2015/16 Team Preview: Detroit Pistons

Additions: Aron Baynes, Steve Blake, Reggie Bullock, Ersan Ilyasova, Marcus Morris, Anthony Tolliver

Three years ago, it looked like the Bucks were ready to build their team around Ersan Ilyasova. He was a 24-year-old, 6’10” power forward that could not only rebound but could spread the floor with his shooting. He appeared to be one of the better young fours in the league and a big part of the Bucks future… Of course that was three years ago, and the team also hoped to build around Brandon Jennings. Now they’re both in Detroit. What happened? The Bucks drafted guys like John Henson, Giannis Antetokuonmpo, Khris Middleton, Jabari Parker, etc. and decided to take the team in a different, more successful direction. Sadly, Ilyasova hasn’t looked like the player the Bucks once thought they had recently. He shot the three-ball at a 45.5% clip in 2011/12 (second best in the NBA), but shot 28.2% and 38.9% in 2013/14 and 2014/15 respectively. Ilyasova’s rebounding numbers have also slipped. After grabbing 8.8 RPG in 2011/12, Ersan’s rebounding fell each subsequent year (7.1 in 2012/13, 6.2 in 2013/14, and 4.8 in 2014/15). Adding insult to injury (pun intended), Ilyasova has struggled to get on the floor as well as he’s only played in 113 games over the last two years. However, Illy is just 27 years old and there’s no reason to think he can’t restart his career in a new place. Undoubtedly, he’ll get minutes in Detroit, and if he can stay healthy, he should be able to contribute to a team searching for an identity.

Subtractions: Caron Butler, John Lucas III, Cartier Martin, Quincy Miller, Tayshaun Prince, Shawne Williams

Wow! In fairness, the Pistons didn’t lose much. Caron Butler and Shawne Williams were sent to Milwaukee in the Ilyasova deal, and Lucas, Martin, and Miller are glorified D-Leaguers. Which leaves Tayshaun Prince. Truth be told, I was thinking Prince was gonna retire this summer. Not because he’s a bum or anything like that, he can still contribute to an NBA team. I just didn’t think he wanted to prolong this thing. Although he was never an All-Star, he was a major contributor to the Pistons during their glory days helping them win a ring and playing in all 82 games in six of this first seven seasons. Prince is perhaps best known for his length that allowed him to guard bigger forwards throughout his career. In his heyday, he routinely averaged 14 points off 46% shooting on a team that didn’t really run any plays for him. Outside of veteran leadership, he may not be able to offer much to the Timberwolves, but from an organizational perspective, the Pistons will miss Tayshaun Prince.

Rookies: Darrun Hilliard, Stanley Johnson

A lot of people thought Stanley Johnson was a steal when the Pistons selected him 8^th overall last June—I’ve even heard some rookie of the year talk. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Stanley Johnson will not be Rookie of the Year; Emmanuel Mudiay will be (or god willing, Jahlil Okafor). I just know it won’t be D’Angelo Russell. Back to Johnson, he’s just not polished enough on the offensive end to win the award—but that doesn’t mean he’s not gonna make a positive impact. Johnson already has a great NBA body; he’s exceptionally strong for 19 years old and has great length (6’11” wingspan). He can utilize his size to guard positions one through four, and most guards will find it difficult to muscle up with him. He’s got a strong motor and he doesn’t quit. Johnson’s jumper is still improving and he’s a slasher, so he should be able to contribute in an offense that can create opportunities for him. Some are comparing him to Kawhi Leonard in hopes that he can become a legitimate two-way player, but again, his offense has a way to go before that happens. Right now, he’s gonna earn his minutes through tough defense and aggressive rebounding. Luckily, the Pistons have plenty of other scoring options allowing Johnson to come along at his own pace.

