Pistons voted team with worst offseason by nba execs

[440BB]

It seems Weaver overestimated the market for free agents and jumped too early on Grant and Plumlee. On the other hand, he may have watched the Pistons from a distance and thought they were so unattractive during the rebuild that he'd have to overpay.

The Grant signing may have been based on Griffin's unknown status and Sekou's question marks. As long as Griffin is here and healthy Grant seems like an expensive roadblock to Sekou's development. I was uncertain Sekou going to make the effort to become a consistent contributor in his second year.

Plumlee's signing still seems odd but we don't know whether Wood was willing to resign with the Pistons at any price. He wanted to be on a winning team and that wasn't going to happen here for a while.

It will take at least a couple months to find out which decision(s) were Weaver's biggest misfires. If Blake gets hurt or traded my guess is Plumlee at $8m/season. If not, it's likely Grant.

What interests me most is whether Weaver recognizes and learns from his mistakes. Will he stubbornly defend his choices or adjust his thinking? That may take a couple years to find out.

[NYPiston]

That's accurate. I don't know what they're doing either.
I think Weaver just threw a bunch of **** against the wall hoping it sticks and was busy just for the sake of being busy without any clear plan.

The draft was good then it was a bunch of WTF after that. Even the Kennard trade which seemed fine at the draft turned out to be a WTF after we heard about the four 2nds being added.

It was one hit after another. Starting with the adds to the Kennard trade which, ok, it's just 2nds so not the worst thing in the world but then signing a guy like Plumlee to high end bench money for 3 years and everybody was like "huh?" then the huge Grant contract and it was like "What's going on?" then the loading up on centers "WTF is he doing?" then all the stretches "Is he out of his mind, what's the purpose of this?". Now they lose most of their cap flexibility for the next few years, have a lot less draft picks going forward although most are 2nds but still and now have guys like Grant and Griffin clogging up minutes with their most talented player in Sekou possibly getting squeezed out. We'll see what happens going forward but as it stands now, I'm not sure what the plan is.
If he can dump Griffin without taking salary back, I'd be more on board but it's highly unlikely that he'll find a suitor.

[Billl]

So far, I love our rookies. The stewart pick was a headscratcher at the time, but damn that man plays hard. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with 3 quality starters from a draft that was viewed as pretty week. Everyone in the scouting department deserves a fat christmas bonus.

The rest? Yeah, that will get you landed on a "worst offseason" list. We cleared house, which was great..... and then filled the roster/cap right back up with overpaid roll players. That would have been bad enough if we had timed them so they expired with Blake, but they are 3 years.

[edmunder_prc]

It seems Weaver overestimated the market for free agents and jumped too early on Grant and Plumlee. On the other hand, he may have watched the Pistons from a distance and thought they were so unattractive during the rebuild that he'd have to overpay.

The Grant signing may have been based on Griffin's unknown status and Sekou's question marks. As long as Griffin is here and healthy Grant seems like an expensive roadblock to Sekou's development. I was uncertain Sekou going to make the effort to become a consistent contributor in his second year.

Plumlee's signing still seems odd but we don't know whether Wood was willing to resign with the Pistons at any price. He wanted to be on a winning team and that wasn't going to happen here for a while.

It will take at least a couple months to find out which decision(s) were Weaver's biggest misfires. If Blake gets hurt or traded my guess is Plumlee at $8m/season. If not, it's likely Grant.

What interests me most is whether Weaver recognizes and learns from his mistakes. Will he stubbornly defend his choices or adjust his thinking? That may take a couple years to find out.

I defended the Plumlee signing and thought he had more in the tank. Watching him play, the biggest problem is not lack of talent, its that is he a terrible fit for the Pistons.

On the Nuggets he came in to spell Jokic. That team has a passing center and a movement offense. Guys are cutting, there are off ball screens, double picks, etc. Plumlee can pass with the best of them as a center. This team is a stand around team.

Look at Sekou. We are shocked that someone would cut to the basket for easy buckets. Its like watching someone invent fire for Pistons fans. You mean when the defense is keying in on a guy and has their backs turned, you can run to the basket and someone will pass you the ball? WTF have we been doing this whole time.

Plumlee doesnt fit into the the SVG/Casey, dominant ball hog, pick and roll, 3 guys stand around offense.

