featured-image

Pistons Mailbag - April 18, 2018

The lottery, Ish Smith, the injury histories of Reggie Jackson and Blake Griffin … we touch on a number of issues for the first off-season Pistons Mailbag of 2018.

Tyrell (@TJH8214): If the Pistons aren’t called at the 13th or 14th spot, does that mean they jumped into the top four and get to keep the pick?

Langlois: The only way the Pistons keep the pick this year is if they jump into the top three. The lottery system changes with the 2019 draft to determine the top four picks and that’s why the Pistons had the pick protected through the top four for 2018, 2019 and 2020, becoming unprotected in 2021. If they’re called 13th or 14th this year, it would be the biggest upset in lottery history because it would mean one or two (if they’re drawn 14th) teams jumped them against extraordinarily long odds. Denver, in the 14th spot, has a 0.3 percent chance to land the No. 1 pick and a 1.2 percent chance of a top-three pick. The Clippers, in 13th, have 0.6 and 2.2 percent chances. The Clippers in all likelihood will wind up picking 12th – that’s where the Pistons are slotted with 0.7 and 2.5 percent chances at No. 1 and a top-three pick – and 13th. If Denver and the Clippers are the first two names out of the hopper and anybody but the Pistons is the third, then the Pistons will get to keep their pick this season.

Brendan (@BrendanWelper): What are the chances that Eric Moreland returns next season?

Langlois: Unless he’s included in a trade, about as close to 100 percent as it gets. The Pistons have him on a veteran’s minimum contract and he proved capable of handling rotation minutes this season. In the season finale at Chicago, he had 16 points, 17 rebounds, four blocks, four steals and four assists. His per-36 minute rebound (12.4) and block (2.3) rates are solid and he’s got a 2:1 assists-to-turnover ratio, which is very good for a big man. He’s a plus defender and showed improvement as the season unfolded as a scorer after not looking at the basket for the first few months. He’s the kind of guy who might be the sweetener in a bigger trade for a team that needs a backup big man on a bargain contract, but other than that there’s no reason for the Pistons to not pick up the option on him for next season.

Ken (Dharamsala, India): Ish Smith is not a true backup point guard. He is a valuable niche player. With Reggie Jackson being prone to injury – it seems every NBA point guard is – wouldn’t it be wise to have an experienced, proven backup point guard on the roster? Also, do Dwight Buycks and Langston Galloway really fit that description?

Langlois: What defines a “true backup point guard?” Seems to me the guy who comes off the bench when the starting point guard sits is that guy. The term “true point guard” seems to get thrown around to define someone who assists baskets far more often than he scores them and that’s a relic of a long-bygone era. The guy who has the ball in his hands most often – and for most teams, the ones without singular talents like LeBron James, at least, that’s the point guard – must be someone who can create shots and that almost necessarily requires the ability to beat your man off the dribble or be unusually proficient at reading angles and openings on pick and rolls. In either case, it requires top-notch ballhandling ability. Unless the Pistons substantially remake the roster over the off-season, Jackson will be the starter and Smith will play every meaningful minute when he sits. In an NBA where the salary cap didn’t exist and the Pistons could throw money at every potential problem, they’d add (or attempt to, at least) another top-50ish point guard to give them three players that everyone would agree is worthy of a rotation spot and thus protect themselves in the event of another serious injury to Jackson. (Keep reading for some thoughts on that issue.) Maybe I’m misinterpreting your premise. I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that a “valuable niche player” is more important than a “true backup point guard,” but if that’s the case I’d argue that the backup point guard is probably the most important player on the bench of most teams. Because it’s such a demanding position, the backup point guard is going to get significant minutes. Even when Jackson is healthy, it wouldn’t be unusual for there to be a 28-20 or even a 26-22 minutes split. Buycks is a capable No. 3 point guard, at minimum, and had stretches where he looked like a solid backup. He can score and penetrate. Until Smith showed a remarkable spike in 3-point attempts and efficiency late in the season, Buycks provided more shooting range. He ran into stretches where turnovers were an issue. It was the longest stretch of exposure he’d had in his various NBA auditions, so maybe he’ll come back a more accomplished player for training camp. He’s also 29, so there’s less of an assumption that he’ll take the next step than there would be if he were 24 or 25. Stan Van Gundy tried Langston Galloway a few times at point guard. The sample size was too small for me to draw any meaningful conclusions, but it’s clear he’s viewed as a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency at that spot. The trade for Jameer Nelson reinforced that view.

