PHOENIX — Let’s get the good(?) news out of the way: As the Detroit Pistons enter the All-Star break at 8-46 on the season, it’s almost safe to say Detroit won’t end up with the worst record in NBA history. Prior to the stinker against the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night, the Pistons held the 19th net rating in the NBA since Jan. 15. Detroit hasn’t been good over the last month, but it has had good moments. The Pistons aren’t worst-team-of-all-time bad.
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Now that the good(?) news is out of the way, Detroit has 28 games remaining to attempt to salvage a season from hell. It’ll have to do that with seven new-ish faces and some familiar ones being pushed into bigger roles. The Pistons’ decision-makers need to see that the trades at last week’s deadline not only better balance out the roster, but enhance their young core. Fans need even a sliver of hope to believe that the ship is, indeed, still heading in the right direction. An entirely new roster, essentially, has a short time to find cohesion. That’s not easy.
For a basketball team that hasn’t even reached double-digit wins by the All-Star break, there are still some intriguing reasons for diehards to watch Detroit down the stretch. There are a lot of things I’ll be focused on, some more than others. Let’s get into those.
Will the additions of Simone Fontecchio and Quentin Grimes be worth what Detroit gave up?
The Pistons didn’t walk away from the NBA’s trade deadline without giving up anything of substance. Detroit acquired Fontecchio for a second-round pick this season that’ll likely end up being 31st, 32nd or 33rd pick in the NBA Draft. That’s not nothing. To get Grimes, the Pistons gave up two veteran scorers who had interest around the league from several teams and could have very easily returned to the Motor City next season. Again, not nothing.
Detroit went after Fontecchio and Grimes, though, because the decision-makers felt that both players not only helped the organization’s chances of getting better defensively in both the short and long term, but they better complemented the Pistons’ young core on the offensive end.
Fontecchio was dropped into the Pistons bubble in the middle of last week, with the team in California. He’s only been to Detroit to take a physical. Welcome to the NBA. All things considered, his first impressions have been solid. Most notably, Fontecchio’s first game in a Pistons uniform was a 20-point, nine-rebound performance in a close loss to the Clippers on the road.
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Grimes has yet to play for Detroit as he’s been dealing with a knee sprain, but it is believed that the 23-year-old wing should be ready to go after the All-Star break.
The Pistons added these two players with the intention of keeping them beyond this season. The idea of Fontecchio and Grimes makes sense alongside the Pistons’ most recent first-round picks, but basketball is played on a real court, in real situations and with real consequences.
Detroit needs both players to show that they are worthy of being perfect complementary pieces going forward to, at the very least, justify what they gave up to get them. It needs both players to bolster a defense that has fluctuated between really bad and bad. The Pistons needed more players who can make a shot and stop an opponent from scoring on the other end.
That’s why Fontecchio and Grimes are here.
Will Monty Williams get his rotation down to 10 men?
At this point, it’s safe to assume that Williams is going to play an all-bench unit at some point in every basketball game. He’s done it for the majority of this season and since the new players were ushered in, he’s continued to do it, too.
Whether you agree with it or not, it’s happening.
I do believe that if Williams is going to get into the double digits with the players he uses nightly, I think it’s important for the coach to keep it to 10. That way roles are defined, players can get into an individual rhythm and, most importantly, cohesion can be attempted to be formed as a group. As Wednesday’s game against Phoenix showed, this group currently doesn’t recognize one another.
When examining Detroit’s new roster, I see a world where a 10-man rotation could possibly, maybe make sense for the Pistons — even though I think the minutes of Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey should be staggered every single night, which hasn’t happened. Assuming Williams is dead set on playing an all-bench lineup, you could do worse than Marcus Sasser, Grimes, Troy Brown, Ausar Thompson and Mike Muscala. On paper, there’s spacing, shotmaking and defense in that group.
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However, it wouldn’t surprise me if Williams goes to 11 players, deciding between Evan Fournier and Shake Milton.
