Detroit Pistons stock market: 3 On the rise, 1 Plummeting

The Detroit Pistons played one of their best all-around games in years last night on the road against the Indiana Pacers, with a professional end-to-end victory. 

The best part is that most of their improvement this season has been around the development of their young players, who have all made leaps, mini-leaps or in the midst of leaps in progress. 

But they can’t rest on the good vibes from the NBA Cup win, as they are back at it against Philly tonight and if they let up, they’ll lose a winnable game at home. 

The Pistons currently sit in the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference, but every team from the 5th to the 10th has nine wins, so they are right in the mix and could jump up with a win tonight. 

Detroit has gotten outstanding play from a few areas and I’m even going to give a tip of the cap to coach JB Bickerstaff in this installment of the Pistons stock market. 

On the rise: JB Bickerstaff 

Coach Bickerstaff pushed all the right buttons last night, made great substitutions and called timely timeouts that kept the Pacers from ever really going on a run. 

Aside from the defensive improvement and development of young players, one noticeable difference this season is how the Pistons perform out of timeouts. 

Twice last night Detroit got good looks out of timeouts that Bickerstaff had called to quell the Pacers’ momentum. One was a lob and dunk for Jalen Duren and the other was a wide-open 3-point shot for Tobias Harris that took a high bounce off the rim before going in. 

This has been going on all year, as coach Bickerstaff has been fantastic out of timeouts, including The Play against Miami that tied the game 

This is such a stark contrast from last season when the Pistons were terrible in these situations and rarely organized.  

I’ve made this joke a few times now (even wrote about it) but can we fire Monty Williams again? 

On the rise: Jaden Ivey 

I hope Monty has been watching Jaden Ivey of late, as he’s been spectacular and this is the guy he had playing behind Killian Hayes, who is no longer in the NBA. 

Ivey has been efficient, shooting 52.4 percent from the floor and 45.8 percent from long range over his last five games. He’s been getting his points without taking a ton of shots, picking and choosing his spots to attack and playing much better defense. 

We saw all of that on display last night, when Ivey scored 23 points on just 13 shots. I have to say, Ivey has made many of us, including me, eat our words this season, as he is evolving into the exact type of two-guard Cade Cunningham needs. 

On the rise: Jalen Duren 

I’ve been critical of Duren this season, particularly his defense, which has been bad for most of it. I even suggested he be removed from the starting lineup in favor of Isaiah Stewart. 

Duren must of have been reading, as he’s been much better since. He’s been far more active and aggressive around the rim, blocking 10 shots over his last five games. 

Duren is always going to grab rebounds and dunk the ball, but it’s the defense that concerns/excites me. He played one of his best games of the season last night, with four blocks, two of which came in big spots where Indiana was threatening to do on a run. 

He’s been mostly staying out of stupid foul trouble, playing under control and has been more involved in the offense, even bringing the ball up the floor some, which always makes me nervous. 

We’re getting the Duren we wanted to see, so he needs to be consistent with it, as the Pistons are a different defense when he is wiping out shots at the rim. 

Plummeting: Simone Fontecchio 

To be fair, Fontecchio has shot the ball much better over his last five games, hitting over 56 percent of his shots overall and 46.7 from long range. 

The problem is that outside of the blowout loss to Memphis, Fontecchio hasn’t taken many shots or been a meaningful part of the offense. If you take away the Memphis game in which most of his shots were in mop-up duty, Fontecchio has taken 14 shots total over his last four games, seven of which came last night. 

His defense has been subpar and he’s been fouling at a fairly high rate, so Fontecchio has yet to establish a role for himself on this new roster. 

That could change, as there are signs he is heating up, but with Ausar Thompson soon to eat up more minutes and both he and Ron Holland II making contributions, Fontecchio may find his minutes dwindling even more unless he starts doing more than just running around out there.