Jeff Nix said something at Boban Marjanovic’s introduction Tuesday that went largely unnoticed by the masses. But I can guess whose ears perked up when Nix, Pistons assistant general manager for pro scouting, said that one of the benefits of signing the 7-foot-3 Serbian center was its impact on the quality of Pistons practices.
The Bad Boys.
To a man, they’ll say that their competitive edge – so vividly obvious in their matchups with the Celtics, Lakers or Bulls, or anyone else, for that matter, through their glory days – was honed in Chuck Daly’s practices: Laimbeer battling Mahorn, Rodman going against Dantley or Aguirre, Joe D vs. Vinnie, Salley and Edwards, Isiah and anybody who got in his way … yeah, that was serious stuff. Daly’s practices were never marathon sessions, but they’d spend about 75 or 90 hellacious minutes tearing each other up.
Nix’s point was more about the way players will have to elevate their games to account for the challenges of facing a 7-foot-3 defensive pillar on a daily basis.
But let’s set that aside for the moment and consider what the depth the Pistons have built in the two-plus years since Stan Van Gundy and general manager Jeff Bower have been on the job will mean for the environment in practice and the competition for minutes it figures to spawn.
Van Gundy can form three distinctly competitive five-man units. The starting five returns intact, giving the Pistons a major dose of one element that Van Gundy’s wanted to get to over his first two seasons – stability – but not at the cost of avoiding roster churning for talent upgrades merely for stability’s benefits.
So let’s assume that on the first day of two-a-day practices in late September or early October, Reggie Jackson, Andre Drummond, Tobias Harris, Marcus Morris and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope comprise Van Gundy’s first unit.
The second unit will include two free-agent additions, Ish Smith at point guard and Jon Leuer at power forward, with holdovers Stanley Johnson and Aron Baynes. The shooting guard could be Reggie Bullock, could be Darrun Hilliard. Both had stints in the rotation last season and both contributed to big wins during the playoff drive.
When Van Gundy starts tinkering with lineup combinations, he’ll still have Marjanovic to go against Baynes or Drummond at center; No. 1 pick Henry Ellenson to match up with Leuer or Harris at power forward; Bullock to compete with Morris or Johnson at small forward; rookie Michael Gbinije to push Hilliard or Caldwell-Pope at shooting guard; and Lorenzo Brown at point guard to match up against Jackson or Smith.
Back to Nix’s point. He meant that because of Marjanovic’s enormous size, strength and nimble footwork, Drummond will have to employ in live-scrimmage situations – the closest it gets to approximating a genuine NBA game – everything he’s working on over the summer with assistant coach Malik Allen.
Nix mentioned, too, that other players will have to account for Marjanovic’s size and rim protection.
“It’s an opportunity for not only Andre and Aron, but our perimeter players to go against his size every day in practice,” he said, requiring “more creativity that they’re going to need to redefine their game a little bit in attacking the basket and make us a better team all around.”
Over the years, in separate conversations, so many of the Bad Boys – Isiah, Mahorn, Joe D, Salley – have told me that the games were the easy part for them. Daly’s practices were the real test – of their talent, sure, but mostly of their competitiveness. That’s where their minutes – and, by extension, their paychecks – were won and lost.
For an abundance of reasons, Van Gundy can’t bring back all of the elements that made those Bad Boys practices daily tests of manhood. But the essential component – making everyone better by raising the level of competition – will be present when the Pistons gather for training camp as the nights begin to get cooler in southeast Michigan.
If Van Gundy were the type to spend much time looking backward – he isn’t – he’d allow himself a smile at how much has changed in two years. It will be a remarkably different mood, with a remarkably different set of expectations, when this fall rolls around.