About a month ago, when Jodie Meeks’ return appeared imminent, Stan Van Gundy was asked how he’d fit Meeks into the rotation when he already was struggling to find enough minutes for rapidly improving rookie Stanley Johnson.
“I’ve never found it a problem to have too many options,” he replied.
He’s going to have several more now. That’s one effect of acquiring Tobias Harris and the array of tools he brings to the Pistons.
On both offense and defense, Harris expands the possibilities for Van Gundy. And if his past has proven anything, it’s that Van Gundy is really good at tinkering – probing all of the options at his disposal – and figuring out the best combination of weapons in his arsenal.
Ersan Ilyasova was an easier fit with the Pistons starters – perhaps one reason Van Gundy says he won’t rush Harris into the starting lineup for at least his first three games – as a floor-spacing power forward.
But teams that had the personnel to limit the damage of the Reggie Jackson-Andre Drummond pick and roll and still keep a body glued to Ilyasova essentially negated him. It wasn’t unusual for Ilyasova to be guarded by the opposition small forward so that teams with a mobile enough power forward could stick him on Marcus Morris and neutralize his post-up game. If the Pistons wanted to attack with Ilyasova in the post, they’d take their chances. The Pistons didn’t try that very often.
Harris is going to make life easier for Morris – and vice versa.
“I think we can get them both pretty favorable matchups when they’re playing together,” Van Gundy said. “One of them is going to have a bigger guy that’s going to have to play them off the dribble and one of them’s going to have to be played with a smaller guy. I think we can create things. We’ll try to build different things in as we go along and we’ll just see how quickly we can get up to speed.”
Van Gundy has been mindful of overtaxing Jackson, upon whom the responsibility of initiating offense falls. It’s a physically wearying burden. And it reduces the Pistons to a one-trick offense too often at crunch time, especially when opponents have the luxury of sticking their best wing defender on Morris.
Harris opens up Van Gundy’s playbook considerably.
“There aren’t many things he can’t do offensively,” said Van Gundy, who calls Harris “easily our most athletic forward.” “We could post him. Depending on the matchup, we can isolate him on the wing, a little bit like we do Marcus. A little different; (Harris) is more of a to-the-rim guy. He handles the ball in pick and rolls. He can play as the screener in pick and rolls. And you can run him off screens in catch-and-shoot situations.
“So he gives us the versatility, depending on who he’s being guarded by, to do almost anything. I think versatility is a big thing in the NBA now. You need guys who can do that. I think with he and Stanley and Marcus, we’ve got three really versatile guys and he’s probably the most versatile of the three.”
That versatility extends to the defensive end. Nobody is proclaiming Harris a candidate for the All-Defensive team. Van Gundy says “he’s got a ways to go, like most guys that age.”
But it’s a tremendous advantage for teams to be able to switch on dribble handoffs or pick-and-roll plays involving any combination of shooting guards, small forwards and power forwards and Harris makes that a less challenging proposition than it was with Ilyasova.
“I think the switching will be less awkward,” Van Gundy admits, “but then he and Marcus are going to have to go down and play bigger guys in the post. May force us to double team a little bit more. All of those things, that’s on me to figure out.”
Neither Harris nor Van Gundy get too caught up in positional labels. In their initial conversation on Tuesday, the 23-year-old told Van Gundy he’d do whatever asked and play wherever needed.
“He told me what he expects of me, how the team is, the direction they’re going in,” Harris said. “And I told him all I want to do is win, that I’m a winner and I’m going to do whatever you ask of me.
“If you ask me what position, I say three-four. I think I can play both positions. I’ve shown I can play both positions. And especially for this team, we have a lot of versatile guys, which makes it easier defensively. A lot of guys can switch off. Makes us a hard team offensively to guard. I think that’s going to be an advantage for us.”
Especially in the hands of a coach with a history of successfully tinkering.