Kevin (Farmington Hills, Mich.): Reggie Jackson and Blake Griffin have missed so many games in their careers due to injuries. I’m curious to your thoughts on the term “injury prone.” Are the Pistons basing their hopes and future on “injury prone” players? Is this something Tom Gores wonders at night?

Langlois: Tom Gores built a pretty impressive business empire on a model that essentially identifies what failing businesses (risk) offer the greatest potential return (reward). So I doubt he spends many restless nights worrying about future injury risks with two of his three most important players based on the nature of their histories. I’m not really buying the “Reggie Jackson is injury prone” argument based on two unrelated injuries in consecutive seasons for a guy who’d played 80, 77 and 79 games the three seasons before that. (I’ve never seen it suggested, at least, that Jackson’s left knee tendinitis in the fall of 2016 caused a sprained ankle 15 months later.) Griffin has a longer injury history, but the majority of them seem more flukey than anything else. And I don’t know that any of his injuries amount to anything close to degenerative. The injuries that would make you squeamish about taking on a contract of Griffin’s magnitude would be chronic knee, foot or back injuries, I would think. I’m sure the Philadelphia 76ers were more than a little leery about the contract they committed to Joel Embiid when he, in fact, had injuries to all three areas – foot, back and knee. For a guy who probably flirts with 280 pounds – not buying the listed weight of 250 – those are truly worrisome injuries. Griffin’s had enough of those flukey injuries to make you wonder if it’s something more than coincidence and they’re troubling in that some have caused him to miss significant chunks of games. But I don’t see anything in there that predicts he’ll continue to miss games. The fractured kneecap that cost him what should have been his rookie season in 2009-10 is arguably the most serious injury, but he played hundreds of games after that without incident. The torn quadriceps cost him plenty of games, but muscles generally heal fully and there’s been no recurrences since it affected his 2015-16 season. A broken hand shouldn’t instill much fear for his future. He had a minor cleanup procedure on his knee in December 2016 that sidelined him about a month. A toe injury cut short that season – again, no suggestion it would have lingering impact. This year, he missed two segments of the season – a sprained MCL in his knee while with the Clippers, a fairly benign injury, and a bone bruise of the ankle to end the season with the Pistons. Again, neither should have any long-term impact. I don’t know of any way to minimize the risk of further seemingly unrelated injuries. Griffin impressed Pistons coaches and teammates with his diligence and work ethic over his two-plus months following the trade, so if there’s anything to be done to address injury prevention over the off-season they’ll be assured Griffin will take all measures to do so. And then cross their fingers. Like all teams do. There’s a reckoning to be had somewhere in the weeds for why – in an era of ever more sophisticated training and nutrition information gathering and application – injuries seem to be increasing across the NBA.

Nick (@NickSpencer45): Do you see us getting a scoring small forward this off-season?

Langlois: I think it’s reasonable to assume that a wish list for the Pistons off-season would include a legitimate option at small forward – to compete with Stanley Johnson for minutes if Johnson isn’t used as part of a trade – who provides a more reliable 3-point shooting threat than Johnson has yet been able to muster. The Pistons have two 40-plus percent 3-point shooters who’ll probably combine to play at least 60 minutes a game next season in Reggie Bullock and Luke Kennard, and that means one of them is going to split minutes at shooting guard and small forward. That still leaves another 36 minutes at the two wing positions. It’s not out of the question that Bullock, Kennard and Johnson will rotate over the two positions, but the Pistons are going to want to add a fourth wing player capable of handling major minutes (and a fifth, as well, to give them some injury protection). Johnson, still 21, has as much room for growth as anyone on the roster, but he hasn’t shown much progress as a 3-point shooter over this three seasons. With Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin entrenched at the two power positions, it’s become even more critical that the Pistons surround them with shooting. Stan Van Gundy expects that with a full summer available to work out for Reggie Jackson – unlike last off-season, when his training protocol for the left knee injury that curtailed his 2016-17 season limited him to rehab work for the bulk of the summer – that his 3-point stroke will return to 2015-16 form when he was a league-average shooter. If Johnson takes a leap to that level – he’s gone from .307 to .292 to .286 in three years, so the trend line is going the wrong way – the Pistons become a much tougher team to guard. James Ennis will be a free agent and, given the limited cap dollars the Pistons have, he’ll likely be on the short list. He’s a career .359 3-point shooter who’d a solid defender and Van Gundy spoke well of him as the season ended, so a return wouldn’t be a surprise.

