The mantra of the season for fans of the Detroit Pistons has been “When these shots start falling…”
The Pistons are making history nearly every night with their poor shooting and we just keep waiting for the breakout or at least a return to the norm.
Detroit’s shooting was bad last season, but it has taken a substantial dip that is starting to get very worrying after 19 games of futility.
Aside from Wayne Ellington and Mason Plumlee, this is essentially the same team the Pistons finished with last season, so what is going on? How did they get so much worse?
Who is to blame for the Detroit Pistons’ terrible shooting?
Fans on social media are quick to blame the coaches for the Pistons’ poor shooting because this is what fans do.
I see a lot of people complaining about “schemes” and “plays” when the truth is this team simply can’t make open shots, which is not the fault of the coach. The Pistons might be better off with coach Casey launching threes himself, as they are just 29.3 percent as a team, worst in the NBA and the only team under 30 percent.
It gets worse.
Although the Pistons take the 3rd-most wide-open 3-pointers in the NBA, they are only 13th in makes and 29th in percentage.
In other words, coach Casey’s offense is doing precisely what it is designed to do, which is create wide-open 3-point shots. The team just isn’t making them.
You could argue that he should adjust, and have his team launch fewer from long range, but the Pistons are just 27th in percentage on wide-open twos, so they can’t make those either.
I’m not saying Casey deserves no blame for how his team is playing but in the end, there is no scheme that can overcome missing wide-open shots. These are NBA players and it’s time they took the heat for their atrocious shooting.
My current favorite conspiracy theory is that John Beilein is somehow to blame. This is just silly. Can you name a single other Player Development Advisor in the NBA? Didn’t think so.
This notion that Beilein came in and changed all 15 of the Pistons’ shots for the worse is just tinfoil hat stuff. His Michigan teams produced a few of the NBA’s best shooters, so I guess he just forgot how to coach shooting or is actively trying to destroy he Pistons from within.
Just because you happen to know his name does not mean it’s his fault. Let’s move on and put the blame where it belongs, on the guys who are throwing up all of the bricks.