Zach Lowe bullish on Pistons

Zach Lowe of Grantland in his annual preseason predictions:

"6. Detroit will make the playoffs.This is more a vote of no confidence in the Miami–Brooklyn–New York–Indiana crew. Charlotte might even fall short of internal expectations, and nobody knows what Atlanta will do if and when a new owner buys the team.Stan Van Gundy added a dose of wing shooting, and he’ll stabilize Detroit’s base defense and rotation in ways that should have been obvious to any coach a year ago. He’ll coach up Andre Drummond on both ends, and if Brandon Jennings barfs up awful shots, Van Gundy has a proven placeholder in D.J. Augustin."

"7. Greg Monroe, Josh Smith, and Andre Drummond will play fewer than 500 minutes together.This trio logged nearly 1,400 miserable minutes last season, a number that would have been unfathomable had Detroit not been tanking down the stretch to keep its own pick — a futile attempt that drew the ire of the basketball gods in the lottery.The all-big look didn’t work on either end, but it was especially damaging on defense. You don’t need to be Van Gundy to realize it’s time to try other things. Van Gundy has already said he’ll cut the all-big minutes, and he has brought one of the three off the bench in every preseason game thus far.It would make Monroe furious, but Van Gundy’s best option might be to use him off the bench. Monroe could guard centers and run the offense through post-ups and his drive-and-dish game from the elbow. He’s better suited to that responsibility now than Smith is, and Van Gundy will find plenty of crunch-time minutes for everyone depending on matchups and game flow."

I hate picking against Lowe, who clearly knows his stuff, but I’ll take the opposite of his two predictions.

I also don’t have a ton of confidence in the Heat, Nets, Knicks, Pacers – and Pistons – when it comes to making the playoffs. I’d take the field over any one of those teams. But if I were ranking their postseason odds, it’d go: Heat, Nets, Pistons, Knicks, Pacers with only Miami and Brooklyn getting in.

It should be close, and I’d hardly be surprised if the Pistons make the playoffs. I have them just outside looking in.

I also expect Van Gundy to wean the Pistons off the dreaded three-big lineup, but he experimented enough with it in the preseason that I don’t think he’ll go cold turkey.

For reference, the Pistons had 25 trios last season that played at least 500 minutes together. Van Gundy can use a Smith-Monroe-Drummond frontcourt far less often and still deploy it more than 500 minutes.

Let’s hope Lowe, and not me, gets these correct.