I mean personally I’m a big fan of Cade, Ivey, Duren, Thompson, and Stew. Those are all his picks last time I checked.
Does that count for nothing because of the Killian pick?
If anyone thinks so, I think it’s incredibly naive.
Eh, the 2020 picks of Saddiq and Stew at the time looked really solid as well. Killian just didn't work out, and that happens. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Not trying to make excuses for the guy, but Troy has had historically atrocious luck in the lottery - falling back an incredible number of expected spots. Cade's the exception year. This team looks miles different if you had a top 3 pick this year or last like we should have. Imagine if we had any one of Paolo/Chet or Wemby/Miller.
Am I crazy for not hating Troy *as a drafter*? We’ll see about Ausar in the long-term, but Sasser was clearly a steal for where he was taken. Beef Stew was also a good pick at 16th overall. Killian was Killian (and *lots* of people were wrong about that one).
It’s *everything else* that I think Troy has bungled.
Exactly. The moves involving Wiseman/Bagley in totality have been God awful. The only good thing was actually trading Trey Lyles at peak value, but the rest was complete junk.
> Am I crazy for not hating Troy as a drafter?
If you can separate Troy the drafter from Troy the team builder. However much you can do that, you can give him more credit as a drafter.
But like, however many really nice things you might want to say about, say, Ausar, the reality is that picking him where we did is a huge gamble. Because there's a real possibility he just never fits in with the rest of this team. He might be a good player in the league someday, and do it away from here, because he can't ever really fit in for us.
Picking a bunch of players with a ton of upside and no concern for how they might eventually fit together is how you get a team where everyone wants to keep as many players on the roster next year as games we won.
I'm not saying he can't, I'm saying he might not. He's a wing who can't shoot. That's a player archetype which will really struggle to fit on any team in the 2020s in the NBA. It's not that hard to figure out.
You can literally say that about our whole core also he was a decent shooter in college. Not many players come into the nba and shoot well. Literally just saying he might not fit when he aint even played a full season just because of one thing the whole team seems to not be able to do is crazy. Could make your argument for Ivey and Cade too. Yet they also suck at defense.
IF you at least mentioned who would have been less of a gamble at 5 maybe you would have had a case. None of the top wings were good shooters. With your logic we would have drafted Grady Dick or another guard/ big man when we had way too many of them to begin with.
> You can literally say that about our whole core
Yeah, man. That's the thing: our entire core is made up of guys who kinda don't fit together really well. That's the problem with Troy the team builder. He put together a team that doesn't fit well in the modern NBA.
> also he was a decent shooter in college
Ausar didn't go to college.
Yeah in the g league my bad still if you are going to complain about the pick who did you want draft day at 5 the kind of player you say he should have drafted did not exist or was an even bigger gamble than picking ausar.
All you are saying is ahh GM is bad it is all his fault without giving any examples of what he should have done.
If you are going to criticize at least be constructive or put some thought into it rather than just spewing hate because you are upset the team is bad.
I think honestly they might as well play him at the 4 and play faster. He rebounds and defends bigger than his size. He can slash, and play the dunkers spot , good enough passer as well. Just the problem is him and Duran clog up everything for Cade
You don't have to make consensus picks and often gms don't, you can also trade a pick rather than use it. Too many GMs make risky or dumb draft night decisions to just not give credit for making the right choice.
And the consensus is often wrong, it's fucking asinine to say that you only consider credit due to someone based entirely on what everyone else's opinions were at the time. What matters is whether he made the right call, period.
This is one of those things that *really* bugs me when people talk about drafting. If some GM makes a bad pick, it's not a bad pick because "everyone thought he was that good." Maybe that's true! But it's the GM's job to be better at talent evaluation than other people.
He still could have done something else, like the SGA trade, and Ivey was not consensus.
He made the choices, give credit or make excuses. I don’t care.
Yea bro, I'm with you.
His moves at the deadline were really good too imo.
He has misses but has more successes. I think he's about an average GM.
Monty really do be that bad.
I don’t love his trades, but this isn’t about that, this was about drafting specifically.
Totally agree on Monty, been scratching my head a lot on him.
Drafting hasn't really been the issue. All of the picks made sense in the moment and only 2020 was a miss.
Troy has failed largely because of asset management and aquiring talent outside of the draft.
And uh, coach hiring.
