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Pistons Mailbag - October 7, 2015

The season – well, the preseason, at least – is off and running and that means questions about how to watch the Pistons, the tactics and strategies they’ll employ and which players will take on the most prominent roles. On with Mailbag...

Haris (Sylvania, Ohio): Will all home games be streamed on Pistons.com or just preseason home games?

Langlois: Only the four home preseason games – three now remaining after last night’s opener – will be streamed live on Pistons.com if you are within the Fox Sports Detroit viewing area. However, all 82 regular-season games – in addition to being televised by Fox Sports Detroit – will be available on the official Pistons mobile app via Fox Sports Go. To be able to utilize the streaming service, you have to authenticate with your TV provider. Hope that helps.

Kevin (Onaway, Mich.): I read a report this week that the Pistons might have interest in trading for Markieff Morris from Phoenix. What’s the real story?

Langlois: It was mentioned in a Detroit Free Press live chat by beat writer Vince Ellis that the Pistons are “monitoring” the situation. It’s probably hard to argue with that – the Pistons are “monitoring” the rosters of all 29 other NBA teams and looking for any opportunity possible to upgrade the roster. The Pistons are going to be mentioned frequently as one of the potential landing spots for Marcus Morris’ twin brother if he resumes agitating for a trade simply because of Marcus’ presence in Detroit and their known desire to play together. There’s at least a basis for belief the Pistons are a logical destination, too, given their roster situation. They have plausible long-term solutions in place at four positions – center (Andre Drummond), point guard (Reggie Jackson), shooting guard (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) and small forward (Morris) with a potential star emerging in rookie Stanley Johnson, who could play either of the two wing positions, the Pistons believe. At power forward, they have their oldest starter – though Ersan Ilyasova is still in his prime, 28 – and a player on a relatively short-term contract (two years remaining). So if they were looking to get a long-term solution at any other position, it probably would be power forward – Markieff’s position. But all indications are that the Suns would like to keep him – he’s on a reasonable contract for the next four years – and they believe things will settle down. If they don’t, they’ll surely look to move on at a certain point and they certainly already have a pretty good idea of which teams are logical trade partners. It’s also possible that by the time Phoenix looks to move him – if that time comes this season or whenever – the Pistons’ outlook will have been altered by another move or two. So you can safely stick this one in the “possible” column – along with a million other options.

David (@algermonguy): This off-season SVG wondered if he might change defensive scheme, using the Bucks as a template. Is there any evidence of a change?

Langlois: He’s talked about “significant” changes to the way the Pistons defend this season, specifically mentioning the way they’ll defend pick and rolls and closing out on elite perimeter shooters. They’ll attempt to go over on far more screens this season – the defender not allowing the screener to come between him and his man, essentially – and they want to keep Andre Drummond closer to the rim in those situations, so he won’t come out as high. They’re going to more aggressively challenge the top shooters on closeouts, in effect daring them to put the ball on the floor and then trusting the player closing out to be able to recover and challenge a pull-up shot. Those are the things he discussed. I’m sure there are several other principles that have been altered to some degree. I’m also pretty certain they’ll tinker as they go and see the evidence of some of their changes.

Vincent (@vince_micallef): Looking back, so far, did the Pistons get KCP over Trey Burke right?

Langlois: I’m pretty sure the Van Gundy administration – which inherited Caldwell-Pope, so had nothing at stake in keeping or dealing him – wouldn’t swap players if given the option. Caldwell-Pope led the Pistons in minutes played last season, which doesn’t say everything – part of it was forced by Jodie Meeks missing the season’s first 22 games – but says quite a bit. Van Gundy labeled Caldwell-Pope the best player in Pistons training camp over its first week and he sure looked the part in Tuesday’s preseason opener, hitting his first six 3-point shots and scoring 22 points in 26 minutes. There still appears to be far more growth ahead for him as he hones his offensive skills, ballhandling and more consistent mechanics on his shot especially. Burke was a marvelous college player, obviously, willing Michigan to the 2013 NCAA title game. But the same questions scouts had about him coming out of college – size and lack of upper-tier quickness to compensate for that size – now would appear to limit his ceiling. I think he’s an enormously resourceful player who’ll more than likely figure out how to be a consistently effective NBA player. But I think most NBA scouts would agree that if you’re banking on one or the other as a long-term NBA starter with the potential to win his position battle more often than not, Caldwell-Pope is the guy. I’ll say this: Both are guys you’d want in your foxhole.

Luke (Holland, Mich.): I attended the open practice. Based on the matchup time we saw between Stanley Johnson and Marcus Morris, would you say any progress was made on determining who might start at small forward? Also, I like the new design and meaning of the Chrome jerseys, but are they replacing the blue Motor City jerseys? If so, why?

