The Pistons’ old “Core 4” is gone, and the whole idea feels a lot smaller in hindsight.
With Isaiah Stewart traded away this summer, Detroit no longer has a single player left from the group Troy Weaver once pointed to as the franchise’s foundation. That group - Killian Hayes, Saddiq Bey, Isaiah Stewart and Saben Lee - was supposed to be the start of something in 2020. Weaver even compared them to the Yankees, which looks pretty wild now.
The reality never matched the vision.
Saben Lee turned out to be more of a G-League weapon than an NBA fixture, even if he flashed enough to become a fan favorite along the way. He’s now with Žalgiris Kaunas in the Lithuanian Basketball League after being sent to Utah in the Bojan Bogdanovic deal.
Since then, he’s had brief stops with the 76ers, Suns and the Raptors G-League affiliate before moving on to a run of overseas teams. Detroit thought it had a point guard and a backup.
It didn’t.
Killian Hayes followed a similar path in a different way. He has shown he can dominate G-League competition, but the NBA has been a much tougher test.
He’s bounced around several teams and is currently looking for a job, and at 25, he still may get one when a team gets desperate or needs to fill out two-way spots. The problem remains the same: he still can’t shoot, and the clock is ticking on how many more chances he gets.
Saddiq Bey is the one who makes the Pistons’ old approach sting the most. Detroit traded him in the deal that brought back James Wiseman, and that move looks worse now than it did then.
Wiseman is out of the league, while Bey just finished the best season of his career for the Pelicans. He’s now playing for the same general manager who didn’t extend him in Detroit, and that familiar situation is building again.
The Pistons had reason to be cautious about paying him at the time, since he wanted more than they likely thought he was worth, but his nearly 18 points per game last season would make that number look pretty reasonable now. Even the return Atlanta eventually got for Bey was better than what Detroit received.
Isaiah Stewart is the one who will probably be felt most in Detroit. Without rehashing the whole Beef Stew saga, it’s fair to say he’ll be missed, and the way the Pistons salary dumped him to Memphis for nothing felt cold.
Still, he landed with fans who will appreciate the way he plays. Stewart and Bey were the last two survivors from that original “Core 4,” and both became useful rotation players.
Stewart, in particular, helped pull the Pistons out of the abyss.
That’s the lesson here. In the NBA, the plan can vanish fast. Hope ages badly when the players don’t.
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The harder part is the money, because Greens contract is what makes any framework like this feel more complicated than simple rumor-chasing. The Pistons have the kind of young talent and long-term flexibility that can make them a real participant in these conversations, but until the financial pieces and the broader fit line up, this remains more of a fascinating scenario than a deal that is actually close to happening. [Read more 🡒]
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Ausar Thompson Has One Flaw Holding Back His Defensive Ceiling
Ausar Thompson has already shown why Detroit is so intrigued by his defensive future. Even early in his NBA career, he has earned a reputation as a strong perimeter stopper, the kind of wing presence that can make life miserable for opposing ball-handlers and give the Pistons a real edge on that end of the floor.
The issue is that his aggressive style can spill over into unnecessary contact, and those fouls have been part of the reason his impact has not always fully translated when the games tighten up. That is where the comparison to Tony Allen comes in, since Allens path showed how a great defender can sharpen his discipline over time and turn elite tools into sustained playoff value. If Thompson can clean that part of his game up, Detroit may be looking at a defender with a much higher ceiling than the one he has already reached. [Read more 🡒]