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Uncut: Luke Kennard

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Uncut: Derrick Rose

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Uncut: Khyri Thomas

Keith Langlois

It’s not that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was brow-furrowing bad in the season’s first seven games. He was largely the player he’d been in Stan Van Gundy’s first two seasons: first rate defensively, up and down on the offensive end.

But in the last 14 games, enough of a sample size to at least entertain the thought a corner has been turned, he’s been All-Star level good and stamped himself as a candidate for Most Improved Player.

His numbers since scoring a season-high 27 at Phoenix on Nov. 9: 17.3 points a game to lead the Pistons over that time on 41.5 percent 3-point shooting to go with 3.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game, all while still drawing the most challenging perimeter defensive assignment or on call to hose off an especially hot hand.

“It’s a product of what he brings to the gym every day,” Van Gundy said. “The guy’s a worker. He’s a leaner. He’s gotten better throughout his career and he brings great energy all the time. He’s still a very young guy, which people forget. He’s a very, very young guy, but he’s played really well. I hope he keeps it going.”

Nobody was more integral to the 3-0 road trip that wrapped Friday night – wins over Eastern Conference contenders Charlotte, Boston and Atlanta – than Caldwell-Pope, who kicked it up another notch. He averaged 22 points, shooting 55 percent (11 of 20) from the 3-point arc, to go with 6.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists. And he had to guard front-line scorers in all three games in Nic Batum, Avery Bradley and Kyle Korver.

Batum finished with eight points. Bradley’s final scoring tally of 14 included three 3-pointers in the final two minutes when Caldwell-Pope had been switched on to Isaiah Thomas. And Korver was limited to seven points and 2 of 8 shooting.

As Caldwell-Pope’s level of play has been elevated, Van Gundy has put more of the offense in his hands.

“No question. We’ve called a lot more for him this year.”

Sometimes that spills over into other areas of a player’s game. Van Gundy has seen it cause a spike in turnovers as players unaccustomed to handling the ball more than occasionally learn to manage their freedom. Or it can lead to a letdown in defensive intensity. Neither has been the case with Caldwell-Pope, who turns 24 in February.

“He still gets the toughest matchup every night and he works hard with it,” Van Gundy said. “He’s a highly conditioned guy and a high-energy guy and he needs to be to take on those roles.”

Caldwell-Pope, as all players would, finds encouragement in his coach showing more trust in him by expanding his responsibilities. But he says he’s learned how to insert himself into the fray of a game without having his number called.

“Not just that. Also rebounding the ball, getting assists or just pushing in transition when I do get the rebound. Other things tie into me getting my rhythm throughout the game.”

He started the season with nine points combined in the first two games, missing all four of his 3-point attempts, then strung together four pretty good games in which he averaged 17 points before bottoming out with a one-point game as the Pistons were thumped to open a four-game road trip against the Los Angeles Clippers. Since then, he’s been lights out. The uneven start begged the question of whether his unresolved contract status – Caldwell-Pope and the Pistons failed to reach agreement on an extension before the Oct. 31 deadline, meaning he’ll become a restricted free agent July 1 – was weighing on him.

“No, not at all,” he said. “It was just about me performing. The opening of the season didn’t turn out how I wanted it to turn out, but I kind of picked it up.”

When Van Gundy was hired by Tom Gores in May 2014, he knew he had a franchise cornerstone in Andre Drummond but he didn’t know quite what to make of Caldwell-Pope, coming off his rookie season. They’re now the only two holdovers from the roster Van Gundy inherited and have been since the start of the 2015-16 season. It didn’t take his new coach much time to figure out Caldwell-Pope gave him plenty to work with.

“You don’t have to have him for long to see how hard he plays and how hard he works,” Van Gundy said. “You know he’s a coachable guy, so it’s about learning and maturing and seeing more situations in games. He’s a guy who’s always going to be able to look in the mirror and feel pretty good that he’s done everything he could. As a coach, you have a responsibility to those types of guys to try to teach them and help them, because they’re doing everything they can.”

And Caldwell-Pope earned every minute Van Gundy plays him – down a few this year, still a team-high 33.1 per game – and every play call he directs to him.

