It seemed that the Stan Van Gundy era with the Detroit Pistons officially started during the opening night of the 2015-’16 NBA season. The Pistons knocked down 12-29 threes on their way to a 106-94 win over the Atlanta Hawks in Philips Arena.
Detroit’s offense had the look of Van Gundy’s Orlando teams — it was centered around the Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond pick and roll surrounded by three-point bombers. Some of this existed last season, when the Pistons were 20 points better per 100 possessions with these two on the court together in 29 games. However, the complementary pieces are better now.
Starting small forward Marcus Morris is a career 36% three-point shooter.
Starting power forward Ersan Ilyasova is a career 37% three-point shooter.
Starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is coming off a second season which saw him raise his three-point shooting by almost three full percentage points (.345). Caldwell-Pope canned 4-7 looks in the opener.
Forcing teams to either leave space open in the paint or close off the three-point shot is going to make Detroit’s offense deadly. This is the case even though flaws still exist within the construct of the roster, and the Pistons aren’t where they need to be.
Despite 18 points and 19 rebounds, Andre Drummond shot 6-16 from the field due to a slew of inefficient post-ups. He didn’t get deep enough post position and doesn’t have the necessary touch to make this a large part of his game. It is one game, and maybe the Hawks played terrific post defense, but I lean towards Detroit’s center not yet having the requisite skills to be a one-on-one scorer at this point in his career.
Reggie Jackson’s jumper is still a question. He hit 2-4 from deep last night, but he is a career 30% three-point shooter and peaked at 34% in 2013-’14.
This duo definitely has the potential to be a consistent PnR threat, yet you can see flaws that can potentially be exploited by strong defensive teams. Scripting a defensive gameplan that sinks off Jackson’s jumper and takes away the pass off the dive to Drummond could cramp the Pistons’ offense.
That is easier said than done.
One offseason with cap restraints wasn’t enough for Van Gundy to mold the roster to his liking. After a second offseason, one can see the early seeds of what he’s trying to do with the Pistons. How high they can get is going to correlate strongly with development of the 22-year-old Drummond on both ends of the court.
The potential is here; now we will see how quickly it can grow.
