https://hoopshype.com/lists/nba-not...ickley-cole-anthony-warriors-pistons-rockets/ Cunningham arrived in the NBA with a lot of buzz, a supposed American version of Luka Doncic, thanks to his great size, shot-making ability and skill level for a guard. To this point, he has been… not that. After missing most of last season due to injury, the former Oklahoma State standout entered this season with some hype thanks to his play during USA Select Team practices against the World Cup-bound American squad. Unfortunately for Detroit, we haven’t seen anything that impressive this season from the 22-year-old. Sure, his counting stats – 22.3 points and 7.1 assists per game on 41.6 percent shooting, 34.2 percent from three – look solid enough, but they’re very much of the empty variety. Cunningham barely gets to the foul line (4.2 free throws per game), and he turns the ball over 4.5 times nightly. His 52.9 percent shooting accuracy from within five feet of the basket is a lower mark than Joe Ingles’ 53.3 percent. Ingles is 36 and blew out his knee not that long ago. Even more concerning: Cunningham has the seventh-worst Value Over Replacement Player rating in the NBA (-0.4), the eighth-worst Box Plus/Minus, and the second-worst Win Shares per 48 minutes of any NBA player. Yikes. He may not be a bust, but there’s no question you’d at least expect your former No. 1 overall pick to not be among the most negatively impactful players in the league. The Pistons were actually 8.5 points per 100 possessions worse, with Cunningham on the floor heading into Thursday night. If Weaver eventually gets fired, Cunningham struggling this much three seasons in will be a huge reason why. However, it’s hard to fault Weaver for that, considering Cunningham was the consensus pick to go first in his class. Any other head decision-maker in the NBA would have made the same selection. Spoiler It’s official: The Detroit Pistons have gone winless in November. After falling to the New York Knicks on Thursday night 118-112, Detroit has lost 16 games in a row, including all 15 of its matchups last month. In doing so, they became the first team to go winless for an entire month since the 2015 Philadelphia 76ers and the 13th team in NBA history. So, how have we gotten here? Sure, the team was expected to be bad, and maybe new head coach Monty Williams hasn’t been pushing the right buttons, but there’s no doubt that Detroit’s talent base right now is bleak. Even a good chunk of its young players don’t look all that promising, including 2021 No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham. Since being hired as general manager of the Pistons in the summer of 2020, 55-year-old executive Troy Weaver, formerly of the Oklahoma City Thunder under Sam Presti, has not quite impressed with his decision-making. Let’s look at every first-round pick made by Detroit or acquired on draft night by the Pistons since Weaver’s hiring. 2020: No. 7 overall pick: Killian Hayes No. 16 pick: Isaiah Stewart No. 19 pick: Saddiq Bey Still just 22, Hayes is coming along slowly but isn’t a lost cause, providing Detroit with solid playmaking and defense this season. His efficiency, however, remains poor as a scorer, and he’s not at the level you’d want from a former No. 7 pick in his fourth season. Stewart has failed to improve much on his averages from last season. But he’s still somewhat promising, considering he’s a bruising big man shooting 38.2 percent from three this season – a unique skill set. Bey, meanwhile, is no longer on the team. 2021: No. 1 overall pick: Cunningham Cunningham arrived in the NBA with a lot of buzz, a supposed American version of Luka Doncic, thanks to his great size, shot-making ability and skill level for a guard. To this point, he has been… not that. After missing most of last season due to injury, the former Oklahoma State standout entered this season with some hype thanks to his play during USA Select Team practices against the World Cup-bound American squad. Unfortunately for Detroit, we haven’t seen anything that impressive this season from the 22-year-old. Sure, his counting stats – 22.3 points and 7.1 assists per game on 41.6 percent shooting, 34.2 percent from three – look solid enough, but they’re very much of the empty variety. Cunningham barely gets to the foul line (4.2 free throws per game), and he turns the ball over 4.5 times nightly. His 52.9 percent shooting accuracy from within five feet of the basket is a lower mark than