Langlois: Van Gundy is doing everything he can to keep the Johnson hype in perspective, but he’s also a hopelessly honest guy and so he’s been up front about the fact that Johnson has been consistently one of his best players – if not his best player – in training camp practices. He was again on Tuesday when he scored 26 points in his first NBA preseason game, showing off the array of skills and confidence that have the Pistons so high on his future. One of the days that might not have been the case was the open practice, when Morris outplayed him. Van Gundy has said he went into camp with an open mind but probably was leaning to Morris as his starter. I think that’s probably the best bet for opening night. But both guys are going to be among the top six or seven players and both are going to play starter’s minutes or darn close to it. We’ve had one week of camp and one preseason game, so there’s plenty of time for one or the other to pull away. But I don’t expect that to really happen. Johnson, of course, could have a big in-season jump – remember, he’s just 19 – and become a more important player as the season goes along. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll cut into Morris’ minutes, though. Van Gundy is a creative guy. He’ll figure a way to get his best players on the court. As for the Motor City alternates, not to worry. The Pistons will still be wearing them on Sundays this season. The Chrome uniforms will be worn for seven home games – one each in October, November, January, February and March and twice in December. The specific games can be found here.

Ken (Dharamsala, India): I understand SVG’s strategy of stretching the floor and the analytics supporting a high rate of 3-point shot attempts. I am not criticizing this approach; frankly, I don’t know if it will work or not. I hope so. But I see Memphis having success by playing patterned, disciplined, half-court offense complemented by good defense, rebounding, fundamentals and physical play. The Pistons of yesteryear had great success with this same formula partly because they had great talent and coaching and partly because this approach lent itself to playoff basketball and officiating. In my day we used to call this “moose ball” – no reference to the new Milwaukee center. But is “moose ball” still a viable option in today’s NBA?

Langlois: It most definitely is if your moose are better than the other guys’ antelopes. Trust me, if you gave Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to Stan Van Gundy, he’d play those guys as long as they could play effectively and build his team around them. He wasn’t ready to quit on the Andre Drummond-Greg Monroe pairing, but he probably would have been a lot more fearful of seeing it break up if they had experienced the type of success together that Gasol and Randolph have in Memphis. One big difference between the Memphis pair and Drummond-Monroe is that both are effective stepping out at least to the foul line and remaining a scoring threat. That isn’t exactly the type of floor-stretching that comes with 3-point shooters at power forward, but it does open the floor to a degree that wasn’t happening with the Pistons when neither Monroe nor Drummond were threats to score outside the paint. The value of the 3-point shot is one big reason that teams are going more and more to a four-out, one-in model; but overlooked is the fact that guys like Gasol and Randolph just don’t come out of the pipeline very often. Any NBA team blessed enough to have two guys like that would most certainly buck the trend, use both big guys and make you defend their strength.

Armend (@armendtopllari): Do you think Spencer Dinwiddie can develop to be a good point guard off the bench this season?

Langlois: He’s got size, vision and passing skills – that’s a pretty good starting point for any point guard. He needs to shoot the ball a lot better than he did as a rookie, but his college track record suggests he will. The game slows down for point guards, as it does for young NFL quarterbacks, after soaking up a little bit of a variety of experiences. Dinwiddie came out of college a year early, off of a serious knee injury that cost him his rookie off-season, and still had some pretty good moments last year against elite point guards like Derrick Rose and John Wall. Consistency – and you can say this for most developing young players – will be the key to unlocking playing time for him.

William (@williammunny11): Do the Pistons view Steve Blake as better than Spencer Dinwiddie?

Langlois: My guess is that Stan Van Gundy, were he fielding that question, would say something like this: “Steve Blake is a proven NBA player and a known quantity. I know what I can expect from Blake based on 12 years of high-quality play – both as a starter (345 of his 812 NBA games) and as a reserve.” When a backup small forward goes down, you can usually get by switching a stretch four or a shooting guard to his position and be none the worse for it. But backup point guard is a key spot. Without Brandon Jennings – and when the Pistons acquired Blake in July and still today, they weren’t and aren’t sure of when he can return or at what level he’ll contribute – the Pistons can’t afford to get soundly outplayed for the 12 to 16 minutes a game Reggie Jackson sits. Van Gundy didn’t want to put that type of pressure on an unproven second-year point guard or dig a hole again this season like the Pistons dug in their 5-23 start to his first season as their coach. They’re still very hopeful Dinwiddie becomes a solid contributor, but Van Gundy wanted a sure thing as his backup point guard to start the season and Dinwiddie isn’t quite that yet. The Blake deal got very little play, and I get that, but I thought it was one of the great unheralded moves of the off-season. It made so much sense for the Pistons given their situation.