The Pistons added significantly to their depth this season, particularly at the center position with signing of former San Antonio Spurs enigma, Boban Marjanović.
The signing of Boban Marjanovic creates an interesting logjam at the backup center position, with another former San Antonio big man, Aron Baynes, filling the role of Andre Drummond‘s backup.
Both Boban and Baynes are capable backup centers but there is only room for one of them to receive consistent minutes, so who is the better option?
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Looking at the Pistons’ current backup, Baynes was underwhelming in his first season in a Detroit uniform. His scoring output remained consistent at 6.3 points per game and he saw a career high in rebounding at 4.7 per game, however his shooting dropped away from where it was at in San Antonio.
In 2014-15 he averaged 57 percent from the field and 86 percent from the free throw line. Last season his field goal percentage dropped to 51 percent on 4.7 attempts per game, the same amount of attempts as his final season with his Spurs.
Baynes’ extraordinary drop off in his free throw shooting is the most confusing thing. He shot 91 percent from the line in 2013-14, making him one of the best big man free throw shooters in the game, although he did only shoot 21 free throws for the season. His 2014-15 average of 86 percent came on 104 attempts, which shows that Baynes is a talented free throw shooter, which made him an ideal backup to the historically bad Andre Drummond who hit just 35.5 percent of his free throws this past season.
Going into last season coach Stan Van Gundy would have believed he had a trump card for the “hack-a-Andre” as he could send Baynes in once the team reached the bonus and he could go to work drawing fouls and capitalizing on them. Unfortunately, Baynes was nothing more than an average free throw shooter this past season, averaging 76 per cent from the line on 165 attempts.
Despite this, Baynes was often serviceable enough for a backup, so what does Boban offer over him?
Well for starters, Boban’s incredible physical gifts give him an enticing x-factor.
Boban is listed at a monstrous 7’3″ compared to Baynes who is listed at just 6’10” in comparison. No backup centre in the league is going to be able to match physically with Boban and this has the potential to cause real havoc for opposing bench units, particularly on the defensive end where he offers a huge presence in guarding the paint while also being adept at not committing fouls.
His stats in his very first NBA season also give Baynes a run for his money.
Boban averaged 5.5 points and 3.6 rebounds per game despite playing 6 minutes per game less than Baynes. He also takes the points in Baynes’ trump card areas; shooting from the field and the free throw line. Boban shot 60 percent from the field, 4 percent higher than Baynes last season, while shooting 76 percent from the free throw line just as Baynes did.
Even more exciting is when Boban’s stats are expanded to per-36 minutes, where he averages 21 points, 13.7 rebounds and 1.6 blocks.
Not only does Boban offer a much more intimidating presence on the floor, but he also offers far more production than Baynes offered last season.
Next: Detroit Pistons bench profile
On paper it seems that Boban is the obvious choice to be the backup to Andre Drummond next season.