Mike Schmitz: Biggest disappointment of summer league is Hayes taking the ball out of Cade's hands

[treefi]

It hurts the development of every other young player in the lineup if they have to play with someone who basically doesn't have to be guarded.

Your willingness to incur that harm will depend on a variety of factors, including where you place the likelihood of him developing into an NBA level starter, and how well he fits into our core as currently constructed even if he develops into what you think he can become.

You can just as easily spin this and say that most rookies hurt the development of other rookies and second year players because they generally play subpar defense; increasing the chances we will be behind late in games and not have the ability to learn to play in high pressure situations.

You could just as arbitrarily say that the added pressure of players being able to sink off of killian would force the other 4 to learn to react quicker and play through double teams; thereby speeding up their development.

In other words, this is total bunk.

Strongly disagree. To suggest that playing essentially 4 on 5 would somehow accelerate the offensive development of the other starters just doesn’t make any sense. Not at the NBA level. But yes, passing to an open Killian Hayes and having him miss 65% of the time would restrict development of every starter as defenses bait the Pistons to let him shoot. Meanwhile the ball is out of Cade’s hands more, restricting his development as a PG. If your goal is to accelerate his scoring ability, I think it still makes more sense to have a respectable shooter out there so Cade doesn’t waste away chucking up low percentage shots with a defender in his face because there’s no other option. That’s the kind of stuff you practice in the offseason or at summer league, not vs other NBA starters. Just my two cents.

And yeah, starting a bunch of rookies with Cade would likely hurt his development this year.

[treefi]

We should roll with Killian starting through preseason of course but if he’s severely outplayed by every other guard on our roster yet again, I think you gotta bring him off the bench to start the season.

[zeebneeb]

It hurts the development of every other young player in the lineup if they have to play with someone who basically doesn't have to be guarded.

Your willingness to incur that harm will depend on a variety of factors, including where you place the likelihood of him developing into an NBA level starter, and how well he fits into our core as currently constructed even if he develops into what you think he can become.

This is just silly. You know how many established players there are in the league that don't demand to be guarded? Is it hurting to develope those players?

When your picked that high, your allowances are higher.

I'm tired of this debate to be honest, as it doesn't matter. Hayes will start this year, and we'll see what he's got.

[Laimbeer]

Every time dead money comes up, someone says we're not a free agent destination.

So what? It still matters.

[Manocad]

If it didn’t matter, Hayes would be valued as a 1st round still by other GMs. Do you think other teams would offer a 1st round pick for Hayes? I doubt it.

Nobody is saying Hayes can never become an NBA-level player. We are saying it’s much less likely. Just like how some lottery projected HS prospects drop to 2nd round after similar sample size in college.

If we’re going to develop him into an NBA player, he needs to sit on the bench for years like a HS to pro prospect. That’s what used to be normal for a player as raw and young as Hayes.

Yeah, people ARE saying he can never become an NBA-level player. That’s the point.

So you get added to the list of people who won’t answer the question—what do the Pistons gain by sending Hayes to the bench? More wins? Why is that a good thing right now?

Last year your perspective made more sense. This year we took a PG with the #1 pick in the draft. If your argument is that we should start Killian because we shouldn’t try to win games, that doesn’t resonate with me at all and just proves how bad he is.

What do the Pistons gain? Starters can play 5 on 5 offensively instead of 4 on 5. More wins.

What does Killian gain? An opportunity to play against backup PGs to (hopefully) gain confidence (especially as a scorer) and develop some consistency.

What does Cade gain? More minutes at PG. A backcourt partner that can make a shot when left open.

Earlier you had asked if Cade played as terribly as Killian through 26 games, should we bail? I think it’s fair to say most of the basketball world would be shocked (unlike w/ Killian, much more of an unknown) with many suspecting Cade is going to bust... but no, it wouldn’t be time to give up yet. Would we lower our expectations? Yeah, I think that would be fairly obvious. The truth is that Cade, Killian or ANY top 10 pick playing as bad as Killian has so far should set off alarm bells. To act like fans and GMs shouldn’t be very concerned when that happens is just not accurate imo.

I really really hope I am wrong about Killian though, I really do.

AGAIN, I’m not arguing that Killian’s current deficiencies are not cause for concern. Obviously he needs to improve before he can be a starting guard for a playoff caliber team. The argument I have addressed is that he doesn’t have the ability to ever become that player and has been given ample chance to develop at this point. And like I said, I don’t care one but if Hayes’ stats thus far are worst in the league for his position. He hasn’t played a single minutes with a Cade, Grant, Bey and Stewart/whomever lineup. If he’s slated to be a starting guard of the future there is no coach with half a brain who would send him to the bench without seeing how it works first.

[Invictus88]

It hurts the development of every other young player in the lineup if they have to play with someone who basically doesn't have to be guarded.

Your willingness to incur that harm will depend on a variety of factors, including where you place the likelihood of him developing into an NBA level starter, and how well he fits into our core as currently constructed even if he develops into what you think he can become.

You can just as easily spin this and say that most rookies hurt the development of other rookies and second year players because they generally play subpar defense; increasing the chances we will be behind late in games and not have the ability to learn to play in high pressure situations.

You could just as arbitrarily say that the added pressure of players being able to sink off of killian would force the other 4 to learn to react quicker and play through double teams; thereby speeding up their development.

In other words, this is total bunk.

Strongly disagree. To suggest that playing essentially 4 on 5 would somehow accelerate the offensive development of the other starters just doesn’t make any sense. Not at the NBA level. But yes, passing to an open Killian Hayes and having him miss 65% of the time would restrict development of every starter as defenses bait the Pistons to let him shoot. Meanwhile the ball is out of Cade’s hands more, restricting his development as a PG. If your goal is to accelerate his scoring ability, I think it still makes more sense to have a respectable shooter out there so Cade doesn’t waste away chucking up low percentage shots with a defender in his face because there’s no other option. That’s the kind of stuff you practice in the offseason or at summer league, not vs other NBA starters. Just my two cents.

And yeah, starting a bunch of rookies with Cade would likely hurt his development this year.

1. None of what you have described (the baiting and letting Killian shoot) has happened at all in all of the games Killian has played. It doesn't mean he is a good shooter and that players aren't sinking off of him. Rather, he's been crafty with the ball which has led to either opportunities at the rim or defenses still collapsing on him where he kicks it away.

2. My point of suggesting the 4 on 5 thing wasn't even that I particularly believe in that to be the case. It was that it was as arbitrary a suggestion as the one that Snakebites stated.

3. If playing with players who have holes in their game is going to adversely affect a potential superstar's development in any tangible manner then you would have a lot less of them in this league. It's nearly a certainty that after being drafted that these guys will land in places with huge problems in terms of talent or developed skills. Yet magically a lot of these players turn out completely fine...

3a. If we have to find an example of such a case where a player continued to develop strongly in the face of being surrounded by a lack of talent then you should look no further than Cade Cunningham himself. Apparently the team he was surrounded with in Oklahoma State was terrible. Yet somehow through the double teams and poor support he was still able to make great strides in his shooting and playmaking. It's a shame that the lack of talent around him caused his career to derail... oh wait...

3b. Oh right. Saddiq Bey. Learns to become a proficient shooter from the outside despite the fact that we are an extremely poor outside shooting team and playing with our current roster of point guards. That shouldn't have happened either right?