Love/hate for 7 key Detroit Pistons and Monty Williams

It’s difficult to be positive about the Detroit Pistons these days. 

I am normally Homer #1, an optimist who tries to enjoy basketball as entertainment and not let the losses creep into my non-sports life. But when your team is the worst in the NBA for the second season in a row, a laughingstock that was recently blown out by a replacement team with one first-round pick in the rotation, when your young players have regressed, when your GM doesn’t have a plan, when your owner is clueless and your coach disinterested, it’s hard to not give in to the negativity. 

But I will balance my greater and lesser angels and try to come up with one thing I loved (not easy) and one thing I hated about each Pistons player and their coach this season. I’m going to focus on the key guys and leave the G-leaguers, emergency signings and James Wiseman out of it. 

Love/Hate with 7 key Detroit Pistons and coach Monty Williams 

Marcus Sasser 

Love: His ability to get his own shot 

Hate: His inability to do much else 

Sasser started out red-hot this season but has cooled since the All-Star break and will finish with a solid, but not outstanding rookie campaign. Like many of his teammates, Sasser’s role has fluctuated from bench scorer (good) to bench point guard (bad) and being inserted as an emergency starter (also bad). In the right role, Sasser can be a weapon off the bench, but he tends to get exposed with more minutes and his size makes it difficult to play him with some of the other Pistons’ guards. I like Sasser, but they never should have traded up to get an undersized combo guard when the team had so many other needs.