Keep Sleepin (@OneAndOnly_25): Are there any possible trades the Pistons can make to get back in the first round of the draft?

Langlois: I’m going to change “possible” to “likely” and the answer is, no. I probably would have said the same even before the trade for Blake Griffin – it’s awfully hard to trade into the first round – but it’s more pronounced now. The timetable for the Pistons is the next two seasons while Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson are under contract and in the prime of their careers. The price for trading into the first round would be steep and cut into the assets the Pistons are going to lean on to help those three field a team they expect can win 50 games if everyone stays healthy. My best guess is that the asset that would enable the Pistons to even tempt someone to trade a first-round pick would be Luke Kennard. He has three years left on his rookie contract and he’s already a productive player, which is both what would tempt a team to trade a No. 1 pick and why the Pistons would be most unlikely to want to deal him away. If the Pistons were in a different place and looking to spin off costly veterans for the more speculative futures of cheaper young players, then I’m sure they’d be testing the waters to see about picking up a No. 1 pick.

Jeremy (@jbeauregard13): What can be done about the Pistons’ horrible defense? Great defense has always been a staple with Pistons basketball.

Langlois: They finished 11th in defensive efficiency with a rating of 104.8 – that means they gave up 104.8 points per 100 possessions. Eleventh is better than average, obviously, so “horrible” is simply an inaccurate descriptive. Washington finished 15th – the bottom rung in the upper half of NBA defenses – with a rating of 106.2, so the Pistons were as close to the No. 5 team, Toronto (103.4) as they were to the 15th team. In other words, the Pistons were just as close to being an elite defensive team as they were to being an average one. Offense was their biggest issue and that traces almost directly to losing Reggie Jackson for 37 games (and the subsequent dropoff from Ish Smith to players who filled the backup position when he was pressed into a starting role). The Pistons finished with the 19th-ranked offense (104.9). But, to your point, Stan Van Gundy said after the season that one of his major points of emphasis to the team in their year-end meeting was to become an even better defensive team. He pointed to the examples of Boston and Miami, which finished 18th and 20th on offense – sandwiching the Pistons – yet overcame injuries to make the playoffs because each had a top-10 defense.

Alex (@AlexBrosaen): Is a mid-range jumper what Andre Drummond most urgently needs to add to his game?

Langlois: That wouldn’t be my marching orders to him as he draws up his summer priority list. Would it be great if Drummond suddenly developed a reliable scoring mechanism from 15 feet out? Well, sure. Is it something likely that he could become proficient at over the course of an off-season? No. I remember talking about adding a go-to post move once with Roy Rogers, an assistant coach for the Pistons under Lawrence Frank who now serves on Mike D’Antoni’s staff in Houston. He talked about how it took him several seasons to hone a move to the point where he felt comfortable that it could be used with any degree of effectiveness in an NBA game. I’m sure Stan Van Gundy would answer this – sure because I’ve heard him address it in various forms many times over the past four years – by saying the way Drummond can best help the Pistons win more games is to concentrate on rebounding, blocking shots, defending the pick and roll consistently well, running the floor and crashing the rim hard on rolls and missed shots. Van Gundy has said a hundred times that when Drummond brings effort and energy in volume to games, that’s when he’s at his best. Making jump shots? Analytics will tell you the mid-range shot is the least efficient in the game. If you’re going to take them, you’ve got to make it at a better than 50 percent clip in an era where the league average is 36 percent from the 3-point arc. Drummond is unlikely to go from novice to 50 percent plus from mid-range anytime soon. He did show a somewhat promising push shot – something akin to a floater – from 10 feet and in over the final weeks of the season, as did Eric Moreland. That can be a decent weapon.