Guards: I know I already called Reggie Jackson “the worst free agent signing of 2015” and that’s a statement I will have to stand by, good or bad. With that said, I never implied Jackson was a scrub, I just thought the price was outrageously high considering his similar skill set to Brandon Jennings and the seemingly poor way he left Oklahoma City. You can read my previous article if you wanna know what I don’t like about Jackson, but for now, let’s concentrate on what he can do… Jackson averaged 17.6 PPG, 9.2 APG, and 4.7 RPG in 27 games with the Pistons last season. His ability not only to score, but to make plays for others should have a positive effect on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Stanley Johnson, and Ersan Ilyasova. Last season, Jackson developed an excellent rapport with the Pistons’ best player Andre Drummond. Although he’s only been a Piston since February, Jackson’s going to have to be the team’s de facto leader. He’s not a particularly good shooter—he’s shot less than 30% from three and 43.2% from the field over his career and he’s not a particularly good defender either. Yet, if he can score in bunches and make his teammates better, he might even be able to take Detroit to their first playoff appearance since 2008/09. The Pistons also acquired Steve Blake this summer seemingly as an insurance policy after watching Brandon Jennings go down last season. Blake is what he is—a 35-year old point guard who’s on his eighth team and scored 4.3 PPG last season. If you wanna somehow get excited about him, he’s a good passer, okay shooter, and he’ll add a veteran presence to an otherwise very young locker room. I love Brandon Jennings! I thought he turned the corner last year becoming the Pistons’ leader after they waived Josh Smith. Jennings has often been labeled as a shoot-first, pass-second guard (fairly or unfairly), but his play in January and February of last season showed otherwise. The Pistons were 12-3 prior to the game that he went down with a torn ACL. In his last full game prior to his injury, Jennings scored 21 points off 10-for-21 shooting, and dished out 21 assists. A torn ACL has historically been a tough injury to recover from, but with Jennings being so young, I’m remaining optimistic.

Forwards: Ilyasova will start at the 4 and when he’s at his best, should spread the floor. Backing him up, the Pistons have Anthony Tolliver, a veteran shooter who’s averaged one three and 6.2 points over his seven-year career. Over the summer, the Phoenix Suns attempted to make cap room to sign LaMarcus Aldridge. In doing so, they sent Marcus Morris, Danny Granger, and Reggie Bullock to Detroit for a future second-round pick. Morris is yet another forward who can knock down the three point shot. He can also be an aggressive rebounder. Morris brother #2 may have a breakout season under SVG and his open court system. The aforementioned Stanley Johnson will add some strength at the small forward and Reggie Bullock rounds out the front-court.

Centers: Andre Drummond is a beast and this is going to be his breakout year. Welcome to the All-Star game, Andre Drummond! The 6’11”, 279 lb. center might be one of the most athletic bigs in the league. He’s not much of a shooter, but he also takes 75% of his shots within three feet of the hoop, so he should shoot a relatively high percentage rom the field. Last season, he averaged 13.8 points to go with his 13.5 rebounds. I don’t think there’s any reason to think he couldn’t be a 16/16 guy this season. It appears Van Gundy is implementing a similar strategy to what he used in Orlando. With the Magic, Van Gundy utilized Dwight Howard’s size and strength in the middle and surrounded him with shooters. Similarly, he will look to surround Drummond with shooters such as Reggie Jackson, KCP, Marcus Morris, Ilyasova, etc. The days of Drummond banging with Josh Smith and Greg Monroe are done—for all intents and purposes, this is Andre Drummond’s team. By all accounts, the Pistons overpaid for Aron Baynes, who will back up Drummond. Joel Anthony may see a few DNP-CD’s.

Final thoughts: I really like this Pistons team! I think they’re gonna take the jump we’ve been waiting for over the least three seasons and finally make the playoffs. Are they gonna win a playoff series? Slow down… Like I said before, SVG is gonna implement a similar system to what he ran in Orlando—put Drummond in the middle and surround him with lights out shooters. Although Greg Monroe and his contributions should be missed, they probably won’t be. Monroe’s style of play would not have been conducive to what the Pistons are gonna do moving forward… I’m not sure what’s gonna happen with Brandon Jennings. I love him, but the Pistons have already committed to Reggie Jackson. Because Jennings is in his last contract year, if he’s healthy at the deadline, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got dealt… I think Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is gonna step up this year and become a solid 3-and-D guy… Some people are expecting Stanley Johnson to be an ROY candidate but I don’t see that happening… Andre Drummond will be an All-Star this season.