“He never says anything. He just goes out and plays,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t think I’ve had one complaint from him in two-plus years. Nothing. He’ll get upset like anybody at something you say to him during the game, but as far as ‘I need the ball; I need more shots,’ nah. I’ve never had any of that from him.”

Just consistently reliable and smothering defense and, now, the same consistency and dynamic impact at the offensive end. The Pistons have survived Reggie Jackson’s absence for the first quarter of the season and find themselves just a game back of the No. 4 playoff seed with an 11-10 record. Nobody’s been any more integral to that start – in the face of the busiest and toughest schedule of any Eastern Conference team – than Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

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KCP kicks his game up another notch, helps Pistons survive Jackson’s absence

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TORONTO – When you want to understand how Beno Udrih, a point guard with one practice under his belt, will perform for the Pistons in tonight’s season opener there is one obvious resource to tap: Ish Smith, who is responsible for the business health of several moving companies.

And Smith, on his 10th NBA team with the Pistons, says not to worry about Udrih.

“He’s a vet. He’s a savvy vet,” Smith said after today’s walk-through ahead of the 7:30 p.m. tipoff at Air Canada Centre against the team that won a franchise-high 56 games last season before losing in the conference finals to Cleveland. “Beno’s been in the league … what is this? Twelve years? Thirteen years? So this is easy. He’s already coming in, fitting in. He’s played with Tobias (Harris), he’s played with Jon (Leuer), so he’s a savvy vet. He knows what he’s doing.”

How savvy? Well, ask Smith if Udrih has pulled him aside to pick his brains and Smith laughs.

“You know what? He’s more or less helped me with different things. ‘Back up a little on some passes’ when we’re doing some specific stuff, on pick and rolls being aggressive, just different stuff like that,” Smith said. “He’s most definitely come in and been comfortable.”

Udrih, claimed off waivers by the Pistons late Monday afternoon, got to Detroit later that night from Miami after being let go by the Heat and took his physical early Tuesday morning before jumping into practice. Van Gundy doesn’t think the playbook will be very limited despite the short turnaround for Udrih tonight against the Raptors.

“He’s picked up the stuff easily enough,” Van Gundy said. “I just told him if I call something he isn’t familiar with, just let me know and I’ll change the call. But I think it’ll actually be fairly smooth. He’s a really, really smart guy and really was professional about this whole thing. There’s not much, actually, I couldn’t call, I don’t think.”

One of the players Udrih will be running with on Van Gundy’s second unit, Jon Leuer, also expects a seamless transition for the player who’ll serve as backup point guard for as long as it takes Reggie Jackson to return from a bout of left knee tendinosis.

“He’s just a very smart, high IQ player,” said Leuer, Udrih’s teammate in both Milwaukee and Memphis. “Offensively, he can really orchestrate the offense and he’s a threat to score every time he’s in the pick and roll. His mid-range jumper is lethal. And he’s also a good facilitator, just understands the game. He really brings a lot offensively.”

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‘Savvy vet’ Udrih has Pistons confident he’s ready for opener on short notice

Stan Van Gundy worries about Tobias Harris the way parents worry about the kid who gets straight As, does all his household chores and volunteers at the local soup kitchen on weekend mornings.

He worries that Harris is so worry-free he doesn’t pay enough attention to him.

“I talk to him for 20 seconds every day. ‘How you doing this morning? How do you feel’ ” Van Gundy said. “He’s so low maintenance and so professional that you never end up talking to him. He comes in and does the same stuff every day. He’s doing his work and there’s never an issue, never a problem.”

Harris averaged 15.3 points, leading the Pistons, in 29 minutes a game and made half of his shots in a preseason where he was Van Gundy’s steadiest, surest thing.

None of that elicited the slightest surprise from anyone. Nobody had a better summer than Harris. Van Gundy saw it coming after dropping in on him in August and hearing reports prior to that of how hard Harris was pushing himself and how surgically he had zeroed in on boosting elements of his game he felt needed work. Harris arrived in Auburn Hills feeling immensely comfortable in his surroundings after joining the Pistons at the February trade deadline and expecting a career year.

“Consistent level, even-keeled attitude,” he said of his expectations and approach. “I just try to, every single game, evaluate how could I get better, how our team can get better and taking those steps forward to be the best team and really help us all flourish out there on the floor together.”

