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1) Tread Water Until the Return of Reggie
With the Pistons coming off a rare playoff appearance, it was important that this season get kicked off with a positive surge of momentum. This franchise has been doomed by some truly rotten starts in recent years; then news broke that starting point guard Reggie Jackson would be on the shelf for up to two months. It's not pleasant news for Piston Nation.
While the ascension of Jackson to NBA All-Star status is still taking shape, he remains a vital cog to the Pistons’ attack. Last season, he paced the team in points and assists at about 19 and six a game. Toss in the fact that Jackson is also the group’s top free-throw shooter (career 86%), and it’s quite a bit of production to make up for.
Thankfully, the front office was satisfied that one year of Steve Blake was enough and went in search of a more prolific backup point guard. Ish Smith, a bit of a hoops journeyman, but a potentially explosive one at that, was brought in to the fold. Of course, a guy like Smith is more suited to the 15-20 minutes that come with being a second-unit guard.
With Jackson’s absence, that playing time will double and he’ll be counted on to run the offense for the bulk of the evening. He’s enough of a playmaker to have some huge nights as the starter; but whether he can remain solid throughout and guide the Pistons to a hot start in the first quarter of the season is less of a certainty.
If the Pistons can play .500 ball, or even a game or two above while waiting on Reggie’s return, it’ll be a big boost to the overall confidence of the team and will prevent the club from having to play catch-up the rest of the season.
2) What's the Ceiling for KCP?
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
This will be year number four for Pistons’ 2013 first-round pick, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope -- and a critical one at that. To this point, KCP has been making small but steady strides each year in the league. His points per game has seen a quality bump with each new season; 5.9 as a rookie, 12.7 as a sophomore, then 14.5. The key will be whether he can now go from good to great and start inching toward that 20 point mark.
Caldwell-Pope is also slated to be a free agent after this year (restricted), so it is obviously quite beneficial for him to put out his best work over the next 82 games. But in order to really become one of the upper-echelon two guards in the league, he must become a much more consistent shooter of the basketball. In his three seasons as a pro, KCP has never shot 35 percent from downtown. Last season saw him shoot a career low from outside the arc, a shade below 31%. That’s not good enough. When you combine that with the fact that he also has never been much of a creator for others within the offense (career 1.3 assists/game), there is plenty of room for improvement in this big contract year.
The Pistons more or less know what they are getting from guys like Jackson (when he comes back), Andre Drummond, and Marcus Morris. KCP is a bit more of an unknown. He could bust out this year; start stroking it from deep, get the scoring average up to the high teens, and earn some buzz as a possible Eastern Conference All-Star. If that’s the case, the Pistons are in great shape and they suddenly have one of the more dangerous backcourts in basketball. But if his progress levels off and he has a difficult time finding that next rung on the ladder, the team will struggle and you begin to wonder if the man with the initials will be worth all that free agent money next summer.
(I’ve said it once, I’ll say it 75 more times. Let’s get this exciting, high-flying Piston a real nickname. The A-Rod, T-Mac, V-Mart era needs to come to an end. So instead of referring to “KCP” this season, let’s all make a concerted effort to try something new. I happen to think “Flavored Crust” is kind of weird but effective, and plays off the rearranged letters (CPK) that stand for California Pizza Kitchen. “Thin Crust,” alluding to Caldwell-Pope’s sleek build, would work just the same.)
3) Take Better Advantage of Charity
Out of 30 teams in the National Basketball Association last season, the Detroit Pistons ranked dead last in free throw shooting. Stan Van Gundy’s roster clocked in at a putrid .668%, a mark that was ill-afforded for a club just trying to sneak into the playoffs. And it wasn’t just last year.
In 2014-15, the Pistons ranked 29th out of 30 teams. The year before that, they were all the way at the bottom again. It’s a largely undiscussed, but critically important aspect of the game in a league where the margin for error can often be quite thin.
There was a game last night between Utah and Portland. The contest was back and forth, both teams held significant leads in the second half, and the Blazers eventually prevailed at home. That’s not what caught my eye. Take a look at the box score and you see that 38 total free throws were attempted in the game and there was not a single miss in the bunch. The two teams combined to shoot a flawless 38-for-38 from the charity stripe.
What if the Pistons played in a game like that? But instead of knocking down all those free throws, they are missing on eight or nine of those opportunities. All of a sudden, a game that could be tied becomes a game where they are facing a double-digit deficit. Of course this is an extreme example and there might not be another game all year where two teams combine to shoot perfectly from the line. But to hope that the Pistons can make a major jump in the win/loss column while remaining at or near the very bottom of the league in FT shooting is probably wishful thinking.
