Should Ish Smith start for the Pistons?
By Sham Mohile
The Detroit Pistons currently sit in the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference following a crushing loss against the Pacers, is now the time to make a radical change to the starting lineup with 31 games left in the regular season?
Stale, stagnant, and plain are just a few of the adjectives used to describe the play of the Detroit Pistons (23-28) in this disappointing season. Following their disappointing loss against the Indiana Pacers on Saturday night, these same struggling Pistons have found themselves somehow sitting just outside the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.
After witnessing a horrid December where the Pistons went 5-10, Pistons’ Twitter has been active with a myriad of fantasy trade scenarios, lineup suggestions, and some have even suggested tanking the season to acquire a high lottery pick (myself included). However, I think the easiest change would be to go back to what gave the Pistons a winning record and a top-10 net rating: starting Ish Smith.
Since the start of the season, Ish Smith has been electric and infused a lot of much-needed energy into the starting lineup in Reggie Jackson‘s absence and has recently provided a much needed spark to the team and more notably, the second unit.
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From January 18th until today, Ish Smith ranks 5th amongst guards (min. 12 min) with a 118.8 offensive rating (compared to Jackson’s 106.3) and 6th amongst guards (min. 12 min) with a 64.1 percent effective field goal percentage (compared to Jackson’s 47.1 percent).
In addition to his impressive recent performances, Ish Smith consistently does two things very well: pushes the pace in transition and finds open shooters. Smith ranks fourth in the league (min. 40 games played) in transition frequency and has the second highest assist ratio on the team.
When examining how pace affects the Pistons’ offense, fellow Piston Powered writer Duncan Smith pointed out that Ish Smith loves to run the floor in transition, making up over a quarter of his overall possesions (compared to Reggie Jackson’s 12.2 percent of transition possessions). When Smith is pushing the pace in transition, the Pistons have flourished. Andre Drummond, Tobias Harris, Marcus Morris, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (#PayKCP) all average above 1.15 points per possession on fast-break opportunities, mostly due to Ish Smith.
The two best Piston spot-up shooters in the rotation (based on points-per-possession), Tobias Harris and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, exceed when Ish Smith is on the court compared to Reggie Jackson. With Ish on the court and Reggie off, both Harris and Pope show significant increases in true shooting percentage (Harris: +3.5, KCP: +1.8), and while KCP’s offensive rating is relatively the same, Harris’ rating jumps significantly (107.0 vs. 100.7).
Moving Ish Smith the starting lineup could also do wonders for the bench unit. Adding Reggie Jackson to the bench would add in some much needed isolation scoring to a unit that can look stuck at times offensively. Reggie Jackson leads the team in points-per-possession in isolation and boasts a 53.8 percent effective field goal percentage in isolation, best of all the players in the rotation.
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Another interesting note is that Jackson has shown to improve the offensive play of Stanley Johnson in virtually every category (offensive rating, effective field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, three point percentage, and field goal percentage). With Reggie Jackson on the bench and Ish Smith in the starting lineup, maybe the Detroit Pistons can start consistently winning again and climb the Eastern Conference ladder.