We’re at the point of the offseason when fans of the Detroit Pistons start to turn on each other, and nothing gets them more riled up than talking about Jaden Ivey.
Ivey is probably the most controversial Pistons player depending on who you ask and the gap between how fans at the extremes view him is as wide as the Grand Canyon, or it at least seems that way on social media, where nuance and conversation go to die.
On one extreme you have the Ivey Truthers, the ones that think he’s going to be a star and that he’s shown those qualities already. These folks usually get mad at even the slightest criticism of their guy even though the Pistons played far better without him this season by every metric.
On the other side you have those who think Ivey isn’t anything special (my guess is they didn’t want the Pistons to draft him in the first place and are trying to validate that opinion) and that the Pistons should trade him this offseason.
I’m guessing there is a less vocal majority in the middle with me: Jaden Ivey is a talented young player who showed signs but has to improve a TON before he can be considered a star. He doesn’t do anything at an elite level yet and was downright bad around the rim, as an isolation scorer and on defense.
Do I think Ivey can get there? Absolutely, and I laid out how in a recent article, but he’s not there yet and to act like he is is to ignore most quantitative data.
This debate between fans (as annoying as it is) illustrates perfectly the problem the Pistons are facing this offseason.
The Detroit Pistons need more time with Jaden Ivey
The biggest disappointment of the 2024-25 season was that the Pistons only got to see 30 games of Jaden Ivey and most of them were without Ausar Thompson.
That’s why such a huge gap exists between the extremes of how Ivey is viewed, as some think those 30 games showed us enough to commit long term to JI while others think we didn’t see nearly enough of him this season to make that call.
The Pistons are likely leaning more towards the latter group, as they like Ivey and think he was on his way to a breakout season but need more data before making a drastic decision.
It's possible to have questions and concerns about Ivey and still view him as an important part of the team, and to still like him as a player, though that kind of nuance isn’t going to feed the algorithm or get much attention.