Eight days before the season opener, Stan Van Gundy says he’s still uncertain of his starting lineup. But once Greg Monroe returns from his two-game suspension, he’s at least considering using Monroe, Josh Smith and Andre Drummond together to start games. Or, at least, at some point during games as a rotation staple.
That doesn’t necessarily veer off course from his initial impression that the unit wasn’t very effective a season ago. All along, he said it was incumbent upon him and his staff to see if they could make it work. Beyond that is the acknowledgment that Monroe, Smith and Drummond are three of his most talented players – 1-2-3 in some order, probably – and playing them together for at least parts of games is one way to ensure they’ll all get enough minutes to make the most of their abilities.
And that’s especially true while the Pistons are without Jodie Meeks and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who – arguably – would count as among Van Gundy’s five most talented players, or surely among his top seven or eight.
“We just haven’t had enough of a sample size,” he said. “But the big lineup’s been competitive. Gotten us off to good starts, so is that the way we start and rebound the ball and really pound it inside and try to draw some fouls and then play quicker? Or go the other way and start smaller and then go to that if we need it? I don’t know.”
The irony is that until one or both of those two injured guards are back, Van Gundy doesn’t feel he’ll really know what to make of the Monroe-Drummond-Smith frontcourt that played extensively together in two preseason games last week with generally positive results.
“That lineup could be really, really good if you’re got two guards in the game who can both penetrate and make plays,” he said. “We’re playing with one guard, a small forward, a power forward and two centers. That's not the ideal lineup to play the big lineup with. I think it would look a lot different if it were Caldwell-Pope playing with one of the point guards and those three guys up front.”
Van Gundy is devoted not to any particular scheme but to finding ones that maximize the individual strengths of his players. So when Monroe is at center he’ll use him differently than at power forward. When Smith is at power forward, the offense will look just different enough than when Monroe is at that spot.
“He’s got advantages at each position,” Van Gundy said of Monroe. “We use him a little bit differently at each spot. ... Greg’s a very good passer, but you’re not going to spread Greg out on the run and have him driving the ball from 18 to 20 feet. If you have him at the five, now he has the ability to drive the ball. He’s a tough guy, because he’s too big and strong for most fours and he’s got too good a first step for most fives.”
When Smith is at the four, he won’t be in post-up situations quite as often as Monroe. Van Gundy wants to use him there, too, and especially in certain matchups. But he wants to ensure that Smith gets a chance to attack and use his playmaking skills by stationing him a little farther from the basket than Monroe would stray.
“Greg we pretty much exclusively post when he’s at the four, whereas Josh we’re really trying to move him around. He’s really good in the post, but we want to try to create situations where he can attack fours off the dribble and make plays. He’s as good a playmaker, creator as we have on this team, including our point guards. You look at how many assists he’s had – 17 in the last three games, not even playing much more than half a game. He can really make plays, so we try to put him in situations to make plays.”
And when they’re all in the same lineup, look for Drummond on one side of the block, and nearest the rim, Monroe on the other, probably closer to the foul line, with Smith running the baseline or playing off the elbow opposite Monroe. With Drummond’s growing comfort level with his back to the basket and Van Gundy’s creativity, the possibilities for success appear much better for the trio this season.
“He’s making it easier on us,” Drummond said. “When he does play us together, it’s not for a long period of time. It’s for short spurts to throw teams off and then he’ll leave Greg or myself in. Once one of us comes out and he puts another one back in, the (opposition) big is already exhausted. Stan’s really smart with things like that.”
He saw enough good things from last week’s preseason results to keep the big lineup in his toolbox. If they get Caldwell-Pope back as soon as they hope (expect?), the possibilities further widen. Circumstances have prevented Van Gundy from knowing all he’d like to know about the Pistons in time for next week’s opener, but it’s likely he would be tinkering – the way creative minds are prone to do – with lineup combinations and tactics within those combinations on a game-by-game basis, regardless. The game never stops changing. The Pistons have a coach who is better than most at staying a step ahead of those changes.