This is the right take even as a Pistons fan who has watched Cade’s full career progression. The scoring ceiling just isn’t there individually - that said, Cade’s defense makes the whole Pistons system workable so they’re valuable in different ways.

I think from Teague’s/former player perspective it’s not just who is better, but who you’d rather play with. You can understand having less ability. More annoying to put up with less effort.

There’s some recency bias for Cade, but I think Luka’s poor defense (usually poor effort) is pretty baked in.

SGA and Jokic (assuming he comes back at pre-injury level) are no-brainers over Luka.

Who is the worst player you would take over Luka, when factoring in both offense and defense?

I think Cade is easier to build around, Cade can play off-ball, and he plays defense.

If Cade could just be more consistent with his 3 I think his efficiency would be on par with Luka. This year since he has gotten his FTA to 6.9/gm, if he shot 37-38% from 3 he’d be ~60% TS which is where Luka is at.

So I think Luka is better scorer for sure, but ngl, I think Cade is better at almost everything else.

Luka was surrounded with a team that complements his strengths and went to the finals in a hard West. Pistons have many good defenders/ athletic people.

Switch Luka with Cade and this isn’t even going to be a discussion.

Sadly Luka hasn’t had the luck of other people to be surrounded with a very capable roster all around, which SGA does.

Until Cade proves he can play at this level multiple years in a row and during the playoffs it’s Luka>Cade. We could be having a different conversation next year though.

Just wait till his next big game.

“It doesn’t even matter if he can’t defend when he’s this good offensively!”

Honestly whenever I open this sub I just see how 1 bad stretch is all it takes to shit on players so we can bring up other players to a higher standard than those players, just so next week we can shit on them later down the line as well lol, this discourse is hella toxic and moronic.

Cade played 1 playoff series his entire life, lost in 6 to the Knicks, averaged 25/8/9 with 5.3 TOVs on 43/18/83, maybe lets see a little more from him individually before we can take him over a guy who has been one of the best players in recent times, having some historic games in the regular and post season since year 1-2, and has been the most dominant offensive player in the league when he is on fire for years. I would personally not have Cade even above Brunson or Ant yet

His uninspiring being 31/8/8 on 58 TS in the last 10 is hilarious

there going to continue to be crazy some ppl in here just started watching basketball in 2025 ofc they’ll pick cade

Doubly strange because the Lakers are pretty good, people are talking about them like they’re a .500 team

This sub is recency bias.

I think Luka is an incredible player, but he also requires a very specific type of roster around him to be successful. He certainly doesn’t have it now.

We’re a hair away from 10 posts about how Nico was right to trade him away

Mfs comparing him to Wizards Westbrook lmao. Stop making me root for a Laker, Jesus

Just save the posts for when Luka carries the Lakers to a deep playoffs run or championship during the next years

Welcome to having him on the Lakers. The honeymoon phase has worn off and the fan base is asking why they haven’t won a chip and broke the Bulls record yet

Every day is hot take day from people who should just be ignored here.

Week you mean. He’s pissed someone off or people are just jumping on the bandwagon for clicks, views, and karma.

I’m OK with the sub acting like that but these former players that have podcasts and their fucking hot takes are the stupidest shit ever.

I don’t know who watches Teague, Arenas, Jax/Barnes, etc…, they all act like clowns and their friends are even worse. It’s one funny story per months in hours and hours of podcasts.

I tried a couple of times and it’s: former player saying some dumb shit or something to make you click and the clowns surrounding “yeah yeah yeah”. It’s just stupid.

Yeah but Teague was never in an mvp convo or best players etc

Also just to Teagues credit everyone was a traffic cone to defending fucking LeBron at the top of the key off a screem in 2010. Have you seen Lebron’s highlights in his athletic prime ??

A major factor is can that two way player, cade in this example, preform offensively at a high level in the playoffs? at the end of the day, you gotta score so players who are proven to preform at a high level offensively when the lights are bright / playoffs are very rare and valuable. Players like jimmy, jamal murray, might not have insane regular seasons but being able to preform in the playoffs is huge. In this case, luka is beyond proven while cade idk i dont watch the pistons if they have made the playoffs in recent years etc.

The amount of “stars” who just choke when the playoffs start every damn year is wild.

He fucked around too much when he played. Too much selfish thinking even if he was a great distributor. Hes admitted some of this on the show

But I agree it is a great indicator of his self awareness

That and he just chucks contested threes when he’s tired

Just waiting for brons contract to end

Harden was better defensively imo

The narratives are why everyone is on Reddit. It’s narratives all the way down. People ain’t even watching the games. Just highlights and narrative posts. Adam Silver was right. We’re losing recipes.

