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But ask him which player presented the greatest challenge and he doesn’t bat an eye: “Kobe.”
Jerebko, who got the starting call when Tayshaun Prince went down three games into the season over the two rookies the Pistons drafted ahead of him last June based on his defensive readiness, guarded Kobe Bryant for a brief stretch of the second quarter of the Pistons’ loss to the Lakers to start their four-game Western road swing that ended 0-4. He saw the full Kobe assault in that time with Bryant en route to the 100th 40-point game of his career.
“You can’t do much on that fadeaway,” Jerebko shrugged after Tuesday’s practice, the first for the Pistons at their practice facility in 11 days. “He’s the best player in the league.”
Jerebko qualified that, allowing for the fact that he might have to adjust his ballot after the next game, when he draws the equally onerous task of guarding LeBron James when the Pistons host Cleveland in this year’s traditional Thanksgiving eve home game.
“Everybody’s seen LeBron – he’s a great player,” Jerebko said. “I’ll just try to do the best job I can on him.”
What gave Jerebko a leg up over Austin Daye and DaJuan Summers was the two years he spent guarding some of the best small forwards in Europe, many of them players with vast experience and savvy.
“I feel like I was well-prepared after playing two years professionally,” he said. “It’s very different paying in college than playing in Europe. You’re playing against people that already went to college and some people that can play in the NBA. There’s a lot of good players in Europe that people don’t know about. There’s a lot of scorers in Europe and there’s a lot of good defensive matchups for me in Europe that got me prepared for this.”
“Just do the best job you possibly can,” John Kuester said when I asked him what he’ll tell Jerebko about guarding James, a player whom Kuester knows well from the past two seasons spent as a Cleveland assistant. “Try to contest his shots and don’t give him easy opportunities. LeBron is so good in the open court, so we’ve got to do a number of things to make sure we get back in transition defense and limit their entire team.
“He’s a unique character in our league. He’s somebody that has size, strength, ability to put the basketball on the floor and take it all the way, coast to coast. That presents a lot of problems. We’ve got to do a good job of keeping him in front of us and contesting his shots and limiting his opportunities in transition.”
The injuries to Prince and Hamilton take away the two players who’ve guarded James – and guarded him about as well as any tandem of players on any team in the league – primarily for the Pistons for all six of his seasons in the league prior to this one. When Jerebko isn’t guarding James, the next two likeliest options are Rodney Stuckey and Summers.
Pistons coaches from Larry Brown to Flip Saunders to Michael Curry felt that putting pressure on James defensively was important to take away even a little of his offensive aggressiveness. Jerebko isn’t yet enough of an offensive threat to make that a realistic option for Kuester, and the rookie isn’t at all restless with his role as a defensive specialist/energy player. But he does bristle a little at the suggestion that he’ll be pigeon-holed as someone not capable of scoring as his career unfolds.
“You haven’t seen much yet,” he said. “I can do a lot better than what I’m doing. I’m just a rookie, so I’m trying to do what’s best for the team right now and take my open shots. But you haven’t seen much of what I can do yet. The confidence is going to come and I’m going to be able to take the ball to the basket and stop and shoot, stuff like that. But it comes with time. I’ve been here for how many games? It’s going to take time, but I’ll get into it with time.”
Among Jerebko’s offensive repertoire is a running half-hook he takes off the dribble. It hasn’t been very productive for him yet, but he says that’s a shot that’s always been pretty good to him and will be again.
“That’s been my shot,” he said. “Everybody that hasn’t seen it the first time laughs. ‘What shot is that?’ But I can make that. I’ve been doing that since I don’t know when.”
Maybe someday, it’ll be a shot even LeBron James has to worry about. For now, the Pistons will be happy if the rookie makes the reigning MVP work for whatever he gets against them.
“We weren’t kidding ourselves,” Ben Gordon said. “We played some tough teams, but there are a lot of positives we can take away from some of those games. So that’s what we’re going to do, especially after losing four in a row – just try to get the positive things from those games and try to build on them the next game.”
“Any time you lose, it’s not pleasurable,” Kuester said. “The players realize that it’s always more fun to win and learn from your mistakes as opposed to lose and learn from them, and that’s what we’re trying to do now – get on the right track. Our guys gave great effort. I know the Phoenix game was not the way we had played for most of the season and we’re looking forward to bouncing back.
“That’s what you’ve got to do. Things are not always what they seem in regard to losing all of your games on the West Coast. We can bounce back and get a great win the next game. That’s the way the NBA is.”
“Chris Wilcox and all of our young players have worked real hard in practice and deserve an opportunity,” he said. “We just gave Chris an opportunity the last two games, but Kwame is a big part of this picture we have. And so don’t read into that. Same thing (with Daye and Summers). Don’t read into that because all these guys deserve an opportunity.”
