Since the Detroit Pistons’ ill-fated attempt at using Andre Drummond, Josh Smith and Greg Monroe at the same time, their biggest flaw has been clear: They can’t shoot.
I’ve been covering the Pistons for nearly seven years now, and in that time, I have written “The Pistons need shooting” more than any other sentence. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve talked or written about shooting and the Pistons lack of it, I’d long be retired and out fishing with Ben Simmons.
Instead, I’ve watched team after team, year after year enter the season with the same glaring problem, including this season. The Cavaliers were able to surround their superstar with shooters in Dean Wade, Sam Merrill and Max Strus, all of whom are better shooters than anyone on the Pistons not named Duncan Robinson.
Detroit can’t keep doing this to their superstar, so even if they don’t land a splashy name this summer, they have to improve their shooting or will suffer the same fate.
Hey Pistons, it’s ok to have more than one shooter
While the Cavaliers were bringing elite shooters off their bench and have a power forward who would be the second-best 3-point shooter on the Pistons, Detroit was running out guys who were mediocre shooters at best, and in the case of Holland and Stewart, guys who rarely look to shoot at all.
You can’t rely on turnovers and transition buckets in the playoffs, and it showed this year for Detroit, as they were mostly terrible in the half court, with the same spacing issues they’ve had for over a decade.
The weird thing is that Detroit has had some elite individual shooters along the way, but they always seem to come one at a time. After having this exact same problem with arguably the best 3-point shooter in the league (Malik Beasley), Detroit decided to double down on this strategy and enter the season again with only one quality shooter on the roster.
It’s like the Pistons are allergic to shooting and can only withstand the discomfort of having one guy who can shoot.
That has to change.
The Pistons are built around defense, and that is fine, but if they can’t score, or stop other teams from overloading their superstar, then it won’t matter how elite their defense is, as you have to be able to score in the half court in the playoffs.
The Pistons have had the same problem for as long as I can remember, so Trajan Langdon’s job is to find that shooting and ball handling he needs without sacrificing the things that made this team good.
It’s not an easy task, but it’s one Langdon must succeed at, or the Pistons aren’t going to get any better.
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