Brandon Jennings is back – bringing to an end one of Pistons Mailbag’s persistent ongoing discussions. On with Mailbag …
Dean (@DeanHamrick): Do you think the 0-10 stretch last year while getting Reggie Jackson acclimated affected SVG’s decision on Jennings? Is it GM SVG vs. Coach SVG?
Langlois: I think he was legitimately reluctant to make the switch at a time that Steve Blake and the second unit had found a pretty nice rhythm and were providing solid minutes but also aware that Jennings, at his peak, could give the Pistons a boost – and aware that he’ll need to play him to get him back to his peak. The 0-10 stretch that came after the trade for Reggie Jackson last year had a few causes and, sure, Jackson getting acclimated to new teammates – and playing with two big men for the first time, in particular – was a very big part of that. But there were other factors. The team had to adjust to losing two 3-point shooters from the starting lineup, D.J. Augustin and Kyle Singler, and to playing with a new point guard and a new starting small forward (Tayshaun Prince). They also had a West Coast trip thrown in there that the Pistons had struggled with for the last several seasons. Jennings, who made his debut in Tuesday’s loss to the Knicks, is coming back to several new teammates, true, but he’s been in Van Gundy’s system and has been around the team all season. The fact that the East is so jammed up right now means teams just don’t have a big margin for error. Van Gundy surely had to weigh the risk of costing the team a game or two now, while Jennings acclimates himself to a new role and simply getting back to a comfort zone with NBA-level competition, vs. the reward of what the payoff could be over the second half of the season with Jennings playing up to or close to last January’s heights. Their loss to the Knicks, though, had nothing to do with their backup point guard and everything to do with their struggling defense, as I wrote.
D (@_payme_ingold): Now that Eric Bledsoe is injured, do you think the Pistons would trade Brandon Jennings for Markieff Morris?
Langlois: That would be a trade with no shortage of attendant storylines, D. You’d have a reunion of the Morris twins in Detroit and a marriage of two guys in Phoenix, Brandon Knight and Brandon Jennings, once traded for each other. Phoenix has shown an affinity for hoarding point guards – remember how eyebrows were raised across the NBA when a team that already had Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe signed Isaiah Thomas a free agent? – and there’s a need for any type of backcourt depth with Bledsoe out for the season. The pieces of information critical to answering your question are whether the Suns are truly ready to move on from Markieff Morris after disciplining him for insubordination and, if so, what other offers they might get and, further, what their goals are. If it’s getting a player who can plug an immediate hole but giving them more cap space this summer, then Jennings would be a perfect fit with his expiring contract and proven ability as an NBA starting point guard. But if the Suns want the same type of player control coming back that they have with Morris, who’s on the first year of a four-year contract, then other offers would be more suitable. And we haven’t even considered what the Pistons might want. Keep in mind, Stan Van Gundy has said he’s spoken to Jennings about a future beyond this season with the Pistons and his vision for how he would fit as a key piece along with Reggie Jackson and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the backcourt. The Pistons might have long-term interest in addressing power forward, but Van Gundy likes the tandem of Ersan Ilyasova and Anthony Tolliver right now and might be hesitant to cause in-season disruption for the second straight year. They’ll have the cap space, certainly, to look for upgrades or depth at power forward in the off-season. But it’s certainly an idea that they would bat around if it comes to that. Their salaries are an ideal match, which eliminates one big consideration.
Pawel (Warsaw, Poland): There is a lot of talk about trading Brandon Jennings and the Knicks could use backcourt help. On the other hand, the Pistons seem to need another shooting guard and possibly a power forward. Could the Pistons trade for Amir Johnson and Arron Afflalo? The main parts they would have to deal are Jennings and Jodie Meeks. Do you think these ex-Pistons would help the team now? And do you see a possible trade involving these players?
