GAME 14: Pistons @ Hawks 8PM

[ChipButty]

Keep in mind a losing coach's job is never safe. Its hard to worry about the future when your own job is in jeopardy.

Following this train of thought then Casey should be fired immediately.

If his goal has been to win games by playing vets... he's 3-11. The worst record in the league and very little development of young talent to show for it. He is completely failing at his objective.

None of the starters outside of possibly Grant have any trade value currently so you can't use the excuse that he's showcasing them either. Sekou's value if anything has gone down (if he has any value left). The same with Svi.

I think the time has come for the FO to have serious conversations with him about not playing the young guys more. If he continues that trend afterwards then I think he has to go.

If the front office wants him to simply play young guys, why are they signing vets like Plumlee and Ellington in the first place? Why are they trading young improving players like Brown and Kenard and not trading vets like Rose and Blake? Ellington is hot at the moment. No harm in starting him for a few games. Good for chemistry, culture and sends the right message to players. It's a long season.

[Invictus88]

Keep in mind a losing coach's job is never safe. Its hard to worry about the future when your own job is in jeopardy.

Following this train of thought then Casey should be fired immediately.

If his goal has been to win games by playing vets... he's 3-11. The worst record in the league and very little development of young talent to show for it. He is completely failing at his objective.

None of the starters outside of possibly Grant have any trade value currently so you can't use the excuse that he's showcasing them either. Sekou's value if anything has gone down (if he has any value left). The same with Svi.

I think the time has come for the FO to have serious conversations with him about not playing the young guys more. If he continues that trend afterwards then I think he has to go.

If the front office wants him to simply play young guys, why are they signing vets like Plumlee and Ellington in the first place? Why are they trading young improving players like Brown and Kenard and not trading vets like Rose and Blake? Ellington is hot at the moment. No harm in starting him for a few games. Good for chemistry, culture and sends the right message to players. It's a long season.

Okay. Let's turn this around. If you were only going to play your 2nd and 3rd first round picks a handful of minutes and not develop them the why draft them in the first place? Especially given you performed draft day trades to acquire two of them.

[edmunder_prc]

There are many ways to lose games. Playing vets 35 minutes a game on the worst team in the league is going full ret@ard.

Play Saben Lee, Syverdis, Bey, Sekou, Stewart lineups.

Play Saben Lee, Frank Jackson, Josh Jackson, Bey, Sekou lineups.

This team can lose and play Sekou 33 minutes a night.
This team can lose and play Saben Lee 24 minutes and Frank Jackson 24 minutes at PG.
This team can lose and play Syverdis 20 minutes a night at SF(?) with Bey the rest of the minutes.

Start Svi at PG. He cant be worse than Hayes and we started him. Or Josh Jackson. Or Bey. Let's see how Bey plays operating the team.

As if the only way to lose is to play Blake 39 minutes is unjustifiable. To think you are some genius because "well duh, look Blake loses" No **** bro. We can lose and play all the rookies 35 minutes a night too.

Saben Lee
Frank Jackson
Bey
Sekou
Stewart

Let's play them all 35 minutes a night. Backup can be Jackson, Svi, Grant can play 15 minutes a game, or just "be injured" for a while.

[DetroitDon15]

Following this train of thought then Casey should be fired immediately.

If his goal has been to win games by playing vets... he's 3-11. The worst record in the league and very little development of young talent to show for it. He is completely failing at his objective.

None of the starters outside of possibly Grant have any trade value currently so you can't use the excuse that he's showcasing them either. Sekou's value if anything has gone down (if he has any value left). The same with Svi.

I think the time has come for the FO to have serious conversations with him about not playing the young guys more. If he continues that trend afterwards then I think he has to go.

If the front office wants him to simply play young guys, why are they signing vets like Plumlee and Ellington in the first place? Why are they trading young improving players like Brown and Kenard and not trading vets like Rose and Blake? Ellington is hot at the moment. No harm in starting him for a few games. Good for chemistry, culture and sends the right message to players. It's a long season.

Okay. Let's turn this around. If you were only going to play your 2nd and 3rd first round picks a handful of minutes and not develop them the why draft them in the first place? Especially given you performed draft day trades to acquire two of them.

