Disclaimer: I’m not a Pistons fan, but my all-time favorite nba team is the 04 Pistons (tayshaun and sheed is my basketball wing nirvana), and I have watched a ton of Pistons over the last couple years.
First, the obvious. Jaden Ivey is clearly a better nba prospect AND player than Killian Hayes. Not starting Ivey to begin the season, however, was actually a recognition of Ivey’s talent and an investment in him.
Here’s what I mean. Jaden Ivey, since Purdue, has never been committed to playing winning basketball on every possession. He had lapses in college, and those lapses turned into bad habits on a bad Pistons team. Sitting Ivey was a message: play winning basketball, and the scoring/highlights/accolades will come.
While it is too early to know if these lessons stuck, I have never seen Jaden Ivey this committed to winning basketball. If he keeps this up, he might be able to be a part of a Cade-Ausar-Ivey combo (probably all will grow into #2 options on good teams), where each player complements the other, even if one is clearly better than the rest (Cade, or Ausar if he develops a knock-down jump shot). Suddenly, this team starts to feel more like a young Boston Celtics and less like a young Charlotte Hornets team.
But for that to happen, Jaden Ivey needed to learn how to play complementary basketball. He’ll get those reps this season, and depending on Cade, Ivey, and Ausuar’s development, the end of this rebuild could be sooner than it feels at the moment.
Monty made a long-term decision, which he can do because the Pistons gave him a contract that signals long-term commitment. This hurts now, but it could be the turning point in the rebuild.
But! It’s the Pistons, so who knows, you might trade Ivey tomorrow and I’ll look like an idiot. I’m rooting for you to figure it out. The NBA is more fun when y’all are good.
I’m an avid Monty hater but benching Ivey was actually genius. Being benched for fucking Killian Hayes is embarrassing and I see Ivey choosing smart shots to take and his defense hasn’t been as bad as before
I’ve heard this Ivey opinion many times but to my understanding there’s no evidence of this. Both upper management and Monty have never publicly stated it (to my knowledge), and in interviews Monty publicly stated he felt Killian’s skillset matches better with Cade, which was why he started.
I say this because this justification is purely a fan theory, but by all evidence it seems Monty simply evaluated Killian as being better than Ivey, which if that’s the case makes me extremely concerned about his coaching ability.
To me it’s more likely that Monty just made a poor coaching decision, and there wasn’t this master plan to motivate Ivey that everyone on this sub keeps mentioning.
“If he keeps this up, he might be able to be a part of a Cade-Ausar-Ivey combo”
This is hilarious because Ivey has shown way more star potential than either one of them.
If they players don’t buy in, his method don’t mean shit.
One of the problems with this theory is that it doesn’t explain why, until these last couple of games, Monty was sticking Ivey in the corner and using him as a fourth or fifth option.
For almost the entire season, Monty was putting the ball in other guards’ hands even when Ivey was in. Hayes, Sasser, even Burks - they’d be at the center of the action and Ivey would be stashed in the corner.
Through some of the worst losses, Ivey would regularly go multiple possessions without touching the ball - sometimes as many as 4 straight.
If Monty had a grand plan to groom Ivey to better habits, isolating him from the offence is a weird way to go about it.
I don’t think for a second that Ivey was on the bench for any reason other than it being a better opportunity for him to develop with the ball in his hands more often than he would while playing next to Cade. But, with all our shooting vets injured it makes it hard to surround the bench let alone the starters with floor spacing shooters that will give Ivey and Cade more offensive freedom to develop.
We’re kind of screwed until the vets come back.
Also I don’t fault this entirely new coaching staff with trying to assess what they have.
The NBA is significantly more talented and athletic than it’s ever been and the reffing sucks so I don’t expect to win much until they start winning. They actually don’t know how to win NBA games yet
Fire him