The Detroit Pistons finally have Blake Griffin back and the starting lineup will change again. Luke Kennard and Langston Galloway should be in it.
Blake Griffin finally returning to the Detroit Pistons, who will have some lineup shaking to do.
Griffin is the primary ball-handler whenever he’s on the court. That allows more leeway for Dwane Casey to use lineups without any traditional point guards. Griffin’s return will make the coaching staff’s job a lot easier given the injuries all three Pistons point guards are facing.
After a humorous exchange between Dwane Casey and the media on Sunday, Griffin cleared the air, confirming ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski’s report that he is returning for Monday’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
He’s playing, folks. This is all hilarious of course but it’s not the focus of this piece. When Griffin returns, the coaching staff has some thinking to do. Reggie Jackson is still out, so the original starting lineup is not available.
That leaves the coach with a dilemma. To start Luke Kennard or not to start Luke Kennard.
Kennard has not been comfortable whenever he’s had to start with all of Jackson, Griffin and Andre Drummond. That led the coach to use him off the bench where he could handle the ball against lesser opposition and get into a groove.
This year, given all the injuries, Casey had to slide him into the starting lineup and Kennard has delivered. In seven games as a starter, he’s given the Pistons over 17.3 points, 5.1 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game with a 59% true shooting percentage efficiency and 21% usage.
He’s basically playing the role that Jackson was playing for them last season. He’s running exactly the same amount of pick-and-rolls but more effectively, scoring 0.98 points per possession ranking in the 73.2 percentile.
And he’s actually doing a great job as a playmaker. He has the same assist rate that Jackson averaged last season, 24%, and a better assist-to-turnover ratio. Plus, Griffin will take a lot of pressure off him.
Defenses have focused solely on Kennard with every Pistons’ point guard out. So with Griffin returning there’s no ceiling to how good he’ll be. However, Griffin shouldn’t be thrown into the fire right away.
Griffin has not been healthy. He’s going to have to ease into it, as Keith Langlois reported.
"“I think it’s my job to fit into all of that and find a way to help make those guys better,” Griffin said. “Each season is different. Last season, I felt like I had to take on more of a scoring role. This year we have guys who are primed to score the basketball a little bit more in a variety of different ways. I don’t see that as being the role for me this year as much as it is facilitating and picking and choosing times down the stretch."
Playing him with Kennard takes a lot of pressure off him too. It would give him someone to create for. But most importantly, it would give him somebody to play off of. Kennard has gotten to a point where he attracts a lot of the defense’s attention and that can make Griffin’s life a lot easier.
Right now, defenses are often blitzing Kennard and that opens up space for others to shoot. Griffin, especially, can be a major beneficiary and get a ton of open shots for himself without even trying.
If defenses keep trapping Kennard, Griffin can get it on the short roll, attack four-on-three and find the open shot every time. And he can do that without having to bang down low in the post.
Those two could develop a formidable two-man game. Both exert a lot of gravity all over the floor and that’s very difficult for a defense to handle.
You see it in the next clip where Kennard’s man has to go over the screen not to leave the 3-point shot open and Griffin’s defender stays with his man on the roll. Any action involving the two requires help defense.
Both can shoot, handle and pass really well for their position. So even when you send help, either of them can find the open man. And even when Griffin does go to the post to back down a smaller player, Kennard can provide pressure release when help comes, much like Jackson did last year.
Kennard knows how to move off the ball and get himself open. When teams send multiple defenders on Griffin, he can find the right angle to make the pass as easy as possible. When he gets the ball not only can he shoot but when the defense rotates, he can attack closeouts, draw defenders and find the open man.
In contrast, moving Kennard to the bench would leave Griffin as the only capable ball-handler in a lineup with Bruce Brown, Langston Galloway, Tony Snell and Drummond. Every one of those players can do a little bit of ball-handling but not much.
Galloway and Brown have been pretty horrible as pick-and-roll ball-handlers this year in a small sample and last year wasn’t better either. They both rank low in percentile. Not starting Kennard would result in a lot of possessions where Griffin has to create something out of nothing, and while he can do that, it’s best not to put that burden on him right away.