Draft-er Math: Chaz Lanier as a Detroit Piston
Taking a look at how 2025 NBA Draft pick Chaz Lanier projects to his new team: The Detroit Pistons.
By now, you’ve already seen a bunch of “favorite fits” on social media and across all basketball platforms. Many of these fits were first round selections, but in this year’s class, some of the best fits came in the second round. One could argue that Rasheer Flaming to Phoenix was the best in the second—and I wouldn’t argue that too much. But, for my money, I am a big fan of what the Pistons did in drafting Chaz Lanier with the 37th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
When it comes to the Pistons, it’s all about consistent and sustained upward momentum. After the changes that were made in the front office, an emphasis was placed on this team: space the floor and allow Cade to cook. Adding reliable floor spacers like Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Tobias Harris played a major factor in the Pistons improving from 14-68 to 44-38, making the NBA Playoffs for the first time since the 2018-2019 season.
The Pistons have a lot to consider when assembling a roster around Cade Cunningham, which includes Hardaway Jr. and Beasley entering Free Agency. Getting cost-controlled players is going to be critical for any sort of future success Detroit could look to have. Lanier is one of the better shooting prospects in this class—especially once you start looking for players on Day Two. His skill set allows the team to continue similar concepts in any unit he’ll play in at the NBA level.
Transition Threes
One of the quickest ways that Chaz can make an immediate impact for the Detroit Pistons is to follow the lead of Malik Beasley. Beasley was a great threat for the Pistons this season, as he went 77 of 166 transition three-pointers—ranking in the 81st percentile in Points Per Possession (PPP) scoring in transition.
In this clip of Beasley, we get a chance to see how effective he is when the break is being pushed. This play starts with Ron Holland II (#00 in blue) pushing the ball up the floor to take advantage of his team’s numbers. Ron’s pace forces the defender, Nickeil Alexander-Walker (#9 in white), to step up to respect his attack. Once Nickeil steps up, Ron swings the ball over to Malik on the left wing, who connects on the pull-up three.
Notice how quickly Beasley gathers the ball and lets it fly. It doesn’t take much for him to get his shot off. Chaz isn’t much different in that respect.
Similarly to Malik, Chaz was pretty efficient in transition. Due to the number of games played, as well as Tennessee’s/college basketball’s style of play, the volume from this year with the Volunteers isn’t close to what Beasley did with the Playoff Pistons. Still, Lanier went 18-of-38 on those looks, which is over 47% on transition three-pointers; not too shabby.
The above play is eerily similar to the Beasley play before it. Zakai Zeigler (# 5 in orange) gets the defensive rebound and pushes the break. Playing the numbers game, Zakai forces Denzel Aberdeen (#11 in white) to commit to his drive. This frees up Lanier on the right wing. Just like Malik, Chaz has a quick trigger, and he can shoot pretty much as soon as he catches it.
It’s like the old “Anything you can do, I can do better” commercials.
Spatial Awareness
Another thing these two shooting dynamos share is a keen understanding of how to occupy the right area of the court at the exact right moment. This play kicks off with Jahmai Mashack (#15 in orange) driving to the paint against LSU. As Mashack attacks the paint, the Tiger defense shifts over to account for him. Jahmai does his best Rajon Rondo impression on the block—faking the pass, and pivoting back to facing the perimeter.
If you track Lanier on Jahmai’s drive, he makes a baseline cut to the opposite side for the three. When Mashack picks up his dribble, Chaz understands that he won’t get the pass if he stays where he is. Chaz slides along the perimeter to present himself open. Jahmai sees his guy, kicks it out, and Lanier connects on a no-dip three-ball.
He showed a super quick release, paired nicely with spatial awareness. Now, imagine him doing this with Cade.
In this game against the Knicks, Cade shows off some of what makes him special. Because Cade is such a physically imposing guard, he can back down his man—and win most times. This phenomenon usually results in the help and deny defenders being drawn in by some sort of gravitational pull. To be able to continuously draw from this well, you have to have shooting threats to go to.
Notice how the Knicks bunch up around Cade on the post-up. Now look at where Malik is in the opposite corner. Once the defense demonstrates their intentions here, it’s clear they are in an “anybody but you” defensive philosophy against Detroit’s star guard. Beasley recognizes this, then slides up the wing to present himself open. Because Cunningham is clearly more dynamic than Jahmai Mashack, he can turn and jump to fool the defense, and then kick the ball out to Beasley for the corner three.
That’s the exact same concept, quick release, and result for Chaz and Malik.
DHO Option
With a player like Jalen Duren on Detroit’s roster, it’s likely that Lanier would need to be comfortable running some handoff actions with the big man. Duren’s vision is one of the biggest reasons I was so high on him as a prospect, and it should be featured on a consistent basis moving forward. The addition of Chaz helps provide depth and the rotational reality that the DHO could be a big weapon with Detroit.
