Game 5 Blazers@Pistons.

[MortSahlfan]

Also slightly OT for this thread, but couldn't see a recent one which fit the point better.

People get quite caught up in draft position and the notion of needing a high lottery pick to find a star, but there's no substitute for good scouting and an eye for talent.

Killian Hayes (7th pick, 2020) - 6.4 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 3.6 apg on 27/24/57

Tyrese Maxey (21st pick, 2020) - 30.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 6.3 apg on 50/56/91

Just a reminder that we passed on Maxey three times with the 7th, 16th and 19th picks.

Covid draft was a crapshoot for the most part. Couldn't really properly scout guys. That's why the lottery looks so terrible but there are a lot of players later that popped off.

But then again, even a casual observer like me knew Haliburton should have been picked at 7. We were lucky he was still there, then Troy tried to be the smahtest guy in the room. It still pisses me off.

Exactly. I don't even watch the NCAA, but I did pay attention to the NBADraftnet predictions and looking at YouTube video and thought, "Why?"... Haliburton is good on both ends. And then people on pistons.com kept going on about "high floor, low ceiling" and was an All-Star last year vs. Killian's game last night will never be rectified unless something magical happens. I still think Keegan Murray would have been a better fit and wish Ivey didn't cry his way to the 5th spot.

[SuperBad]

This starting lineup is bigger and stronger than every team, it’s an identity thing. Killian fits into that, but I think we should be looking for someone else.

[NYPiston]

Tough loss. We gave it away, But I like Monty playing bench guys in the 4th quarter - whatever is necessary.

That's one thing I noticed about Monty compared to Casey. He knows when to pull guys when they're not going, like pulling Killian for Sasser in the 4th last night and he's always willing to mix up the lineup depending on game situation. Casey stuck with the same old rotations time and time again.

The one thing Monty needs to learn is that Killian is NOT a starter even on a bad team like this one, he's not even playing at a decent backup level right now. I know they have some injuries but when you have a "shooting" guard scoring 6ppg in a starting role and shooting freaking 26% from the field (my god), he better an Ausar Thompson level defender to offset that complete lack of offense and he's barely passable as an average NBA defender.
I don't know if they're trying to showcase him or whatnot but this clearly isn't doing anything to raise his value. I'll repeat....26%!!!!!!! from the field and this is 5 games in now. My God, just to reiterate.

[Sort]

It may be a stretch, but Killian needs to be removed from the starting lineup, and I wouldn't mind seeing Sasser there. He's still a solid defender, can hit that outside shot, and doesn't seem put off by the moment. Let Ivey be the on the ball creator with the second unit still. Plus, small quick guards give Killian fits, and this would take care of that one weakness.

[Kalamazoo317]

I was all for bringing Monty Williams in, but I’ve been underwhelmed.

How many games have you watched? The difference in terms of defensive intensity and offensive cohesion is just worlds different than under Casey. Yeah, we choked away in the fourth quarter of this one. Yeah, we still need to add some talent to really get to the next level. But Monty has the guys playing well overall, IMO.

Are you for real? He's fielding a starting lineup that is absolutely doomed to crash and burn on offense in a way that simply cannot be redeemed by any amount of defense that's possible in today's NBA. Through four games, that starting lineup was scoring 15 points per 100 possessions less than last season's best defense allowed (and it hadn't even been good on defense, either). It features two non-shooters on the perimeter, three non-shooters overall, two non-scorers, and zero versatile shooters, and it had no hope of doing anything but failing as a lineup from minute one onward.

The fact that Killian (still one of the worst players in the league) is starting is also utterly baffling, and playing him and Ausar in big minutes together borders on a crime against basketball in today's league.

Monty's not an idiot, so it's beyond me what it is he's trying to pull here. It's definitely not about winning games in the now, that's for sure.

If you're judging the quality of a coach based solely on whom he puts in the starting lineup, you're not bringing much intelligence to your basketball analysis.

We're 2-3 already, one shot away from being 3-2, and one second half meltdown away from winning a fourth game. The starters have nothing to do with any of those losses and certainly contributed to the two wins. But how we're playing and what we're emphasizing are bigger pieces. Not to mention the in-game rotations which, you know, matter a ton more than who happens to play for the first five minutes of the game.

But I think a lot of folks are probably just stat watching and commenting on who starts and who doesn't rather than watching the games and getting anything from that.

[Kalamazoo317]

This starting lineup is bigger and stronger than every team, it’s an identity thing. Killian fits into that, but I think we should be looking for someone else.

It's not bigger than OKC, which is one reason we lost that game, IMO. And a lot of the functionality of the size is lost when Duren is out, which hurt us last night.

[Kalamazoo317]

If we take Killian out of the starting lineup (which would be a totally reasonable move) I think we should replace him with our (by far) best +/- guy in Burks. But that requires Burks being back and healthy, of course.

I think Monty is doing everything he can to salvage Kill's career. I think this season is Kill's last stand and if the offense doesn't come on super soon, that's all she wrote.

