Pistons Season In Review: A Team Full of Shooters Who Can’t Shoot

The Detroit Pistons have built their team with shooters who can’t shoot. Let’s rewind and take a look at the Pistons season and their “shooters.”

Let’s rewind. It’s June 2004 and the Detroit Pistons are wrapping up their first championship run in 14 years. This is AWESOME. Wait too far.

Let’s try this again. It’s 2013, the Pistons just signed Josh Smith. This is AWESOME. Wait, still too far even though this still haunts us.

Let’s just see how we got here. Here is every key date to see how we got into this situation.

• June 2012: It starts with Andre Drummond. Drafted in 2012 to become the centerpiece of this team. Signed a 5-year extension in 2016 to make him the highest paid Pistons player ever.
• February 2015: Reggie Jackson – Pistons trade DJ Augustin, Kyle Singler and two second-round pick for Reggie Jackson. The point guard of the future. Proceed to sign him to a 5 year, $80M contract to keep him long-term.
• July 2016: Ish Smith – 3 years, $18M contract. Best Pistons signing of the last decade.
• July 2016: Jon Leuer – 4 years, $42M contract. This was a great idea.
• June 2017: Luke Kennard – drafted 12th overall. Yes, one pick ahead of Donovan Mitchell but get over it.
• July 2017: Langston Galloway – 3 years, $21M contract.
• January 2018: BLAKE GRIFFIN – Pistons trade Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, Boban Marjanovic, 1st round pick and a 2nd round pick for Blake. First star the Pistons have had since Grant Hill.
• May 2018: Stan Van Gundy fired as head coach and president of basketball ops.
• June 2018: Dwane Casey, reigning coach of the year, hired as Pistons head coach.
• June 2018: Pistons draft Bruce Brown and Khyri Thomas in the second round. (Could be hidden gems, stay tuned).
• July 2018: Glenn Robinson III – Signed to a friendly 1 year, $4M deal with a team option for year 2.
• July 2018: Jose Calderon & Zaza Pachulia sign for veteran minimum deals.
• July 2018: ARNIE KANDER IS BACK!
• February 2019: Reggie Bullock/Stanley Johnson go out, Thon Maker and Svi come in.
• February 2019: Wayne Ellington comes in off the buyout market.

The Pistons enjoyed an incredibly inconsistent season due to injuries and the blatant flaws of this roster. Started 13-7, that went well. Ish got hurt and that went…less well. They went 8-16 without Ish and 33-23 with him. Fast forward to the Blake injury at the end of the year and the Pistons limped into the 8 seed in the East; leading to an inevitable sweep to the Eastern conferences best team led by their likely MVP.

This roster feels like it can be summed up quite easily. A team full of shooters who can’t shoot (probably should be the official team motto). Well, they can shoot, but it seems to only go in one out of every seven games.

Blake Griffin came off his first healthy off-season is years and boy was he incredible. He completely revamped his game and it was absolutely beautiful to watch all season.

If the Detroit Pistons finished top five in the East, I’m 98 percent sure he’d be top five in MVP votes. The numbers were there (24.5 points per game, 7.5 rebounds per game, 5.4 assists per game). The impact was there. The wins weren’t. But this season showed us that Blake Griffin IS a superstar.

Throughout the first half of the season, Luke Kennard looked to be on the same path as last year. Inconsistent minutes. Inconsistent role. Inconsistent confidence.

At some point, his lows got higher and so did his highs.

By the time the playoffs rolled in, he showed everyone that he was for real. The team’s best shooter and second best scorer. A full off-season with this confidence + development under Casey’s staff should do wonders for cool hand, keep shooting Luke.

Bruce Brown was a second-round pick who got thrust into the starting lineup and immediately became the team’s best defender. His offense has a ton of room to grow and just like Luke, a full off-season under Casey will be huge. Playoff Bruce is real and I need more of it.

Andre Drummond has turned into a severely underrated, severely despised player.

If you can’t see the massive strides made defensively this year, I don’t believe that you watched the games. (Top 10 in blocks, top 10 in steals, by far the BEST rebounder in the game). If you’re still pointing at the inconsistent effort, I don’t believe that you watched him play this season.

The Detroit Pistons were one of, if not THE worst perimeter defending team in the league this year, which means WAY too many easy drives to the hoop.

Even the best interior defenders in this game couldn’t stop all that. Dre became such a smart, solid interior and help-side defender this year and it seems like it got better exponentially after his concussion.

A big issue for him this year again was his post offense. He’s just not that effective, but he started making great, smart passes out of the post. Don’t forget, we’re watching the future greatest rebounder in NBA history.

All in all this season was fine. Nothing more. Nothing less. 41-41. Balanced as all things should be. But at the end of the day, they clawed back into the playoffs and the players that are the future of this team showed improvement as the year went on.

The playoff experience is HUGE for players like Luke and Bruce along with Drummond who’s only played in eight of those high-pressure games. This team has a lot of flaws. There’s a lot of work to do but things look better than they did this time last year.

Progress is progress.