RealGM

I know there’s a pretty consistent buzz on the board about why Bruce Brown started over Luke and why it may continue to be that way.

Hopefully this article answers all those questions and can put that debate to rest for the time being.

Coach Casey makes a good point and I’m sure there will be a time to re-evaluate in the future after he sees different matchups together.

https://clutchpoints.com/pistons-news-dwane-casey-explains-difficult-start-luke-kennard/

Just awful. In what world should Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond initiate more pick and roll touches than Kennard? Casey has some kind of irrational hatred for Kennard. He has always kept him in the dog house and played him just enough to try and appease fans. Something is up with that.

DetroitPistons wrote:Just awful. In what world should Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond initiate more pick and roll touches than Kennard? Casey has some kind of irrational hatred for Kennard. He has always kept him in the dog house and played him just enough to try and appease fans. Something is up with that.

Casey doesn't say Dre will initiate more pick and rolls - he said dribble hand offs!

Casey also says that putting Luke in the starting unit takes away from his strengths!

With Blake & Reggie on the floor Luke would be assigned the shooters role. If he's coming off the bench he'll have the ball in his hands more: which one is better for Luke?

People get caught up in who starts. Personally it's about the closing line up.

Sent from my SM-A520F using RealGM mobile app

Pharaoh wrote:

DetroitPistons wrote:Just awful. In what world should Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond initiate more pick and roll touches than Kennard? Casey has some kind of irrational hatred for Kennard. He has always kept him in the dog house and played him just enough to try and appease fans. Something is up with that.

Casey doesn't say Dre will initiate more pick and rolls - he said dribble hand offs!

Casey also says that putting Luke in the starting unit takes away from his strengths!

With Blake & Reggie on the floor Luke would be assigned the shooters role. If he's coming off the bench he'll have the ball in his hands more: which one is better for Luke?

People get caught up in who starts. Personally it's about the closing line up.

Sent from my SM-A520F using RealGM mobile app

A dribble hand off is basically a quick pick and roll and we hardly even ran those last year. Casey is making excuses when he is appealing to Drummond DHOs and Bruce Brown P&Rs as taking priority over having the ball in Kennards hands. Also, Rose is going to dominate the ball off the bench too so Kennard is still not going to have the ball in his hands. Casey is looking for a way to keep Kennard down around 20mpg again with inconsistent minutes. People talk about putting shooters around Griffin but now we are supposed to believe Brown, who is basically a non shooter, should start along with Griffin instead of our best shooter who also happens to be one of our top prospects. Yeah... Okay... Like I said, there is something going on there because starting Kennard is an easy no brainer.

DetroitPistons wrote:

Pharaoh wrote:

DetroitPistons wrote:Just awful. In what world should Bruce Brown and Andre Drummond initiate more pick and roll touches than Kennard? Casey has some kind of irrational hatred for Kennard. He has always kept him in the dog house and played him just enough to try and appease fans. Something is up with that.

Casey doesn't say Dre will initiate more pick and rolls - he said dribble hand offs!

Casey also says that putting Luke in the starting unit takes away from his strengths!

With Blake & Reggie on the floor Luke would be assigned the shooters role. If he's coming off the bench he'll have the ball in his hands more: which one is better for Luke?

People get caught up in who starts. Personally it's about the closing line up.

Sent from my SM-A520F using RealGM mobile app

A dribble hand off is basically a quick pick and roll and we hardly even ran those last year. Casey is making excuses when he is appealing to Drummond DHOs and Bruce Brown P&Rs as taking priority over having the ball in Kennards hands. Also, Rose is going to dominate the ball off the bench too so Kennard is still not going to have the ball in his hands. Casey is looking for a way to keep Kennard down around 20mpg again with inconsistent minutes. People talk about putting shooters around Griffin but now we are supposed to believe Brown, who is basically a non shooter, should start along with Griffin instead of our best shooter who also happens to be one of our top prospects. Yeah... Okay... Like I said, there is something going on there because starting Kennard is an easy no brainer.

That's your opinion bro.

I think we'll finish games with Luke on the floor. I think he'll get more opportunities with the ball playing with the 2nd unit.

Time will tell

Sent from my SM-A520F using RealGM mobile app

luke should be starting with reggie, blake, dre to give us more offensive punch since we always start games slow bruce brown imo would be better off the bench with rose, thon, morris etc.

I like Kennard as a 6th man, obv I'm not fine with a Jackson-Brown backcourt.

Meh - casey is just trying to be positive. The reason luke isn't starting is because he doesn't play D. You might be able to hide him a bit if our pg was a good defender, but RJ clearly isn't at this point. If you put him and RJ out on the perimeter together, you may as well just roll out a red carpet from halfcourt to the paint.

If we manage to land a well rounded pg somehow or if we get a rip protecting big, then luke likely leapfrogs Brown in the starting lineup.

I have no problems with Luke as a 6th man, I have a feeling that's his overall realistic career path in this league anyways. Some people see him as a JJ/Korver type, but I don't, he's more of a Kevin Martin/Manu-lite type instead. He's way more effective with the ball in his hands than just trying to run around a bunch. Plus, he doesn't even run around like JJ.

Brown is likely going to get the nod because we literally have no choice. We have no good two way talent when it comes to the perimeter. That and a Luke and one-knee Reggie trying to play defense is going to end up losing more points than not.

I have a feeling Luke will still get minutes regardless.

I think they have to start Kennard, he's really a player that if he panned out could lift the team up from a 7/8/9 type team to a 4/5/6 type team. This is his year to break out (or not), need to see him start and get heavy minutes.

