The Detroit Pistons have two rookies who are defying their early-season perceptions as the season winds down.
Every season we watch fans make sweeping generalizations about players. Whether it is calling someone a “cancer” in the locker room or deciding a player can’t shoot, fans are quick to put labels on players that can follow them for years.
This has been the case in the last two seasons for the Detroit Pistons, but all three of these players are beating the early reps they got as rookies.
Detroit Pistons: Jalen Duren is too raw to be in an NBA rotation
Early in the season, Jalen Duren, who is the league’s youngest player, was thought to be a super raw but athletic talent who would need years before being a productive part of an NBA rotation.
Duren came off the bench early in the season, but his play, along with some injuries to their other bigs, got him a starting spot that he has yet to relinquish. He’s averaging a double-double as a starter, but has shown a lot more than just a guy who can rebound and dunk.
The big man is averaging over an assist per game for the season and 1.5 assists per game since joining the starting five. His passing ability is clearly ahead of schedule, and he’s also shown some nice touch around the rim of late and even knocked down a few jumpshots in the lane.
Duren doesn’t play like the youngest player in the league and isn’t nearly as “raw” as some people would have had you believe at the start of the season. He recently had the best game of his career and joined LeBron James in some select company.
Detroit Pistons: Jaden Ivey can’t shoot the 3-point shot
Coming into the season, Jaden Ivey’s biggest perceived weakness was an inability to consistently shoot the 3-point shot. He did struggle at times early on, but has since been much more consistent.
Meanwhile, fellow rookie Bennedict Mathurin got off to a scorching start from long range and was immediately labeled as the type of 3-point shooting wing that the Detroit Pistons need. Those perceptions carried on and if you asked most fans which of these two players is the better 3-point shooter, they would guess Mathurin.
But they’d be wrong. For all of the talk about these two as shooters, Jaden Ivey is currently shooting a better percentage from 3-point range (33.2 percent) than Mathurin (31.9 percent) on nearly the exact number of attempts per game.
Ivey’s mid-range game is also developing nicely, and when you factor that into his blazing speed and ability to get to the rim, he is really looking like a special player offensively.
Cade Cunningham and Paolo Banchero
Last season, Cade Cunningham got off to a slow start in his first couple of games, which seemed to more or less put him out of the Rookie of the Year race before it really even started. He ended up finishing 3rd despite superior stats, which was chalked up to his slow start and the poor record of his team.
Paolo Banchero is currently having the worst stretch of his rookie season, as he has shot just 35 percent in his last 10 games and just 11 percent from long range. It’s good that he did it now and not at the beginning of the season, or his almost certain Rookie of the Year win would now be in jeopardy. After all, Mathurin is on a better team, so the award should go to him, right? I’m not hearing anyone say that, as fans tend to put more attention and importance on the beginning of the season and allow that to form their perceptions.
Part of this is just that casual fans outside of Detroit don’t watch the Pistons, so aren’t paying attention to how their rookies have improved, but another part is that fans form biases against players early on and allow those to taint how they see a guy and his progress.