(Editor’s note: In the week leading to the opening of Pistons training camp on Oct. 1, Pistons.com will look at the five biggest questions they’ll need to start sorting out before rosters are set and the season tips off on Oct. 23. Today: The fight for the final roster spot between Joe Johnson and Christian Wood.)
Good, old-fashioned battles to win a roster spot are increasingly rare in today’s NBA. But the Pistons have one looming as training camp readies for next week’s opening.
This is a little bit of an unusual one, though. The contestants aren’t competing at the same position. In fact, it’s tough to imagine two more different resumes than the ones belonging to 17-year veteran Joe Johnson and 23-year-old Christian Wood.
Johnson, a seven-time All-Star drafted 10th in 2001, was out of the NBA altogether last season, last playing with Houston in 2018. Wood, undrafted in 2015 after two seasons at UNLV, has logged 51 NBA games over the past four seasons and might be ready to fully flower.
The 6-foot-8 Johnson spent the bulk of his career as a shooting guard or small forward, but he’s more likely to slot in at power forward with the Pistons for two reasons: the way the game has evolved and the fact Johnson is now 38. It’s unlikely the Pistons would expect him to be up to chasing the smaller breed of today’s wings around screens at this stage of his career.
The Pistons have Blake Griffin and Markieff Morris 1-2 at power forward on their depth chart. Thon Maker and Wood are the only other big men other than mainstay Andre Drummond. Drummond’s durability might give the front office and Dwane Casey enough peace of mind to go light up front, opening the door for them to keep Johnson over Wood.
Casey feels comfortable, given the trend toward smaller lineups, in patching together backup center minutes from among Morris, Maker and Griffin. The danger for the Pistons would come if Drummond were to miss any length of time. Never mind a months-long injury, but even a sprained ankle that sidelines him for two to three weeks would stress the frontcourt and require one of Morris or Maker to line up against starting centers for extended minutes.
If Wood proves himself the better option for that duty, it could tip the scales to him over Johnson.
Johnson’s pluses are many. The Pistons – who saw Johnson work out on multiple occasions over the summer – obviously think Johnson still has the potential to affect games to some degree, if to a lesser extent, in ways he did over the course of his career. Prime Johnson was capable of creating his own offense – thus the “Iso Joe” nickname – and knocking down perimeter shots with the best of them.
There’s also Johnson’s renowned professionalism and leadership qualities, no small consideration for a Pistons team that lost a big chunk of those traits with the departures of veterans Zaza Pachulia, Jose Calderon, Wayne Ellington and Ish Smith. Casey admitted recently that one thing holding the gifted Wood back from making his way in the NBA to date is less than thorough professionalism, though he’s erased some of those doubts over the summer.
If Johnson looks like a realistic rotation option and Wood proves himself a worthy NBA big man, the Pistons could look for ways to keep both. That would mean trying to move a player, likely a wing from a deep position. On the other end of the spectrum, both Johnson and Wood have non-guaranteed deals, which means there’s always the chance the Pistons opt to keep neither and instead find a more suitable roster fit in the round of cuts as other teams get to the 15-man roster limit.
That happened the last time the Pistons had a roster battle, three years ago. Lorenzo Brown and Ray McCallum fought for the No. 3 point guard spot throughout preseason. McCallum won the battle, but then was waived when the Pistons claimed Beno Udrih on waivers from Miami.
If Johnson proves he’s rotation worthy, it might be his spot to lose. If Wood shows he’s a better option to back up Drummond than Maker, he’ll make it a tougher call. Beyond that, the decision could come down to how others perform. If Maker makes strides and Morris proves himself as capable of quality minutes at center as at power forward, maybe that tips the scales to Johnson. If rookie Sekou Doumbouya pushes for minutes at either forward spot, maybe that swings momentum back to Wood.
It won’t just be the five preseason games that shape the thinking of Casey and the front office. In fact, the competition might be mostly waged in practices, a relic of the early days of the NBA when roster battles were the norm rather than the exception.
Coming Tuesday, we’ll look at another camp question: How Dwane Casey goes about balancing the first and second units to best complement each other.