by
Greg Monroe
The NBA Draft is a little more than two weeks away, and it’s looking like the Pistons will be in the market for a new power forward.
Yes, the Moose is about to be cut loose.
Greg Monroe is an unrestricted free agent, meaning he has complete freedom to sign on the dotted line for any team he chooses. Rumblings over the last few weeks, and probably even for the last year, would indicate Monroe and the Pistons are ready to part ways amicably.
As a fan of this team, does this make you happy? Sad? Indifferent?
Even though Monroe has been one of the top Pistons throughout his five year tenure on the club, fan reaction towards him has generally been lukewarm at best.
Is he a blossoming star? A role player? Some weird combination of both?
The jury was always out on Monroe. He’d be cheered well enough, but was by no means ever a “fan favorite," likely due to the fact that he could never really get this team over any kind of hump.
In his five Piston seasons, he never saw the playoffs. The best team (by record) that he’s been a part of was this year’s squad, an underwhelming 32-50 group that played about three weeks of inspired ball in total.
You could count on the Moose for durability, but not necessarily for noticeable gains in his game from one year to the next.
Monroe entered the league as a skilled big man who could finish around the hoop and scrap for garbage points off the glass. And while he has created a couple of different ways to score in five NBA seasons, the elevation of his mid-range game never really came to fruition.
It’s the development of that 12 to 16 foot shot that often turns marginally dangerous big men into trained killers. It’s what makes guys like LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol so lethal on the pick-and-roll. The defense must choose whether to send help and prevent the guard from getting to the paint or live with one of those assassins setting up shop for a money-in-the-bank J.
With Monroe, the threat was never there. Brandon Knight or Jennings would get a solid Moose screen, they’d penetrate just enough, then dish back to a wide-open Monroe standing a few feet behind the free throw line. And he’d just stand there. It’s a shot that has almost become mandatory for power forwards (and even centers) in the league, but Monroe could never add it to the arsenal.
Instead, he might try spinning into traffic in the paint, crash into a body or two and hope for a call. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But it is that play in particular that has stunted the progress of Greg Monroe’s game and elevation to possible star-status in the league.
So while the Pistons might be seen as weaker in the days immediately following Monroe’s imminent departure, it is likely the best thing for the franchise. The pipe dream that he and Andre Drummond would grow into some type of unstoppable front-court tandem never sprouted legs.
Their offensive limitations when on court together made spacing an impossibility. And while Monroe has improved his free throw shooting, there were years where his low-to-mid 60s and Drummond’s high-30s percentages severely lessened the chances of the Pistons winning basketball games.
The replacement at the big forward could be Frank Kaminsky, the nifty, sweet-shooting, seven-footer from Wisconsin. The Pistons would undoubtedly become more susceptible on the boards, but their identity on offense would instantly transform.
Now Reggie Jackson could run the two-man game and the screener might actually score on something other than a lob at the rim. Outside shooting has been a thorn in this franchise’s side for several years now, and subbing Monroe out for a player like Kaminsky would provide a needed boost in that critical department.
Bizarrely enough, if the chips do fall this way, with Monroe skipping town and the Pistons selecting Kaminsky, there would still be a Moose in Detroit (it’s Kaminsky’s nickname, too). It’d be the only time in sports I can recall in which one uniquely nicknamed player was replaced by a guy with the exact same moniker.
There was never a reason to passionately dislike the game of Greg Monroe. But never much reason to love it, either. His time here was not particularly eventful, mirroring that of the team itself.
The Pistons need to extricate themselves from this period of stagnancy that’s lingered for far too long.
Greg Monroe will likely be a Knick, or Maverick, or something besides a Piston in the next few weeks. And that’s okay.
Progress is impossible without change. This change might hurt for a moment, but in the long run it will likely prove to be a necessary move -- and one that could bring about a return to Detroit playoff basketball.
If anybody can even remember what that feels like.