Harris and Marcus Morris, another player Van Gundy has found to be consummately professional, give the Pistons two versatile, interchangeable forwards that give Van Gundy wide latitude to tinker offensively and defensively. They present matchup problems for opponents and allow the Pistons to switch defensive assignments without fear of getting burned in mismatches.

Harris – still just 24 despite entering his sixth NBA season – is a threat at all three levels offensively. He shot .375 from the 3-point line with the Pistons last season, already above the league average, and made improvement a major summer focus. He’s got a sophisticated post-up game, a highly effective mid-range shot and is a skilled enough ballhandler that Van Gundy intended to make use of Harris in pick-and-roll situations even before Reggie Jackson was lost to injury for perhaps the first quarter of the regular season.

He’s prepared to shoulder whatever Van Gundy puts on him, aware everyone will have to a do a little more heavy lifting to make up for Jackson’s absence. But Harris isn’t thinking of it in terms of ascending to Jackson’s role as leading scorer.

“We have talked about it as a team and put in a bunch of stuff to have me and Marcus, also, get a little bit more play calls, a little bit more touches in certain areas,” he said. “Coach has told us to stay aggressive in a lot of those areas on the court, but I think our biggest asset as a team is moving the basketball side to side and getting a lot of mismatches, getting teams on the run and being able for them to guard us like that. That’s going to be key for us as we start the season.”

Because Van Gundy has a power forward behind Harris he views as more than just an 18-minute-a-game option to play when Harris sits in Jon Leuer, Van Gundy also wants Harris to be equally familiar with and ready to play at small forward. That, too, is just fine with Harris despite the significant differences within Van Gundy’s defensive schemes in those two spots.

“I was used to it when I got here last year. Even before, in Orlando, I played three/four, so I understand the terminology, the defensive calls,” he said. “You’ve just got to do your extra homework on the guys you’re defending.”

And if there’s anyone on the team Van Gundy knows will get all his homework done – on time and with great thought – it’s Harris.

“He really is a highly professional guy,” he said. “You’re never going to have to worry about being ready and never going to have to worry about his taking care of his body. You’re never going to have to worry about any of that stuff. So that’s a great thing.”

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Worry-free Harris ready for big season after settling in with Pistons

PHILADELPHIA – The Pistons figured it would take a minute for Ish Smith to get comfortable because it’s always the way with point guards. Nobody has more information to process than they do and nobody has to be a quicker study at gauging the personalities and preferences of the players orbiting their atmosphere.

But whatever tolerance they had for Smith taking his time to settle in evaporated the minute Reggie Jackson’s balky knee demanded that he address it and miss perhaps the first quarter of the regular season.

They were confident that Smith’s vast experience with changing teams – he’s played for 10 in his seven-year NBA career, though he jokes he’s played for 32 – would accelerate his acclimation. But they might have gotten a little nervous when he struggled as the Pistons opened 0-2 with losses to Brooklyn and San Antonio marked by ragged offensive execution.

Then in a 48-hour span that saw them win road games at Atlanta and Philadelphia, Smith found himself and steadied the ship.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Marcus Morris said amid Smith’s two-game stretch when he averaged 13.5 points, 7.0 assists and 5.0 rebounds and committed zero turnovers. “There’s going to be a lot of that this year. Ish is a great player, smart player, great teammate. I’m happy to see him get going.”

Brett Brown figures the Pistons couldn’t be in better hands to see them through Jackson’s absence given the way Smith guided Philadelphia through anguished times last season. He arrived via a Christmas eve trade with Philadelphia wheezing along at 1-30. With Smith at point guard, the 76ers won their first game and three of six. In 50 starts, he averaged 14.7 points and 7.0 assists.

“He came in here when we were searching for point guards, we were losing, and he gave us an injection when we needed it most,” the 76ers coach said before Saturday’s 97-76 Pistons win. “He gave us hope and I’m thrilled that we had a role in letting the league reward him. We very much appreciated him while he was here.”

Morris and Jackson were teammates of Smith’s at two of his NBA stops, Morris in Phoenix and Jackson in Oklahoma City. Both raved about how Smith’s buoyant personality lifted the mood of the locker room. Brown found the same thing in Philadelphia for a locker room where the collective psyche was bruised and battered.

