Carlisle : Pistons are 4 to 8 seed with healthy Reggie

[Finn McCool]

We needed to trade RJ when his value was high, earlier in the season. Perhaps we tried? I dunno.

He had no trade value earlier in the season. He won't have any until he's played a healthy season. Besides, for whom would we have traded him?

I would have taken back a case of gonorrhea for him.

[Billl]

Time to move on from RJ and every other PG on the roster. The organization needs to focus on getting that elite PG that is going to produce every game (and alsoone who doesn't gas out by the 2nd quarter wven when fully healthy).

The notion that Reggie Jackson makes this team "elite" in some people's opinions makes me throw up in my mouth. The guy is an awful PG when compared to almost every starting caliber PG in the NBA.

He's not awful. He's average for a starter. Good scorer. Decent passer/creator. (Mostly due to being able to penetrate and toss a decent lob) Pretty bad defender. If he was playing like he did pre-injury, he would be #8 in scoring for pgs and tied for #11 in assists. That's not elite, but it's not awful.

Of course, none of that matters if he's sitting on the bench injured.

[Crymson]

He's not awful. He's average for a starter. Good scorer. Decent passer/creator. (Mostly due to being able to penetrate and toss a decent lob) Pretty bad defender. If he was playing like he did pre-injury, he would be #8 in scoring for pgs and tied for #11 in assists. That's not elite, but it's not awful.

Prior to his injury, he was 17th among point guards in scoring and 19th in assists.

At his best, he's a mid-tier point guard. He's never been an efficient scorer (never!), and he's ball-dominant. He's got a penchant for shooting more than he should, and sometimes for passing less than he should. He'll probably never be better than mediocre as a defender, and the combination of his injury concerns and his asthma will always limit his minutes.

He's not a bad point. But this is a terrible core. It's got two ball-dominant players, two overlapping big men, and zero good shooters. Jackson was much more valuable to the pre-trade team than he is to the current roster.

[ImHeisenberg]

Time to move on from RJ and every other PG on the roster. The organization needs to focus on getting that elite PG that is going to produce every game (and alsoone who doesn't gas out by the 2nd quarter wven when fully healthy).

The notion that Reggie Jackson makes this team "elite" in some people's opinions makes me throw up in my mouth. The guy is an awful PG when compared to almost every starting caliber PG in the NBA.

So how do you explain the fact that we're a 60%+ win team with him?

The schedule was a lot easier (even the Warriors win wasn't impressive because they weren't even trying in mid-October), and the drop off from RJ to Ish Smith was wildly dramatic. We went from RJ, a guy who's optimistically in the 17-25 range of starting PG's, to Ish Smith, the guy who's probably a bottom 10 backup PG who is now starting.

On top of having a dinosaur coach who doesn't defend the corner 3, and is absolutely terrible at making in-game changes to his rotation or approach. If we had RJ all year, that maybe swings 5 wins in our favor.

[ImHeisenberg]

He's not awful. He's average for a starter. Good scorer. Decent passer/creator. (Mostly due to being able to penetrate and toss a decent lob) Pretty bad defender. If he was playing like he did pre-injury, he would be #8 in scoring for pgs and tied for #11 in assists. That's not elite, but it's not awful.

Of course, none of that matters if he's sitting on the bench injured.

Awful may have been too strong of a word. He's a mediocre PG. He doesn't make anyone better. He has a high usage, but doesn't score efficiently. He's a bad passer. I don't know if people just have a selective memory, but if I had to describe a class RJ play, it would be him dribbling the ball in a circle for 14 seconds of the shot clock as he looked for his shot first, second, third, etc. Calls for a pick, tries to get to the basket but get cut off and whips a mid-air bail out pass 3 feet away from a perimeter player who has to jump out of position to catch it and hope to launch it with a few second left on the shot clock.

