe even try out Killian Hayes there or Isaiah Livers like to round out that fifth spot, not necessarily as a starter, but just in general. That would have been fun to see because it's a very small sample size. I think Kade is playing like sub twenty possessions or something ridiculous with Isaiah Stewart and Jon Durn together, and that's just something that I would have wanted more information on now for the Pistons moving forward, and we'll get to that in a second. This is big in the sense that they can at least get more information on Jade and Ivy as sort of a more of a point guard or playing independent of Kade. I don't actually love that because I want those two to work together, and I think that the fit is far from clean. They don't overlap, so they're not redundant. They could theoretically compliment one another, but the fit is tricky unless Jail and unless Jay and Ivy's going to get better as a cutter or trusted more as a shooter and look, to be honest, I'm watching him without Kade sub forty percent on drives. His shot selection and turnover issues have been ghastly at points. It feels like it might like be aggravating some of his teammates too, when you watch their body language on certain half court possessions. He's young, he's a rookie. He could still be really good. The fact that you're going to get more more of a sample size with him maybe running the show than you would have with Kade, there will be value in that. I just I wanted to see the balance struck more between him and Kate, and I was looking forward to watching that unfold more of the season. But the benefit of this is we get to see sort of more of Killian Hayes. And so as a starter, yes, it's you're not going to see him start when when Kade is healthy, but to scale it forward as someone who come off the bench and can you trust him. Look, he's shooting over forty percent and above the break three since Kake Cunningham's injury. He's the finishing is bad. He's at in the restricted areas at forty seven point five percent since the Kade injury. He still can get to his floater and like, take that shot. That's still something you like. The floater. Yes, that's a weapon, but like he's not the most efficient midrange shooter overall outside of that. And if he's not getting the basket or finishing well there, he's also not getting to the foul line of ton So that's stuff you still want to see him work on. But I think you look at the rest of his game and you have to be encouraged. He's shooting four or six on step back jumpers during this time. Like I said, the three point shooting is ticked up this year, and I think you can buy into it because he's hitting some assistant looks too. It's not just like you need to have him work off the dribble and then he's hitting all these shots that are theoretically over his head. The shooting improvement from beyond the arc feels like it could be real what I predict it. No, not necessarily, but I think what's also really important is now you're looking at a player who if he has that weapon in him, and you can at least let's say you trust his and you trust his outside three. Now you get to a player where you almost have to play him overall because his defensive value is for this Pistons teams specifically, excuse me, probably through the roof, and I think he's probably with Kade out, he's certainly, but he might even have a case as like their best passer overall. I don't I think that's I would still pick Kade, but like he's no worse than their second most important playmaker right now, and you can see it when he really gets going inside the arc, defense is still react. They're still going to go in rotation. He knows how to make plays off of his drives, not turning the ball over a ton on those players either plays either. Excuse me, and I was looking this up before. If you're going back and watching some of the Killing and His film, I'm gonna go to my phone to just double check it that I had the number right here. But when you look at his turnover rate on drives, it's some five percent since the Kade Cunning him injury, and his assist rate is at fourteen. So, like that's really high, and just how high is These are the only players who have that same assist rate and sub five turnover rate while using as many drives during this ban, Jimmy Butler, Carris Lavert, and Jamal Murray. That's it, And so like Tyrris Halliburton's right there as well, and so is Devin Bookers. That's really good company to be in. I'm not saying that Killian Hayes is any of those players that he might be, like you know, closer to now, he's not any of those players, Like he's definitely he's more of an a blow the rim player than some of those guys. Specifically, if you're looking at Jamal Murray, they'll post injury Jamal Murray, maybe not being able to control the ball in the half court like that. Again not still not a threat to go to the three throw line. He just doesn't get fouled on his drives, doesn't get there. To have someone who can sort of manage the game though and set up others, I think that's big, And to get more