Moose10Fan wrote:
Jennings had a hot stretch that's about it. Reggie is a completely different player, Jackson can penetrate with a floater to boot, he is one of the better P&R players in the league and has a great rep with Drummond as well, the added spacing makes it more deadly.
His playmaking is fine; the net result to the team was that he replaced what Jennings had been doing in the first half, though, especially because he also sucks to a similar degree at scoring efficiently compared to Jennings.
I'm a Jennings fan, he can shoot 3's and is a fairly adept passer but he and drummond never worked as well as drummond/Reggie.
Mmmmm. Drummond shot about 3% better from the floor after the trade. I'll wait to see if he can protect the ball as well over a more significant sample size, but it is a better fit from a style standpoint, I can't really argue that. He's not likely going to be anything more than a Tyson Chandler-type offensively, but that's OK, that has value, and more than a little.
With respect to Jennings, yes, I agree: he was shooting about as well as he ever had beneath the arc and above, and the Pistons were REALLY going to him a lot before his Achilles crapped out. The odds of him continuing to shoot 39% on 6.5 3PA/g weren't GREAT, but he's shot 35.1% on 5.7/g over the past 267 regular season games, so it wasn't a HUGE separation from his usual fare. Keep in mind that he did shoot 37.5% on 5.8/g as recently as 2013 and this was the third time in five years that he's shot 42%+ below the arc. Some of these things do point to his ability to maintain at least a given baseline.
The net result, in any case, was that he posted a below-average 52.2% TS on his 41-game season. That still isn't good, especially with 26.3% USG. 110 ORTG was nice, as was +4.3 OBPM.
Jackson, for all his myriad narrative value and his synergy with Drummond, was a 106 ORTG guy who managed 51.1% TS in both OKC and Detroit last year (career 51.3%, career-best 53.1%) with +3.9 OBPM in Detroit.
He really isn't any better a scorer. He's got an unimpressive perimeter two-pointer, he's even worse at drawing fouls than Jennings, he's got a similarly-crap middle game and he's worse from 3. He finishes better in close, that's it (scoring-wise).
He's got value, for sure, and the reality is that he's a superior playmaker, but the difference between those two in realized team offensive impact is not significant. Jackson also had a smaller sample and "zomg he's new!" syndrome, so we'll see what happens over the length of a full season. Maybe he'll maintain/improve, but it likely won't be as a scorer. He's been in the league a while, and has continued to suck at certain things without any sign of improvement. Running him 28%+ USG isn't going to be good stuff in the sense that it'll put a cap on his ability to elevate team offense. His playmaking will be a boon, and will be a more consistent boon to team O than Jennings' fitful shooting, that is true.
Hopefully for the sake of the Pistons, they will manage to successfully employ Jennings as 6th man and let him come in and gun when Reggie sits, and they find that comfortable balance where they never have both on the bench, and this produces positive things for team O.