Reggie Jackson: The Worst Free Agent Signing of the 2015 Summer

What would NBA free agency be without lists of winners and losers five days after the moratorium was lifted? Winners are cool. Any dummy can tell you the Spurs had a good offseason—they managed to convince LaMarcus Aldridge to leave Portland; they signed David West to a one-year deal for the vet’s minimum (despite reports that he was offered more than $10 million to play elsewhere); and convinced Tim Duncan to play an NBA season for less than $5 mill… I’m not going to rate the teams’ offseason performances from 1-30 (not now, I will later…), but let’s just say the Spurs fared better than the Knicks… or the Blazers… and definitely the Kings.

Nonetheless, this isn’t a team discussion; today we will focus on an individual. Last year, I declared the Orlando’s signing of Ben Gordon to a 2-yr/$9 million deal the worst free agent signing of the summer. Despite the relatively low price and the non-guaranteed second year, the signing still made completely no sense. You can go back and read my reasoning in my original article, but the consensus was that Ben Gordon is a bum… and last year, his 6.2 PPG and less than one assist per did nothing to convince me otherwise. His 10.6 PER was also the lowest mark of his career (excluding his 2013/14 season with Charlotte in which he played 19 games and was more or less told to leave the team). Yikes! They may only be out $4.5 million but it was a waste of time and energy. The Magic, of course, decided against bringing Gordon back next season. But just for fun, let’s see what otherwise very intelligent Magic GM Rob Hennigan had to say regarding Gordon after signing him in 2014.

“Ben brings valuable experience to our team,” said Magic general manager Rob Hennigan in a statement Friday. “His competitiveness and ability to score and stretch the floor adds versatility to our backcourt and overall roster. We are excited to welcome Ben to the Orlando Magic family.”

Haha. I find it hard to believe that he believed that when he said it one year ago. How else was it supposed to end? So the question remains, who is the worst free agent signing of this summer? We had a lot of contenders. Many people feel the Dallas Mavericks reached a little too far and signing Wes Matthews to a max deal worth 4-yr/$70 million. Admittedly, it seems a little high for a guy coming off a rather debilitating ACL injury. Others believe the Thunder overreached when they decided to match Portland’s offer sheet to Enes Kanter for 4 years at $70 million, but considering the Thunder’s current roster and the belief they will be competitive for years to come, this might not be the worst deal.

The worst free agency signing of this summer was of course the Detroit Pistons agreeing to give Reggie Jackson a 5-yr/$80 million. I’m okay with the Pistons letting Greg Monroe leave (for free), but this might be the worst Pistons’ summer since the summer of 2009 when they decided to give Charlie Villanueva and last year’s winner Ben Gordon a combined $90 million (Holy shit! That deal is staggering).

Okay, assuming this deal screams “bad contract,’ let’s try to find the positives in this clinically insane transaction. First of all, Reggie Jackson is only 25 years old and has generally improved in each of his four NBA seasons. After landing in Detroit via trade last March, Jackson averaged an impressive 17.6 PPG, 9.2 APG, and 4.3 RPG in 27 games. Undoubtedly, he does some things well. He can certainly score and is a willing passer. He played particularly well with Andre Drummond during his stint in Detroit last year, and with Greg Monroe in Milwaukee, he should have considerably more spacing. He’s also a very solid rebounder As Nekias Duncan notes, although Jackson’s numbers in Detroit (27 games) reflect a limited sample size, only eight players have averaged at least 17-9-4 for an entire season in the last 25 years: Chris Paul (5x), Rod Strickland (3x), Magic Johnson, Steve Nash, John Wall, Tim Hardaway, Deron Williams, and Damon Stoudamire (again, note the limited sample size).

Furthermore, supporters of this deal (much like the Kanter deal) will point to the fact that it’s not a “true max deal” as the salary cap will increase in two years. Currently, his $16 million deal takes up almost 23% of this year’s cap ($70M), but in 2017/18, that same contract will only take up 14.8% of the cap. Granted, the percentages don’t sound too bad in two years, but for the first two years, Jackson will be making the same amount of money as John Wall. He’ll actually be making more than Steph Curry ($12.1M) and Kyle Lowry ($12M) as well. While I’m not blaming Detroit for their inability to draft and retain Steph Curry, I’m just saying R-Jax was certainly no bargain. To his credit, Jackson turned down a 4-yr/$48 million extension the previous summer and certainly maximized his earning potential. Still, it’s crazy to think that Jimmy Butler signed a 5-yr/$90 million deal and Draymond Green signed a 5-yr/$82 million deal earlier this month. I have no problems stating that Reggie Jackson isn’t yet on that Butler, Green level… But now he’s getting paid like them.