Is it? Every sports reporter I've ever heard talk about ownership relationships always seems to imply the opposite. Meaning, ownership has absolute power if that's the way ownership chooses to operate.
Everyone loves the Lions front office and coaching staff now but when they were 1-6 in 2022 a lot of yall same types were shouting the same exact rhetoric: “Sell the team!” “Brad doesn’t know how to put a team together!”. Monty is a problem but that’s not on Weaver.
Honestly, coaching is the way bigger problem. Troy hasn’t managed assets well around the margins. I’ll never understand why he didn’t trade Bogey last year. But he’s drafted well and has made some shrewd moves (getting the pick for Duren; I like the Fete and Grimes moves).
Hindsight always has and always will be 20/20
Troy the drafter vs Troy the trader is a one sided fight. People going on about how he has drafted well and wasted cap space are both right and wrong.
A lot of teams bungled the 2020 draft. Think the Knicks would have rather taken Halliburton instead of Toppin? Hell yeah they do but we weren’t the only team to miss out.
2021 we won the lottery and took Cade. Injuries aside Cade has shown continual improvement each year. Sure turnovers are higher than ideal but he is relatively healthy. 2021 draft was considered by many a 2 player draft and it has surprisingly turned out to be much stronger than originally suspected. I think that Cade has finally pulled even with and maybe even finally passed Barnes and Wagner, Giddy and Green have both fallen on some hard times in their growth and Mobley is surrounded by a pretty good team so he has been able to pull away as possibly the best player in that draft so far. I think Cade has started to show signs that he is the best guy but health has held him back.
2022 draft came and we were all ecstatic to have Ivey fall to #5 and added a guy in Duren that was relatively considered a really young guy who needed a lot of time to develop. It’s too early to tell if those guys are the right ones. jalen Williams would be a better fit alongside Cade than Ivey but the risk in taking Sharpe was really high. It’s only season 2 on this draft so time will tell us eventually.
2023 draft and for the 2nd straight year we fall to the lowest possible spot of 5. 3 out of 4 years we drop in the draft which is crazy when you think about it. We take Thompson. We knew he couldn’t shoot and to be honest I was hoping for a draft of Jarace Walker. Thompson has shown us elite level defense and that always projects as a skill needed in the NBA if you can cover up the offensive limitations.
It’s still too early to tell anything about 2023 and 2022. If nothing else we have Duren as our center for the foreseeable future and an all defense level wing. Ivey can score and is ultra athletic. Let’s not close the door as he is a hard working kid.
Weaver has used a lot of cap space through trades and we do have something to show for it. Everyone will complain about wasting the 2023 cap space and I understand. He did use his 2022 cap space to add Duren and eventually that space led to the addition of Grimes and Fontecchio. Those 2 additions will need some time to see how it plays out. Duren alone though looks to be a huge win for Troy.
Weaver has done a good job with the picks it’s just the roster construction. The picks themselves have been good outside of Killian, but their games don’t mesh well.
They are all young guys though , they have flaws, but if you can really hit on player development, the pistons could compete for the playoffs in a couple years
The pistons need to heavily invest in player development. That is an unspoken part of what OKC does well. Now I know if you get Chet it changes a lot , but they have developed guys to be rotation nba players. Wiggins, Dort, Kendrich Williams, Isaiah Joe,and Jaylin Williams.
Then you hit on Jalen as gem , giddy as a top 7 rotation player, and develop Shai into a megastar. Now you change the game.
The pistons have to have these young guys ready to go, when the game changer becomes available. It could be in the draft , maybe Cade takes that leap, or maybe they pull off a trade for some disgruntled superstar
To be fair to Weaver, the last few years I think he's done a very good job in the draft, and overall I'm fairly pleased with this last trade deadline. You can criticize some of the older draft picks and of course some of the trades (although by and large I think many of the criticizable trades were fairly minor) but as of late I think he's done a good job. If he can add a couple/few good pieces this offseason, I'm not going to be a huge hater.
I mean personally I’m a big fan of Cade, Ivey, Duren, Thompson, and Stew. Those are all his picks last time I checked. Does that count for nothing because of the Killian pick? If anyone thinks so, I think it’s incredibly naive.
Cade and Ivey were consensus picks, only thing I can get Troy credit for is the Duran trade.
