Detroit Pistons player profile: Darrun Hilliard

As the NBA season nears, we will take a deeper look at each player on the Pistons and what their role will be this season. Let’s take a look at Darrun Hilliard and what he will bring to the Pistons for the 2016-2017 NBA season.

Darrun Hilliard surprised a lot of people last season.

Coming into the 2015 NBA draft, the consensus rank on him was around 50-75th. People were surprised when the Detroit Pistons “reached” to grab him with the No. 38 pick. But in his limited playing time, he displayed the reasons the Pistons liked him more than most: a crafty and sophisticated skill set.

Although he didn’t appear in 44 games, in the 38 he did play in Hilliard averaged 4.0 points, 1.2 rebounds, and 0.7 assists in 10.1 minutes per game on .397/.380/.725 shooting.

Despite being labeled as purely a shooter, the 6’6” guard showed an ability to make plays off the dribble that doesn’t show in his per-game numbers. He’s got two things working in his favor in that regard: (1) a level of ambidexterity (he eats/throws/writes right handed, but shoots left) and (2) a pedigree of handling the ball in college at Villanova.

Hilliard, 23, began his rookie season began the season buried behind Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Jodie Meeks, Reggie Bullock, and Stanley Johnson. The minutes for him were few and far between even when Meeks went down in the second game of the season.

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Bullock thereafter got what little 10th-man minutes there were. That is until he fell out of favor in late January. That’s when Hilliard – at such a critical juncture of a playoff run – was given his first taste of opportunity. And the Pistons liked what they saw.

Hilliard appeared in every game between January 30th and March 6th. He averaged 5.2 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 14.1 minutes in the month of February. Bullock picked it back up and closed the season strong, sending Hilliard back out of the rotation, but the Pistons saw enough to be excited about his potential.

Unfortunately, Hilliard’s 2016-2017 isn’t off to a glowing start. A stress fracture in his lower back forced him to miss the entire Orlando Summer League. While he should be good for the start of training camp, we were unable to assess any strides that he’s made during the offseason.

And yet again, depth will likely force Hilliard out of rotation once more. Stan Van Gundy dabbled with a 10-man rotation for stretches last season, but he prefers to roll with nine. And those nine look pretty set with Reggie Jackson, KCP, Marcus Morris, Tobias Harris, Andre Drummond, Johnson, Ish Smith, Jon Leuer, and one of Aron Baynes or Boban Marjanovic.

After that, any leftover minutes will likely fall to either Bullock or Hilliard. Yes, I believe KCP and Morris are in line to play significantly fewer minutes this season than they did last, but that’s probably at the benefit of Johnson and not Bullock or Hilliard.

But it’s an 82-game season. There will be plenty of time to try different things and make adjustments when things aren’t working. Bullock will probably have the rotation edge heading into camp, but Hilliard is on the radar.

Next: Detroit Pistons player profile: Stanley Johnson

All seem to agree that Hilliard is dedicated and a hard worker, and Van Gundy recently called him the best playmaker off the dribble on the team outside of Jackson and Smith. Clearly, the team believes in his skill set and long-term potential, so maybe he finds his way onto the court more than we expect this season.