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Pistons Mailbag - February 22, 2017

Plenty of talk about point guards as the trade deadline approaches. That’s the dominant discussion in this week’s edition of Pistons Mailbag.

Mace (@KingMace02): What are your thoughts on Reggie Jackson/Andre Drummond being on the roster after Thursday?

Langlois: The over/under on one, the other, both or neither being on the roster as of Thursday is 1½ and I’ll take the over. Stan Van Gundy was emphatic before heading into the All-Star break that he was going to be wearing his coaching hat during the time off and conjuring ways to coach it into the playoffs. He likes the roster he’s assembled along with GM Jeff Bower. He’s been frustrated, just as Pistons fans have been, that the improvement he anticipated this season hasn’t come to pass. But he’s also not convinced that the team he anticipated he’d have before Reggie Jackson’s injury can’t yet emerge this season. It’s hard to know exactly what to make of the rumors involving Jackson, but I keep coming back to the likelihood that the timing is less than optimal given the way he’s played. Put another way, even if there was a front-office consensus on moving Jackson, why now when his trade value almost surely is at a low point? Van Gundy scoffed at the rumors on Tuesday, for what it’s worth. He said when he was asked by a member of the media via text over All-Star weekend about a rumor of Jackson involving Orlando and Jeff Green plus D.J. Augustin, it was the first he’d heard of it.

Gideon (Riverview, Fla.): Tell me why this trade wouldn’t work. Reggie Jackson, Marcus Morris and Aron Baynes for Carmelo Anthony and Brandon Jennings. And not the “Carmelo is old” excuse because we see how inconsistent young teams are when there are no older vets. We get a playmaker and vet in Carmelo and when Ish – assuming he starts – goes to the bench we don’t lose pace with Jennings. New York gets to move on from Carmelo, gets a young point guard to pair with its All-Star big man and adds a value contract in Morris and the expiring contract of Baynes.

Langlois: Did you run it by the Knicks? Because that’s one reason why it might not work. The Knicks aren’t trading Carmelo Anthony in any reasonable scenario without getting back No. 1 draft picks. I suspect they were disheartened to see what Sacramento accepted in its trade for DeMarcus Cousins, a package which included just one No. 1 pick in addition to last year’s lottery pick, Buddy Hield, who hasn’t done much so far to validate his draft position. The rumor that the Knicks wanted Kevin Love from Cleveland made sense from New York’s perspective in that the Knicks would have been trading an older, more expensive All-Star for a younger, cheaper one. We’ll see if the Cavs are more open to that deal now that Love will be sidelined for another month or so, but otherwise I think it’s likelier that the Knicks engage teams – if they’re truly motivated to deal Anthony, at least – that are willing to part with multiple future No. 1 picks or the equivalent. But let’s assume for the sake of your argument that the Knicks would view this proposal favorably. The likelihood that the Pistons would want this deal essentially comes down to an unknowable: how comfortable Stan Van Gundy and his cabinet are with Jackson returning to form. Van Gundy’s public stance last week was bullish, citing the logic that at 26 and given the fairly benign nature of the treatment he underwent for knee tendinosis there’s little to indicate he shouldn’t again be the player he was last season. If that’s their private stance, do you trade him for a 14-year veteran about to turn 34? That’s an easy decision for me.

Charles (Redford, Mich.): Do you think the Knicks would be interested in Reggie Jackson for Derrick Rose? Or would we have to throw in one of our younger guys? I don’t think I’d throw in one of our young guys for the reason that Rose is on an expiring contract.

Langlois: Trying hard to spot the upside for the Pistons in that deal. If they were motivated by clearing cap space, then off-loading Jackson’s salary would be the goal. But even subtracting Jackson’s contract isn’t going to make the Pistons anything more than a bit player in free agency this summer. So if cap concerns aren’t the issue – other than eliminating the possibility of bumping up against the tax line when Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s situation is resolved – what’s the point? (Not to mention the fact they’d still need to go shopping for a point guard in the off-season that would threaten to blow a hole in the budget.) Even if you argue that Rose is a better point guard and ignore his injury history, he’s coming up on free agency with no possible chance the Pistons would want to invoke the mechanisms that benefit the home team in retaining their own free agents like extra years on his deal. Again, such proposals can only be taken seriously if we’re assuming Stan Van Gundy is convinced Jackson can no longer be the player the Pistons acquired two years ago. The trade rumors that have surfaced in connection to Jackson of late offer no real proof of how the Pistons view his future. Even if you accept that the Pistons have engaged in trade talks with Jackson at the core, how the Pistons value Jackson can’t be discerned unless and until he’s actually traded. And Van Gundy isn’t saying anything, publicly, to lead anyone to think he’s willing to take 50 cents on the dollar while Jackson works his way back from injury and prolonged absence.

Darrell (Detroit): Since Reggie is a shoot-first point guard why not insert Harris back into the starting lineup and bring Reggie off the bench to wreak havoc on opposing teams’ second units? That seems like a better option than trading Reggie for less-talented players.

Langlois: If you’re suggesting Harris in and Jackson out of the starting lineup without complementary moves, then you have no point guard in your starting lineup. That’s not going to work on any level. If you’re suggesting Harris for Marcus Morris in the starting lineup and Ish Smith starting to split up Harris and Jackson, then it’s a more realistic option. I didn’t sense any issues with shot distribution last season after Harris moved into the starting lineup for the season’s final 25 games. Stan Van Gundy didn’t move Jon Leuer into the lineup in Harris’ spot because he didn’t think there were enough shots to go around; he merely wanted to get more defense and size in his starting lineup. He thought the fact that Leuer didn’t require regular touches to contribute simplified his task as the play caller, but it wasn’t the motivation to make the move. If Jackson can play consistently at the level of last season – or his most recent performance in last week’s win over Dallas, for that matter – it’s a moot point.