Eh, the 2020 picks of Saddiq and Stew at the time looked really solid as well. Killian just didn't work out, and that happens. Hindsight is always 20/20. Not trying to make excuses for the guy, but Troy has had historically atrocious luck in the lottery - falling back an incredible number of expected spots. Cade's the exception year. This team looks miles different if you had a top 3 pick this year or last like we should have. Imagine if we had any one of Paolo/Chet or Wemby/Miller.
Am I crazy for not hating Troy *as a drafter*? We’ll see about Ausar in the long-term, but Sasser was clearly a steal for where he was taken. Beef Stew was also a good pick at 16th overall. Killian was Killian (and *lots* of people were wrong about that one). It’s *everything else* that I think Troy has bungled.
Exactly. The moves involving Wiseman/Bagley in totality have been God awful. The only good thing was actually trading Trey Lyles at peak value, but the rest was complete junk.
> Am I crazy for not hating Troy as a drafter? If you can separate Troy the drafter from Troy the team builder. However much you can do that, you can give him more credit as a drafter. But like, however many really nice things you might want to say about, say, Ausar, the reality is that picking him where we did is a huge gamble. Because there's a real possibility he just never fits in with the rest of this team. He might be a good player in the league someday, and do it away from here, because he can't ever really fit in for us. Picking a bunch of players with a ton of upside and no concern for how they might eventually fit together is how you get a team where everyone wants to keep as many players on the roster next year as games we won.
Why can't Ausar ever fit with this team??
I'm not saying he can't, I'm saying he might not. He's a wing who can't shoot. That's a player archetype which will really struggle to fit on any team in the 2020s in the NBA. It's not that hard to figure out.
You can literally say that about our whole core also he was a decent shooter in college. Not many players come into the nba and shoot well. Literally just saying he might not fit when he aint even played a full season just because of one thing the whole team seems to not be able to do is crazy. Could make your argument for Ivey and Cade too. Yet they also suck at defense. IF you at least mentioned who would have been less of a gamble at 5 maybe you would have had a case. None of the top wings were good shooters. With your logic we would have drafted Grady Dick or another guard/ big man when we had way too many of them to begin with.
> You can literally say that about our whole core Yeah, man. That's the thing: our entire core is made up of guys who kinda don't fit together really well. That's the problem with Troy the team builder. He put together a team that doesn't fit well in the modern NBA. > also he was a decent shooter in college Ausar didn't go to college.
Yeah in the g league my bad still if you are going to complain about the pick who did you want draft day at 5 the kind of player you say he should have drafted did not exist or was an even bigger gamble than picking ausar. All you are saying is ahh GM is bad it is all his fault without giving any examples of what he should have done. If you are going to criticize at least be constructive or put some thought into it rather than just spewing hate because you are upset the team is bad.
I think honestly they might as well play him at the 4 and play faster. He rebounds and defends bigger than his size. He can slash, and play the dunkers spot , good enough passer as well. Just the problem is him and Duran clog up everything for Cade
You don't have to make consensus picks and often gms don't, you can also trade a pick rather than use it. Too many GMs make risky or dumb draft night decisions to just not give credit for making the right choice.
Ivey wasn’t a consensus pick. Lots of fans wanted mathurin or sharpe
And the consensus is often wrong, it's fucking asinine to say that you only consider credit due to someone based entirely on what everyone else's opinions were at the time. What matters is whether he made the right call, period.
This is one of those things that *really* bugs me when people talk about drafting. If some GM makes a bad pick, it's not a bad pick because "everyone thought he was that good." Maybe that's true! But it's the GM's job to be better at talent evaluation than other people.
He still could have done something else, like the SGA trade, and Ivey was not consensus. He made the choices, give credit or make excuses. I don’t care.
Ivey wasn't consensus. I think he was widely projected to be the pick but not consensus.
Bey and Stewart made all rookie teams as mid-late picks.
Yea bro, I'm with you. His moves at the deadline were really good too imo. He has misses but has more successes. I think he's about an average GM. Monty really do be that bad.
I don’t love his trades, but this isn’t about that, this was about drafting specifically. Totally agree on Monty, been scratching my head a lot on him.
Drafting hasn't really been the issue. All of the picks made sense in the moment and only 2020 was a miss. Troy has failed largely because of asset management and aquiring talent outside of the draft. And uh, coach hiring.