Seriously is there like a hate campaign or something ? Why’s he so hated all of a sudden ?

IM TAKING LIANGELO BALL OVER LUKA HE PLAYS DEFENSE BRUH 2 WAY PLAYER

It’s the usual 26-28 year old superstar that’s yet to win the chip media hate. Giannis was told he’d never win without developing a shot. Jokic was told to leave Denver in order to win. The Celtics J’s were told to break up and that duo would never win.

Extremely foreseeable with him being on the Lakers honestly. Even as an admitted Lakers hater, their players get love and hate to such extremes on social media that you’ll see takes that make little sense depending on their highs and lows.

Haha loved that honesty

“Ya’ll know me, I was a defensive cone. Shit”

Injuries magically heal when you get that ball in your hands

Only when he misses shots does he start fake limping

He didn’t really spank them lol the team as a whole played great it wasn’t a Luka carry job

Plus, it’s funny as hell how people who are heavy on the 2 sides argument somehow never talk about Giannis as the best player in the world.

Average nba social media analyst: guys I think <young guy who recently played well for a bit> is better than <superstar all nba player for multiple years who has been in a bit of a slump>

Atleast jokic can be a big body in the paint, can rebound (no not fake-ass defensive rebounding) over players, has good instincts and can essentially read the opposing teams sets and plays instantly, not to mention he’s really good at giving his teammates directions on where to go too.

if anything Jokic is an Average defensive big in the NBA, and he contrasts that with being one of the greatest offensive player we will EVER see.

Like yes Luka’s a really good offensive player this year (even with the obvious degression since 2024, TBH he’s not even that great as yall hype him up lmao), yes offense matters more than defense, but at some point that shit balances out lol.

Because the gap on offense is MUCH greater between jokic and Cade and the gap on defense isn’t as bad either.

Sure why not

Luka’s defense wasn’t even why the Mavericks lost to the Celtics in the Finals. It was the fact that Irving disappeared whenever he played in Boston and that no one else besides Luka could score consistently on offense.

His efficiency is not good. TS is propped up by the league leading free throws, while his eFG is well below league average. 32% on 11 3PA are just wasted possessions. The 9 assists are also not as impressive when they come with 4.5 TOs.

When you consider defense as well, there are just so many flaws in his game this year. Sure the box score stats are cool, but this is not an impressive season by Luka so far.

60.4 TS% (#112 in the league) and leads the league in turnovers, so about that “high efficiency”…

Are we gonna apply this same logic to Harden since he went to the conf finals?

He’s the new target of the season. They’ll be saying this about someone else in a few weeks,

The club ⁵⁄₂₀ hosts just need to stop exposing what they see on film

Just last year in an episode Teague mentioned a phonecall he made to Finch and the Minnesota staff to show them JJ + Luka’s gameplan for the playoff series.

They went frame by frame to show luka’s playmaking and how bad it had Rui, Reaves, Knecht, Hayes.

He’s having one of his best years lol, he is averaging 33/9/8 on 60.5% TS lmao

Except now he’s in LA, you’re not in Dallas anymore, people will watch all of your games and u can’t average 4 turnovers, have these off shooting nights where u chuck threes and shoot 25% and play awful defense (things he did in Dallas btw but who watched Dallas vs Detroit on a random Tuesday night)

Luka is literally the same player, elite heliocentric offense with awful defense, Dallas the only year they were good surrounded him with good defenders and rim protection (plus lob threat), Lakers don’t have that

It still is. People see a month of bad play and lose their minds

I’ve been all in on Cade since day 1, I love his play style, I love his attitude, I love his leadership, I love how he’s embraced the Pistons and the legacy and personality of Detroit. He’s playing his ass off every night, he’s been great defensively, and he just makes winning basketball plays even when he’s having a bad statistical night.

But it’s absolutely asinine to say this until Cade has an efficiency jump from 3, cuts down on TOs, and starts getting calls to go his way to get to the line more.

Luka is, at worst, the 4th best player in the world. Cade is just making his case to break into the top 10.

Let’s all pump the brakes here.

His defense is legitimately why they never stood a chance in that series, and man was he a cry baby about it

No. Cafe isn’t realistically in any conversation yet. He may be some day. We will see. He’s a bully downhill baller so that kinda limits him in a lot of ways. He got coned several times last night and in other Pistons games I’ve watched this year. He is not an elite defender but he is a little better than Luka. Nice player. Let’s see.

No its not, lets see what Cade does in playoffs, then we can talk.