That is "classic" Reggie Jackson. People will talk about his crunch time scoring and neglect that he shot 3-15 for the first 43 minutes of the game to put us in a position that requires "hero ball". And, I'm referring to the healthy Reggie Jackson, not the one who's been hobbled and devoid of any explosion.

[Crymson]

So how do you explain the fact that we're a 60%+ win team with him?

For the record, I think that Jackson is an average point guard. He's not an elite one, but he's not a bad one (unless he's playing injured, as in 2016-2017, in which case he's a total cancer).

As for win percentage, a great deal went right in the first 20 games of the season. Bradley, Tobias, Tolliver, Ish, and Galloway were all shooting unsustainably well, everyone was healthy, teams hadn't yet figured out Stan's ultimately very predictable offense, and the Pistons had some luck with the schedule. I'm nonetheless convinced that Harris, Drummond, and Jackson formed a very viable core; they fit well together and encompassed the necessary sum of qualities as a group. Jackson, Drummond, and Griffin do not. That's a trio with two ball-dominant guys, two overlapping bigs, and zero reliable shooters. Jackson's value to this roster will be lower than it was to the pre-trade roster.

Jackson's importance to the team this season was exaggerated a bit by his injury, as Van Gundy's coaching throughout the period thereafter was astoundingly bad. With a competent coach, that team could've managed .500 without Jackson.

[Crymson]

Awful may have been too strong of a word. He's a mediocre PG. He doesn't make anyone better. He has a high usage, but doesn't score efficiently. He's a bad passer. I don't know if people just have a selective memory, but if I had to describe a class RJ play, it would be him dribbling the ball in a circle for 14 seconds of the shot clock as he looked for his shot first, second, third, etc. Calls for a pick, tries to get to the basket but get cut off and whips a mid-air bail out pass 3 feet away from a perimeter player who has to jump out of position to catch it and hope to launch it with a few second left on the shot clock.

That is "classic" Reggie Jackson. People will talk about his crunch time scoring and neglect that he shot 3-15 for the first 43 minutes of the game to put us in a position that requires "hero ball". And, I'm referring to the healthy Reggie Jackson, not the one who's been hobbled and devoid of any explosion.

I think he'd actually turned a corner as a person this season; though he was still prone to playing hero ball in the 4th quarter, he was more willing to pass and more willing to defer to the team's better shooters. Ironically, that progress was best displayed in the very game in which he was lost to injury; he had nine assists in the first quarter.

I think he's got the talent to be a good floor general, but that's worth a whole lot less to this team than it was three months ago. The notion that Jackson is going to somehow synergize with the similarly ball-dominant Blake Griffin is humorous, and there's also the fact that he'll be handling a lot more of the shot-creating duties than he did when Harris is around. That's not a good thing; oddly ignored among the talk about the better spacing he provides is the fact that he's never been a reliable shooter.

[vege]

So how do you explain the fact that we're a 60%+ win team with him?

For the record, I think that Jackson is an average point guard. He's not an elite one, but he's not a bad one (unless he's playing injured, as in 2016-2017, in which case he's a total cancer).

As for win percentage, a great deal went right in the first 20 games of the season. Bradley, Tobias, Tolliver, Ish, and Galloway were all shooting unsustainably well, everyone was healthy, teams hadn't yet figured out Stan's ultimately very predictable offense, and the Pistons had some luck with the schedule. I'm nonetheless convinced that Harris, Drummond, and Jackson formed a very viable core; they fit well together and encompassed the necessary sum of qualities as a group. Jackson, Drummond, and Griffin do not. That's a trio with two ball-dominant guys, two overlapping bigs, and zero reliable shooters. Jackson's value to this roster will be lower than it was to the pre-trade roster.

Jackson's importance to the team this season was exaggerated a bit by his injury, as Van Gundy's coaching throughout the period thereafter was astoundingly bad. With a competent coach, that team could've managed .500 without Jackson.

I agree with a lot of what you said. There is one thing I think people ignore.

