The small forward battle
The battle for starting small forward has only heated up since the preseason started. Marcus Morris was expected to be the prohibitive favorite for the role at the beginning of the season, with rookie Stanley Johnson eventually supplanting him, but with the way head coach Stan Van Gundy has allocated minutes it looks like maybe the future is now after all.
Through two games, Johnson is second on the team to Andre Drummond with 31.5 minutes played per game. Marcus Morris is sixth on the team with just 22.3 minutes per game. Morris did injure his toe in the team’s open practice a week ago, so that may be factoring into the minutes disparity, but whatever the cause Stanley Johnson has looked good.
Thus far Johnson is averaging 19 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals per game, and he’s shooting 46.4% from the field on 14 shots per game. Johnson has also hit 5-9 of his three point attempts.
In Morris’s abbreviated time on the floor, he’s scored 8 points per game and recorded 5.5 rebounds and two assists per game.
Should Johnson win the starter’s job, an interesting lineup option would be to shift Morris to the power forward spot, and it would give the Pistons a ready-made small-ball lineup. Morris is 6-foot-9 and weighs 235 lbs, and he shoots well enough to be a more than serviceable floor-stretching power forward. He is a 43% shooter from the floor, and he is a 36.3% three-point shooter in his career.
Expect to see this configuration now and then, regardless of how the small forward situation looks at the time.