Agreed. We need to see if these guys can play in the league (Stewart). Seku looks like a bust. I see no point giving Wright or Plumlee 30 minutes a night. What does that do long term for the franchise?

[vic]

It's just not looking good for Casey.

I dont know any coach who would have kept Christian Wood on the bench for as long as he was on the bench last year, let alone let the GM give him away for nothing.

And to see how hes managing the lineup this year just seems like more of the same low iq decision making.

We can come up with all the excuses we want, but letting Wood go didn't make sense, and current minutes allocation doesn't make sense.
The draft made sense, free agency signings made half sense.

I'm hoping for the best but our front office just doesn't seem like the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree

[DBC10]

There are many ways to lose games. Playing vets 35 minutes a game on the worst team in the league is going full ret@ard.

Play Saben Lee, Syverdis, Bey, Sekou, Stewart lineups.

Play Saben Lee, Frank Jackson, Josh Jackson, Bey, Sekou lineups.

This team can lose and play Sekou 33 minutes a night.
This team can lose and play Saben Lee 24 minutes and Frank Jackson 24 minutes at PG.
This team can lose and play Syverdis 20 minutes a night at SF(?) with Bey the rest of the minutes.

Start Svi at PG. He cant be worse than Hayes and we started him. Or Josh Jackson. Or Bey. Let's see how Bey plays operating the team.

As if the only way to lose is to play Blake 39 minutes is unjustifiable. To think you are some genius because "well duh, look Blake loses" No **** bro. We can lose and play all the rookies 35 minutes a night too.

Saben Lee
Frank Jackson
Bey
Sekou
Stewart

Let's play them all 35 minutes a night. Backup can be Jackson, Svi, Grant can play 15 minutes a game, or just "be injured" for a while.

It'd be objectively more watchable seeing that lineup try to win than watching BG and Rose try to relive their glory days circa 2011

And there is zero chance that lineup would win more games than what we're doing now either, they don't have the experience to grind out 30+ minute games and crunch time minutes to not squander it

[Manocad]

There are many ways to lose games. Playing vets 35 minutes a game on the worst team in the league is going full ret@ard.

Play Saben Lee, Syverdis, Bey, Sekou, Stewart lineups.

Play Saben Lee, Frank Jackson, Josh Jackson, Bey, Sekou lineups.

This team can lose and play Sekou 33 minutes a night.
This team can lose and play Saben Lee 24 minutes and Frank Jackson 24 minutes at PG.
This team can lose and play Syverdis 20 minutes a night at SF(?) with Bey the rest of the minutes.

Start Svi at PG. He cant be worse than Hayes and we started him. Or Josh Jackson. Or Bey. Let's see how Bey plays operating the team.

As if the only way to lose is to play Blake 39 minutes is unjustifiable. To think you are some genius because "well duh, look Blake loses" No **** bro. We can lose and play all the rookies 35 minutes a night too.

Saben Lee
Frank Jackson
Bey
Sekou
Stewart

Let's play them all 35 minutes a night. Backup can be Jackson, Svi, Grant can play 15 minutes a game, or just "be injured" for a while.

All I'll say to this is that the casual fan wants the team to win every game, and they want to see the star, i.e. "best"--even if that only means best in their heads, biggest draw, most well known, their kid's favorite, or highest paid--players play every game. The organization can't say "We're going to sit Blake and Rose, and potentially Grant because now we know he's clearly very talented, and play only our young, unproven players. Gonna be a lot of losses, but we're building for the future and looking forward to a great draft pick." We, as more diehard fans who understand what needs to be done to win a championship, are fully on board with that. But the casual fan isn't. He/she wants to see the team try to win as many games as possible by whatever means possible then still get better the next year. And those casual fans are by far the majority of people in the seats. With COVID that doesn't apply now, but they're also the majority of fans watching the games on TV and buying themselves and/or their kids the Blake and Rose jerseys. Good attendance/ratings equals more advertising dollars, merchandise sales, and better TV contracts. Point being, the team still has to try to cater to the casual fans while also rebuilding a team that clearly needs to be rebuilt. Thus they have to do things that we the diehards who understand what needs to happen to build a championship team in today's NBA may very well not like at all. And the reality is that we the diehard fans just aren't the ones who determine the team's financial success, simply because we're not the majority. Especially when so many casual fans are now fans of players and therefore want to see the "stars"--Blake, Rose, and now Jerami Grant--light it up as much as possible.

