The Morning After

[theBigLip]

Okay, too many thoughts going on in my head, and they cross many threads, and I think I need to write this for my own therapy.

Dumars made a good trade
I know this seems hard to believe, but the trade wasn't that bad. Getting out from under BG's contract was good, allowing us to get cap space this past summer to get some significant free agents. And with these significant free agents, we'll make the playoffs for sure, so we are just giving up a pick in the very late teens or even in the twenties. But if you sign crappy free agents with poor fits, and don't hire a good coach, THAT IS A HUGE F--KING PROBLEM. That is what makes this trade seems so horrible. It's like loaning money to a friend to help him get his life on track - that can be a good thing, but when he goes and spends it all on crack, then it becomes a bad thing. Someone should have stop Joe from being a crack addict.

Cleveland sucks
I just wanted to vent. No logic here, just basic vile and hatred. After drafting Bennett, they should be excluded from getting the top pick. And I like kids, but sure hated the kid they sent out last year to win the lottery. And they got Deng when that could have helped us. And then drift back to the last years of LBJ when he scored 1000 points in the 4th quarter to basically close our championship window. I hated Cleveland then, and I hate them more now.

Lottery changes needed
Once everyone agrees that no NBA team should have an incentive to lose, then a solution becomes easier. It sucks for the fans who have bought season tickets to "lose" a year so their team can tank. The best solution I've heard is to get rid of the lottery entirely, and just rotate the draft order. Makes a lot of sense.

Impact on Pistons for not having a first round pick
I don't think this matters that much. We do lose out on a good player at #8, probably a future starter, but not likely a starter for us this coming season. Does Smart beat out Jennings? Does Stauskas or Harris beat out KCP? Maybe eventually, but not immediately. And some well picked free agents and trades can have more impact on our future, so all is not lost.

Impact of me (and us) for not having a first round pick
So ignore my last paragraph I love the draft. I love the banter on our boards, everyone has an opinion on who is going to be good (and not). And everyone is an expert and correct until the following year when we see how well everyone plays once they get in the league. And now? I just don't have the energy to talk about the first round when we are not even in it. Maybe we can trade into it? Maybe. But for the most part, the draft has been ruined. I think I will just focus my attention on free agents and trade targets. Okay, and late second rounders - I'm a junkie and need my fix

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm backing off the ledge. We are done with Dumars. We are "clean". Well, except for Jennings and Josh. But we are moving on with SVG. This summer will be exciting - signing Monroe, figuring out what to do with Jennings and Josh, and figuring out who are new wing players will be. All is good, and playoffs this year are well within reach. Ok, my therapy session is done.

[dVs33]

Nice rant.

It sucks to miss out on the 1st round, but we still have a big offseason ahead of us.
With the Moose free agency, other free agent signings, hopefully the big Josh Smith trade and the 38th pick we have a few things to sort out.

We'll be ok. Dumars is gone.

[Ghost]

*pats on back* Let it out I really agree with part 1 and part 2.

Meh on part 3.. :/ just one of them things. I don't like that proposed idea either really.

Agree with part 3 for immediate impact, except any of them guys would probably play 15-20 minutes. But we could probably get similar impact in free agency so it's not "that bad" for next year.

Who knows about trading back into the draft. Maybe Monroe will be shopped. Maybe Josh Smith will be shopped. No idea what is going on in SVG's head or if he's going to be aggressively pursuing or just watching and waiting to see if anyone calls him instead.

[DCintheD]

good read. time heals all wounds.. next up is the draft. its not as exciting to look forward to anymore but once it happens and as long as we come out of it with one player that can contribute now or down the road, everything will be fine.

alot of us were excited about this team last year. playoffs were not out of the question and they even played some exciting games early. Cheeks was the problem and it spiraled out of control after he got fired. now we have, hopefully, a good to great coach leading the way. minus Stuckey and CV, along with adding players that make sense, I have no doubt Van Gundy can work with what he has and build something special with Drummond, Monroe, and KCP as the foundation.