[kierkegaard]

If we take Killian out of the starting lineup (which would be a totally reasonable move) I think we should replace him with our (by far) best +/- guy in Burks. But that requires Burks being back and healthy, of course.

I think Monty is doing everything he can to salvage Kill's career. I think this season is Kill's last stand and if the offense doesn't come on super soon, that's all she wrote.

I dumped on him once in preseason, but what about starting Sassar next to Cade. He plays good defense and will only get better. As well, he's crafty on offense and a good shooter and will only get better. Finally, though a rookie, he's an old wallet; the moment doesn't seem to big for him.

In the preseason game I didn't like, Sassar was quite a ball hog. But that was just one game and perhaps a matter of him trying to prove himself. I don't think he'd play that way next to Cade.

Smaller than Killian, he probably wouldn't be as effective on defense. But he'd be a huge upgrade on offense, I think, though going against starters vs bench players might expose his limitations.

Similarly, because less athletic, he maybe wouldn't be as effect as Ivey on offense. But he'd be an improvement on defense and automatically match up with the other team's point guard. My guess is that starting the rook would bruise Ivey's ego. But that's something he'd have to deal with.

Am I crazy to think Monty should give this a try?

[7r5ur]

Also slightly OT for this thread, but couldn't see a recent one which fit the point better.

People get quite caught up in draft position and the notion of needing a high lottery pick to find a star, but there's no substitute for good scouting and an eye for talent.

Killian Hayes (7th pick, 2020) - 6.4 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 3.6 apg on 27/24/57

Tyrese Maxey (21st pick, 2020) - 30.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 6.3 apg on 50/56/91

Just a reminder that we passed on Maxey three times with the 7th, 16th and 19th picks.

Covid draft was a crapshoot for the most part. Couldn't really properly scout guys. That's why the lottery looks so terrible but there are a lot of players later that popped off.

But then again, even a casual observer like me knew Haliburton should have been picked at 7. We were lucky he was still there, then Troy tried to be the smahtest guy in the room. It still pisses me off.

There were NBA scouts that had Killian #1 lol. The Bulls nearly took him at 4. Stop with the revisionist history acting like Weaver was the only dude that thought Killian was going to be better than Hali. That was a mainstream take at that point, though that's a far better argument than posting Killian compared to Maxey, who no one saw as a top 10 guy at all, and Pistons fans would have been rioting if we took at 7. And that turned out to be wrong!! As happens 50 times in every draft by every single front office lol.

The same front office that took Maxey took Jaden Springer with Herb Jones on the board the next year. Sometimes the stars just need to align a bit.

[LaSheed]

Ugh **** Bally Sports!

Absolute garbage. Complete and total garbage. It's criminal how poss-poor their app has been for two+ years now.

No truer words have ever been posted. I'm ass out right now.

Sent from my SM-S918U using RealGM mobile app

I think it's still out tonight?! Wtf

[Crymson]

If you're judging the quality of a coach based solely on whom he puts in the starting lineup, you're not bringing much intelligence to your basketball analysis.

No offense, but are you being serious? The starting lineup starts games, starts halves, and plays a plurality of the minutes. Fielding a starting lineup that is guaranteed to flat on its face because it can't operate a functional offense against anything but the worst defenses is a very bad thing.

The starters have nothing to do with any of those losses and certainly contributed to the two wins.

The starters got cooked in their minutes in both losses and even managed to lose, albeit less so, against two bad teams in the wins. Go have a look at the data yourself. The lineup has been a complete disaster, and very predictably so.

We're 2-3 already, one shot away from being 3-2, and one second half meltdown away from winning a fourth game.

Context matters. Two wins against bad teams; a loss against a certain bottom-feeder; a loss versus a thin Miami team that lost two starters in the offseason and for whom its two key scorers played bad games; and a blowout loss against the Thunder, the only good team the Pistons have faced so far.

But how we're playing and what we're emphasizing are bigger pieces. Not to mention the in-game rotations which, you know, matter a ton more than who happens to play for the first five minutes of the game.

One is supposed to simply excuse him needlessly fielding a starting lineup that plays a ton of minutes together and is basically guaranteed to get stomped?

But I think a lot of folks are probably just stat watching and commenting on who starts and who doesn't rather than watching the games and getting anything from that.

I think your logic is odd: not everything is bad, so the fact that he's willfully fielding a hopeless starting lineup isn't relevant to the overall state of affairs? I can't agree.

Anyway... Monty is no fool, so I've got no doubt that he knows the starting lineup he's fielding is bound to fail. I wish I knew what his angle was. But at this point, he's actively punting on winning in order to make some sort of point.

[haulerch]

How’s Monty working out in your mind now?

How many games have you watched? The difference in terms of defensive intensity and offensive cohesion is just worlds different than under Casey. Yeah, we choked away in the fourth quarter of this one. Yeah, we still need to add some talent to really get to the next level. But Monty has the guys playing well overall, IMO.