When Reggie went down, we lost the only guy we had, who would take over the game in the 4th quarter and close games.

We had a few bad losses where we couldn't finish the game. I remember losing to chicago in a missed layup from Reggie Bullock for example.

When we traded for Blake Griffin, we got another guy who won't be scared like Tobias was, at the end of the game. So now we have Reggie and Blake capable of taking over the game in the 4th quarter.

And like I said before, Drummond said he is working on his mid range game and will work hard on that during the offseason and Blake Griffin after a terrible start, was shooting really well from 3, so with a little bit of internal growth and Blake and Reggie staying healthy, I believe they would fit well together.

I am not a big fan, and he clearly don't completely dominate our situation, but I think this video sums up pretty well our situation and I think he was on point on what he said. The only thing is, I'm not sure we would be able to get a 1st for Stanley Johnson, that seems unrealistic.

Watch on YouTube

[Finn McCool]

Watch on YouTube

That guy on youtube pretty much shares my sentiments. Although, I would love to see Jackson and Johnson both sent out... perhaps in a package deal.

DJ Augustin is shooting fantastic from 3. I wonder what would have happened had Van Gundy never entertained the idea of trading for Reggie.

Trey Burke would be a welcome addition for me, as well. I would take Elfrid Payton if he agreed to a haircut. Not because of the style or anything, but I've had difficulty shooting with a brimmed hat on... and I am persuaded to believe that mass on his forehead has to interfere with his precision.

[Crymson]

I agree with a lot of what you said. There is one thing I think people ignore.

When Reggie went down, we lost the only guy we had, who would take over the game in the 4th quarter and close games.

Circumstantial, and he'd been a clutch scorer of slightly below-average efficiency up to the time of his injury. His 2015-2016 season gave him a vastly overblown reputation as a master in crunch-time situations. He was mediocre this season, and absolutely terrible (to the tune of 38% true shooting) in 2016-2017.

We had a few bad losses where we couldn't finish the game. I remember losing to chicago in a missed layup from Reggie Bullock for example.

Without horrendously bad coaching, the Pistons would've been ahead in that game. There's also the fact that the very same coach who's punted the Pistons into so many losses over these last two seasons absolutely cannot draw up an out-of-timeout play to save his life, be it during a game or in a vital moment near its end.

Van Gundy's coaching in crunch time has more or less boiled down to sending Jackson on an isolation or running someone else on one of the rote plays that every opposing coach in the league already knows.

When we traded for Blake Griffin, we got another guy who won't be scared like Tobias was, at the end of the game. So now we have Reggie and Blake capable of taking over the game in the 4th quarter.

Tobias wasn't scared. He was rarely given any opportunity in crunch time. When Jackson was in, he took the shots. When Jackson was out, it was the incredibly undeserving Bradley who was given all of that.

Can Griffin score effectively in crunch time? That depends on the season. Historically, he's sometimes been very good and other times been very bad. Whatever the case, neither any hypothetical crunch time scoring nor anything else he brings comes close to justifying what remains a shockingly stupid trade.

And like I said before, Drummond said he is working on his mid range game and will work hard on that during the offseason and Blake Griffin after a terrible start, was shooting really well from 3, so with a little bit of internal growth and Blake and Reggie staying healthy, I believe they would fit well together.

Mid-range offense isn't efficient. If Drummond can score reliably when left open outside of the paint, great. I'm not holding my breath. Griffin had a bad streak followed by a good streak. His three-point shot is slow as molasses. He cannot shoot threes efficiently unless he is left wide open.

No matter what happens, he and Drummond will overlap. At absolute best, they'll each have some tools that let them contribute outside of the paint; but they'll both still be players who operate primarily down low. That's a bad combination. And then there's the fact that the hugely ball-dominant Jackson must share with the hugely ball-dominant Griffin. Neither one of them is a good shooter. It's a terrible fit, and the incompetence that went into constructing it absolutely boggles my mind. It's a much worse version of the old Clippers big-three in an offensive meta that penalizes teams for relying on two big men.