Money aside, I’m just not in love with Reggie Jackson or his game. He’s a somewhat lackluster shooter (he’s shot less than 30% from three over his career) and he’s far from an elite defender. Furthermore, some believe he completely mishandled his situation. Jackson, who was vocal in his belief that he can start in the NBA (which I’m fine with him stating and/or believing), was not getting along with his teammates. Here are a few quotes from Kevin Durant (by all accounts, an excellent teammate) and Russell Westbrook pertaining to Jackson’s exit in OKC.

Kevin Durant on Reggie Jackson…

“We felt like everybody wanted to be here except for one guy…”

Russell Westbrook discussing Scotty Brooks managing the locker room…

“Obviously, he can’t make players do things they don’t want to do. With the group of guys that we had on our team and the guys that wanted to be here, I thought he did a great job keeping the boat afloat and helping us find a way to be able to have a chance at making the playoffs.”

But perhaps ESPN’s Royce Young explained the breakdown in OKC best…

The trade request was the final straw, but Jackson’s play spoke louder than anything. A premier finisher, the 24-year-old stopped attacking the basket with regularity, attempting 5.1 shots per 48 minutes in the restricted area this season compared to 6.1 last season. He stopped the ball, searching for long step-back jumpers (he’s taken 110 shots from 15-19 feet this season; he took 99 all of last season). He annoyed teammates with his constant buzzer-clutching, holding on to the ball instead of heaving from long distance at the end of a quarter. He was often nothing more than a traffic cone defensively. Jackson went from a game-changing Sixth Man of the Year candidate to an inconsistent liability at times.

I mean, if you’re getting traded in a deal for Dion Waiters because OKC needs “a better locker room guy” and “someone less selfish,” what does that say about you? Furthermore, as I’ve stated HUNDREDS of times on this blog, point guard is the deepest position in the NBA. Point blank, period. And while I believe Jackson is a top-30 point guard in this league, I’m not quite sold that he’s in the top-15. Last year, Jackson ranked 19^th in PER and 44^th in true shooting percentage amongst point guards. To his credit, however, Jackson was in the top-15 in both value added estimated wins added.

For many of the same reasons I’ve stated, SI’s Ben Golliver isn’t a fan of the signing either…

“Regardless, this seems like too much money. Jackson is a below-average three-point shooter, a mediocre finisher at the rim, and a fine but not otherworldly passer. He’s not particularly physical, he’s not a high-volume free-throw shooter, and he was a minus defender last year. The catch-all advanced stats don’t hate Jackson, but they don’t really love him, either…He’s a big cut below the top 10 point guards in the league when it comes to the eye test.”

I must admit, one of my first thoughts when I read about Jackson’s signing was, “Wasn’t Brandon Jennings the best player on Detroit last season?” Don’t get me wrong, Reggie Jackson is the point guard of the future in Detroit, which is bad for news for Brandon Jennings. After last season’s Josh Smith giveaway, Jennings, also 25, was the team’s best player during the team’s impressive 12-4 run averaging 19.8 PPG and 6.8 APG. Note that while Jackson averaged similar numbers in Detroit, the Pistons were 10-17 with Jackson in the lineup. It’s unfortunate for Jennings that at the exact moment when he was playing the best ball of his career and showed signs of becoming the type of player who could actually make his teammates better, he went down with a full Achilles tear. Tough break—let’s just say there isn’t a long list of players that have come back from a full tear to play at their previous level. Best of luck, BJ, wherever you land next.

While researching this article, writers continuously referred to the Piston’s signing of Jackson as a “leap of faith.” I couldn’t agree more—Jackson’s certainly not getting the $80 million for what he’s done in the past. This contract is for the player they hope he becomes. I just don’t think it’s gonna happen, but hey, I’ve been right about guys and I’ve been wrong about others. But what’s the opposite of leap of faith… leap of disbelief? I’m taking a leap of disbelief in regards to this contract…