[ChipButty]

If the front office wants him to simply play young guys, why are they signing vets like Plumlee and Ellington in the first place? Why are they trading young improving players like Brown and Kenard and not trading vets like Rose and Blake? Ellington is hot at the moment. No harm in starting him for a few games. Good for chemistry, culture and sends the right message to players. It's a long season.

Okay. Let's turn this around. If you were only going to play your 2nd and 3rd first round picks a handful of minutes and not develop them the why draft them in the first place? Especially given you performed draft day trades to acquire two of them.

Agreed. We need to see if these guys can play in the league (Stewart). Seku looks like a bust. I see no point giving Wright or Plumlee 30 minutes a night. What does that do long term for the franchise?

If Bey and Stewart were consistently only getting only a handful of minutes, I'd agree, but they are not. They are both averaging 15+ minutes per game and are both in the top 20 for minutes played for rookies. I like Bey a lot, but his shooting % is somewhere around 35%. A full NBA season is a grind. Sometimes it's good to take a few days off. I think Casey has a good feel for handling situations like this. Let's see where things stand with 30-40 games left in the season.

[thesack12]

Okay. Let's turn this around. If you were only going to play your 2nd and 3rd first round picks a handful of minutes and not develop them the why draft them in the first place? Especially given you performed draft day trades to acquire two of them.

Agreed. We need to see if these guys can play in the league (Stewart). Seku looks like a bust. I see no point giving Wright or Plumlee 30 minutes a night. What does that do long term for the franchise?

If Bey and Stewart were consistently only getting only a handful of minutes, I'd agree, but they are not. They are both averaging 15+ minutes per game and are both in the top 20 for minutes played for rookies. I like Bey a lot, but his shooting % is somewhere around 35%. A full NBA season is a grind. Sometimes it's good to take a few days off. I think Casey has a good feel for handling situations like this. Let's see where things stand with 30-40 games left in the season.

Bey is 16th and Stewart is 23rd in MPG among rookies. The top 15 are:

Okoro 37.4 MPG for the Cavs
Haliburton 27.8 for the Kings
Pat Williams 26.9 for the Bulls
Jaesan Tate 26.2 for the Rockets
Ball 25.2 for the Hornets
Edwards 25.0 for the Wolves
Cole Anthony 24.5 for the Magic
Avdija 23.2 for the Wizards
Payton Pritchard 22.4 for the Celtics
Desmond Bane 21.9 For the Grizzlies
Tyrese Maxey 21.5 for the 76ers
James Wiseman 21.2 for the Warriors
Killian Hayes 21.1 for Detroit
Xavier Tillman 20.8 for the Grizzlies
Theo Maledon 20.0 for the Thunder

2 things that immediately stick out to me on that list are that the vast majority of those top 15 play for middling to bad teams, which are the types of teams that should be emphasizing development of their youth. The other being that a lot of those guys on that list weren't high draft picks. So its not like teams are simply gifting guys a ton of minutes simply because of their draft pedigree.

Also, aggregated MPG can be a misleading stat. This is especially true for Bey's minute allocations

His game log MPG's are 0, 6, 30, 15, 30, 19, 30, 24, 26, 27, 19, 11, 3, 8. His season average MPG is buoyed by those 3 30 minute games. Its hard for anybody to be productive when they have no idea what their role will be when they get to the arena every night. This is especially true for young players.

Bey's sharp decline in minutes lately also directly coincides with Ellington being inserted into the Starting lineup for the last 4 games, the last 3 of which he's played 26/27/33 minutes.

Also, all this doesn't even take into account Sekou/Josh Jackson/and Svi's minute dispersement being less than desirable. Its in the best interest of the team for those guys to consistently get more court time.

As for Stewart's minute allocation I think he's about where he should be. His game logs are pretty consistent at: 0,0, 14, 23, 18, 15, 20, 20, 8, 14, 17, 19, 12, 15. As mentioned by Bill, Stewart's has fouling issues which play a big factor in his playing time. Also, it seems like Stewart has been the primary backup to Plumlee lately in favor of Okafor. So overall, IMO there isn't much of a gripe with Stewart. Hopefully, as we move towards the 2nd half of the season Stewart will start being able to eat into Plumlee's minutes more.

