The Detroit Pistons will take on the Indiana Pacers again tonight, hoping to avoid their 12th loss in a row.
Detroit has been massively shorthanded of late, and last game didn’t feature a single starter who was in the opening night starting lineup. The injuries to the young players have been particularly disappointing, as they are costing the Pistons valuable developmental time and data, especially when it comes to their big-man experiment.
Troy Weaver, in a bid to go back in time to the 1990’s, has decided that having two centers in the lineup is the only way to compete in the Eastern Conference. If you are feeling deja vu, you aren’t the only one, as this has the same feel as when the Pistons tried to build their team around Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Josh Smith, and so far the results have been about the same.
It’s only been a tiny sample, and the Detroit Pistons have not had their full team, but so far the two-big experiment is bombing.
Detroit Pistons: The 2-big experiment
In the last game, the Detroit Pistons started James Wiseman and Marvin Bagley III, though that didn’t last long, as MBIII had to leave the game with an ankle injury. Shocker.
The Pistons ended up getting destroyed on the boards (58-42) anyway, allowing a whopping 18 offensive rebounds to a team that didn’t even feature a center. If you’re going to sacrifice spacing on offense, you have to at least win the rebounding battle, no?
So far, Wiseman and Bagley III have played 67 minutes together and put up a -25.4 net rating with a defensive rating of 131.2 and an offensive rating of 105.8, both horrible. It’s only been 67 minutes, but I think we’ve seen enough of these two together, as they both have similar weaknesses and neither is very good at playing defense.
Bagley III and Jalen Duren have played just 38 minutes together, but it’s been even worse, as they have an 81.2 offensive rating and 119.3 defensive rating for a -38.1 net rating overall. We’ve not seen Duren and Wiseman tougher yet, but the results will likely be similar, as neither guy can really spread the floor on offense and neither are great rim protectors.
So far Isaiah Stewart is the only “center” who has had any success with another big man on the floor and he’s out for the season, so we won’t be seeing anymore of that.
The data so far isn’t promising, which isn’t surprising given the way the league has pivoted away from traditional centers, and we may need to see a trade this offseason to relieve the glut of bigs.