Joe Ingles’ 53.3 percent. Ingles is 36 and blew out his knee not that long ago. Even more concerning: Cunningham has the seventh-worst Value Over Replacement Player rating in the NBA (-0.4), the eighth-worst Box Plus/Minus, and the second-worst Win Shares per 48 minutes of any NBA player. Yikes. He may not be a bust, but there’s no question you’d at least expect your former No. 1 overall pick to not be among the most negatively impactful players in the league. The Pistons were actually 8.5 points per 100 possessions worse, with Cunningham on the floor heading into Thursday night. If Weaver eventually gets fired, Cunningham struggling this much three seasons in will be a huge reason why. However, it’s hard to fault Weaver for that, considering Cunningham was the consensus pick to go first in his class. Any other head decision-maker in the NBA would have made the same selection. 2022: No. 5 overall pick: Jaden Ivey No. 13 pick: Jalen Duren Well, at least one of these picks was a grand slam, as the 20-year-old Duren is already a double-double machine who can block shots and finish explosively above the rim. If there’s any reason left to have hope for Detroit’s future, it’s because of Duren. Conversely, Ivey went from a starter to a deep reserve for Williams currently. His Dwyane Wade comparisons coming out of college (we should stop making that comparison for incoming shooting guards just because they’re athletic) have not come to fruition, as his lack of size and inefficiency as a scorer have him struggling as far as trying to make a positive nightly impact. The fact that Hayes, Cunningham and Ivey all sort of overlap in terms of skill sets and needing the ball to be effective is also really hurting Detroit. Regardless, there’s no way Ivey should be playing just 13 minutes to Isaiah Livers’ 27, as was the case on Thursday night. 2023: No. 5 overall pick: Ausar Thompson No. 25 pick: Marcus Sasser The Pistons had the best odds for the top-overall pick and a shot to land Victor Wembanyama, but falling to fifth in 2023 was painful to say the least. Yet, Thompson has been a solid consolation prize, as the rookie is already a hugely impactful defender at just 20 years old and uses his size and athleticism extremely well as a slasher and on the glass. Detroit has a fantastic young piece in the Overtime Elite product, especially if he figures out his jumper. Sasser, meanwhile, doesn’t have the same upside at 23 years old, but his outside jumper looks clean already, as the rookie is hitting 40.9 percent from three. Final verdict: There were some misses here, but Weaver also appears to have hit on Duren, Thompson, and maybe even Sasser. The problem is the other high draft picks – Cunningham, Ivey, and Hayes – have not been as effective from Day 1 as many expected. Hayes is in his fourth year and still looks like a work in progress, Ivey is still extremely raw, and Cunningham just isn’t efficient enough from the outside, as a playmaker or as a finisher near the rim, especially for a former No. 1 overall pick, to warrant his high usage rate. At best, his ceiling looks like that of a Joe Johnson, an oversized bucket-getter with smooth midrange skills, and he might not even reach those heights. There’s still some hope for at least Cunningham and Ivey to develop into All-Star-caliber players, but the clock is certainly ticking for Weaver. With how bad the Pistons look, odds are he’ll be long gone if and when Cunningham and Ivey live up to their draft billing. Any team with as many players in their early 20s as Detroit has – and we haven’t even discussed the flyers the team took on Marvin Bagley and James Wiseman, neither of which has come close to hitting – is going to be bad. But it’s on the general manager to put his young players in a position to succeed and not just trot a team out there and play the long game with an entire roster at once. The Mavericks didn’t have Doncic out there with a bunch of equally young players when they first added him to the roster, so the Pistons are doing Cunningham and Co. a disservice, if anything, by having so little experience around their young core. Consider this: 12 players on Detroit’s roster are within their first four seasons in the NBA. Two of the remaining six are Bagley and Kevin Knox, both still young, neither proven in the NBA or the leader types. Ultimately, bad habits are hard to break, and the Pistons are developing a ton of them right now, which falls on the feet of Weaver.
