Pistons-Kings (6pm)

[ComboGuardCity]

I think I've settled on Ivey being Monta Ellis if he had a good head on his shoulders. Sky is the limit.

Looks like Ivey is being told to defer to Bojan on the court. That's fine if we desperately need a basket and the youngsters are struggling. However, why is Bojan dribbling the ball down the court all by himself and trying to break down defenders off the dribble (and waving off Ivey during the process)? That should never be his role. I have no idea why all these FAs/traded-for-vets act like they are supposed to run the offense here.

Bojan is a great option 1:1 but once he gets doubled it’s game over. He was originally brought here so teams couldn’t double Cade and now that Cade is out we’re even more broken

[Manocad]

Yeah, hoping it works out. Defense definitely seems like the biggest issue right now and there's at least hope that a lot of that is due to being so young. A big man rotation of Duren, Beefstew, Bagley, Victor could really help that long term if we played two of them at a time (preferably not Duren and Bagley together). I think we have potentially solid defenders at guard as well. We really don't have much in terms of defensive wings.

If it were me once Stew was back I'd be starting Duren with him immediately with Bojan going to the bench. Give Ivey his 30+ minutes a night but half with Cade and half with the bench. That way he's got a lot of opportunity to score and Bojan isn't always matched up against the other team's best wings. Pair up Bagley and Noel on the bench then fill in however else you want to with Burks, Hayes, Knox, etc.

I'd probably do Bey on the bench instead of Bojan, just because I think you want Bojan's spacing with Cade, Ivey, and Duren. I think there's an argument to be made that our most competitive team (with everyone healthy) is Cade, Burks, Bojan, Stewart, Duren. That puts our two most reliable shooters out there with our (arguably) best all-around player and our two best defensive bigs.

I'm fine with that. I just want to see Bey and Bojan split up, Cade and Ivey split to a certain extent to give both of them plenty of minutes at alpha dog, and a true PF and C on the floor for the majority of the minutes. There's a heckuva lot better shot at getting some blocked shots and giving up fewer offensive rebounds with two 6'10+ guys out there rather than one, especially if there's still going to be at least one defensively awful player (Bey or Bojan) with them.

Obviously this is a developmental season and I'm not looking for a bunch of wins, but it would be nice to see Casey run some lineups out there that make more sense from a basketball standpoint. Especially in the case of Bojan whose defense is highly unlikely to improve at this point.

[NME33]

Where was Bagley on that list?

He hasn't played enough minutes to qualify yet.... That list was of players that have played at least 250 minutes this season to eliminate and non regular rotation or low MPG fringe rotation players. Since Bagley has only played 113 minutes thus far this season he's not on the list and he might not end up there this season. His man to man defense has been ok this year in a very small sample size, its helping out or pick and roll defense where he really struggles and half the time he isn't stepping up at all to even be there to be considered the guy defending/contesting the shot he will just stay with him man completely away from the field goal attempt so its poor defense but might not translate on the stat sheet the same way it would if he were actually moving to try and contest those shots.

You can filter the list by minutes played. I plugged in 100 minutes, the list went to 48 players, and Bagley wasn't on it. His +/- last night was -1 in a game lost by 8 points so he wasn't the defensive problem; he even had a steal and a block. My point is that you're not going to find any stats showing him to be "unplayable" on defense because it simply isn't true. It was rhetoric that's been thrown around here since Day 1 but based on small sample size of 18 games last year in a new system with a new coach. Give it time and it's very possible that he can get better, which is all I ever said.

The board most likely got infiltrated by bitter Kings fans who don't want Bagley to have success and influenced perception. Those fans still follow him around social media to make sure a positive word is never spoken without a challenge.

[Manocad]

He hasn't played enough minutes to qualify yet.... That list was of players that have played at least 250 minutes this season to eliminate and non regular rotation or low MPG fringe rotation players. Since Bagley has only played 113 minutes thus far this season he's not on the list and he might not end up there this season. His man to man defense has been ok this year in a very small sample size, its helping out or pick and roll defense where he really struggles and half the time he isn't stepping up at all to even be there to be considered the guy defending/contesting the shot he will just stay with him man completely away from the field goal attempt so its poor defense but might not translate on the stat sheet the same way it would if he were actually moving to try and contest those shots.

You can filter the list by minutes played. I plugged in 100 minutes, the list went to 48 players, and Bagley wasn't on it. His +/- last night was -1 in a game lost by 8 points so he wasn't the defensive problem; he even had a steal and a block. My point is that you're not going to find any stats showing him to be "unplayable" on defense because it simply isn't true. It was rhetoric that's been thrown around here since Day 1 but based on small sample size of 18 games last year in a new system with a new coach. Give it time and it's very possible that he can get better, which is all I ever said.

The board most likely got infiltrated by bitter Kings fans who don't want Bagley to have success and influenced perception. Those fans still follow him around social media to make sure a positive word is never spoken without a challenge.

Trust me, this board is rife with Bagley and Hayes haters who would rather see both fail so their predictions can be right rather than see them succeed for the betterment of the team.