Andre Drummond is obviously the elephant in the room when this topic takes center stage. He is a rising star in the league to be sure, but it seems as if the league hasn’t quite figured out just how destructive a sub-40 percent foul shooter can be to a team’s ability to win ballgames. Everyone wonders why the Clippers fail to get over the hump in the Western Conference; perhaps the onus falls on DeAndre Jordan and his similarly-depressing numbers at the line. When the competition ratchets up, the difference between a win and a loss gets smaller and smaller. Sacrificing a large number of points in the free throw department every single night could be the difference that the Clippers failed to truly recognize when they shelled out huge money to keep Jordan in town two summers ago.
The Pistons went the same route with Drummond, centering their franchise around a player with one of the most serious weaknesses in the basketball world. If he continues to take a huge number of free throws (5th in the league in attempts last year), while still shooting in the 30s, it becomes very hard to see the Pistons really becoming a threat in the East. At the end of the day, the numbers will just never add up right.
4) Forward March
Marcus Morris
While the backcourt looks a little thin, especially with the injury to Jackson, the Pistons are loaded at the forward spot. Marcus Morris is a veteran, and a pure scorer, and a guy that seems to be taking on more of a leadership role within the team.
Tobias Harris was a Van Gundy trade steal last year. He’s 6’9”, he can shoot threes, and he made a remarkable 82 of 90 free throws as a Piston (91%). The knock on Harris during his five years in the NBA is that he can be a liability on the defensive end. But SVG praised the effort of Harris on that end of the floor as the year came to a close. It’s hard to tell exactly how good the Tennessee product can be here in Detroit. After all, he only appeared in 31 games (playoffs included) as a Piston. But athletic 6-foot-9 forwards that can bury triples and shoot like Chauncey from the line do not grow on trees.
And then there could be the best of the bunch, rising 2nd-year man Stanley Johnson. After just a single season at Arizona, Jackson went through an up-and-down rookie campaign, as is to be expected. He’d be in the starting unit every so often, then have a nice game off the bench, then he’d be out of the rotation. It was clear Stanley was still finding his footing in the league and figuring out what Van Gundy was looking for on the court. Then in the playoffs, it all seemed to come together.
During the four-game sweep at the hands of Cleveland, Johnson was probably the most competitive Detroit Piston. He defended LeBron James with vigor, attacked the rim at any opportunity, and shot the ball beautifully from three point land (6-of-10). It was the perfect springboard to launch Stanley into a breakout second year.
With Morris and Harris up front, and Caldwell-Pope locked in at the two, it doesn’t look like there will be a starting spot for the Stanimal anytime soon. But if he can bring that fire from the Cleveland series to the floor every night, the minutes will assuredly come and young Stanley will be on the floor often in the closing moments of many tight games.
5) The 8-Seed is Death
The last two playoff appearances for the Detroit Pistons were virtually identical.
2009: 8th Seed in East -- Swept by Cleveland 4-0
2016: 8th Seed in East -- Swept by Cleveland 4-0
Thankfully, the outlook for this year’s club is far more encouraging than that of the Michael Curry-Allen Iverson duo that inhabited the Palace back then. This 2016-17 edition has a proven NBA coach in Stan Van Gundy and a hungry, young roster teeming with potential.
The Pistons won 44 games last year. They qualified for the postseason for the first time in seven seasons. It was a crucial step for the franchise to at least appear in the playoffs again after such a long time away. The key now is to not just show your face at the party for a few minutes, but to actually grab a drink and settle into a spot on the couch. The only way that approach can take shape is if the Pistons climb out of that dreaded eight-spot.
You finish last among the playoff participants and that means you get the conference’s top dog. That’s a recipe for disaster. The Cavs will most likely finish first in the East again, and as we’ve seen throughout the career of one LeBron James, he does not exit the playoffs in the opening round. Even if the Pistons make a small improvement this year and jump one spot to the 7-seed, it will be meaningful.
Truthfully, however, this team is designed to do much more than that. Another 44-win season and a spot in the playoffs would be nice. But with the addition of Ish Smith and Jon Leuer (a 6’10” marksman to replace Anthony Tolliver), a full schedule for Tobias Harris, and the continued maturation of Drummond, Jackson, and Flavored Crust Pope, this squad cannot be satisfied with just mimicking last year’s accomplishments. An uptick to 48 or 49 wins and a trip to the second round of the playoffs should be minimum goals in Auburn Hills this season.
It has been 3,076 days since the Detroit Pistons won even a single playoff game. That balloon needs to pop, in a major way.
Just whatever you do, be sure not to finish as the 8-seed in the East. We’ve seen that horror show too many times.
We’re ready for something new.
