S58 Presser- Pistons

[ballsohard]

Balls O'Hard:
Good afternoon, everyone, happy to be here to end our offseason and start this new season. Today i brought Cade Cunningham to sit next to me and get a little exposure. Why Cade? Well, that's simple for me. It all started with Cade when we selected him with the #6 overall pick after our tear down. Cade has been a mainstay in our lineup and has been a team leader on and off the court. Cade also is our Point Guard who leads out offense and has done nothing but exceed everyone's expectations. After watching Cade this offseason in Training Camp, I am certain we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on what he has to offer on the court.



Balls O'Hard: With that being said, we really didn't have much of a splash this offseason outside of retaining our own talent. We had Alex Caruso and Emoni Bates as free agents and goal 1 was to maintain out chemistry and let our talent just grown organically. We succeeded in our goal and have both coming back this season. I know, this type of offseason won't get a lot of fanfare, however we've known for a while that our best path to success was within, not externally in terms of talent.

Balls O'Hard: Last year, we moved on from Ronnie Reynolds who was probably our second best player to support this strategy. While we didn't reach a 60 win seaosn like when we had Ronnie, we were able to get to 52 wins despite Alex missing half the season. Injuries aren't something you can account for fully, I think we did a great job adjusting to them as they happened. I think for current Season expectations i'll hand it over to Cade to discuss.

Cade Cunningham: As far as this season is concerned, I would consider us a team that should be reaching for the championship, and we are. Our goals really start with battling the Buck's for the division; they did a great job last year and won a lot of games. We do feel like if we were healthy we would have put more pressure on them, but things worked out how they did and we ran into a great team in the playoffs versus the Magic. This season, we feel versatile enough and have gotten enough battle scores to be able to match up with anyone in the playoffs. I know i just have to trust our talent on the court to make sure we win every night and i think we have a great shot at being the best at the end of everything.

Balls O'Hard: Thank Cade, and with that i'll open it to questions!

[greepleairport]

Hi this question is for Cade: Cade, you're development has been solid over the past several seasons but it would seem this offseason was pivotal in your development. Did anything change? Or are you that much more committed to your team in Detroit?

[MexicanMamba]

Position Flexibility seems to be the name of the game with this Detroit Pistons roster. Future and current stars everywhere who can play multiple positions. What do you believe is the benefit of this roster makeup when compared to having everyone filling a set, assigned role?

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[AngryBanana]

Chet Youbetcha, Dimmadome News: would you trade all four purple players for a in his prime AD?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: The Pistons are set up to be a force in the Omega conference for as long as you want to pay to keep it running. This season, there seems to be a dearth in competition, but which teams in the conference that you see having the assets and skills to give you a run for your money?

[ballsohard]

Hi this question is for Cade: Cade, you're development has been solid over the past several seasons but it would seem this offseason was pivotal in your development. Did anything change? Or are you that much more committed to your team in Detroit?

Cade Cunningham: I think it's the confidence of playing in the playoffs and getting your scars. When you first come into the league and have a bad season or two, you're just happy to be there. Now, I've been there 4 out of my 6 seasons in the league and it's an expectation to be there but we need to expand on that with winning the finals. So I came into the offseason saying, maybe i cant control what we do from a roster standpoint, but i can control my development and my potential; and I did just that.

[ballsohard]

Position Flexibility seems to be the name of the game with this Detroit Pistons roster. Future and current stars everywhere who can play multiple positions. What do you believe is the benefit of this roster makeup when compared to having everyone filling a set, assigned role?

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

Balls O'Hard: Great observation and question. I think it really pays off in two areas. The first is in the regular season when you're dealing with injuries and experimentation. That added flexibility just allows you to move players around to still be a winning team and be able to withstand some of those things that can set teams back. The second area is in the playoffs when playing a really talented team who's got some strengths that are take advantages of your weakenss. The flexibility to kind of gameplan freely gives you a bit of an advantage there.

[ballsohard]

Chet Youbetcha, Dimmadome News: would you trade all four purple players for a in his prime AD?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depend on which era we're talking about

[ballsohard]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: The Pistons are set up to be a force in the Omega conference for as long as you want to pay to keep it running. This season, there seems to be a dearth in competition, but which teams in the conference that you see having the assets and skills to give you a run for your money?

Hey Sham, I think it's a pretty shallow conference as well to be frank. I think the Bucks are the front runners to win the conference, then you have the Thunder who should win their division. I don't think you can discount the Wizards, they should be a top 4 seed as well. Other than that, there's not really a lot of talent out there.

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: The Pistons are set up to be a force in the Omega conference for as long as you want to pay to keep it running. This season, there seems to be a dearth in competition, but which teams in the conference that you see having the assets and skills to give you a run for your money?

Hey Sham, I think it's a pretty shallow conference as well to be frank. I think the Bucks are the front runners to win the conference, then you have the Thunder who should win their division. I don't think you can discount the Wizards, they should be a top 4 seed as well. Other than that, there's not really a lot of talent out there.

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Woops. I didn't nail the ending of that question. Which teams in the conference do yu see having the assets and skills to give you a run for your money a couple seasons from now once Cade and Kai have grown even more?

[ballsohard]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: The Pistons are set up to be a force in the Omega conference for as long as you want to pay to keep it running. This season, there seems to be a dearth in competition, but which teams in the conference that you see having the assets and skills to give you a run for your money?

Hey Sham, I think it's a pretty shallow conference as well to be frank. I think the Bucks are the front runners to win the conference, then you have the Thunder who should win their division. I don't think you can discount the Wizards, they should be a top 4 seed as well. Other than that, there's not really a lot of talent out there.

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Woops. I didn't nail the ending of that question. Which teams in the conference do yu see having the assets and skills to give you a run for your money a couple seasons from now once Cade and Kai have grown even more?

Another good question; i think really when you look at that type of question i more look at GMs. The magic GM has a pattern on how he runs teams, 2 good seasons and a tank/refresh the tax season. They're on the latter atm, so I'd imagine starting next season they'll go all in again. The Jazz have the talent, but their GM isn't really a known winning GM. The Wolves i think have a really firm foundation and will step up in maybe a year or two. Raptors also have the talent but are in i dont care mode. So really the outlook doesn't look great for the conference right now!

[PaulyP]

Emoni Bates’ contract has been a talking point in some circles around the league this off-season, was there any reluctance on your part to giving such a big contract to a player who’s only played 1 full season in his entire career?

[ballsohard]

Emoni Bates’ contract has been a talking point in some circles around the league this off-season, was there any reluctance on your part to giving such a big contract to a player who’s only played 1 full season in his entire career?

It's not the contract we wanted for his production, but we know that someone just did it to inflate our cap due to no trade offer? and had the choice to decline. So while not ideal, no reluctance in accepting the deal. At worst we can find a better situation for him in a year.