information with him going up against better competition, I think that helps you moving forward because you do have sort of this it's not a love jam, but this three guard or three ball handle and dynamic in Kaide, in Killian and jay Nivy, and you want to see how you can work well with it. Now we're getting information on jay Nivy and Killian Hayes is a pairing. But also just like if if Killan Hayes is going to kill it as a starter or in just a more prominent role without Kade, like that in theory makes it easier and more promising to bring him off the bench, even if he view him as a long term sixth man, which I think is the most likely outcome. We don't have to say that Killian Hayes is going to be a star or that his ceiling is all of a sudden higher than Jay nives. We don't have the sample size necessarily for that, but I think what we've seen from him in Kade's absence has been really encouraging, also encouraging, and I'm a little bit I don't know if I'm surprised, but I'm just happy that Dwayne Casey went to it already. Is seeing Beef stew and Jay and Duran play together more. That's a unit where, especially when you look at how bad Detroit has been on the glass this year bottom five defensive rebounding team, roughly close to it per cleaning the glass. When those two played together, they're in like the ninety fifth percentile of defensive rebounding and I think they just compliment one another really well. Isaiah Stewart has been shooting like thirty nine percent on above the break three since Kay cutting him's injury, and he's also you know, James Edwards the Third wrote a great piece about this at the Athletic. We've also seen like Beef stew make more complicated decisions when defenders actually choose to close out on him, which again, it is an offense. I think we saw it some against the Knicks game and in the heat game a little bit, and there there are some there are some defenses that seem to be reacting to him and paying him more respect. He's shooting, by the way, I think it's from the right or left corner. I think it might be the left corner. Beef Stew's at fifty five plus percent from three since the Cade injury when I was looking up those numbers. But he's able to put the ball on the deck and like when defenders are closing out at him, like he can dump it off to the next player. I don't know that I trust him yet as like a finisher in those plays. He's definitely not shooting well in those situations, and he's since the Kade injury, he's shooting like thirty seven point five percent or something in the restricted area. So that's not great. But to have him being able to space the floor with Jail and Duran on the court, you're going to run into less just you know, go back and watch some of those minutes where it feels like even with Badgley, you quote unquote want Badley to be a floor space or like defenses were respecting respect him even less than Isaiah Stewart, much less and it felt like every time if be Stewart had to put the beef stews how to put the ball on the floor, he was kind of running into Marvin Bagley. The way that Jai and Derren moves away from the ball and more active as a screen setter. You don't see that as much, even though you wouldn't consider him sort of a floor spacer. And I think at this point where Detroit wants to play two bigs, like that's just something that they're committed to. Whether you agree with it, whether you disagree with it, that's just something that they want to try moving forward. Be Stewing, Jalen Durn make all the sense in the world, and it's not, oh, well, you know we have time to get them. No, do it now, especially with Kade out like I would have liked to have seen it with Kay. But do it now, because like that's the future way that your front court could function. I know that they might be tempting to bench one of them in favor of going a little bit smaller if you want to put Sadek Bay where. You know, I've just the amount of times I flip flopped on my impressions of him as a player, like where I might now trust him on the ball inside Yark more than I'm going to trust his three point shooting sub thirty percent or something since since Kade went down. And that's why I'm looking at all these numbers since Kade went down, because that's the version of the Pistons that we're going to see. I have hope for them, though more defensively as a rebounding team when you have Dern and stew on the court together, and like I said, the fact that Stewart is just more dynamic as an offensive player now in addition to the defensive energy that he brings, I think that winds up helping out the team a crap ton and you need to sort of up your decision making if you're going to go to minutes where you're trusting Jay and Ivy so much to go through the motions right now. And I think killing Hayes by the way, he's going to help there too. Just a smart pass or even if you don't want to go as far as calling him a high IQ passer, he's certainly a smart passer. What's going to be interesting about this team is whether they keep Poean mcdonovich he's already in