All skills are not created equal in basketball, and the ability to shoot will always be near the top of the list of importance. If a player makes it to the NBA without a great jump shot, that's massively impressive. Ron Holland did that, and apparently never even had someone teaching him how to shoot, as revealed by Pistons beat writer Hunter Patterson on The Athletic NBA Daily Podcast.
"Ron just turned 20... I had asked him last season what it means to be able to work with Fred Vinson, their shooting coach, he's like, 'Dude, I actually have never had a shooting coach before I got to the NBA,'" Patterson said.
That seems noteworthy. Holland shot just 23% from 3-point range in his rookie season and the biggest knock on him throughout the entire pre-draft process was a lack of a consistent jump shot. I don't know if having a shooting coach during his high school and G League careers would have turned him into a knockdown 3-point shooter before entering the league... but it probably wouldn't have hurt, either. Holland is such a non-shooter that any professional help should be welcomed, and him spending his first full offseason with the Pistons development team is a good sign that he's at least interested in improving his biggest deficiency.
Ron Holland is already part of Detroit's future plans without a jumpshot
If he adds anything close to a league-average shooting stroke, suddenly his ceiling as a player turns to glass and feels like it can be broken through and catapult him to even greater heights. That ceiling, for the record, already is awfully high. The Pistons took Holland No. 5 overall knowing he had no jumpshot at all. The other parts of his game — the driving, the strength, the finishing — were already developed enough that the absence of a shot didn't scare them off.
Of course, Holland having a shooting coach doesn't automatically mean he's going to start the 2025-26 season launching seven 3-pointers per game (at least I hope it doesn't mean that). Ben Simmons worked on his jumpshot every offseason. I'm sure Michael Kidd-Gilchrist did, too. NBA players are always trying to refine their games, but working on a skill doesn't mean it will translate to the court.
Still — 20 years into his life, Ron Holland now has the personnel around him to really dig into why his shot doesn't work, if there's anything wrong with the mechanics, and whether a shot is salvageable. Without one, he's going to be a good NBA player. With one, he could be closer to a star.