Detroit Pistons stock exchange: Who is trending after Pistons’ 124-117 win over the Dallas Mavericks

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Reggie Jackson

Jackson had 13 points in 12 attempts, five assists and two turnovers — not great but not bad either. Nonetheless, he showed for a second straight game that he’s not in the physical form he was in the second part of last season. It’s still early, so I wouldn’t sweat too much, but I did expect him to be more explosive after a healthy summer.

Last season, it took Jackson till the end of January to truly start contributing. If the Pistons want to make some noise this year, we have to see Jackson playing like that all season. Jackson can find shots off the ball. He proved that last year when he completely changed his game to accommodate Griffin. All of his buckets against Dallas were assisted.

With the ball in his hands, Jackson didn’t look as good. He didn’t get to the paint much and the one time he did, his finish was just terrible and lacked oomph. They usually trapped him and he was unable to beat the big off the dribble. Even worse, he didn’t pass quickly enough.

Admittedly, he made some nice pocket passes to Drummond and skip passes that Snell couldn’t convert but that’s not enough. Jackson is at a point in his career where he has to be consistent in passing situations. He is a skilled passer and he can see the floor — he can be a good distributor. What’s missing for Jackson is for him to be able to make the right play consistently with great timing.

There were too many instances against the Mavericks where he hesitated for a bit and the passing lane closed. It’s not that he made the wrong play. He just made no play in possessions where easy buckets were available. If the Pistons want to become an elite offense, Jackson has to capitalize on those situations. He has the ability to do that.

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Tony Snell

Snell scored 11 points on 12 attempts. Any time one scores less than one point per attempt, that’s bad. However, he didn’t disappoint because he didn’t make his spot-ups but because he displayed his limitations on offense.

He will always be a good 3-and-D player in the NBA. He can defend and he can hit open shots but the Pistons will need him to do much more than that this season if they want to keep Brown in the starting lineup. The Pistons offense relies on dribble handoffs and off-ball screens as secondary actions and Brown can do none of it. At least not effectively.

Snell will have to take on the role of Reggie Bullock/Wayne Ellington and, to be frank, he’s not that type of player. There’s always time to improve in the NBA and maybe we will see a transformation in Snell’s game similar to Bullock’s.

But after two games of preseason, he hasn’t shown the ability to come off screens running and ready to shoot. The Pistons starting big men will certainly help him in that regard with good screens, giving him space and time to set himself up for a shot but he doesn’t have Bullock’s ability to do that and he’s miles away from Ellington.

And when people close out on him and he gets the defense’s attention, he hasn’t made the right play. There were at least three instances in the game where Drummond was open but Snell opted for the contested shot. Snell will have to find the roll man on those types of plays, allowing the offense to attack four-on-three.

Maybe running more dribble handoff’s will help him as he will have the opportunity to shoot when they go under and put the ball on the floor and get to the basket when they go over. But making the simple pass will be paramount in those situations and Snell hasn’t proven that he can do that yet in his career. Time will tell.

Overall, the Pistons played a good game against the Mavericks. The ball movement was there and we got to see how the offense will flow. Let’s see who was most impressive.