trade. Rumor has been linked to the Lakers. I think he's been linked to he's been linked to the Suns at all. He might have been linked to them as well. He makes sense for so many teams. His shooting has been by and large immaculate. There was a little bit of a dip after the Cage injury initially, but he's brought that back up. And the other thing is just like he's now without Kade, averaging eight drives a game, and so this is very much someone who is doing more than just shooting. And like the efficiency on these drives from him, No, there's a one dimensionality to them where it's like you don't trust John Brown and necessarily facilitate for others out of drives. Boyan's kind of the same way. But among everyone who's taken at least fifty shots out of drives since the kid cutting him injury, Boyan mcdonovitch ranks a fifth in field goal percentage at sixty three point one percent on drives. Here's everyone again minimum fifty field goal attempts, and the field isn't small, it's about sixty players. Here's everyone with a minimum fifty field goal attempts off drives since Kaid's injury, shooting better than Boyan Bodanovitch, Lukadchich, Jalon Brown, Joel Embiid and Kevin Durant, who, by the point, he's at seventy point one percent on those looks for anyone who cares at home. So he's important. Boyan mcdonovitch, I think to streamlining the development for others. It's not an issue of always taking reps away from livers and let's get to deep Bay into the starting lineup. I get maybe the impetus from some people for wanting to see that, but you're like, you're bad as it is, and you're playing enough youngsters as it is. Like I said, it's Marvin Bagley seems better suited for the six man role, and he's young. I'm not personally as an analyst, and so if I were the Pistons, I'm not going to be invested in him. And now you have Jalon Derning and Isaiah stwo or two players who in my opinion are way bigger factors to your long view inside the starting line of playing together more. You have Jay and I, but you have killing his like you're getting the looks the extensive looks out of your most important long term players. There's I talked about this with Jalen Brunson in New York a little bit, and the nixt A at a different stage in their development, they just want to be in the middle. Like in the Pistons, they're angling for something better. There's a way to streamline the development by having good veteran players who technically defy your timeline, but they open up space, pockets of space for everyone where they put pressure on defenses or they just give you a baseline level of competence on the offensive end or trustworthiness on the offensive end. So I don't think it's a given that they move them. If the best offer out there is like, oh, you can get Phoenix's pick, or there's a Miami deal with Duncan Robinson and you can get their pick. I mean I might if the heat loosely protect it. They seem pretty combustible, so I consider it. But if it's an issue of getting one lower end first round pick in this year's draft and maybe an expiring contract, maybe they don't move Boyan Mgdonovitch. There might not be a ton of value there. Let him put up numbers this year. You're still gonna lose games, You're still gonna get plenty of looks at the kids. So I think the offer needs to blow them away. Even if I proposed trades, what I think they should do, Like, yeah, I'd take on Duncan Robinson's contracts if it meant getting two first or the equivalent from Miami, or if it's a three team trade like that. And I did build some of those hypothetical ones. Maybe we'll talk about them on this podcast one day. So that's the thing I'm watching the most. There was a misconception among people that Boyan mcdonovitch can't be traded after signing his extension. That is not true because of the way that the extension, you know, like relative to what he was making right now, ended up panning out. So he can meet moved. That doesn't mean that he will be moved. I do think there's a higher likelihood he's moved now, just because there are so few full on sellers and even just some of the bad teams looking at in Orlando, like who are they? No one's gonna be chomping at the bit to get a Terrence Ross right now or Gary Harris and they're not gonna sell. They trade Wedell Carter Junior injured right now or someone. A lot of these teams are so young, or they just have limited options that are an appeal to buyers. So yeah, like Houston has Eric Gordon and Kenyan Martin Jr. Like who are they moving beyond that? And Charlotte like who did? Like I guess if Cody Martin's healthy, Kelly Bridge Junior on an expiring contract, PJ. Washington if you want to get a look at him ahead of restrictive free agency. There are just so few surefire sellers and so few sellers who actually have these players that can really add value to playoff rotations, who might be a part of certain crunch time lineups in these high leverage games. I do think it makes it more likely Detroit trades by Migdanovich because they might get more value than we're expecting. They're