Smith can still play up his trade value and Jennings is young enough to get thru to, maybe, if not he's not tied to us long term.

we still need a long term small forward similar in youth to Drummond but Ariza can do for now. He's played for Van Gundy before and might embrace being a leader of a young team. at the very least he provides stability at the 3 for the next couple years.

something definitely needs to be done about tanking. theres no reason teams should be rewarded for building the worst team. where the hell does that logic come from?

[Kilo]

Cleveland winning the lottery is meaningless in all of this. We had a 10% chance to lose the pick, and we lost it. I think folks really convinced themselves that we were going to win the lottery ourselves, so the pain is more losing Wiggins in their minds than losing out on Stauskas or McDermott or whomever.

Regardless, we have freaking Stan Van Gundy as our head coach - we already won the off-season.

Salvation will come from within. No draft savior to bank on. It's up to Drummond to go into beastmode and develop how Van Gundy believes he can. It's about re-signing Monroe and keeping him here. It's about getting Kentavious Caldwell-Pope confident and included.

[ImHeisenberg]

It's like loaning money to a friend to help him get his life on track - that can be a good thing, but when he goes and spends it all on crack, then it becomes a bad thing. Someone should have stop Joe from being a crack addict.

I don't think I've ever read a better analogy of Joe's GMing the last couple years than that. Bravo, sir!

[ChainLink]

Is it crazy that my new basketball related fantasy is that a couple NBA high level execs are caught being paid by Dan Gilbert? Something like the NBA has been trying to make it up to his franchise since he has evidence that there was collusion/unlawful tampering by Miami to recruit LeBron and form the big 3? And then Cleveland has to forfeit their pick, everyone else moves up (Bucks #1, Sixers #2, etc)? It doesn't even matter if the Hornets still kept our pick, just the ruin of the Cavaliers franchise would make me so much happier than any #8 pick in this draft.

Ten years ago, you couldn't convince me that NBA refs fixed games...but Tim Donaghy proved me wrong.

(...If that couldn't happen, my second dream scenario is that Dan Gilbert is caught on tape Sterling style making bigoted remarks.)

/End Rant /Basketball Fantasies/Rigging Conspiracies in which I have no proof and most likely the Cavs are just too damn lucky

-------------------------------

I need to read up on that lottery wheel system, as I'm not too familiar with it...but other than the Cleveland debacle the last four years, I think the current lottery system works. Maybe install some rule where you can't be in the Top 3 more than twice in the past five years.

In any case, the actual airing of the lottery needs to be more transparent, not behind closed doors. Why can't we watch the lotto balls being picked live? Sure beats watching Wilbon, Jalen Rose and Bill Simmons comment about every team's karma.

I just want to fast forward to July 1 when free agency begins.

[MotownMadness]

Were going to need veterans or players with a few years experience to impact towards winning anyways. Were already the youngest starting 5 in the league. But to lose a asset like that in the worst way you could lose it this year really stings. Those rookie contracts are highly valuable and it was a deep draft. But I don't think it really changes much for the short term. Just got to get over it know and focus on FA and the trade market.

[The Penguin]

A good vent thread is needed. I don't know about the rest of you but I don't encounter a lot of Pistons fans in my real life so you guys are my therapy group in times like this.


Point 1 - When the trade was made we had Monroe & NOTHING. 24 hours after the deal was done we added Drummond but few actually saw that coming. The amnesty point has been brought up and I can see that point of view, but Gores had just emptied a lot of his working capital in order to buy the franchise and I really don't blame him all that much for wanting to save $~$15 mil. As someone else mentioned I'm sure the Kings wouldn't mind trading #8 for $15 mil if they could.

