He’s had one practice, barely knows the names much less the games of new teammates and won’t play his first home game for another 10 days. But through all of the fog, it wasn’t hard to see how Marvin Bagley III gives the Pistons a different look and can ultimately make them a more potent team.
“I liked it. I tell you what, he’s long,” Dwane Casey said after Bagley debuted with 10 points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes as the Pistons lost 103-94 at Washington. “His timing’s off a little bit, understandably, but he has an advantage in the post with his length and his ability to score around the basket. I really liked that. First play down the floor, he took a charge. I loved that.”
Bagley, at 6-foot-11 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan, can play on a higher plane than any other big man on the Pistons roster, underscored by his first-quarter basket when he took a high feed from Killian Hayes to score about as easy a basket at the rim in traffic as the Pistons have gotten all season. It’s a skill set they desperately need and one they’ll explore to the fullest depths over the season’s final 25 games.
“We’re excited to have him,” Saddiq Bey said. “In practice, workouts or games, just get him acclimated. Once he gets comfortable, he’ll definitely be a force for us.”
Bagley scored all four of his baskets around the rim, a hook shot from 10 feet out along the left baseline the deepest of his hoops. After playing nine minutes in the first half, Bagley was left out for one 12-minute stint of the second half and played a chunk of the fourth quarter with the starters at center. His stat line would have looked a little better, too, if he hadn’t missed four of his six free throws.
“He’s a little rusty,” Casey said, “but I like the way he plays.”
It was easy to like Bey’s performance, too. He scored 24 points, five rebounds and five assists. Beyond him, offense was a heavy lift for the Pistons all night. They were limited to just 23 3-point attempts and made only eight. Cade Cunningham, playing only his second game since missing five with a hip injury, was dogged by foul trouble that likely combined with his layoff to mess with his timing. Cunningham shot 5 of 16 and missed all five of his 3-point tries.
The bench was a problem, too. With Bagley’s assimilation in its infancy, Kelly Olynyk still off his form since returning from a prolonged absence and the Pistons missing Frank Jackson with back spasms, the second unit had a serious lack of punch. It cost the Pistons in the first half when they managed only four points in nearly five minutes and prompted Casey to rejigger the rotation in the second half.
But there’s only so much you can do when there’s not the perimeter shooting or scoring power available. The bench unit wound up scoring just 24 points and, most glaringly, taking only three 3-point shots and not making one. Olynyk, Killian Hayes, Hamidou Diallo and Bagley are all shooting less than 30 percent from the arc for the season. Jackson is the only player off the bench who shoots threes often and well enough to bend defenses.
“Just the 3-point shooting he brings to the table,” Casey said. “The spacing he brings because of the respect they have for him.”
More than the 3-point shooting or lack of scoring, though, Casey most lamented the 37 points the Pistons allowed in the third quarter when Washington got 17 points from Kyle Kuzma, who finished with 23.
“It was our defense with Kuzma that got away from us in the third quarter,” he said. “Some of it was our 3-point shooting, but most of it was our approach and taking it personally when somebody’s lighting us up like that. Too many times we let guys get away instead of putting my stake in the ground: ‘No more.’ ”
The Pistons play one more game – at Boston on Wednesday – before taking a week off for the All-Star break, then they’ll come back and play 24 games in 46 days to finish the regular season. Nothing will be more important over that time than fully integrating Bagley to allow a full evaluation of him ahead of a critical free agency decision on the 22-year-old.
“It’s an experiment to see where he fits,” Casey said. “He fits with both groups. He can play the four. He’s very flexible, very versatile in the positions he can play. I like the way he came in and contributed.”