(Editor’s note: Pistons.com continues a five-part series examining the top five storylines of training camp, which gets under way later this month. Today: Can Reggie Bullock or Darrun Hilliard impress Stan Van Gundy enough in October to force their way into an expanded rotation?)
Reggie Bullock and Darrun Hilliard both offer the Pistons something unique. Whether they get the chance to prove it this season depends on how consistently they display their specialties in training camp and preseason appearances.
Bullock is the team’s best 3-point shooter, Hilliard its best playmaker off the dribble other than point guards Reggie Jackson and Ish Smith. Both are traits that can help grease the wheels of Stan Van Gundy’s offense.
But playing one or the other means one from among the group of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris or Stanley Johnson must sit. And that’s where things get dicey for Bullock or Hilliard.
Neither has Morris’ size, Caldwell-Pope’s defensive chops or Johnson’s raw physical tools. Caldwell-Pope was fourth in the NBA last season in minutes per game at 36.7 and Morris 10th at 35.7. Johnson, 20, logically is in line for a bigger role and increased minutes over the 23.1 he averaged as a rookie.
If they maintain those numbers this season, it adds up to 95.5. If all of those minutes are spent at shooting guard and small forward, that would leave 30 seconds of playing time for anyone else at those positions.
Van Gundy could buy more time by splitting Morris’ minutes over small forward and power forward. But that would mean squeezing newly acquired Jon Leuer behind Tobias Harris at power forward. How likely is that? Not very. Van Gundy has been high on Leuer since he broke into the league with Milwaukee in 2011 and gave him a reported four-year, $41 million deal in July to leave Phoenix. Van Gundy loves Leuer’s combination of size (6-foot-11), athleticism and 3-point shooting.
Leuer could spend some time at center in small-ball lineups, but the same ripple effect applies here. Every minute Leuer spends at center cuts into the playing time of someone – either All-Star Andre Drummond, rock-solid backup Aron Baynes or newly signed free agent Boban Marjanovic.
In fact, there’s another option for Van Gundy that would make it even more difficult for Bullock or Hilliard to see the floor. Given that Harris is at least as natural a fit at small forward as he is at power forward, Van Gundy could opt to use Harris some at both spots in order to make better use of Leuer’s size against conventional power forwards.
This comes under the heading of “first-world problems,” but Van Gundy is going to have much to ponder as he figures out how to incorporate either Bullock’s 3-point shooting or Hilliard’s off-the-ball playmaking potential and greater offensive versatility into the rotation without cutting too deeply into the minutes of his best wing players.
Either quality helps create space – space for Drummond to operate in the post or to crash the offensive glass, space for Jackson to attack driving lanes, space for Morris or Harris to go to work in one-on-one matchups.
Bullock was a throw-in to the July 2015 deal with Phoenix in which the Pistons landed Morris for nothing more than a 2020 second-round pick. But he was just two years removed from being the first-round pick of the Los Angeles Clippers, based largely on his 3-point potential, and not only won a roster spot with an eye-opening preseason but a guaranteed contract for 2016-17, as well.
His preseason and Jodie Meeks’ foot injury suffered in the season’s second game cracked the door to a rotation spot early in 2015-16, but Bullock shot 1 of 19 in 17 apperances spread over the season’s first 35 games to fall hopelessly out of the playing mix. From February on, Bullock shot nearly 50 percent (21 of 43) from the 3-point line and helped the Pistons win key games during their playoff drive.
Hilliard has Bullock’s potential as a 3-point shooter, hitting 38 percent from the arc as a rookie while adjusting to the greater NBA distance and speed of the game. What separates Hilliard is his ability to put the ball on the floor – he’s proficient with either hand and, in fact, was a right-handed high school quarterback who shoots with his left from deep but is equally comfortable from 10 feet and in with his right hand.
If there’s an edge, it probably goes to Bullock based on his strong finish to the season – Bullock, before suffering a leg nerve injury, was part of the playoff rotation and played well in the first two games of the first-round series with Cleveland – and the value of 3-point shooting in the NBA in general and within Van Gundy’s offense in particular. There’s also this: Hilliard suffered a lower-back vertabra injury before Summer League play began and hasn’t been able to work out fully since, though he’s expected to be cleared any day and to be ready to go from the first day of training camp.
The 82-game season has a way of weeding out a coach’s options as injuries mount and players separate themselves based on performance. When everyone’s healthy, though, Van Gundy faces a complex set of factors to mull as he sets his rotation. Bullock and Hilliard will make it that much tougher for him by pressing their case in training camp, competing not only against each other for a potential 10th rotation spot but against Van Gundy’s comfort zone with the nine players all but established as rotation fixtures.