Are you for real? He's fielding a starting lineup that is absolutely doomed to crash and burn on offense in a way that simply cannot be redeemed by any amount of defense that's possible in today's NBA. Through four games, that starting lineup was scoring 15 points per 100 possessions less than last season's best defense allowed (and it hadn't even been good on defense, either). It features two non-shooters on the perimeter, three non-shooters overall, two non-scorers, and zero versatile shooters, and it had no hope of doing anything but failing as a lineup from minute one onward.

The fact that Killian (still one of the worst players in the league) is starting is also utterly baffling, and playing him and Ausar in big minutes together borders on a crime against basketball in today's league.

Monty's not an idiot, so it's beyond me what it is he's trying to pull here. It's definitely not about winning games in the now, that's for sure.

If you're judging the quality of a coach based solely on whom he puts in the starting lineup, you're not bringing much intelligence to your basketball analysis.

We're 2-3 already, one shot away from being 3-2, and one second half meltdown away from winning a fourth game. The starters have nothing to do with any of those losses and certainly contributed to the two wins. But how we're playing and what we're emphasizing are bigger pieces. Not to mention the in-game rotations which, you know, matter a ton more than who happens to play for the first five minutes of the game.

But I think a lot of folks are probably just stat watching and commenting on who starts and who doesn't rather than watching the games and getting anything from that.

[Kalamazoo317]

How’s Monty working out in your mind now?

It clearly doesn't matter who starts and it doesn't matter who's coaching this team. They're a bad team.

[haulerch]

No. Monty is terrible and a huge reason why this team is this bad, period.

How’s Monty working out in your mind now?

It clearly doesn't matter who starts and it doesn't matter who's coaching this team. They're a bad team.

[Kalamazoo317]

He certainly doesn't have any results worth defending right now. Neither does Weaver, though. Nor do any of the young players on the roster.

[Crymson]

It clearly doesn't matter who starts and it doesn't matter who's coaching this team. They're a bad team.

No offense, but it always hurts me to see coaching arguments that treat the issue with a total lack of nuance. It's like arguing that if one takes a racecar of poor quality and chooses a blind man as its driver, the extremely poor result that is sure to follow is solely the fault of the car while the awful performance of the driver was irrelevant.

Yes, this is a bad roster. But the job of any coach, regardless of the roster he's given, is to direct that roster in such a way that gives it the best chance of winning on any given night -- no matter the disadvantages he's working with. Monty has not. He has done an exceptionally poor job so far, and I don't doubt that this team would have won at least a few more games if he hadn't made so many decisions that actively contributed toward losing.

[Canadafan]

It clearly doesn't matter who starts and it doesn't matter who's coaching this team. They're a bad team.

No offense, but it always hurts me to see coaching arguments that treat the issue with a total lack of nuance. It's like arguing that if one takes a racecar of poor quality and chooses a blind man as its driver, the extremely poor result that is sure to follow is solely the fault of the car while the awful performance of the driver was irrelevant.

Yes, this is a bad roster. But the job of any coach, regardless of the roster he's given, is to direct that roster in such a way that gives it the best chance of winning on any given night -- no matter the disadvantages he's working with. Monty has not. He has done an exceptionally poor job so far, and I don't doubt that this team would have won at least a few more games if he hadn't made so many decisions that actively contributed toward losing.

Ya, I get what Monty is trying to do. He realizes the long game here. He wants to set stage to have a team that plays defense. Thing is, he expects those defensive players (Hayes Ausur and Stew) to also be shooters which they are clearly not. So on offense we absolutely suckkkk. And without Ivey we suck even worse on offense.
As a coach that's being paid gazillions upon millions of dollars he should adjust and adapt and realize his roster sycks and play to their strengths. Fast break. Use their athleticism. Surround Cade with the non-defense playing shooters so he can not look like an absolute scrub. It's annoying as **** but obviously with the money he makes he's not concerned about optics and just keeps trying to shove this down our throats

[Kalamazoo317]

It clearly doesn't matter who starts and it doesn't matter who's coaching this team. They're a bad team.

No offense, but it always hurts me to see coaching arguments that treat the issue with a total lack of nuance. It's like arguing that if one takes a racecar of poor quality and chooses a blind man as its driver, the extremely poor result that is sure to follow is solely the fault of the car while the awful performance of the driver was irrelevant.

Yes, this is a bad roster. But the job of any coach, regardless of the roster he's given, is to direct that roster in such a way that gives it the best chance of winning on any given night -- no matter the disadvantages he's working with. Monty has not. He has done an exceptionally poor job so far, and I don't doubt that this team would have won at least a few more games if he hadn't made so many decisions that actively contributed toward losing.

No offense taken because my comment contained exactly as much nuance as the person I was responding to.

[Cowology]

Yes, this is a bad roster. But the job of any coach, regardless of the roster he's given, is to direct that roster in such a way that gives it the best chance of winning on any given night -- no matter the disadvantages he's working with.

Incorrect. You are starting with a faulty proposition. Sort of makes it hard to engage with the rest of your "nuanced" post.