So in that way, Weaver was being dumb.

I thought Grant was two tiers above Snell. He's sadly 1 tier above snell and not worth $20. Snell is $12 this year. The going rate for a starting SF is high teens to 20. But Grant is not worth the upper end of that range.

When Blake is traded, Grant plays his traditional role.


Hayes
Need shooting here - Svi, Bey
Sekou/Bey
Grant/Sekou
Need shooting here or elite defense like Gobert

[7r5ur]

Let me take a wild guess on what "worst" means--didn't improve the team as much as possible, i.e. go after as many wins as possible in 2020-21

Good.

Uhh, no, it obviously does not mean that. Otherwise a team like OKC would have been the "worst". They've basically gutted their roster of players that don't have a future there and gathered assets in the form of draft picks. A proper rebuild.

The problem has never been that the result of the team was going to be bad this season. That is expected. It's that we overpaid for guys like Plumlee and Grant, who basically do nothing for this team other than eat up valuable minutes for our young players like Sekou, Bey (whom we traded Kennard for), and Stewart.

Simultaneously we let Christian Wood walk, who is twice the player of either of our "prized" free agents.

There's just nothing Grant and Plumlee offer the Pistons that you can't get from a vet on a one-year deal, and now we're dealing with these contracts and the stretched money for 5 years.

It's Josh Smith, Ben Gordon, Charlie V, Jon Leuer, etc. all over again. Spending money just because you can. At least with those teams there was some vague thought that the team was going to push for the playoffs.

[El Chivo]

our free agency was a total mess, but I've liked our draft (even if I would have drafted Avdija instead of Hayes).

[NYPiston]

Uhh, no, it obviously does not mean that. Otherwise a team like OKC would have been the "worst". They've basically gutted their roster of players that don't have a future there and gathered assets in the form of draft picks. A proper rebuild.

The problem has never been that the result of the team was going to be bad this season. That is expected. It's that we overpaid for guys like Plumlee and Grant, who basically do nothing for this team other than eat up valuable minutes for our young players like Sekou, Bey (whom we traded Kennard for), and Stewart.

Simultaneously we let Christian Wood walk, who is twice the player of either of our "prized" free agents.

There's just nothing Grant and Plumlee offer the Pistons that you can't get from a vet on a one-year deal, and now we're dealing with these contracts and the stretched money for 5 years.

It's Josh Smith, Ben Gordon, Charlie V, Jon Leuer, etc. all over again. At least with those teams there was some vague thought that the team was going to push for the playoffs.

They should have done what the Knicks did (Did I just say that?). They signed a few young vets to short term deals maintaining their cap flexibility going forward.

If the Pistons had simply stuck to signing guys like Okafor and Jackson with a short term deal for Plumlee and Ellington, it would have made a lot more sense and they wouldn't have had to stretch these other guys to vastly overpay Grant.
They would have maintained cap flexibility, not had an overly crowded roster struggling to find playing time for some key young players and they wouldn't have had dead cap on the books for the next 5 years.

[MotownMadness]

It was pretty bad that's for sure

[Manocad]

Let me take a wild guess on what "worst" means--didn't improve the team as much as possible, i.e. go after as many wins as possible in 2020-21

Good.

Uhh, no, it obviously does not mean that. Otherwise a team like OKC would have been the "worst". They've basically gutted their roster of players that don't have a future there and gathered assets in the form of draft picks. A proper rebuild.

The problem has never been that the result of the team was going to be bad this season. That is expected. It's that we overpaid for guys like Plumlee and Grant, who basically do nothing for this team other than eat up valuable minutes for our young players like Sekou, Bey (whom we traded Kennard for), and Stewart.

Simultaneously we let Christian Wood walk, who is twice the player of either of our "prized" free agents.

There's just nothing Grant and Plumlee offer the Pistons that you can't get from a vet on a one-year deal, and now we're dealing with these contracts and the stretched money for 5 years.

It's Josh Smith, Ben Gordon, Charlie V, Jon Leuer, etc. all over again. Spending money just because you can. At least with those teams there was some vague thought that the team was going to push for the playoffs.

As I posted previously in referencing an interview with Rod Beard, I can't recall all the exact details because I was driving while listening to the interview, but he laid out why all of Weaver's moves made sense. Not that they'll all play out as planned obviously, but there was absolutely a logic to it all.