My big problem with the trade in 20/20 hindsight is the half in/half out approach that Joe took his last half decade plus. Stan talked about it in his opening presser, it's so important to build an actual team that complements each other. Dumars moves look like he had no clue what his vision was. He blindly attempted to add talent in hopes it would all work out in the end. He lucked into Drummond & Monroe and then surrounded them with a coach who wouldn't play them together and players who didn't complement them. For the last half decade we've been trying to win while trying to rebuild, doing a poor job of accumulating assets and making the same mistakes over and over. I think the hiring of SVG puts us on the right track. We knew this pick was hanging out there and give Dumars one last chance to stab us. Now it's done. SVG has a chance to get through to Josh but outside of his contract the potential damage Dumars can do is done.

Point 2 - I hate the Cavaliers with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I live in Ohio, surrounded by Cavs fans (when I say Cavs fans I mean people who couldn't name 6 players on their roster but wear the gear when they make the playoffs). I'm sure there are some real true die hard Cavs fans but the vast majority of Cleveland fans would gladly trade Lebron's entire career for 1 Browns super bowl. I get that Lebron leaving hurt, but I struggle to come up with a fan base less deserving of 3 #1 overall picks. Lebron did them dirty but after the way Gilbert and the fans trashed him on the way out I really hope he's not considering coming back this summer. I desperately hope the franchise is relocated to Seattle or Columbus (my city) as it's not healthy for me to hate something that has little actual impact on my life so much.

Point 3 - The Lotto. I've been very outspoken about the lotto being fixed. I firmly believe it is and it's caused me to question the entire league's integrity. I'm not a big fan of the wheel as I fear someone ducking us and staying in school when our pick comes up, but I do not see how the league can continue to conduct business in a locked back room. It's not healthy for the league to have 1/3rd of it's members losing games on purpose and it's not healthy for the league to allow the conspiracy theories to run rampant.

Personally I would like to see a system of restrictions like "Only 1 first round pick every 10 years" and "only able to move into the top 3 once every 3 years". Perhaps Cleveland did randomly beat ridiculous odds to get 3 #1 overall picks, but a team that runs itself so ineptly that it's in position to do that should not continually be rewarded. If it smells like a rat and there's smoke and it's done in a locked back room with a heavily produced video released after the fact to prove it's real there's probably a rat on fire whose cheating you.

Part 4 - I completely agree on the impact of our pick. I think it's an 8 player draft and even then guys like Vonleh/Randle/Gordon/Smart aren't sure things. If we are trying to win and we are giving KCP honest PT there's simply no room for another rookie in the rotation.

Part 5 - I completely agree with this as well. I love the draft, I think it's an incredibly entertaining night and one I look forward to all year. I honestly don't know that I'll watch. I can't bear to witness another celebration of Cleveland. I will fully admit to believing this was our year to move up. Wiggins or Parker would be exactly what we needed and propel us to having a young core I could see raising a banner or several. To have last night play out the way it did and to see Cleveland jump up from the spot we desperately wanted to avoid all year was cruel. To add that in with how close we've been to jumping up in 2010, 2011 & 2013 makes me seriously question why I've invested so much emotionally and financially into the league. I don't know how fans of teams like the T-Wolves or Jazz can do it year in and year out.

Time to look forward. I hope the Cavs take Embiid and Drummond breaks him in half. Maybe it's the homer in me but I'd still take Drummond/Monroe/KCP/SVG over Kyrie/#1/Waiters/Thompson/Bennett/Whatever coach they hire. As Pistons fans we should already know the league isn't going to hand us ****, anything we want we are going to have to take, regardless of who gets in our way.

[BadMofoPimp]

Personally, I don't' think picking 8th or not picking at all would have made one iota of difference on this teams long term success. That is all on management and coaching to make the best of whatever situation they have to work with. Thus, this is no big deal to me.

[The Penguin]

Personally, I don't' think picking 8th or not picking at all would have made one iota of difference on this teams long term success. That is all on management and coaching to make the best of whatever situation they have to work with. Thus, this is no big deal to me.