If Williams is going to play more than nine players, I do think 10 is the way to go. Will he do it? We’ll see.
The Cunningham-Ivey partnership
Primarily due to Ivey’s minutes going up, as well as his usage with Cunningham on the floor, the seeds for a special backcourt pairing have been planted over the last 1 1/2 months. This duo continuing to find a good rhythm together is probably the most important thing to monitor down the stretch.
A big reason as to why it has worked between the two lately is because Ivey has been shooting lights out from 3. Since Jan. 15, the second-year guard is knocking down over 45 percent of his 3s while attempting more than five per game. Now, that number is absurd and very likely won’t stick after the final 28 games. However, if Ivey has indeed turned a corner as a 3-point shooter and finds himself hovering around 37 percent or better, I have very little doubts that the backcourt works both now and in the future.
The coaching staff has found a good balance of putting each one in opportunities to initiate offense while on the floor together. Those two have done a good job of playing off one another. But for this to really work, one of them has to be a good-to-great 3-point shooter. Right now, Ivey appears to be more of the scoring threat off the ball — also I still think Cunningham with the ball in his hands is Detroit’s best chance at climbing out of the NBA’s basement and turning into a relevant entity.
Furthermore, these two have to cut down the turnovers. Cunningham, who once led the league in turnovers, has been better as of late — except for the handful he had in the loss to the Suns. He averaged less than three turnovers per game in the month of December. The turnovers got back to slightly above 3.0 per game in January, when he dealt with a nagging knee injury. So far in February, though, Cunningham is around 2 1/2 turnovers per game.
Ivey on the other hand has really struggled with taking care of the ball lately. The 22-year-old guard averaged 3.6 turnovers per game through the team’s first six games in February, with one five-turnover game and one six-turnover game. Ivey’s turnovers were lower to begin the season, but his usage through the first 1 1/2 months is much lower than it has been in recent weeks.
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Both Cunningham and Ivey need to continue to improve at taking care of the ball in order for this to work going forward. It’s hard to see a world where they’re a dynamic backcourt if both are turning the ball over and one isn’t better than league average from 3. Things are trending in the right direction, but these last 28 games will be very important in terms of evaluating their fit.
It should be noted that Cunningham and Ivey barely played together last season due to the former only playing in 12 games due to an injury.
Without Bojan Bogdanović and Alec Burks, can Detroit maintain hot 3-point shooting?
Through the first 32 games of the season (from Oct. 25 thru Dec. 31), the Pistons were, arguably, the worst 3-point shooting team in basketball. Their 33.7 percent conversion rate ranked 28th, but when you factor in that they attempted the fewest 3s in the NBA during that stretch, it puts them comfortably at the bottom. The poor 3-point shooting, and lack of attempts, was a big reason Detroit had just three wins through 32 games.
Since the turn of the calendar, the Pistons have been one of the NBA’s most efficient 3-point shooting teams. Following the loss to the Lakers and before losing to the Suns, Detroit ranked third in the NBA at 40 percent since Jan. 1. The attempts are still in the bottom third of the NBA, but 21st is a significant improvement from 30th.
A big reason why Detroit rose from the dead as a shooting team is because of Bogdanović and Burks being both available and coming to life as shooters. As I mentioned before, Ivey has been on a heater from deep lately. More minutes for Marcus Sasser has helped, too. It’s not a surprise that the Pistons have won more frequently as their 3-point shooting has improved.
I’m very curious to see if this trend continues going forward. Bogdanović and Burks were elite heat-check guys. Both are two of the best 3-point shooters in all of basketball. Detroit will replace their minutes with players who are good shooters but likely won’t have the same volume that those two had. Sasser getting the minutes of the now-departed Killian Hayes will help in keeping both the team percentage and attempts up.
However, the Pistons need Fontecchio and Grimes to come in and continue this trend, even if the volume for either player won’t be the same as it was for Bogdanović and Burks.
(Photo: Brian Sevald / NBAE via Getty Images)
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