[GBanga3]

I'll take the #1 draft pick for $2000, Alex.

After that go with the idea that he still has to make it look like he's trying to win. You do realize there are a lot of casual fans out there who want to see Blake and Rose play a lot of minutes and the Pistons win, right? The idea that Casey should play all the kids 33 minutes a game and all the vets 15 minutes a game regardless of how they're playing or what the matchups are with the opposing teams is laughable. The perfect tank is to look like you're trying to win but still lose, and so far this year that looks EXACTLY like what Casey is trying to do.

Lastly, I'll go with the 100% true, undeniable and inarguable point...no one knows what Casey's intentions are but him and Pistons' management. Not me, not you, not anyone else on this board. NO ONE. Anyone speaking like they know exactly what Casey's goal is needs a reality check. But for me that's part of the entertainment of this forum--seeing a lot of people claiming to know a lot more than they could possibly know. I like laughing at people.

He says....immediately after telling us what Casey is trying to do. Sorry man, no beef but just thought that was funny.

I actually hope you're right in terms of the tank, plus throw in a little bit of trying to get the value up for players he knows we don't want around long term i.e Blake, Rose, Ellington

Nope, I never once said I knew what Casey is trying to do. I said that it's strange to me that so few people believe that a particular scenario is even possible, and said that this game/season LOOK TO ME like a tank job. That's an opinion and does not equate to "Casey tanked this game/season," i.e. I KNOW what Casey is doing. Go find any post where I wrote "This is what the Pistons/Casey are doing..." You won't find one. The only thing I'm absolutely certain of is what I wrote in the post you quoted...No one but Casey and Pistons' management know exactly what his goal is so far this season.

Ahh you serious dude?....

so far this year that looks EXACTLY like what Casey is trying to do.

Don’t take it to heart too much, I was quite high at the time just having a laugh.
Have a day mate.

[Manocad]

He says....immediately after telling us what Casey is trying to do. Sorry man, no beef but just thought that was funny.

I actually hope you're right in terms of the tank, plus throw in a little bit of trying to get the value up for players he knows we don't want around long term i.e Blake, Rose, Ellington

Nope, I never once said I knew what Casey is trying to do. I said that it's strange to me that so few people believe that a particular scenario is even possible, and said that this game/season LOOK TO ME like a tank job. That's an opinion and does not equate to "Casey tanked this game/season," i.e. I KNOW what Casey is doing. Go find any post where I wrote "This is what the Pistons/Casey are doing..." You won't find one. The only thing I'm absolutely certain of is what I wrote in the post you quoted...No one but Casey and Pistons' management know exactly what his goal is so far this season.

Ahh you serious dude?....

so far this year that looks EXACTLY like what Casey is trying to do.

Don’t take it to heart too much, I was quite high at the time just having a laugh.
Have a day mate.

Yep, serious. “That looks like what Casey is trying to do” is a statement of opinion. “That is what Casey is trying to do” is a statement of fact.

No worries, mate. I know not everyone has a good grasp of grammar.

[buzzkilloton]

Okay. Let's turn this around. If you were only going to play your 2nd and 3rd first round picks a handful of minutes and not develop them the why draft them in the first place? Especially given you performed draft day trades to acquire two of them.

Agreed. We need to see if these guys can play in the league (Stewart). Seku looks like a bust. I see no point giving Wright or Plumlee 30 minutes a night. What does that do long term for the franchise?

If Bey and Stewart were consistently only getting only a handful of minutes, I'd agree, but they are not. They are both averaging 15+ minutes per game and are both in the top 20 for minutes played for rookies. I like Bey a lot, but his shooting % is somewhere around 35%. A full NBA season is a grind. Sometimes it's good to take a few days off. I think Casey has a good feel for handling situations like this. Let's see where things stand with 30-40 games left in the season.

Bey has been given more then a few days off. In the past 4 games hes played 11,4,8, and 15mins today.

Maybe Casey is going the Sekou route of development with Bey. Sekou 20mins as a rookie now he gets 11mins per in his 2nd year. Play the young guys we stink!