Evaluating Dwane Casey’s first season as the Detroit Pistons head coach

The Detroit Pistons hired the Coach of the Year winner Dwane Casey last summer as the first step in the franchise’s path to being a contender again.

Dwane Casey finished the season 41-41 and took the Detroit Pistons to the postseason for the first time since the 2015-16 season. It was their second playoff appearance in the last 10 seasons.

The First Step

Detroit started off the season garnering a lot of media attention. They won their first four games, while Blake Griffin scored his season-high 50 points in an overtime win against the Philadelphia 76ers. There was plenty of attention around Detroit as they had a superstar in Griffin leading them for the first time in a long time.

Griffin is known for being injury prone, however, his Pistons off-season was his first healthy one in three years. He worked himself back into superstar shape as Casey ran the Pistons offense through him as the point forward.

The Pistons started out with a 13-7 record, beating the Golden State Warriors in their 20th game.

Responding to Adversity

After that overachieving stretch, where the Pistons exceeded everyone’s expectations for the season, things started going wrong for Detroit. Ish Smith tore his abductor and was out for two weeks. In addition, Reggie Bullock also hurt his ankle.

Between opponents game-planning for Griffin, and the injuries to significant role players, Detroit went 4-16 over the following 20 games, which seemed like history was repeating itself. In almost every season over the past few years, the Pistons would start out with a bang, only to stumble by December and fall out of the playoff picture.

Dwane Casey showcased his coaching abilities throughout the season as he maintained his tone with the team. He was adamant to coach a winning team, and he knows that starts with the culture.

Before the trade deadline, the Pistons front office traded Reggie Bullock for a pick and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, since Bullock had an expiring contract. They also traded Stanley Johnson for Thon Maker. Finally, they lured Wayne Ellington off of the buy-out market to assume starting small forward responsibilities with his relentless three-point shooting.

This led to Griffin spearheading the Pistons’ comeback up the standings in the second half of the season. They went 8-3 in the month of February alone to get back into the playoff picture. In the second half of the season, Reggie Jackson showed up and started playing like a great point guard to end the season. All of this, while Andre Drummond put on his revenge show for not getting any All-Star recognition.

Look-ahead

In his first season as the Pistons head coach, Casey had the 21st ranked offensive and the 11th ranked defense. Detroit scored 109 points per game as opposed to the 107.2 of the previous season. They also allowed 109.2 points per game on defense as opposed to the 107.3 from the previous season.

The offense shows quite an improvement, whereas the defense purely off of numbers does not show it. There was plenty of emphasis on a culture reset all throughout the season, and it was apparent that the players were responding. That Pistons team was fighting for a playoff spot until the last second of the regular season. They did that knowing they would face a much superior team in the first round, however, the goal was to bring playoff basketball back to Detroit.

By observing Casey’s impact on the players and on this city, Detroit fans cannot help but feel excited for what is to come. It all starts at the top, and with a capable front office and coach, then contention is in play.