SHAKEUP?: Should The Detroit Pistons Shakeup The Rotation To Add MORE SHOOTING On The Floor?
Detroit Pistons exposed by San Antonio Spurs—can their defense-first blueprint survive without reliable shooting? Ku Khahil spotlights the Pistons’ bench scoring woes, dissecting how J.B. Bickerstaff’s rotation choices and lack of trustworthy shooters impact Detroit’s NBA playoff ambitions. The debate centers on Marcus Sasser, Chaz Lanier, and Kevin Huerter as potential solutions and raises questions about whether defensive identity or offensive firepower should drive Pistons strategy.
Ku Khahil also breaks down the unstoppable “9 to 5” duo of Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland, whose elite defense could rewrite Detroit’s path to victory. The episode features new Ringer NBA Top 100 rankings with Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, and Isaiah Stewart earning national recognition. With upcoming clashes and squad updates, Pistons fans get an inside look at roster strengths, limitations, and the young core’s promise. Will Detroit’s margin-based approach hold up against tougher competition?
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24 Comments
Simmer down with changing the lineup. They lost a game because everyone was trapped in the freezer at the same time. Relax young fella😂😂😂😂
Im sorry ku.. you are a very good podcaster. Appreciate it and will be tuning in. Thank you for not cursing. So refreshing
We need Malik back man, when will this investigation end? The whole league is owned by gambling companies anyway
After one loss 😂😂😂😂
How about when Duncan can't even find the rim(air balls)….that's when U give Sasser and/or Lanier a shot! If JB does this the
team sure won't miss Duncan 's assume defensive !😅😂 Let them play!
for the 9-5 lineup it might help to say who the other 3 players you can put with them that might work. For example? Duren seems like a bad fit
Not panicking but this loss once again exposed the lack of a legitimate 2nd scorer. When Cade has a poor shooting game, points are difficult to come by. This team has to depend on its defense but you still have to score points. The margin of error is slim and they are going to be hard pressed to find alternatives
Jb needs to play Sasser can shoot the three , decent mid range shooter , can score in the paint , decent passer .. can get steals little bit he can help out Jenkins with Ron💯
I used to be such a fantasy nerd that I have a spreadsheet that (using player averages) I used to compare the current top East teams' top 13 players. It matches up completely with the eye test and what Ku is saying about maxing out possessions. Strangely enough, Pistons outscore everyone by 6 points because they have 3 more steals per game. CONCLUSION IMO: Ausar needs 30 minutes per game.
That said, if Celtics top 13 included Tatum, we lose the Fantasy points battle and I would predict we lose ECF's to Celtics in real life. Pistons kryptonite is the superstar + everyone hitting threes. That's exactly the Celtics.
Since I'm a further nerd, I also predicted a playoff bracket and I've got Pistons losing game 1 at home to Charlotte, then winning 4 straight. 5 games of humiliating NYC in 2nd round. Then my worst case scenario is Celtics in 6, then Spurs win Finals. Best case is Pistons actually make Finals, but again Spurs win. It's Wemby time and the league wants that so much and also (minus two flops per game) he is actually that guy. Pessimist is warning me not to be too confident. Optimist says the league actually wants Cade and Wemby in the Finals.
FML…we already had Hardaway and Fonteccio
FML…we already had Hardaway and Fonteccio
I saw a comment about Cade that I didn't realize until then. Why does Cade play better on the road in big games? Dude was right, & hell need to fix that chyte.😢 Since he's getn all the flowers when we win, he's gonna have to catch the smoke when we lose.
Well it’s only 1 game they have a tough schedule this week I didn’t expect them to beat okc san and Cleveland they just have to beat on of these other two teams
what shakeup for more shooting? This implies we have more shooting in the squad. We said its fine if we cant have spacing in trade deadline, didnt make a move to fix. We accepted this problem to see what we have, now we gonna suffer through it.
They just missed stew this game. They need a stretch big to bring wemby out of the paint he had like 8 blks.
They need to play sasser he always get overlooked. That Monty year if sasser started instead of killian I guarantee they would’ve won more than 14 games that year guaranteed sasser is a walking bucket. It’s b-ball sasser lol
the best way to use 9/5 it’s to run a lineup of sasser hurter asura holland and stew keeps shooting and defense on the floor as a bench lineup
One thing bothering me about ausar getting benched is that the spurs are a real contender built to give the pistons troubles inside. The pistons only see them twice in the regular season and JB basically wasted a whole half where we had the opportunity to work through the sagging on ausar issue, especially considering he was actually being aggressive and scoring the times it happened. If we were to match up with them the reps would be valuable
When you just play those guys just a few mins nobody gets consistent
Huerter definitely needs to play 20mpg
The reason lanier and sasser has like 33% efficency of 3pt shooting is not because they can't shoot. It's because they don't have enough time to play. For example when lanier played ove 10 mins he scores between 40-50% and takes 4 to 7 shots. But if you throw him in and after one missed shot in 3-4 min you take him out then you get stats like 30%. You haven't given him the chance to make a second attempt stupid JB. He doesnt give them enough support to build confidence. I like the mentality in general of JB but you can't do that to young/new guys. You are killing all their confidence. When you remove those 3-4 min plays from the stats of lanier you get nearly 50% 3 pt performance. Just looking in the results of stats doesnt give a realistic idea. Or if someone is really off if you keep him playing like Cade thats not realistic either. Obviously he was frustrated he couldn't shoot the shots he normally scores 90% of the time.
every game sasser has not a too excelling night, JB will bench him, same as huerter. But never Levert for 'defense' and 'length'.
I can understand Chaz, but Sasser shoots 42% from three and he's not some rookie lol. It ain't hypothetical at all. He shoots 38% for his career despite minutes being incredibly erratic. We very clearly need someone who can shoot, and not only can he shoot, he can straight up just create his own threes off the bounce.
If you ran him out there in the Malik Beasley role and had him just cook, he would really solve a lot of the bench scoring issues.
J B is looking at hustle man over AT cause Ron Holland has been hitting the three shot