Langlois: Boston has more than enough depth already, Pawel. If the Celtics are hitting the trade market, the logical deal would see them packaging some of that depth to get a player they see as a clear upgrade at a particular position. My guess is the Celtics are content to bide their time – they’re playing pretty well as it is – and let their cache of draft-pick assets work for them in the off-season. Afflalo is a guy that most playoff contenders would have an interest in obtaining, I would imagine. He’s known as one of the most conscientious and reliable players in the league. He’s had some injury concerns the past few seasons, but is healthy and playing well now. I don’t see a fit there, though. The Knicks don’t have much of a depth chart behind him at shooting guard with Sasha Vujacic the only other natural two on the roster and Langston Galloway, a point guard in stature, now filling in behind Afflalo. I know Jennings has been linked to the Knicks as a trade target – in the same way seemingly every player with an uncertain role on his team gets linked to the Knicks simply because the vortex of New York media sucks everything into its maw. But the Knicks have two young players – Galloway and Jerian Grant – behind veteran Jose Calderon. Hard for me to buy that Phil Jackson – whose history shows a preference for point guards with plus size – would be clamoring for another point guard, and a smallish one at that, given his roster makeup right now.
Mo (@Gimme_SomeMO_): Even though we could improve, wouldn’t major off-season moves hurt the growing chemistry? Isn’t development the best way?
Langlois: There’s a line to walk, Mo, but I don’t think Stan Van Gundy feels like there are no moves left to be made to pull the Pistons into the group of teams that can legitimately compete for an NBA championship. When owner Tom Gores talked to Andre Drummond about the pros of delaying his contract extension until next July to give the Pistons nearly an additional $13 million in cap room, we can only assume it was with the intention of making significant additions to the roster. Van Gundy is cognizant of the benefits of continuity – he mentions it wistfully when the Pistons play teams like Atlanta, Chicago or Toronto that have had their cores intact for multiple seasons – and there are at least a handful of players he considers among his core. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t part with one in the right trade, but the Pistons could make “major off-season moves” – your words – without having to break up the core. Their cap space will allow them to supplement that core – and supplement probably is too tame a word for what more than $20 million in cap space offers them – on the free-agent market. Many teams, of course, will have ample cap room in July given the spike coming in the salary cap. But how many will be able to sell a 22-year-old (likely) All-Star center and so many other key pieces 26 or younger (Reggie Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris, Stanley Johnson, perhaps Brandon Jennings even) plus a coach who’s taken a team to the NBA Finals? Among the many other reasons the Pistons would love to crash the playoff party this season, having that to show free agents as another piece of evidence of their progress since Gores hired Van Gundy 19 months ago would help.
Darrell (Detroit): I recall Shaq’s coaches as being willing to live and die with Shaq remaining in the game while the Hack-a-Shaq tactic was employed. I don’t see those teams winning four championships by electing to take Shaq out of the game, absent rest or foul trouble. Isn’t coach Van Gundy playing right into the hands of the opposing coaches by taking Drummond out, since the primary goal is to get Drummond out of the game? It’s not as though the team plays better with Drummond sitting on the bench, so why not live and die with Hack-a-Drummond?
Langlois: O’Neal was a .527 career foul shooter, Darrell. Andre Drummond is a career .393 foul shooter. Big difference. If he would hit half his free throws, I don’t think you’d see Van Gundy taking him out. When you say “the primary goal is to get Drummond out of the game,” I don’t think it is. I think the primary goal is to help the other team win the game. The other coach is just fine with Drummond staying in if he’s going to hit closer to 1 of 3 than 1 of 2 foul shots. If a coach is pretty sure the Pistons are going to get just two points for every three possessions, he’ll gladly live with Drummond staying on the floor. Van Gundy, remember, coached both O’Neal and Dwight Howard. He didn’t take Howard out of the game very often, he says, because Howard – a career .571 foul shooter who has never shot worse than .491 for a season – would bear down even harder on defense. No matter how rough his night was going at the foul line, as long as Orlando’s lead wasn’t evaporating while he struggled, Van Gundy wasn’t taking him out. An average NBA team scores a little more than one point per possession; if any foul shooter can make even slightly more than 50 percent of his shots, the strategy becomes a loser. So O’Neal and Howard, over the course of their careers, effectively nullified the strategy. Shooting less than 40 percent makes it a much easier call for the opposing coach – and clearly forces the hand of the coach of such a player.