I'm interested to see if Bruce Brown can sharpen his shooting in his second year. I think he'll start the year at the 2 but if he is still a brick layer, he might lose his starting spot.

Drwho17 wrote:I think they have to start Kennard, he's really a player that if he panned out could lift the team up from a 7/8/9 type team to a 4/5/6 type team. This is his year to break out (or not), need to see him start and get heavy minutes.

100% agree. We should start him and give him 30mpg so we can at least what we have in him. I think he can be really good but not if Casey keeps him in the doghouse and stunts his growth.

DetroitPistons wrote:

Drwho17 wrote:I think they have to start Kennard, he's really a player that if he panned out could lift the team up from a 7/8/9 type team to a 4/5/6 type team. This is his year to break out (or not), need to see him start and get heavy minutes.

100% agree. We should start him and give him 30mpg so we can at least what we have in him. I think he can be really good but not if Casey keeps him in the doghouse and stunts his growth.

Doghouse?? Stunts his growth??

Luke averaged 33 mpg during the playoffs.

I think that’s way more indicative of how his minutes and usage are trending.

I really hope he takes the next step this upcoming season. I genuinely don’t believe coach Casey has anything against him.

GreekAlex wrote:

DetroitPistons wrote:

Drwho17 wrote:I think they have to start Kennard, he's really a player that if he panned out could lift the team up from a 7/8/9 type team to a 4/5/6 type team. This is his year to break out (or not), need to see him start and get heavy minutes.

100% agree. We should start him and give him 30mpg so we can at least what we have in him. I think he can be really good but not if Casey keeps him in the doghouse and stunts his growth.

Doghouse?? Stunts his growth??

Luke averaged 33 mpg during the playoffs.

I think that’s way more indicative of how his minutes and usage are trending.

I really hope he takes the next step this upcoming season. I genuinely don’t believe coach Casey has anything against him.

Yeah Casey finally started him in the playoffs and gave him enough minutes and he was arguably our best playoff performer. That's what I'm saying. Why go back to benching him? If he comes off the bench I doubt Casey gives him 30mpg.

Luke had different responsibilities in the playoffs because Blake couldn't perform with his injury. He adapted to that role really well but it wouldn't be the same with a healthy Blake getting more touches. It may be a year that Brown has to be paired with Reggie to cover the defensive weakness but I hope Luke gets steady minutes in a role he can flourish in. Next year we may have a point guard who can play defense, making Luke's role bigger on the starting unit.

All of our high upside talented guys should start, and play as many minutes as possible.

Is there a reason why not?

This team is not going to the finals. Is not competing for a high playoff seed. Is not competing for getting deep into the playoffs.

If you select someone in the lottery, or just outside, and your team sucks, not playing them is pointless.

Kennard 12th pick

Sekou 15th pick no one thought he would be there, blah blah blah. He won't play. Kennard can't even start when he is clearly the better player. Brown I really like because he plays his butt off, but realistically Kennard is just the better player.

Whatever. I'm so disillusioned with this team I just don't care anymore to be perfectly honest. I'll enjoy watching these two develop on a different team.

Thinking of finding a different sport to start following. Hate baseball, loathe Hockey, and Detroit has never had a pro football team so I never got into it.

Jackson
Brown
Snell
Blake
Andre

I could just vomit.

Rose
Kennard
Sekou
Blake
Andre

I would watch the hell out of that. Oh well. Peace.

zeebneeb wrote:All of our high upside talented guys should start, and play as many minutes as possible.

Is there a reason why not?

This team is not going to the finals. Is not competing for a high playoff seed. Is not competing for getting deep into the playoffs.

If you select someone in the lottery, or just outside, and your team sucks, not playing them is pointless.

Kennard 12th pick

Sekou 15th pick no one thought he would be there, blah blah blah. He won't play. Kennard can't even start when he is clearly the better player. Brown I really like because he plays his butt off, but realistically Kennard is just the better player.

Whatever. I'm so disillusioned with this team I just don't care anymore to be perfectly honest. I'll enjoy watching these two develop on a different team.

Thinking of finding a different sport to start following. Hate baseball, loathe Hockey, and Detroit has never had a pro football team so I never got into it.

Jackson
Brown
Snell
Blake
Andre

I could just vomit.

Rose
Kennard
Sekou
Blake
Andre

I would watch the hell out of that. Oh well. Peace.

Casey generally doesn't play young guys much and always overplays vets. I can see him playing iso Joe more than kennard. Did same crap with the raps


Sent from my Nokia 3310 using Tapatalk

a jackson, brown, snell lineup is atrocious.

You really can't blame casey here. His job is to put the best combination of guys out there as he can based on who he has available. Both the bench and starting lineups need defense and shooting, but all we have are guys who do one or the other.

And that's really managements problem. The current group gets a bit more patience from me, but they have to get this moving in the right direction soon. You aren't going to win much in todays nba without a bunch of perimeter guys who can defend and shoot. We don't have any proven 2 way guys like that on the roster.

when he says "taking away from his strengths" think of it more that there would be diminishing returns on kennard being in the starting lineup. with blake initiating most of the offense (rightfully so), kennard would be more relegated to being a spot up shooter.

if kennard comes off the bench he'd get more touches and put in a role where he would get to initiate the offense. even around draft time mike krzyzewski (kennard's college coach) said that kennard would be great as a team's sixth man. that'll likely be hist career trajectory unless he develops offensively to the point where he can be a team's leading ball handler or isn't a defensive liability.

which isn't a bad thing, guys like manu ginobili and lou williams are good examples of sixth men that at times look like their team's best player (and play ~30 mpg and close games).