I do think in a weird way it helps us. We were likely to end up with a big we wouldn't be able to get on the court or reaching for someone like McDermott or Stauskas. Now we save the ~$2.5 mil of rookie salary and can use the stretch provision on Jerebko and/or Bynum to save another ~$3-4 mil, giving us enough cap room to be a player with whoever SVG wants out of Stephenson, Bledsoe, Hayward, Deng, etc regardless of how much Monroe costs.

[BadMofoPimp]

Personally, I don't' think picking 8th or not picking at all would have made one iota of difference on this teams long term success. That is all on management and coaching to make the best of whatever situation they have to work with. Thus, this is no big deal to me.

I do think in a weird way it helps us. We were likely to end up with a big we wouldn't be able to get on the court or reaching for someone like McDermott or Stauskas. Now we save the ~$2.5 mil of rookie salary and can use the stretch provision on Jerebko and/or Bynum to save another ~$3-4 mil, giving us enough cap room to be a player with whoever SVG wants out of Stephenson, Bledsoe, Hayward, Deng, etc regardless of how much Monroe costs.

I hate Stephenson the person, but watching him last night was a joy. He is a true tough nosed competitor. Blue collar and bad boys Pistons style. I think he could thrive here in the right situation. I also like Deng alot, but not that high on Bledsoe or Hayward mainly because they will end up getting overpaid for their value. I am done with that.

[The Penguin]

Personally, I don't' think picking 8th or not picking at all would have made one iota of difference on this teams long term success. That is all on management and coaching to make the best of whatever situation they have to work with. Thus, this is no big deal to me.

I do think in a weird way it helps us. We were likely to end up with a big we wouldn't be able to get on the court or reaching for someone like McDermott or Stauskas. Now we save the ~$2.5 mil of rookie salary and can use the stretch provision on Jerebko and/or Bynum to save another ~$3-4 mil, giving us enough cap room to be a player with whoever SVG wants out of Stephenson, Bledsoe, Hayward, Deng, etc regardless of how much Monroe costs.

I hate Stephenson the person, but watching him last night was a joy. He is a true tough nosed competitor. Blue collar and bad boys Pistons style. I think he could thrive here in the right situation. I also like Deng alot, but not that high on Bledsoe or Hayward mainly because they will end up getting overpaid for their value. I am done with that.

I'm all in on Lance. We need an alpha dog ball handler with stones. There's a chance he flames out dramatically but there's also a chance he becomes the perimeter playmaker we desperately need. We need to make our own luck and I think he's worth rolling the dice on given our needs. His age and talent could likely make him a top 10 pick in this loaded draft with what he's shown in the league already.

[Blkbrd671]

Okay, too many thoughts going on in my head, and they cross many threads, and I think I need to write this for my own therapy.

Dumars made a good trade
I know this seems hard to believe, but the trade wasn't that bad. Getting out from under BG's contract was good, allowing us to get cap space this past summer to get some significant free agents. And with these significant free agents, we'll make the playoffs for sure, so we are just giving up a pick in the very late teens or even in the twenties. But if you sign crappy free agents with poor fits, and don't hire a good coach, THAT IS A HUGE F--KING PROBLEM. That is what makes this trade seems so horrible. It's like loaning money to a friend to help him get his life on track - that can be a good thing, but when he goes and spends it all on crack, then it becomes a bad thing. Someone should have stop Joe from being a crack addict.

Josh Smith /Brandon Jennings= Crack
awesome point

Cleveland sucks
I just wanted to vent. No logic here, just basic vile and hatred. After drafting Bennett, they should be excluded from getting the top pick. And I like kids, but sure hated the kid they sent out last year to win the lottery. And they got Deng when that could have helped us. And then drift back to the last years of LBJ when he scored 1000 points in the 4th quarter to basically close our championship window. I hated Cleveland then, and I hate them more now.

I smell what your stepping in. Just think it'll make that much sweeter when we beat them. They have had 3 of the last 4 1st picks and still can't put a half decent product on the floor. Going to be interesting who they pick, Embid is much more intriguing if they plan on tryin to get lebron back. or do they draft the theoritic next bron.

