Detroit Pistons 2019-20 rotation questions that need to be answered

Final thoughts

Casey likes his 10-man rotation and he likes his all-bench lineups. He also likes three-guard lineups. The Smith, Kennard, Galloway trio was a big part of the bench last season. There’s no reason to believe that won’t happen again with Rose in Smith’s place.

Drummond usually finished the first and third quarters playing among four substitutes. An all-bench unit often started the second and fourth quarters, unless they were struggling so much to score that Griffin had to be inserted.

As long as Rose and Morris are fully healthy and get acclimated to Casey’s system quickly, the bench unit will generally be able to stay afloat. That means less burden for Drummond and especially Griffin, which was a major talking point in Casey’s interviews last year.

Kennard could prove to be the second unit’s greatest weapon. Given that he’s one of the Pistons best players the objective should be for him to play some with the starters and at least finish games. However, that could prove to be difficult against upper-tier backcourts as a Kennard-Jackson pairing doesn’t offer much perimeter defense.

If Kennard plays most of his minutes with the second unit, there’s no one in the starting lineup that offers that same ability to come off screens and dribble handoffs, a skill set that perfectly complements Griffin’s game.

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I don’t expect the starting lineup to struggle much without Kennard but starting both Snell and Brown definitely raises some problems on offense. Casey’s system is so reliant on DHOs that diversifying could be a difficult task.

Some things could go wrong for the bench unit as well, as previously mentioned, especially when Kennard is not in it. In that case, the Pistons will be left with some mysterious options. Mykhailiuk could provide some of the things Kennard does on the floor.

Doumbouya is a complete unknown. Wood and Beasley have been pretty successful at times but never seem to stick. Most fans don’t seem to care about Galloway but I bet he’ll be the first one to get the nod from the coaching staff.

Thomas and  Frazier will be able to provide quality minutes in case of emergency but I wouldn’t expect much more from them.

In summary, the Pistons seem to be in a better position than they were last year, mainly because they acquired some depth. However, those acquisitions came with no lack of question marks behind them. The front office opted to pursue low-cost, high-variance bench pieces.

With the resources they had, I doubt they could have done much better but that created quite the puzzle for the coaching staff to solve. There are all sorts of questions they have to answer and the best way to do so is to let things play out.

They’ll have to test all those different lineups on the floor to get a better sense of what works. Hopefully, that process will be quick and successful. The whole season is banking on it.

How do you view the new Pistons pieces fitting into the rotation? Let us know in the comments section or join the conversation on the Piston Powered Facebook page and on Twitter @PistonPowered.