Langston Galloway had a huge game against the Heat, if it could be a sign of things to come, the streaky shooter could give the Detroit Pistons the push they need to make real noise down the stretch.
In a pivotal game against fellow playoff-chasing Miami Heat, Detroit Pistons guard Langston Galloway finally got going in a big way. The veteran shooting guard poured in 17 points on just 7 shots, hitting 4 of 5 from deep, and was instrumental in burying the Heat for good in the 4th quarter.
Galloway has, rather infamously, been very bad this season. Brought in to be a gunner from deep, he has shot just 33.5 percent from deep and been especially terrible when open. Per Synergy, he ranks in the 27th percentile (!!!) on unguarded catch and shoot attempts. The man who was brought in to be a shooter has not been able to hit shots.
Langston Galloway is down to 27.4% 3 point shooting on wide open(6+ feet) attempts. 31/113.
— Martin (@ImMartinHi) February 14, 2019
To make matters worse, Galloway has proven to be, at best, a mediocre defender. His long wing-span helps him but he is still undersized at the shooting guard spot and can’t switch onto wings of any sort of size, while also not moving well enough to consistently stay in front of quicker guards.
The only respite for Galloway is that, with all the chaos in the Detroit Pistons wing rotation and the extended injury of Ish Smith, he was asked to do too much off the bench at times. But he now moves into the spotlight coming down the stretch of the season.
Especially after trading away both Stanley Johnson and Reggie Bullock, the Detroit Pistons wing rotation is laid bare. The Pistons top two guys, maybe top three if Reggie Jackson continues his play, are probably good enough to drag the Pistons into the playoffs in the weak East, but if they want to make real noise they need some of their wing players to step up.
Galloway is probably the best hope to have a significant change of fortune and the reason is simple statistics.
Coming into this season, Galloway was shooting 36.1% from deep on high volume. It isn’t that often that a really good shooter suddenly becomes a really bad one and expecting some regression to the mean is an especially good idea with a shooter as streaky as Galloway.
To illustrate this, I’ll take us back to 2015 when Marcus Morris arrived in Detroit.
When Morris arrived, he had shot 36.3% from deep on almost the exact same number of attempts as Galloway. That season he started off slow, shooting just 30.9% from deep, after the break he shot 44% from deep to finish the season at 36.2%, almost exactly his career mark.
If Galloway can go on a similar tear to finish the season, it would be the shot in the arm the Pistons wing rotation desperately needs. That combined with the arrival of Wayne Ellington and the continued coming out of Luke Kennard: 6th man, could give the Pistons big three enough help to allow the Detroit Pistons to not just limp into the playoffs, but surge into it with a chance to do some real damage when they get there.