After suffering through a 28-game losing streak last season and ending with the worst record in team history, the last thing the Detroit Pistons wanted was to start this season with four straight losses, but here we are.
The good news is that they have been competitive in all of them, the bad news is that is something you say about the kid you stick in right field because he often takes off his glove to pick his nose.
There have been positives, but also more of the same, as the Pistons continue to make the same mistakes and have the same problems even though they have several new faces on the roster.
You can’t overreact too much to these first four games. I predicted the Pistons would start 0-6 this season, which was a no-brainer given the competition. If you told me before the season that the Pistons would lose to the Pacers, Cavaliers, Celtics, Heat, 76ers and Knicks, I would have said, “yes, of course,” but it becomes amplified in the beginning of the season when the team has yet to bank a win.
I’m going to give this some time before I overreact, but here are the grades for the standouts in the first four games, both good and bad.
Stud: Cade Cunningham
Ok, so Cade hasn’t been perfect and no one is arguing that he has been. He has to find a way to be more effective in the 4th quarter and until he does that, he can’t be considered a superstar.
At some point, the best players win a game for their team in the 4th and Cade hasn’t done that. But he’s done pretty much everything else.
He’s averaging 27 points per game through the first four with 7.5 assists, six rebounds, a steal and 1.3 blocks. Yes, he has to limit the turnovers, which have been egregious at times, but let’s face it, Cade is the only thing keeping the Pistons in all of these games.
He’s gone off in all of them and been the best player on the floor for long stretches. But until he starts putting W’s in the win column and hitting shots in the 4th, no one is going to care.
His supporting cast has mostly been garbage as usual and you have to wonder how long this dynamic can go on before something gives. He has to be better, but the 0-4 start is not on Cunningham.
Grade: B
Duds: The Centers
Both Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart have good at some things and terrible at others, which has fans asking some uncomfortable questions.
Duren has been a bit more active around the rim, but he has still played mostly lousy on the defensive end. Yes, he is shooting 85 percent from the floor, but all he does is dunk, so that tracks.
There have been signs of improvement but we’re still talking about the exact same things in his third season.
Stewart has arguably been the team’s best defender, but is averaging 2.5 points per game and has still yet to make a 3-point shot in four games. After averaging 4.1 and 3.8 long-range attempts the last two seasons, Stewart is averaging .3 per game in this one so far.
If Stewart is not shooting 3’s, he doesn’t add anything else on offense and is tough to play with another non-shooter, as we saw last night when the Pistons struggled to score with both Stewart and Ron Holland II on the floor.
If you could combine Duren and Stewart into one player you might have something, but right now, both have big flaws that show up in every game. It’s time to start considering whether the Pistons need a big upgrade here, even if Duren still isn’t old enough to legally buy a beer.
It’s early, so I am not giving up on this tandem, but they have to get better.
Grade: C-
Stud: Jaden Ivey
Ivey is still a traffic cone on defense which is a problem that will hopefully improve with the return of Ausar Thompson when/if it ever happens.
But he’s showing us everything else, as Ivey has been efficient, averaging 20 points per game on 46/43 shooting splits.
He does have the propensity to hunt for fouls at the rim, and definitely wasn’t getting those calls last night, but it’s hard to garner empathy from the officials when you fall down nearly every play, which Ivey does.
Hitting the deck isn’t guaranteeing a foul call, so he either has to take those up stronger or get rid of it before running into a wall of defenders.
Ivey has also not been great running the second unit, and the Pistons’ need for a veteran backup point guard is glaring, but he’s going a much better job of picking his spots.
Overall, there are some issues, but he’s also shown us a lot of what we wanted to see, so I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Ivey’s performance so far.
Grade: B-
Dud: Tobias Harris
Before we start calling Tobias Harris Joe Harris 2.0 and trashing him (oops too late!) can we please remember that this man had COVID the week before the season started?
I love how everyone acts like having a serious respiratory illness won’t affect a pro athlete. I’ve only had COVID once but it knocked me on my butt for a month when I was out of breath going up the stairs.
I don’t know how much it is affecting Harris, but I do know he has been bad for all but one quarter of the season, missing shots that he has made his entire career. He hasn’t had legs under him on 3-point attempts and it shows, as he’s only hit 17 percent of them on the season.
He’s only shooting 34 percent overall, and if you’ve watched the games, he’s had key misses in all of them. A couple of those 3-pointers drop and the narrative could be much different right now.
And eventually, they will. Harris has been a consistent bucket his entire career, so I am not worried about him missing a few shots at the beginning of the season on a new team coming off an illness.
Again, come see me after 30 games before we starting trashing Harris, as four bad games don’t undo an entire career, but we can only judge what we’ve seen and he’s been bad and arguably the biggest reason the Pistons have started 0-4.