Atiba (Beaver Creek, Ohio): I’ve always liked Bobby Portis in the draft. I didn’t even mind our spot in the draft because I knew the Pistons would have a great chance of getting him before they picked Stanley Johnson. Though I do not regret this decision, I still love Portis. It looks like the Bulls are starting to recognize what they have in him. Is it too late to try to pry him from them for cheap?
Langlois: They were never going to pry him from the Bulls for cheap this early into his career, Atiba. The Bulls didn’t draft him in June only to sour on him in October. They drafted him understanding he wasn’t going to play ahead of the very accomplished veterans they already had in the frontcourt. And Stan Van Gundy and his scouting staff liked Portis, too. Van Gundy talked about Portis in preseason as one of the few players who had the potential to score in the post and from the 3-point line. He liked how hard Portis played at Arkansas, too. The Bulls have both Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah coming up on free agency. Portis is very likely to find a permanent spot in their rotation as soon as next season, if not sooner.
Randy (Rochester, Mich.): While you may think Kumar is overreacting, fact of the matter is free throws are a huge problem. See the game against Atlanta, too – 67 percent free throws by others on the team. You are not going to win if you cannot make free throws. Also, not necessarily in this case, but it would be good to read your Mailbags if you were fairer in your comments against a pure one-sided, biased response to questions posed to you.
Langlois: Kumar cited the Chicago game as an example to support his contention that poor free-throw shooting was a team-wide problem. I pointed out that if you removed Andre Drummond’s totals, the team shot better than the NBA average and that the three players on the team who shot foul shots most frequently after Drummond all were above the league average. I don’t see foul shooting as a team-wide problem. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a handful of games over the course of a season when they both lose and shoot under the league average at the line. Pretty sure you can find similar examples for every team this side of Golden State – and only then because the Warriors might not lose a handful of games, for any reason, all season. Teams that shoot 75 percent as an average at the line are going to have games where they shoot 90 percent and others where they shoot 60 percent. I’ve seen dozens of NBA coaches ply their trade over the years; I don’t recall one who had any revolutionary way to address his team’s foul shooting. They all work on it. As for my fairness in answering Mailbag questions, I try to address each one fairly with some combination of analysis, observation and greater access to information from Pistons decision makers and players than Pistons fans and Mailbag questioners. If and when I fail at that, please point it out specifically and I’ll attempt to do it better the next time.
Scott (@brodiegames): Do you think we’ll see Stanley Johnson in the starting lineup before the end of the season? He’s playing well enough to get more run.
Langlois: Being put in the starting lineup isn’t always about one player being better than another, but about what’s best for the team. Some guys get taken out of the starting lineup because it better balances the two units, starters and bench. I suppose it would be a consideration to move Marcus Morris and his scoring ability to the bench, but keep in mind that Johnson splits his minutes between shooting guard and small forward and right now the two guys the Pistons have at those spots, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Marcus Morris, have consistently ranked in the top five in the NBA in minutes played this season at 36-plus. It’s very tough to get that many minutes for anybody when he starts each half on the bench. If you brought Morris or Caldwell-Pope off the bench midway through the first and third quarters, they’d have to play 18 minutes straight to finish each half to get the same playing time they get now. And Van Gundy’s playing them that many minutes for a reason.
Jimmie (@pierce_jimmie): Is Morris at the four and Stanley at the three the long-term plan for this team?
Langlois: I think Morris can play power forward, but I think he’s best suited to small forward against what passes for conventional NBA lineups in today’s game. Despite the trend toward downsizing, I still think that a team is better off with size if all else is equal. In other words, if I’m 6-foot-9 with the skill set to play both power forward and small forward equally well, I like my matchup advantage in most situations better at small forward. So, yeah, Morris can play power forward against the majority of lineups. But he gives the Pistons a bigger matchup advantage at small forward. Whatever that means for the long term, we’ll just have to wait and see. Stanley Johnson is 19 and playing 20-plus minutes a game already. It’s reasonable to expect he’ll push for more and more playing time next season and beyond. But as Stan Van Gundy said when asked before Wednesday’s game at Madison Square Garden about the “problem” he faces in having three capable point guards, he said, “I’ve never really had a problem with having too many good players. That’s not anything that I’ve ever really been bothered by.” It’ll work itself out.