“He’s got such an infectious personality. He’s really got charisma. I’ve never been around moody people that have been consistent players and his mood never changed. He was just so solid, within himself, and had a bounce and a spirit and was happy. Just a wonderful teammate and a real joy to coach.”

Smith loved playing for Brown and greatly appreciated the chance to start and prove himself as a bona fide NBA player, crediting that 50-game sample size with stirring free-agent interest that resulted in the first multiyear contract, a three-year deal, of his career.

“Philadelphia was good for me,” he said. “It allowed me to grow. I’m truly thankful. I thank God every day for those opportunities and the opportunity here now.”

The turnover-free road trip in which Smith generated transition scoring chances, hit several mid-range shots and went 2 for 2 from the 3-point line put everyone’s mind at ease. The Pistons expected that level of play but they needed to see it before the Oct. 26 regular-season opener.

“Ish is an expert at new teams and new systems,” Van Gundy said. “Nobody’s bounced around more than he has. But he’s a guy who knows how to adapt quickly and people love playing with him. We’re just trying to get him to play and be aggressive. I think the first week and a half or so, the first couple of exhibition games, he was thinking a lot, trying to do the right thing, get the ball to the right people. We want him to play a little bit freer.”

Smith took a quick shower after Saturday’s win at Philadelphia, then took a left out of the visiting locker room to grab a few minutes with Brown.

“Coach was great,” Smith said. “He was great for me and now Stan’s going to take me on home.”

And, that quickly, on his 10th NBA stop, Smith feels at home with the Pistons, whose fate rests in his hands while Jackson’s knee mends.

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After tentative start, Ish Smith settles in with Pistons on turnover-free trip

Stan Van Gundy gave Henry Ellenson a glowing review last week. It apparently didn’t go to the rookie’s head. He was even better in Sunday’s practice.

“He was great today. I mean, tremendous,” Van Gundy said after Sunday’s practice. “He finally missed a shot at the very end. We were all surprised, because he didn’t miss any others. He’s good. A really talented kid offensively.”

It’s earned him a tangible reward, too: playing time in the preseason that Van Gundy doesn’t normally grant to players outside the rotation.

“I don’t know for how many minutes, but the plan right now is we’re going to get him out there every night in the exhibition games,” he said. “I just like the way he’s approached things and the way he’s played the game.”

That means fans coming to tonight’s preseason home opener against San Antonio – or watching online at Pistons.com, which will stream the game for fans within a 150-mile radius – will get a glimpse of the 6-foot-11 rookie.

He’s caught his teammates’ eyes, too.

“Man, Rook is going to be a hell of a player,” Marcus Morris said. “I like Rook a lot. He’s going to be a good player.”

“Man, Henry – Henry’s talented,” Ish Smith said. “He is the perfect stretch four. Henry can shoot it, he can drive it, he can make plays and he’s a sponge. He does so many things out there. When Coach asks him to do things one time, he does it the next time and he doesn’t make the same mistakes. Henry has a fan in me and he’s going to give me a lot of assists. Henry can shoot the ball.”

Constantly heard from Ellenson’s teammates and coaches is praise for his aptitude. An inability to grasp concepts and master schemes far more complex than what they’re accustomed to usually holds rookies back more than lack of physical maturity or ability. Ellenson needs to add strength and become a better defender, but mentally he’s well ahead of the game.

“Fantastic – and a great approach,” Van Gundy said. “Tries to do everything you want, tries to get better every day, takes coaching, takes criticism, listens to his older teammates. You couldn’t have a better approach than what he has.”

On another roster or in another era of Pistons basketball, Ellenson likely would be looking at the certainty of a rotation role. But he’s got a lot of capable players blocking his path to playing time, Van Gundy said.

“The hard part is for him, it’s Marcus and Tobias (Harris) and Jon (Leuer), so it’s three really good players ahead of him – and experienced guys, guys who’ve been out there. It’s tough for him right now, but I’ll tell you what: It’s not like he goes out here every day and he looks like those guys are in a different league from him. Not at all. He can hold his own, particularly on the offensive end. There’s nobody having an easy time stopping him.”