Lottery changes needed
Once everyone agrees that no NBA team should have an incentive to lose, then a solution becomes easier. It sucks for the fans who have bought season tickets to "lose" a year so their team can tank. The best solution I've heard is to get rid of the lottery entirely, and just rotate the draft order. Makes a lot of sense.

i like the idea of reversing the draft. ie. The teams with the most wins, that don't make the playoffs get the highest chance to win the draft. This way teams that are on the brink of being playoff teams get younger and better to take that leap , making the playoffs that much more fun, and teams that are already out of the playoffs have something to play for. Reversing the reverse incentive

Impact on Pistons for not having a first round pick
I don't think this matters that much. We do lose out on a good player at #8, probably a future starter, but not likely a starter for us this coming season. Does Smart beat out Jennings? Does Stauskas or Harris beat out KCP? Maybe eventually, but not immediately. And some well picked free agents and trades can have more impact on our future, so all is not lost.

This is true, i think most of our depression stems from the fact that we haven't been in this position in a while and we don't know what to do. The biggest impact is that perception wise its now more likely we keep both Jennings/Smith. The pick allowed us another option in terms of molding our team. I would have like to see Smart and jennings go at it in practice. Both ultra competitive types

Impact of me (and us) for not having a first round pick
So ignore my last paragraph I love the draft. I love the banter on our boards, everyone has an opinion on who is going to be good (and not). And everyone is an expert and correct until the following year when we see how well everyone plays once they get in the league. And now? I just don't have the energy to talk about the first round when we are not even in it. Maybe we can trade into it? Maybe. But for the most part, the draft has been ruined. I think I will just focus my attention on free agents and trade targets. Okay, and late second rounders - I'm a junkie and need my fix

Marcus Smart/KCP backcourt :drool:
Aaron Gordon maybe sliding
etc.

This is the hardest part for me, i have lost all interest in the draft, and normally this is what keeps me entertained during offseason. And summer league is that much more fun. Well Said

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm backing off the ledge. We are done with Dumars. We are "clean". Well, except for Jennings and Josh. But we are moving on with SVG. This summer will be exciting - signing Monroe, figuring out what to do with Jennings and Josh, and figuring out who are new wing players will be. All is good, and playoffs this year are well within reach. Ok, my therapy session is done.

Definitely in top 3 of the threads/post i've ever read, mostly because i needed someone to vent through. F* cleveland

[epheisey]

The fact that out of 21 tries, the team with the worst record has only gotten the top pick 3 times, shows that the draft system needs fixing. The worst team has a 25% chance to win, yet they've only won 14% of the time.

Why does a normal draft set up (draft order in reverse order of standings) work in every other pro league except the NBA?

If they're stuck on a lottery, they to add in some sort of restrictions where teams cannot have a top 3 more than X number of times in a rolling period of Y years.

The real bummer in this is that potential star players careers are being ruined by the same small group of poorly run teams.

[theBigLip]

The real bummer in this is that potential star players careers are being ruined by the same small group of poorly run teams.

Just Irving. Bennett appears to be a bust and Cleveland saved everyone else from draft him And maybe they do the same with Embiid who could turn into Greg Oden. Not to wish that on Embiid, but would be happy to see Cleveland suffer

[Snakebites]

The reality here is that the damage had already been done the moment the trade was made 2 years ago.

The fact that we're losing the pick this year vs next year does suck a little, but the worst of it is losing a pick at all.

The healing hopefully starts now. This one was lost a long time ago.

[DETermination]

I'm already over yesterday, now I'm looking forward to the off-season moves Stan Van Gundy will make. And Hopefully Andre will be on team USA soon also. Drummond learning from SVG will be great but also if he does make team USA it will be great experience for him.

[tbennett5438]

I'm just glad we got Van Gundy. We could have kept the pick, but with a huge question mark with the coach.

[Pharaoh]

I've done enough ranting about Joe. He's gone and I'm happy we have SVG.

Time will tell if Stan can get some complimentary pieces...but he's got the cap space to do it.

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