[Southern Piston]

Well I think any full rebuild would take three seasons, all the big contracts are done before or at that mark. Plumlee makes no sense we could just kept Dedmond, Okafor, and Stewart Andy I think we’d win just as many games, but I could be wrong. Grant makes sense, I mean I would preferred bargain basement contracts but if your gonna invest in somebody he’s a solid bet for a overpay, he could still be rising, but by year three I bet that contract won’t be unreadable, we drafted three plYers who I think at least could all be long rotation players on winning teams, if not 1-2 really good players, you Sekou, you draft 2 more lottery picks, maybe one top three pick, your just couple years away from being the young hot team.

[ElectricMayhem]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2021-nba-predictions/

The hits keep coming. Not only are the Pistons considered the worst team by 538, they have only a quarter of the chance to make the playoffs as the next worst team (Cleveland). Cleveland is given a 4% chance and the Pistons are given a 1% chance.

One can only hope.

Or for the non-tanking crowd, get out your "So you're telling me there's a chance!" gifs.

[MrBigShot]

Let's be honest: weaver has no idea what he's doing. Letting Wood go & signing Grant/Plumlee to a combined 28 mil per year for 3 years in and of itself should be a fireable offense. His best shot at keeping his job is for us to land a top pick who ends up being a flat out star over the next year or two.

[7r5ur]

Let's be honest: weaver has no idea what he's doing. Letting Wood go & signing Grant/Plumlee to a combined 28 mil per year for 3 years in and of itself should be a fireable offense. His best shot at keeping his job is for us to land a top pick who ends up being a flat out star over the next year or two.

The disturbing part is even if by some miracle we landed a star in the draft, it's blatantly obvious that Weaver would horribly botch building a roster around them.

You just can't make 'Grant/Plumlee over Wood' level mistakes when it was already so obvious to everyone but the Pistons FO how that would work out. This is worse than drafting Kennard over Mitchell because at least with that we know the draft can be hit-or-miss. Wood, Grant, and Plumlee are known quantities.

[vic]

Good things

1. Defense is going to be good. Scores are lower than the rest of the league already. Pistons Basketball is actually back.
2. Killians defense is even better than his passing. Which is probably the real reason Casey plays him.
3. Casey is a good defensive coach.
4. Weaver is good at drafting. He's a good scout.

Bad things
1. Casey is a suspect (or at least Uncreative) offensive coach. He focuses on defense which is probably why he did'nt go to bat for Wood... the fact that Thon played over Wood for any portion of the year should tell you that.
2. Casey's weakness means the Pistons are going to need at least 2 elite scorers/playmakers on the floor at all times.
3. Weaver is suspect at Free Agency.
4. Whatever the reason - giving Wood's money to Grant was suspect. Grant is not a scorer/playmaker, so to pay him for that role that he hasn't shown any capability of performing because you know him personally is actually irresponsible. He's 3&D. You could draft a rookie to do 3&D. Casey can develop any reasonable basketball athlete into a 3&D player. You don't pay a 3&D guy who is now the missing piece on Denver's championship team 20M to block the development of your 3&D rookies. That's nonsensible.
3. Eventually WeaveCasey is going to have to get couple of elite scorers/playmakers and trust them to play defense over time. Wood was their opportunity for one of those guys. They blew it.

Solutions:
1. Cade Cunningham/Moses Moody/Jalen Green
2. Evan Mobley/Victor Wembayana (2022)/Chet Holmgren (2022)

The Pistons only hope for a championship is to be bad enough to draft an elite player 2 years in a row.. because Casey's offense is suspect, and Weaver's Free Agency is suspect.

But Casey's player development is good, and Weaver's drafting is good... so there is hope.

[whitehops]

2. Killians defense is even better than his passing. Which is probably the real reason Casey plays him.

100%. even with some missed rotations (which will come with time) i think he's already a better overall defender than rose. it's rare for a rookie to look solid defensively off the bat but hayes playing in the pros probably prepared him for the IQ of NBA players.

hayes has been all over the place offensively in the first three games but his defense is getting him in the starting lineup, because he can hang with starting NBA guards already. that alone is a nice change from guys like kennard, ellenson, etc.