Bring back Rip, Chauncey, Tayshaun, Sheed and Ben.....to the Front Office. And the Prodigal son Grant Hill.
Don't look now, but over Cade's last seven games: 24.1pts 7.9ast 4.0rb 3.6to 44% shooting / 41% from three / 97% free throw shooting Shooting looks like it's starting to come around. They're still losing but maybe too soon to write off a guy who's barely more than a rookie in terms of NBA experience.
career high 43 points today to go along with 5 boards and 7 assists I feel sorry for this dude…playing on an abomination of a team with negative spacing while being miscast in a Luka/Houston Harden role if he was on this current Rockets team, I think he’d look really damn good
I made the mistake of checking out some Pistons forums and the stuff that they’re saying about him makes the Jalen discourse seem downright polite. I truly think he’s trying his best. DETROIT is what an incompetent front office looks like all the way down. It’s so bizarre
It's kinda dumb some people here said Mobley is better than Cade. Lmao. I would put Mobley on par or even slightly below Suggs in that class. Sengun, Barnes, Wagner, Cade, Cam Thomas, Suggs/Mobley, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, Green (for now anyway), Kuminga, Pedo I believe Suggs has a lot of untapped potential and will eventually grow as a playmaker as what he was originally touted to be. When he does that he'll be the best guard in this class since you'll have a guy who can function both on ball and off bal, play 1 or 2, is also really good defensively and athletic as heck. Mobley I dunno I guess he has shown some playmaking potential but shooting is still bad outside of dunks and layups.
Young players have a lot of questionable attributes. Front offices have to make an assessment based on a 17 or 18 year olds measurable. There isn’t 3-4 years of college tape to assess the intangibles associated with talent. Guys like Green, Cade, Mobley, etc will meet brick walls and their talents can’t just willfully tear down. Hence why so many young guys don’t reach the levels expected on draft night. If you ever look at the draft class history and sort by win share, the top 10 picks aren’t necessarily in the order they were picked when it comes to impact. Numbers like points, rebounds, and assists don’t necessarily tell the impact a player has on a team; because if said numbers are inefficiently gained, the team isn’t going to be winning many of those games.
They would have had the same thoughts about Green and Mobley.......there is nobody I can think of that can course correct a 28 losing streak.....not a young star at least. I can think of Luka because he can win games by himself.
They've complained he's an inefficient volume shooter and there is some truth to that. They've also said he can't be the #1 option that you can build a legit contender around. That is probably true IMO. Cade needs a legit coach with a plan and a system before a final judgement can be made. If he isn't Batman, I have no doubt Cade can become a great Robin on a championship team. I feel really bad for him. Jalen Duran and Marcus Sasser are definite keepers. Ausar is a question mark. Problem is, if they want to improve via trade, other teams are going to want equal value in return. I'm not sure what their stockpile of future draft picks looks like. The #1 most obvious thing is to get rid of Monty Willilams, who is stealing money. Troy Weaver should be next.
I still think there's a chance Cade can become the #1 option on a contender. He isn't there yet, but he needs more reps and he's in an awful situation. He is still far behind Jalen in NBA minutes played. There's no team that needs shooters more badly than Detroit does. Kinda gets me thinking about what they might give up for a guy like Holiday just to fix the spacing and stop the tailspin...
Monty Williams taking that contract could cost him in the long-term because he's exposing himself and he won't get another head coaching opportunity with this season on his resume.
I really don't think he cares about that one bit. $80 million was too much to pass up and my wild guess is basketball isn't what he's most concerned about in life.
I would take the 80 million as well. He is 52, by the time the contract is over he will be 58, retirement age. Properly used it's life changing money, plus even Sil@ss got a job after coaching the Rockets.
I get the contract value is a lot to pass on, but this will likely be the last head coaching job he gets. Had he waited for a better opportunity, he could have had 2 or maybe even 3 coaching jobs whose combined contract value would be more than the 80 million. I
