The Pistons don’t know exactly how fast Andre Drummond will reach a ceiling they fully believe still has several floors of expansion potential. But they know that even their baseline expectation for his 2015-16 production means they’ll win that position battle the vast majority of nights.
The story with Reggie Jackson is pretty much the same. He might not do over 82 games what he did over the last 16 of 2014-15 – 20 points, 11 assists, five boards and nearly 50 and 40 percent shooting from inside and beyond the 3-point arc– but he’s going to give the Pistons good to superb play pretty much every time out at point guard.
They also expect Ersan Ilyasova to do what he’s done when healthy and provided a consistent role – shoot and score efficiently and stick his nose in the fray.
Off the bench, the Pistons have more experience and proven commodities in guys like Jodie Meeks and Anthony Tolliver. If Brandon Jennings is healthy, they have a player capable of carrying the second-unit scoring load. There is a high degree of organizational confidence in what Aron Baynes will bring, as well.
The roster is more compatible than it’s been in several seasons – really, since the ideal fit and synergy the Goin’ to Work five brought to life. The cohesion factor is further enhanced by the relative stability the Pistons will enjoy from entering the second year of Stan Van Gundy’s regime.
Even in the above, there are enough variable factors to swing a season’s results from “very good” to “mediocre,” so it’s oversimplifying to say the season hinges on the consistency and improvement the Pistons get from three key players: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris and Stanley Johnson.
But you get the point. If Caldwell-Pope makes a similar year-over-year leap in season three as he did in season two, wow. If Morris is buoyed as many young veterans can be by the confidence jolt a steady and expanded role provides, huge. And if Johnson acclimates as quickly to the real NBA as he did to the Summer League version, terrific.
There’s intriguing two-way potential from those three players.
Van Gundy loves the size, shooting and toughness Morris brings at small forward. With so many bigger small forwards populating the Eastern Conference – LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Jimmy Butler and DeMarre Carroll foremost – Morris gives the Pistons a physical match defensively and a complementary fit offensively with his 3-point shooting. He’ll also be an ideal candidate to slide to power forward in small-ball lineups.
Caldwell-Pope certainly passed the eye test when he visited the Pistons Summer League operation in Orlando last month for a few workouts under Van Gundy’s watch. His home-road split last season was almost certainly an anomaly. As Van Gundy said, his splits – 15.5 points on 44.5 percent shooting and 39.4 percent 3-point accuracy at home, 9.9, 35 and 28 on the road – would make him a very good starter or a player best suited to come off the bench depending on the color of his uniform. If they get the home guy for 82 games, that’s a huge upgrade. His off-season focus is ballhandling so he can more effectively take it to the rim when defenses close out on him – it’s something he began to exploit late in the season – and reports filtering back from Georgia are that he’s made big strides in that area.
Johnson’s physical readiness and defensive tenacity is almost certain to get him on the floor as a rookie. How long he stays there will depend in some measure on the niche he carves out on the other end. He showed in Orlando an ability to provide whatever his team needed on offense – ballhandling, scoring, ball movement, rebounding – all while making sound decisions.
Van Gundy clearly believes in Meeks, targeting him to headline his first free-agent crop. And the Meeks who finished last season, healthy and shooting it well after an uneven stretch fueled by the preseason back injury that cost him 22 games, surely will have a role.
But there might be nights, or certain matchups, where Van Gundy rolls with a three-wing rotation – Morris for 32 minutes, give or take, at small forward; Caldwell-Pope for the same at shooting guard; Johnson grabbing the backup minutes at either spot – that gives the Pistons both a physical look and a dangerous transition unit.
And how well and how consistently those three produce will go a long way toward determining how the 2015-16 season plays out.