Chuck (@Lemnade_Jones): Are the Detroit Pistons running on all cylinders at this time? And will the team make the playoffs at the current win-loss rate?

Langlois: Fair to say they aren’t running on all cylinders and haven’t for much of the season. Their most consistent basketball came early. When they’d get enough scoring to win when Reggie Jackson was out, they usually won. But they didn’t get enough scoring to win often enough to be the team they expected to be. Since Jackson’s return, they’ve been searching for an identity. They’ve played sporadically, especially at the defensive end. There’s a sense that they let their offense dictate their defense. Stan Van Gundy has banged the drum since he arrived nearly three years ago that the Pistons need to be a top-10 defensive team – and that means a consistently good defensive team – in order to get where they want to go. They currently rank 12th in defensive rating, though with the same mark (105.0) as the three teams ahead of them and a mere seven-tenths of a point behind the No. 6 team, Miami. And yet how they’ve achieved that ranking – with some dominant defensive games and a month-long stretch where they ranked at or very near the bottom of the NBA in defense – underscores their inconsistency. As to whether they’ll make the playoffs, as I wrote last week – and there haven’t been any games played since then to change the data – three projection models all say they will and are within a few percentage points of each other, around 70 percent, in their certainty.

Vany (osevany21): Are we getting Rubio?

Austin (@migoski): Why are we so obsessed with Rubio? He’s trash!

Langlois: Well, there you have it. We remain a divided nation. Rubio is a long way from trash, but he’s never really shown in the NBA what was anticipated for him based on early returns as a teen with the powerful Spanish national team. He’s a very good defensive point guard and runs an offense as it’s envisioned in the playbook. But he’s not a dynamic player and has never developed a reliable perimeter shot. He’s a career 37 percent shooter – not from the 3-point arc, from everywhere. (His career 3-point percentage is 31 and it’s down to 28 this season.) All of that said, he’s still a young player, 26, and it’s not difficult to imagine that a coach with a clear vision of how he fits in his system and with his roster would be attracted to him. The Pistons have struggled with their 3-point shooting this season. Rubio is a significantly worse 3-point shooter than Jackson, though it’s never as simple as that when you’re talking about point guards. In other words, a lesser 3-point shooter still might be better able to allow an offense to flourish if he creates better shot opportunities for everyone else.

Gabriel (gmoreiramartins): Is Ish Smith our best point guard right now?

Langlois: No, but there are nights when he outplays Reggie Jackson. You can say the same about most backups and the player ahead of them across the league. If it happens more than a few times a month, then the gap between them isn’t very pronounced and chances are your team isn’t where it wants to be. LeBron James isn’t going to get outplayed by his backup more than once in a blue moon. A guy who’s not among the top 10 to 15 players in the league at his position might get outplayed by his backup once a week. Smith’s played well recently and Jackson, until his 22-point outing against Dallas last week, had struggled in February. On balance, Jackson has been the better point guard over his career and it’s not really a debate.

Kevin (Farmington Hills, Mich.): I’ve been a die-hard Pistons fan since the Reggie Harding-Joe Strawder days. Chuck Daly was fortunate to coach the Bad Boys. Larry Brown was fortunate to coach the Goin’ to Work champs. What’s Stan Van Gundy going to bring here? It seems like we win two and lose three to teams on paper that appear not as good as we are. How much is on the coach for motivation considering all the adulation I read on our players?

Langlois: Another way to look at it: those teams were fortunate to be coached by Chuck Daly and Larry Brown, two of the all-time greats. The Pistons aren’t really losing three of five games to teams they’re better than because they’re not losing that often against the entire NBA. But I get the frustration with a team that took a big step forward last season and appeared to have what it needed to take another similar step this season. But let’s not discard the reality of Reggie Jackson’s injury and the ripple effects that’s had on the season. For whatever reason, he hasn’t been the same guy since returning two-plus months ago. The team hasn’t played with the same obvious chemistry it did down the stretch last season after acquiring Tobias Harris. How much is on Stan Van Gundy? Well, he’s also the guy who put the roster together and he’s not been shy through any of his team’s struggles about accepting responsibility. Not sure about the “adulation” comment – if you’re suggesting that’s coming from management or the media or elsewhere – but Van Gundy legitimately believes in his guys since he drafted, signed or acquired all of them except Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – and, in fact, he did sign Drummond to his extension and hopes to retain Caldwell-Pope. I wouldn’t characterize his treatment of them as adulatory, though.

Jonathan (@theoriginalkep): If they make the playoffs as the 7 or 8 seed, who is the best prospective 1 or 2 seed matchup against?

Langlois: Anybody but Cleveland is the correct and only answer, right? If the Cavs get to mid-April with all hands on deck, they’re head and shoulders above the field in the Eastern Conference. That’s a pretty big “if,” though. LeBron James is fairly indestructible but he’s also playing a ton of minutes. Kevin Love is out after undergoing relatively minor knee surgery, though the travails Reggie Jackson has endured since returning from his knee procedure is a useful reminder that the only “minor” surgery is something that happens to somebody else. Kyrie Irving’s health can’t be taken for granted. And the Cavs are thin up front and at point guard, at least until they play their hand at Thursday’s trade deadline. Beyond Cleveland, nobody should be an overwhelming favorite against the Pistons. Boston is the odds-on pick to finish as the No. 2 seed; the Pistons split on the road at Boston this season and had a legitimate chance to sweep. The Pistons have had more trouble with Washington over the past two seasons than anyone with a 2-4 record, one win coming last season with John Wall sidelined and one this season on Marcus Morris’ tip at the buzzer.