also working off the opportunity costs of oh it costs Kelly olynok and seconds to get him. We're able to build off that value just by him playing and signing him to an extension and waiting out the market. So if I had to guess, I might say he'd be traded, But I don't really think it's like this necessity for them, just because he has been so good for them offensively and now without Kade, I think having that and I think boy mcdonmache helped Kade because him a little bit more space to operate when he was going inside the arc. I think you want that for Killian Hayes, and I think you want that for Jade and Ivy. I think even water Friday, Isaiah Stewart, if you're gonna asking to make you know, pump fake and dribble in inside the arc and like to attack to Hooper to put defenses in rotation and trust him to hit a guy for a pass. I think we've even seen, like you know, Jade and Ivy might be more likely to move off the ball, off the dribble penetration from Boyan mcdonovitch or and Isaiah Stewart like once the defenses are sort of moving around. So I'm still very interested to watch this team. It's just a big bummer without Kade. I don't think this really fucks up their long term future at any point. I think right now, if anything, you can make a case it's a little bit better because now they're ensure that they're not going to play their way out of tip tippy top lottery odds, even though they might have still been there to begin with. And you will get more information again independent of Kade, but of all these other players, and Kade is not someone who's gonna come in and disrupt any progress you get from anyone Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart specifically, if you like, if if sadek Bay being on the ball at time is something that really ends up intriguing you were working like, yeah, maybe that there's some overlap there, but there's nothing about this team you could learn and then look at the way that Kade plays and think, oh, well, yeah, he really can't fit into it. And I know that the jury is still out on a lot of what Kade is going to become, but he's to me just a really high level, high IQ, cerebral, ultra versatile, scalable player that is going to be a mega star in this league. I still firmly believe that. And again, it's more valuable to have him on the court right now and still get these reps in. But the Pistons aren't going to go through this depth of self discovery that they weren't necessarily going to try and plumb if he were still here. And I do think that can at least be something to look towards as we move forward. And I think without Kade on the court, like if you're not worried about maybe optimizing his role, maybe it makes you more inclined to be like, all right, well, we don't have a lot of extra first we don't have extra first round picks in the chamber. We can move bay on macdonovitch for this and maybe it's for not this draft from a really good team, but it's a draft that projects outwards, so where the pick could be worth a little bit more. That'll do it for the Kate Cunningham segment, though it's just it sucks. Hopefully makes the full recovery. I think he will. I'm not really worried that this this Piston team is still should be watchable for me, and I think they've at least made the right adjustments that we maybe didn't expect Twayne Cases to go to until later in the season. I know Laz and Ben from the Detroit bad Boys podcast. They were talking about recently how they were kind of floored that Dwayne Casey went to this change, and I'd been talking to Laz about would he ever like how long would it take for Twain Casey to get to this point when we did our look ahead like wait at the beginning of the season. And there's been some more flexibility here with like the way that the Pistons have gotten to look at players that necessarily wouldn't be Casey's first choice. And if I think there's if I think there's a downside to this, well, there's a downside to this. I want to see more of Kadan Janey Gibber. But there's a player that I think probably gets hurt the most by Kay being out. It might be sort of a Marvin Bagley. I think Kade was probably important to making what Bagley does best work out. The fact that he's coming off the bench now should maybe let him explore his floor game a little bit more and ensure that he's not going to be occupying the same space as the other front court player that he'll be playing with us often, or at least give him more an agency where he's not going to be really the second option in the front court among that or need to even be someone who is the top front court option when you're just looking at the four five. So I think that's going to be a better fit for him, but he could be someone who ends up being a little bit hurt or a lot of it hurt his value this season with Kad out, still the Pistons, they're in the women yams sweep takes. That was true beforehand. Still interested in this team though, as I repeat myself, that'll do it for this for real though. 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