PARIS — Overlooking the court at Palais des Sports Marcel-Cerdan, the home of Victor Wembanyama and Metropolitans 92, in Paris on Tuesday, Pistons general manager Troy Weaver sat with his team of decision-makers and observed their experiment.
Detroit’s front office was nestled in the upper deck, overlooking the camera-filled fracas. The Pistons were practicing in front of media from France and all over Europe as they prepare to take on Chicago in the City of Love this Thursday. And while the NBA is treating the event as a spectacle, Weaver and company are treating it like normal — another day at the office. There’s work to be done, even 4,000 miles away from home.
Weaver observes often. He’s on the sideline for almost every practice, almost every game. Weaver is always studying what he’s created, looking for ways to make it better. The general manager, who is in his third season at the helm, has faith in what he and his team are building — or as he likes to call it, “restoring” — but sitting at 12-35 midway through the 2022-23 season , there’s still more that needs to be done to convince the outside world that the Pistons, in due time, are coming.
For 12 minutes during this open session in Paris, Weaver took time to speak with The Athletic in an exclusive interview. He talked about his thoughts on this rebuilding season, the setbacks his team has suffered, Killian Hayes’ development, the upcoming NBA trade deadline and much more. The conversation can be read below.
(Editor’s note: This dialogue has been edited for both length and clarity)
When you did your season-opening press conference, the one thing you wanted to see this season is for your team to be competitive. Midway through the year, where are you at with what you’ve seen in that regard?
Considering where we are, and where we’ve been, through the season with health, I feel pretty good about it. We compete, pretty much, on a nightly basis. We’ve been undermanned on most nights and have still competed. The road trip out West really sticks out for me, those six games. We were competitive in every game, had a chance to win every game and we were down three or four starters. I’ve been pleased with the way we’ve competed this year.
Fans tend to think development, whether individual or as a team, should be linear. It’s usually not. And when it comes to your team, I’m not sure people really recognize the starting point you guys had and how it differs from other young teams like the Thunder, who had a Paul George to trade to jumpstart their rebuild, or the Magic, who had a coveted player in Nikola Vučević to trade. You guys didn’t have anything close to that type of starting point. When you accepted this job, how much did you consider the lack of assets, trade chips at the time, and how much of a challenge that would be to get this thing going from, basically, ground zero?
We knew it would be a big challenge and effort. We understand what the fans want. They want to see a winner on the floor. It takes time. That’s why we called it a “restoring.” Some day, you know, it looks like the car is going to start and shine. Some days you see some dull spots and rust that you didn’t see before. … Going through this, it’s not easy. That’s why I was so big on making sure we had the right guys to go through it. A lot of teams go through rebuilds, retooling, whatever you want to call it, and they can’t make it out of it because of what they have in the locker room. We take tremendous pride in having the right guys and having a great locker room so that we can fight through this thing. Trust me, the dam is going to break, and when it breaks, it’s going to have a great flow to it. We just have to stay patient, stay in the boat and keep working.
I’m even more confident than I was on June 18, 2020, that we’re going to get this thing where it needs to be.
This season was always going to be a developmental one. We’ve seen it, certainly, from individuals. However, with Cade Cunningham being out for the season, and already having serious injuries to other guys throughout the course of the year, has it been a challenge for you to evaluate the team’s development? From my point of view, that felt like the most important thing to you coming into the season.
Yes, definitely. It’s been a challenge for us. I don’t know how many different starting lineups Coach has had. From a team development standpoint, we haven’t been able to, for lack of better words, find an identity consistently. That’s been the challenge. When we had all of our big guys out, we weren’t able to place an identity. Alec Burks was going to be the catalyst for our bench, but he started the season hurt. Since he’s back, our bench has been the No. 1 bench in the league. Just having all of those things available for us hasn’t been there. So, from a team development, that’s been the roller coaster. Individually, yes, you can see the growth in so many guys. From Killian, Isaiah (Stewart), the rookie, a guy like Kevin Knox.
People don’t talk about this, but a guy who I consider a core member for us, who has been out and is not talked about enough, is Isaiah Livers. His absence has been profound. Getting him back healthy has been great. Now, it’s time for him to stay healthy, to have the kind of season and growth that Killian, Isaiah (Stewart) and these other guys have had. He’s a big part of our future and what we’re trying to do.
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With Killian, I’m not sure I’ve seen an in-season turnaround like he has had. I think a lot of people thought, because he played professionally before getting drafted, he would be more ready than he was. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and we talked about development not always being linear. One thing we all miss or forget is that he didn’t play against Americans, really, until he stepped foot in the NBA. In Europe, they’re great with teaching fundamentals, but it’s certainly a different style of play than kids who grew up playing in America learn. Do you think a lot of his leap this year is, to put it simply, just finally getting used to all of the things that come with American-style basketball?
I said it from Day 1 that he needed to get Americanized with his game, as well as with the culture and understanding how the American game is, the mentality. The second part of it is that I’m old enough to have kids who have gone through college and ones that are still there, and every one that you send away doesn’t come back their freshman year a changed person. Sometimes it’s their sophomore, junior year. It just takes time. So, to me, it just took Killian a couple of years. Now, he comes back his junior year from spring break and it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, my child has changed.’ It just took that. Sometimes, it takes a year, comes back in the summer and it’s like, ‘Wow. He’s really changed. I’m proud of him. He takes his trash out and makes his bed.’ Not all kids do that right away. This kid had to get Americanized. His growth has been different. I never wavered on the person or the player.
Does this kind of reassure things for you?
Nah. Maybe for him. Not for me. Maybe everyone else. For him to have confidence in himself and his game, the American game. He only played one year for Ulm and then he was off. If he had played a couple of years there, then, well, OK. But one year, and he was drafted. I’m proud of the way he stayed with it and fought through a lot of things in a foreign country. Now, to see him be confident in who he is and be confident as an NBA player, it’s great.
What have you seen from Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren, or learned about them, that you might not have been able to calculate during the pre-draft process and evaluating them from afar?
Jalen Duren has a chance to be a big-time player because he’s a big-time teammate. You can look at his physical gifts and all of those things, but the way he’s been a teammate, for a young kid, that’s big time. Jaden Ivey has a dogged mentality in wanting to be successful. You can hear about things, but until you live with someone, you don’t really know. He is dogged on wanting to be successful, as a player and person. To see that every day is really good and refreshing.
Last thing for you… from just outside the house looking in, it appears to me you guys do have aspirations, sooner rather than later, of challenging for a postseason spot. Does that change your guys’ approach at this year’s trade deadline, as opposed to how you guys operated the previous two years?
First, though, before you answer that last question, is my initial observation fair?
That’s fair to say, but we’re going to approach this deadline like we approached the previous ones. We’re going to turn over every rock, and if something comes our way that we think can improve our team, we’ll look at it, for sure.
It’s all about growth and moving the team forward. Absolutely, we want to be in a position to move the group forward and improve. We’ll look at everything.
(Photo of Troy Weaver: Kyle Terada/USA Today)
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