The 2015-16 NBA season starts soon, preseason hoops are in full swing, and playoff prognostications have begun in earnest. Because season previews can get bogged down by team-specific minutiae, and we cover every basketball team, we’re providing our readers reasons why you should care about all 30 teams in the Association.
DIME MAG’s 2015-16 NBA Season Previews
Stan Van Gundy has got another playmaker now in Reggie Jackson. But can the moody former Thunder guard really help usher in a possible mid-aught Pistons renaissance? Are the Pistons — pause — a playoff team? Letting Greg Monroe walk was smart, even if some scouts disagree, but will it really open things up as much as we’re imagining?
The floor was just super cramped in Detroit the last two years, particularly when Josh Smith was jockeying with Monroe and Andre Drummond for position. Smoove was waived last season, and the Pistons elected not to go after Monroe in free agency. Greg was offered a max deal by at least four teams, and decided to go with playoff-ready Milwaukee, but the Pistons are looking elsewhere for their offense now. It starts in their backcourt, and at center.
Stan found a lot of success back in Orlando with a team consisting of peak Dwight Howard, and four shooters — specifically guys like Hedo Turkoglu who could handle the ball and were tall enough to match up against opposing fours. We’re not saying SVG invented small ball or anything, but he knew his personnel would work best with four shooters around Dwight, keeping lanes open for dribble drives off the pick-and-roll and to feed the big man.
He might have that again after dealing for Ersan Ilyasova. But before he can implement his high-low offensive plan around Andre Drummond (another imposing big who can’t shoot free throws, so you can be sure SVG will be just as annoyed as ever), they’ll have to figure out their backcourt situation, which is dicier than you might think.
Reggie has looked pretty bad in preseason play, especially in the pick-and-roll half-court that’s so effective in the modern game. If he continues to flounder, when Brandon Jennings comes back — no earlier than mid-November — there could be a power struggle for control of the first-team’s offense.
Can Reggie Jackson and Brandon Jennings share the backcourt, and can either handle coming off the bench?
Right now, Reggie is the starter. Except, he looked awful in preseason play. Yes, it’s preseason, but it could portend a chaotic future and it might mean the wager SVG and Co. made on the former Boston College standout morphs into a lamentable decision. The way he’s flubbing pick-and-roll situations should be a real cause for concern.
He’s too focused on the iron, and that tunnel vision already seems to be rubbing Andre Drummond the wrong way. You gotta feed the giant on the block. Look at how awful Reggie played in pick-and-roll sets against Charlotte last Wednesday. In more than 31 minutes of action, Reggie was 3-of-15 from the floor, including 0-of-8 from downtown. He did end up with 11 dimes, but Detroit was minus-13 when he was on the court, the worst on the team. Forgive the quality here, but his abysmal finishing in the pick-and-roll can be seen, regardless.
On that first possession, after Reggie turns the corner on the double screen up top, Drummond has a pretty easy lane for an alley-oop dunk down the middle of the paint. Instead, Jackson floats a shot off the backboard that clanks off.
On the second pick-and-roll possession, he shirks the Drummond screen, which is fine, but then launches a three-pointer that comes up way short. You can almost see Drummond shaking his head.
On the third one, he gets stuck picking up his dribble too soon and has to throw it back to Marcus Morris, only to redo the same near-side pick-and-roll. He of course shoots it from the elbow and misses.
Listen, this wasn’t just an excuse to rip Reggie. But when Brandon Jennings comes back, play like this can lead to a mutiny.
Right now Reggie is — ostensibly, at least — Stan’s guy, and they’re gonna ride or die with him. But if Jennings can be more efficient, particularly in the pick-and-roll, what’s to prevent Jackson from putting up a stink about his retracted playing time, just like he did when Russell Westbrook came back in Oklahoma City?
And Jennings might not be content to come off the bench if he thinks he can help the team more by starting. This team is really intriguing, but not always for the most positive reasons.
How does stretch 4 Ersan Ilyasova affect the spacing for Andre Drummond, specifically his ability to work the pick-and-roll with Reggie?
Greg Monroe is a better player than Marcus Morris and Ersan Ilyasova. That much is clear to everyone who not only follows the Detroit Pistons, but the league at large, too. Max-level contracts aren’t just handed out to anyone, after all, and Monroe just received one from the Milwaukee Bucks. He’s no superstar, but is certainly an above-average starter at the very least – a distinction that definitely doesn’t apply to his “replacements” in Detroit.
Basketball, though, isn’t played in the vacuum of individual ability. All context matters, and especially when it comes to the team construct. Monroe didn’t fit the Pistons’; Morris and Ilyasova do. And that reality has everything to do with Stan Van Gundy’s roster and how he wants to play.
Monroe and franchise centerpiece Andre Drummond played the third-most minutes of any other Detroit tandem last season with 1,055. But their collective inability to space the floor, chase rangy big man on the perimeter, and corral guards in pick-and-roll situations made for a less than an optimum pairing on both ends of the floor. The result? Monroe and Drummond compiled a -1.7 net rating, right in line with the team’s season-long mediocrity.
Even if Monroe hadn’t grown cross-ways with the Pistons in contract negotiations before last season, the most likely result of Van Gundy’s appointment was still going to be his departure from the Motor City. Drummond isn’t just a more valuable player, but a younger one, too, and a reasonable facsimile of the hyper-athletic two-way force that Dwight Howard was during his Orlando Magic heyday.
The jury is still out on Drummond developing into the consistent post-up threat that Howard was for Van Gundy. He enjoyed middling success on the block last season, and seems unlikely to ever become a dominant player in that regard – despite his youth and obvious inexperience. But the 22-year-old is already an elite pick-and-roll dive man, and he and Reggie Jackson developed an obvious symbiosis on ball-screen situations following the latter’s trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder in late February.
Two pieces of the spread pick-and-roll puzzle, however, aren’t quite enough. And by letting Monroe walk, Van Gundy might have found another in the joint abilities of Morris and Ilyasova. Neither player will be confused for one the caliber Draymond Green or even Ryan Anderson; they’re closer to a middling quality a than an objectively superior one. But like their three-point shooting abilities will open the floor for Jackson and Drummond, the pick-and-roll dynamism of the latter pair will provide ample opportunities for Morris and Ilyasova to catch and shoot and attack aggressive close-outs. Basketball is a symbiosis, and Detroit seems to have the beginnings of it offensively.
There are still many questions to be answered, of course. Impressive rookie Stanley Johnson will see a fair share of minutes and could even force one of Morris or Ilyasova to the bench, while it still remains to be seen if Drummond is ready to be the all-encompassing defensive trump card that Van Gundy’s scheme warrants.
But the Pistons, at the very least, have their plan in place. And though implementing it meant an obvious loss of raw talent, it’s likely to spur team-wide improvement that’s far more important, too.