[Canadafan]

I agree with Carlisle and this guy
https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2018/4/17/17219030/the-close-out-a-seasons-worth-of-positive-pistons-trends-drummond-blake-griffin-stan-van-gundy

[Crymson]

I agree with Carlisle and this guy
https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2018/4/17/17219030/the-close-out-a-seasons-worth-of-positive-pistons-trends-drummond-blake-griffin-stan-van-gundy

DBB has gone so far downhill. It was once a source of chiefly intelligent, reliable, and honest analysis. Since the Griffin trade, many of the site's more prolific writers have transitioned to an "Everything is fine!" agenda. It's a shame, both in that the quality of the blog has declined and in that pursuing that agenda is fundamentally dishonest: the blog has rightly gained a good reputation over the years, and the average amateur reader is likely to believe what the bloggers write.

Mike, sadly, is among the aforementioned number. Don't get me wrong: I like the guy. He's a nice dude, he knows his stuff, and he's written plenty of insightful material in the past. But where Griffin is concerned, he's been immensely biased; his writing on the topic turns gymnastics with the facts in order to argue that the trade itself and Griffin's presence are both indisputable positives. When called out on the matter, he responds with vague assertions or points to other posters' arguments--themselves almost invariably rife with faulty logic or factually inaccurate claims--that are supportive of the trade. He steadfastly denies all of the abundant reasons why the trade was a horrendous affair all around. His continued conviction on the matter is actually quite bizarre, given that he openly admitted to a poster six weeks after the trade that he was attempting to put the best possible spin on a bad situation.

And he's far from the only blogger there who does so. Another of the writers routinely posts rah-rah exhortations for which he clearly does not do even the merest of fact-checking; his arguments regularly base themselves upon incorrect claims, and he either ignores or deprecates any who call him out. He reminds me of a politician, as his general practice is to severely exaggerate an argument critical of the team (e.g. twisting "the Pistons are in really bad shape" to "THE ORGANIZATION IS SCREWED FOREVER!"), then explaining why that twisted argument is incorrect, giving a set of vague, often factually indefensible reasons why everything will be fine, and telling those who disagree with him that they don't know what they're talking about. A third--one of the most prolific writers on that blog--is almost certainly angling for a job with the organization, given his stated connection to Keith Langlois (the organization's hired shill, and purveyor of what amounts to dishonest, pro-organization propaganda) and the degree to which he'll warp the facts in order to avoid any criticism of the team.

Rare are the writers there who are both knowledgeable and willing to call a spade a spade. And they don't post as much as the others. The fact that only ONE of the writers criticized the Griffin trade at the time it was made should speak more than enough for itself.

It's just a disappointing situation all around. In my opinion, the blog has lost its repute. The community has also become toxic; there's a group of five posters who police the comments section, levying baseless arguments and personal attacks against those who criticize the organization. And several of the bloggers are inclined to join in.

I used to be a regular reader, but I now no longer bother.

[vic]

So Reggie is the MVP and we don't need a coach either, just get Reggie and we're good. Reggie takes a team from the lottery straight to a contender. When did Reggie Jackson become Lebron and surpass Kahwi Leonard and Paul George?

Lol

These SVG apologists are amazing. The whole point of building a team is that it's not completely dependent on 1 guy. Let alone often injured guys that you can't depend on.

And I agree that DBB used to be so much more intelligent.

To be honest I smell racism. Hate to bring it up, but Joe D got ridiculed often, Mo cheeks got blasted often. As soon as SVG got put in charge of everything, excuses get made constantly and the glass is always half-full. I guess that's just how Detroit works politically.

[Snakebites]

So Reggie is the MVP and we don't need a coach either, just get Reggie and we're good. Reggie takes a team from the lottery straight to a contender. When did Reggie Jackson become Lebron and surpass Kahwi Leonard and Paul George?

