Our Starters Have Been Great

[ElectricMayhem]

I wrote an article that's less about laughs and more analysis:
http://www.detroitbadboys.com/2015/12/3/9841440/detroit-pistons-starting-five-quiet-domination

Some quick points:
★Our starters are averaging +9.7 points per 100 possessions.
★Our starters have played an NBA-leading 368 minutes together.
★San Antonio is second....with 237 minutes together!
★3 of the Top Ten single game lineup performances this year were done by the Pistons.
★2 of those by the starting lineup (No. 1 vs. ATL - +28 & No. t-9 vs. MIA - +21).
★The other was done with 4 members of the starting lineup + Tolliver (No. t-5 vs. POR - +25).
★Meanwhile, the best lineup AGAINST us was just the 61st best +/- performance in the NBA.
★It was done BY a second unit against our second unit (No. t-61 vs. WAS - +13)
★Our starters play an average of 19 minutes 22 seconds together.
★Only one team in the past 15 years has has starters average more than 18 minutes together: Your 2005-6 Detroit Pistons with 20m 55s.

Getting a starting five to work together well is the hard part. If we had a second unit that just held its ground, we'd be a top-level team. With people eventually returning from injuries and internal growth, we'll improve some. Finding good bench players in FA is a lot easier than finding good starters. This is really good news.

[Blkbrd671]

I wrote an article that's less about laughs and more analysis:
http://www.detroitbadboys.com/2015/12/3/9841440/detroit-pistons-starting-five-quiet-domination

Some quick points:
★Our starters are averaging +9.7 points per 100 possessions.
★Our starters have played an NBA-leading 368 minutes together.
★San Antonio is second....with 237 minutes together!
★3 of the Top Ten single game lineup performances this year were done by the Pistons.
★2 of those by the starting lineup (No. 1 vs. ATL - +28 & No. t-9 vs. MIA - +21).
★The other was done with 4 members of the starting lineup + Tolliver (No. t-5 vs. POR - +25).
★Meanwhile, the best lineup AGAINST us was just the 61st best +/- performance in the NBA.
★It was done BY a second unit against our second unit (No. t-61 vs. WAS - +13)
★Our starters play an average of 19 minutes 22 seconds together.
★Only one team in the past 15 years has has starters average more than 18 minutes together: Your 2005-6 Detroit Pistons with 20m 55s.

Getting a starting five to work together well is the hard part. If we had a second unit that just held its ground, we'd be a top-level team. With people eventually returning from injuries and internal growth, we'll improve some. Finding good bench players in FA is a lot easier than finding good starters. This is really good news.

[Liqourish]

I wrote an article that's less about laughs and more analysis:
http://www.detroitbadboys.com/2015/12/3/9841440/detroit-pistons-starting-five-quiet-domination

Some quick points:
★Our starters are averaging +9.7 points per 100 possessions.
★Our starters have played an NBA-leading 368 minutes together.
★San Antonio is second....with 237 minutes together!
★3 of the Top Ten single game lineup performances this year were done by the Pistons.
★2 of those by the starting lineup (No. 1 vs. ATL - +28 & No. t-9 vs. MIA - +21).
★The other was done with 4 members of the starting lineup + Tolliver (No. t-5 vs. POR - +25).
★Meanwhile, the best lineup AGAINST us was just the 61st best +/- performance in the NBA.
★It was done BY a second unit against our second unit (No. t-61 vs. WAS - +13)
★Our starters play an average of 19 minutes 22 seconds together.
★Only one team in the past 15 years has has starters average more than 18 minutes together: Your 2005-6 Detroit Pistons with 20m 55s.

Getting a starting five to work together well is the hard part. If we had a second unit that just held its ground, we'd be a top-level team. With people eventually returning from injuries and internal growth, we'll improve some. Finding good bench players in FA is a lot easier than finding good starters. This is really good news.

Outstanding!! And gels with what I see watching games, our starters are performing well, it's our bench and defensive lapses at times (fatigue?) that has been our downfall. We don't need to make big changes to the team. We need to get Jennings and possibly Meeks back and have Stanley develop and I think we can be a legit playoff team.

[DocRI]

Outstanding work and a great article!

While I mostly find this to be terrific overall, I'm still gonna also argue the pessimistic side of this coin — while this is fantastic news about our starters, it really shines a spotlight on just how bad our bench has been. And while that's not news in the least, seeing the minutes our starters have played / are playing raises a HUGE red flag. Remember what happened to our 05/06 squad (the last team who played their starters like this)? We rushed out to a 35-5 record, but our starters were spent and had dead legs come playoff time. This isn't just about production; if the bench doesn't improve, SVG could wind up running our starters into the ground.

Again though, GREAT work, Mayhem; you should be really proud of this one!

[Cowology]

Nice.

What's really encouraging is that our starters have a TON of room to improve. Reggie isn't playing nearly as well as he did last season and he's still learning how to actually run an offense. Dre has barely scratched the surface of his offensive prowess and is just how beginning to become a rim protecting force. I honestly don't know how much better KCP is going to get, but if he can learn better shot selection and stick to those corner 3's his efficiency will certainly improve. And of course Stanley is just oozig potential.

If we actually had Jennings, Meeks and Morris off the bench you are suddenly looking at a very talented and relatively deep 8-man rotation. Even if we lose Jennings but use that capsace to add 2x rotation players we'll be in damn good shape. It's easy to forget how young this team is or the fact we're still a few years away from actually peeking, but we are definitely headed the right direction and that is exciting,

[Phenomenonsense]

I wrote an article that's less about laughs and more analysis:
http://www.detroitbadboys.com/2015/12/3/9841440/detroit-pistons-starting-five-quiet-domination

Some quick points:
★Our starters are averaging +9.7 points per 100 possessions.
★Our starters have played an NBA-leading 368 minutes together.
★San Antonio is second....with 237 minutes together!
★3 of the Top Ten single game lineup performances this year were done by the Pistons.
★2 of those by the starting lineup (No. 1 vs. ATL - +28 & No. t-9 vs. MIA - +21).
★The other was done with 4 members of the starting lineup + Tolliver (No. t-5 vs. POR - +25).
★Meanwhile, the best lineup AGAINST us was just the 61st best +/- performance in the NBA.
★It was done BY a second unit against our second unit (No. t-61 vs. WAS - +13)
★Our starters play an average of 19 minutes 22 seconds together.
★Only one team in the past 15 years has has starters average more than 18 minutes together: Your 2005-6 Detroit Pistons with 20m 55s.

Getting a starting five to work together well is the hard part. If we had a second unit that just held its ground, we'd be a top-level team. With people eventually returning from injuries and internal growth, we'll improve some. Finding good bench players in FA is a lot easier than finding good starters. This is really good news.

I can see where I'm standing in that picture! Home OPENER BABY!

[Billl]

We are still rebuilding and depth is an obvious issue. Of course, that is dramatically better than we have been in recent years.

On the plus side, SVG has set this up pretty nicely for the future. We've got a solid core and cap space to work with this offseason.