This play shows what sort of possibilities could exist with Chaz as he becomes more acclimated to the tendencies of his teammates. Jalen (#0 in white) comes down with the rebound and brings the ball up the floor. Jalen’s man is Mitchell Robinson—a drop big. This means that he is going to play off him toward the paint, and isn’t super interested in switching onto smaller players. Under the right circumstances, drop bigs are incredibly valuable and effective. How do you counter that sort of philosophy? One such way is to do this: have a flamethrowing shooter run a DHO set with the big man.
Duren does a great job of keeping the ball secure while dribbling. Malik runs a rub screen with Tobias Harris (#12 in white) to create some space between him and his defender. Beasley keeps running away from his man and into a handoff action with Duren. As Malik gathers the ball, Jalen takes on the form of a brick wall—giving even more space for his guard to spray from deep.
The commitment to the drop from Mitch Rob provides built-in space, on top of the DHO screen from Duren. This action can kill a drop defense routinely if you have the right shooter accepting the handoff.
This past season, Malik Beasley shot 39% on his handoff threes. Again (and for previously-stated reasons), Chaz had less volume on handoff actions than Malik, but he shot just under 47% on his handoff three-pointers. This play is going to look different than the one above because…Tennessee didn’t have a Jalen Duren. We will, though, see Chaz get to a handoff with his big man in a similar manner.
We’ll start off with Lanier having the ball, then moving it to Zakai on the same-side corner. As the Syracuse defense converges on him, Zakai passes the ball back out to Lanier, who faces up and waits for Cade Phillips (#12 in black) to come out for a pass.
Chaz kicks the ball over to Phillips at the top of the key and sprints out for a handoff. Look at how Phillips’s man is in a drop position. You’ll see what we saw in the Duren/Beasley clip earlier, where Phillips creates separation for Chaz to get off a clean three-pointer. This action and situation are identical to the prior play: drop defense being beaten by a handoff three.
Off-Ball Actions
One of the best things about Mikal Beasley as a shooter is that he is such a threat off of movement actions. In this clip, the ball is brought up by Daniss Jenkins (#24 in white—friend of the show). Paul Reed (#7 in white) comes up to set a screen to Jenkins’s left, allowing Daniss to head to the top of the key. As Daniss brings the ball center, “B-Ball” Paul goes to the right wing, and sets a down screen for Mikal.
Beasley explodes off the screen, which creates a ton of space for him. Jenkins kicks the ball over to Beasley, who gathers and gets the shot off with ease. You can’t leave Malik this wide open and expect him to miss. His timing and precision movements combined with the screen can only be contested by the best defensive systems in the league…maybe?
Chaz is capable of doing these exact same things, and showed that at Tennessee this season. We’ll pick up with Zakai getting the ball on the left wing and looking to set up the offense. As he dribbles off to his right, you can see Lanier going off to the weak side—maybe to set a double screen for his guy in the corner. Instead, he cuts through the lane.
By the time the defense notices what’s going on, it’s just too late. Phillips gets into position to set a down screen for Lanier, who curls off the screen and into an opening on the wing.
Just like with Malik, you cannot leave Chaz open. His timing and use of precise cuts, combined with a screen, gives him too much space for the defense to get back into the play.
We’ll continue with some Chaz film here. Lanier’s teammate, Jordan Gainey (#11 in white), is going to start off with the ball at the top of the key. As that’s taking place, you can see Ziegler and Felix Okpara (#34 in white) getting into position to set a drag screen, staggered off the baseline. Zakai sets the initial screen off of the block—which Chaz uses very well. Instead of having two screens along the baseline, Okpara gets into position out of the mid-post. That action creates the separation for Lanier to square up out of motion and cash in the three.
The Pistons used pretty similar looks for Malik Beasley throughout the year. This clip is going to start with Cunningham in the Jordan Gainey spot (bet you didn’t expect to read THAT today!) while the offense gets into position. Instead of Ziegler and Okpara setting screens for him, Beasley has Harris and Isaiah Stewart (#28 in blue) creating some runway. Beasley runs around Harris’s screen on the left block, and then jets over to the right side of the floor, where Beef Stew is ready to lay the lumber.
Once Stew walls off Malik’s man, Landry Shamet (#44 in white), Beasley has about one car-length worth of space the catch the ball, dust it off, tie his shoes, and get the three off with no problem.
It’s easy to see how Chaz Lanier could work in the Malik Beasley role in Motor City.
Curtains
The decision-making improvements in Detroit have resulted in some rapid and positive results. In conversations with Chaz, I am aware that he is going to be an incredible person and an incredible player for the Pistons. When it comes to what fans could expect in Detroit, I’ll just quote the man himself:
“You’re gonna get a very caring person; a genuine dude who really wants to win—is gonna do anything to win. A competitor. A great locker room guy , who’s really going to pour into the culture and the organization. A guy who is going to leave it all on the court, and really just compete. And win.
With the ascension of the Pistons, and the nature of Chaz, winning is almost a certainty.
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It looks like the Pistons will really need Lanier to step up for them now that it looks like Malik Beasley's career may be in real jeopardy with these recent gambling allegations.