Lol

These SVG apologists are amazing. The whole point of building a team is that it's not completely dependent on 1 guy. Let alone often injured guys that you can't depend on.

And I agree that DBB used to be so much more intelligent.

To be honest I smell racism. Hate to bring it up, but Joe D got ridiculed often, Mo cheeks got blasted often. As soon as SVG got put in charge of everything, excuses get made constantly and the glass is always half-full. I guess that's just how Detroit works politically.

Dumars had apologists for years and years. He still did right up until the Smith signing went up in flames. They were more inexplicable for longer than SVG apologists. Cheeks never should have been hired.

One non-example and one bad example. You also leave out how vilified Kuester, Frank, and even Flip Saunders were.

I agree SVG shouldn’t be defended though. He made a few good moves but erased them all with poor drafting, bad free agent signings, and the crowning turd that was the Griffin trade.

The case against him is ironclad. I just don’t think you have a racism case here. It ignores too much of the actual data.

[Cowology]

Ugh, really? Playing the racism card?? smh...

[Invictus88]

Dumars was lauded as a great GM early on because he assembled the 200x team. He was then rightfully ridiculed for awful moves he made afterwards.

SVG was lauded from his previous Orlando experience, early trades (Mook, Tobias), and early success (our one playoff season). He has then been rightfully ridiculed for his awful FA signings, lack of improvement, and the Blake Griffin Trade.

If you do good things people like you. If you don't then they don't. Sometimes it really is just that simple.

[Notanoob]

Carlisle isn't wrong that we were a playoff team with Jackson healthy. We were slotted at the 4th seed before he went down. But it's too late for that now, and we're stuck hoping that Jackson and Griffin, two guys who can't stay healthy, will stay healthy, so that we could be the 4th seed and maybe a second round exit, with no ability to improve the team because we have no cap space and probably no pick.

Unless we win the lottery it's time to blow it up. I like the idea of dumping Griffin/Drummond/Johnson to Portland for Collins, picks and bad contracts. We can tank hard. Bullock should have some value too given how well he shot for us. Blow it all up and go full Sixers.

[Crymson]

Carlisle isn't wrong that we were a playoff team with Jackson healthy. We were slotted at the 4th seed before he went down. But it's too late for that now, and we're stuck hoping that Jackson and Griffin, two guys who can't stay healthy, will stay healthy, so that we could be the 4th seed and maybe a second round exit, with no ability to improve the team because we have no cap space and probably no pick.

I don't think this team is good enough to get the 4th seed even if it's healthy.

Unless we win the lottery it's time to blow it up. I like the idea of dumping Griffin/Drummond/Johnson to Portland for Collins, picks and bad contracts. We can tank hard. Bullock should have some value too given how well he shot for us. Blow it all up and go full Sixers.

No way the Trailblazers would accept that. Nobody would ever want our frontcourt. Drummond and Griffin are a terrible match for each other. The Clippers traded away Griffin in part to get out of the similarly poorly-matched Griffin/Jordan frontcourt. The Pistons paid the Clippers for the privilege of taking on that problem. No other team will be trading into such a situation.

[mercury]

I would take Elfrid Payton if he agreed to a haircut. Not because of the style or anything, but I've had difficulty shooting with a brimmed hat on... and I am persuaded to believe that mass on his forehead has to interfere with his precision.

Got a good belly laugh from this... picturing him trying to see thru the locks like a shaggy dog

[Billl]

"I don't think this team is good enough to get the 4th seed even if it's healthy. "

So next year, celtics, sixers, raptors and then who? The pistons aren't an elite team with Jackson, but there just isn't much depth in the east. With a healthy RJ, we are definitely in the mix.

Of course, that's the problem as well. We're only "in the mix for the second tier" even when he's healthy. Our internal development is going to be limited since most of the rotation guys have peaked. We don't have cap space to work with and any picks we have are likely to be mid to late.