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Trend lines point to Pistons finishing ahead of their current 8th spot in East

Predicting what the NBA standings will look like after 82 games based on where they are today is a little like projecting the stock market four months out knowing nothing but today’s prices.

The NBA equivalent of the metrics a Wall Street analyst would use to position himself ahead of market trends include strength of schedule, home-road splits, point differential and injury data, among others.

And the market trends say the Pistons are a better bet to finish ahead of their No. 8 standing than one or two – or three, four or more – teams currently ahead of them in the Eastern Conference pecking order.

Let’s start with point differential. The Pistons have the fourth-best number in the East at plus 2.9 per game. The top two, predictably enough, are Toronto (8.1) and Cleveland (6.6). Chicago’s next, a mere one-tenth of a point ahead of the Pistons at 3.0.

How reliable is point differential over 82 games? About as good as it gets. Last year, there were eight teams that finished in the black and seven in the red in the East. The eight who finished with a plus differential comprised the East’s playoff field.

Stan Van Gundy is well aware what the numbers say – and what point differential historically means. He’s also a little leery of placing much faith in extrapolation.

“I don’t know. We’re No. 8 in standings,” he said before Wednesday’s loss at Charlotte. “I put more stock in that. We’ll see. We’ve played a pretty good schedule, but all those things tell you is what you’ve done for (23) games. They don’t tell you what you’re going to do for the next (59). That’s all that really matters.”

About that “pretty good schedule” Van Gundy referenced: Nobody’s played a tougher schedule in the East than the Pistons. Of the teams ahead of them in the standings, only Toronto and Cleveland – heavy favorites to occupy the top two seeds if they remain healthy – have played top-10 schedules. And five teams ahead of them – Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Charlotte and Atlanta – have played among the league’s eight weakest schedules.

The Pistons haven’t just played the East’s toughest schedule, but its busiest, as well. Only two East teams – Atlanta and Philadelphia – have played as many as 23 games. The Pistons are at 24. No team ahead of them has played more than 22 and two, Cleveland and Milwaukee, have played only 20 games.

They’ve also played more road (13) than home (11) games, something only two teams ahead of them, Boston and Chicago, have done. Milwaukee has played 13 of its 20 games at home, New York 13 of its 22.

And the Pistons have already knocked off six of their 16 scheduled back-to-back sets – also more than any team ahead of them in the East. Only two others, Boston and New York, have played five back-to-back sets. Milwaukee and Cleveland have played only three.

Then there’s the little matter of who was missing for the first 21 games: Pistons leading scorer Reggie Jackson. He’s been back, but not really, for three games. It’s not just the 21 games he missed, it was all of preseason and all but the first few days of training camp as he battled the pain in his left knee that led to his eight-week shutdown after the Oct. 10 platelet-rich plasma injection.

His timing is off, his conditioning isn’t where it needs to be and he and his teammates need to reacquaint themselves which each other’s tendencies after everyone got used to marching to Ish Smith’s beat for two months.

“Just a little bit of everything,” Jackson said of the shortfalls right now. “Just trying to find myself. Getting downhill, I feel like my footing’s off a little bit.”

“It’ll take some time,” Van Gundy said. “He needs minutes in the game and conditioning and just getting back to playing basketball.”

This is usually the time of the season when Van Gundy gets a handle on his team’s rhythms. Not this year.

“Twenty games in, I normally have a pretty good feel for our team. But with not getting Reggie back until (Sunday), it’ll be a lot longer for us this year. We didn’t have him for the entire preseason and we didn’t have him for 21 games, so it’ll be a while before we know where we are.”

Right now, where they are is eighth in the Eastern Conference standings. A little digging would lead a devotee of trend lines to expect they’ll end up somewhere north of that.