Last year, the Detroit Pistons splurged and brought in Brandon Jennings and Josh Smith in the hopes of bringing the Pistons back to the Eastern Conference playoffs. However, things went the other way in Detroit, as the roster is now full of largely disgruntled players.
Smith has proven to be the least valuable of the frontcourt trio consisting of him, Greg Monroe, and Andre Drummond, but Monroe is so soured from his lack of playing time (caused by the arrival of Smith) that's he's going elsewhere in free agency once the season ends.
To try and fix this mess, Detroit brought in Stan Van Gundy to be their head coach, and gave him some front-office power in an effort to turn this franchise around. Will they be able to do it this year?
Roster
Projected Starters
PG Brandon Jennings
SG Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
SF Josh Smith
PF Greg Monroe
C Andre Drummond
Bench
G D.J. Augustin
G Jodie Meeks
G Spencer Dinwiddie
F Caron Butler
F Kyle Singler
F Cartier Martin
F Jonas Jerebko
F Tony Mitchell
C Aaron Gray
C Hasheem Thabeet
Storylines
Detroit was hoping that Smith, Monroe, and Drummond could all play together at the same time, but that proved to be a total disaster last year. Drummond has secured his spot as one of the best young big men in the entire league, but the Smith-Monroe situation is more tricky.
As said above, Monroe wants out. Unfortunately, Van Gundy would rather keep Monroe and trade Smith (and his obsessing love of jacking long mid-range shots). However, trading Smith will be extremely difficult, as he's owed $42 million over the next three seasons. How Van Gundy deals with this situation is going to be really intriguing.
Key Player
Brandon Jennings has been a storyline in himself. He was awesome during his rookie season in Milwaukee (scoring 55 points in a game), and still managed to put up good numbers even though his team stunk. Now he's developed a reputation for being a low-percentage volume shooter, which absolutely drives Van Gundy crazy.
That's not to say Jennings is a bad player - he's just developed bad tendencies because he's played on bad teams. If Van Gundy can get him to start playing efficient basketball, the Pistons suddenly have a long-term point guard.
Outlook
Detroit is showing promise for the first time since the mid-2000's thanks to the arrival of Stan Van Gundy, but their frontcourt situation is still too big of a mess to be any sort of threat in the Eastern Conference. Look for them to unload either Smith or Monroe for a couple of bench players who can bolster their rotation.
Eastern Conference
11) Detroit Pistons
12) Boston Celtics
13) Milwaukee Bucks
14) Orlando Magic
Western Conference
12) Phoenix Suns
13) Los Angeles Lakers
15) Utah Jazz
How do you think the Pistons will do this season? Tweet your thoughts to @brauf33 and leave a response in the comments!
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