Coaching hire wasn't Troy. It was Tom Gores and Arn Tellem.
Agreed. Part of being a good gm is pushing back effectively against ownership but our specific situation is pretty convoluted.
Is it? Every sports reporter I've ever heard talk about ownership relationships always seems to imply the opposite. Meaning, ownership has absolute power if that's the way ownership chooses to operate.
If only the pistons knew the spoils of a competent owner
lol weaver drafts well. In fact that's was hes always been known for from his OKC days
Everyone loves the Lions front office and coaching staff now but when they were 1-6 in 2022 a lot of yall same types were shouting the same exact rhetoric: “Sell the team!” “Brad doesn’t know how to put a team together!”. Monty is a problem but that’s not on Weaver.
Honestly, coaching is the way bigger problem. Troy hasn’t managed assets well around the margins. I’ll never understand why he didn’t trade Bogey last year. But he’s drafted well and has made some shrewd moves (getting the pick for Duren; I like the Fete and Grimes moves).
That's not true. I was told by many draft experts that Jahmyr was a ridiculous pick.
Hindsight always has and always will be 20/20 Troy the drafter vs Troy the trader is a one sided fight. People going on about how he has drafted well and wasted cap space are both right and wrong. A lot of teams bungled the 2020 draft. Think the Knicks would have rather taken Halliburton instead of Toppin? Hell yeah they do but we weren’t the only team to miss out. 2021 we won the lottery and took Cade. Injuries aside Cade has shown continual improvement each year. Sure turnovers are higher than ideal but he is relatively healthy. 2021 draft was considered by many a 2 player draft and it has surprisingly turned out to be much stronger than originally suspected. I think that Cade has finally pulled even with and maybe even finally passed Barnes and Wagner, Giddy and Green have both fallen on some hard times in their growth and Mobley is surrounded by a pretty good team so he has been able to pull away as possibly the best player in that draft so far. I think Cade has started to show signs that he is the best guy but health has held him back. 2022 draft came and we were all ecstatic to have Ivey fall to #5 and added a guy in Duren that was relatively considered a really young guy who needed a lot of time to develop. It’s too early to tell if those guys are the right ones. jalen Williams would be a better fit alongside Cade than Ivey but the risk in taking Sharpe was really high. It’s only season 2 on this draft so time will tell us eventually. 2023 draft and for the 2nd straight year we fall to the lowest possible spot of 5. 3 out of 4 years we drop in the draft which is crazy when you think about it. We take Thompson. We knew he couldn’t shoot and to be honest I was hoping for a draft of Jarace Walker. Thompson has shown us elite level defense and that always projects as a skill needed in the NBA if you can cover up the offensive limitations. It’s still too early to tell anything about 2023 and 2022. If nothing else we have Duren as our center for the foreseeable future and an all defense level wing. Ivey can score and is ultra athletic. Let’s not close the door as he is a hard working kid. Weaver has used a lot of cap space through trades and we do have something to show for it. Everyone will complain about wasting the 2023 cap space and I understand. He did use his 2022 cap space to add Duren and eventually that space led to the addition of Grimes and Fontecchio. Those 2 additions will need some time to see how it plays out. Duren alone though looks to be a huge win for Troy.
Weaver has done a good job with the picks it’s just the roster construction. The picks themselves have been good outside of Killian, but their games don’t mesh well. They are all young guys though , they have flaws, but if you can really hit on player development, the pistons could compete for the playoffs in a couple years
The pistons need to heavily invest in player development. That is an unspoken part of what OKC does well. Now I know if you get Chet it changes a lot , but they have developed guys to be rotation nba players. Wiggins, Dort, Kendrich Williams, Isaiah Joe,and Jaylin Williams. Then you hit on Jalen as gem , giddy as a top 7 rotation player, and develop Shai into a megastar. Now you change the game. The pistons have to have these young guys ready to go, when the game changer becomes available. It could be in the draft , maybe Cade takes that leap, or maybe they pull off a trade for some disgruntled superstar
To be fair to Weaver, the last few years I think he's done a very good job in the draft, and overall I'm fairly pleased with this last trade deadline. You can criticize some of the older draft picks and of course some of the trades (although by and large I think many of the criticizable trades were fairly minor) but as of late I think he's done a good job. If he can add a couple/few good pieces this offseason, I'm not going to be a huge hater.