The Detroit Pistons feel that they can match up with anyone with the players they’ve added this offseason. Head coach Stan Van Gundy highlighted four players that give the Pistons the ability to match up with anyone.
The Detroit Pistons’ weaknesses were accentuated when they played the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of last year’s playoffs–they could not match up with Kevin Love, a player they feel proved to turn the series.
But it didn’t end there.
As Stan Van Gundy watched further into the playoffs, he saw more and more rotations that made him question his roster’s ability to match up.
"“The thing that keeps coming home to me, the more and more you watch the league now but especially in the playoffs, you’ve got to be able to play a lot of different ways,” Van Gundy said. “Everybody thinks about ‘small,’ but then you see Oklahoma City go with (Enes) Kanter and Steven Adams together. Well, can you play big? Can you play with two point guards together? Can you play with no point guard? And maybe you can’t cover all of those things, but I think you want the flexibility and the versatility on your roster to be able to play as many different ways as you can. And I think we can do that now.”“I don’t think there’s anything – at least on paper; you’ve got to play well now, too – but there’s nothing that we don’t have an answer for, that we couldn’t match up with. And Jon was a key part of that, his versatility in what we can do with him. Jon, Tobias (Harris), Marcus (Morris) and Stanley (Johnson). I think we’ve got four really versatile, multiposition guys. Those are the four guys that really allow us to adapt.”"
The Pistons might not have a top-five NBA player on their roster, but they do have the ability to play with anyone, something few teams can in the NBA can claim.
Matching up and winning match ups, however, are two very different things.
Having Stanley Johnson (who can play positions 2-4), Marcus Morris (positions three and four), Jon Leuer (four and five), and Tobias Harris (three and four) is part of the formula to matching up with virtually any lineup, but each player also needs to take their game to greater heights this season if the Pistons truly want to match up.
The Pistons are in a great position with their core locked up (except for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope who is an restricted free agent), they are young, and they are talented.
There’s hope that this team reaches the upper tier of teams. I think eventually they will, but I’m not sure their players have developed enough to be able to match up with, and win their match ups, with the top NBA teams.