ESPN insider article. Picked to finish 5th in the East


Detroit Pistons: 2013-14 Forecast


Originally Published: October 11, 2013
By Bradford Doolittle | ESPN Insider

OVERVIEW


Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond, Josh Smith, Maurice CheeksAP Photo/Carlos OsorioWith a revamped roster and a new coach, Detroit has its sights on the playoffs in 2013-14.


There's something to be said for organizational identity, a way of doing things consistently everywhere from the owner's suite to the hardwood. In Detroit, no one exemplifies Pistons basketball more than team president Joe Dumars, and few franchises have forged a more distinct identity. Dumars has been a mainstay in Detroit, first during his 14 years as a Hall of Fame player, and in the 14 years since as a team executive. Dumars has seen it all, and contributed to it all.



INSIDER'S TEAM FORECASTS



The Pistons have now missed the playoffs for four straight seasons, their longest drought since Dumars arrived on the scene, and haven't been within 12 games of .500. After building the teams last decade that advanced to the East finals a remarkable six straight times, it's safe to say Dumars' initial attempt at a rebuild flopped. When Maurice Cheeks debuts as coach in Detroit's opener, he will become the fifth head coach in seven years. Free-agent busts Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva have dogged Dumars for years, and clogged the payroll. Villanueva is still there.




Now Detroit embarks on its first season of heightened expectation in a long time. As always, Dumars is behind it all after hitting on lottery picks Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond in recent seasons, then adding Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings. There is little doubt that the Pistons have amassed their best collection of talent since the last contending team in Detroit. The analytical models agree, foreseeing the possibility of the Pistons not just returning to the postseason, but maybe even challenging for home-court advantage. It's a team of mercurial talents, but they are talents nevertheless. The ceiling is high for these new Pistons, but so may be the prospect of a flop. If so, this could prove to be Dumars' last stand after nearly three decades in the Motor City.






2012-13 RECAP



Greg Monroe, Lawrence Frank, Andre Drummond AP Photo/Duane BurlesonAfter two subpar seasons, the Pistons dumped head coach Lawrence Frank.


The Pistons suffered through another nondescript season, dropping 53 games and tuning out former coach Lawrence Frank along the way. There was nothing to like about Frank's time in Detroit. Not to hang the blame on Frank, a highly respected coach, but the poor results speak to an ill fit. Detroit finished in the bottom third of the league on both ends of the floor in both of his seasons. You can't claim the Pistons underachieved: Their 25 and 29 wins in the past two seasons precisely matched the preseason forecasts of SCHOENE. Score two for analytics, and recognize that the Pistons needed to add talent.




The Pistons did make some gains on the offensive end, moving from 28th to 21st in efficiency. Much of that improvement can be traced to the arrival of Drummond, who proved to be nearly an unstoppable force around the basket, and was even more dynamic on the defensive end. Of course, Drummond was limited to less than 21 minutes per game, and Frank was loathsome to play him alongside Monroe for long stretches.



PELTON'S 2012-13 STATS

W-L: 29-53 (Pythagorean W-L: 28-54)
Offensive Efficiency: 105.1 (22nd)
Defensive Efficiency: 110.0 (23rd)
Pace Factor: 89.5 (22nd)
Highest WARP: Greg Monroe (8.5)



Monroe had another solid season but took a step back from his breakout 2011-12 performance. Frank gave Monroe the ball at the elbows, where he's adept at creating plays for his teammates and attacking the rim off his lefty dribble. However, he was again not adept at knocking down those little 15-foot jumpers that make the difference between being good and great. Meanwhile, somebody convinced Rodney Stuckey that playing full-time 2-guard meant hoisting a lot of spot-up 3s. It's not his game, and will never be.

While the Pistons struggled on the court, Dumars set up the organization for the summer by dealing lottery miss Austin Daye and longtime small forward Tayshaun Prince in a three-team deal that brought Jose Calderon to Detroit. Calderon played pretty well for the Pistons, but they won only seven of his 28 games. That small sample chunk proved to be the breadth of Calderon's Detroit career, as he bolted for Dallas as an unrestricted free agent. That opened up the cap space Dumars needed to make a splash in July. In doing so, Pistons fans could finally turn their attention to a hopeful near future, rather than an undistinguished recent past.




OFFSEASON MOVES


Josh SmithAllen Einstein/Getty ImagesThe Pistons made one of the biggest splashes of the summer, signing former Hawk Josh Smith.


The Pistons were armed with three picks in the June draft, one at No. 8 of the first round, the other two coming in the second round. The prevailing school of thought entering draft night was that the Pistons would target a point guard who could push Brandon Knight to the 2. Syracuse's Michael Carter-Williams was one possibility, while quite a few Pistons fans favored Michigan's Trey Burke. Both of those players were available when Detroit went on the clock at No. 8, but to the surprise of many Georgia shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope became a Piston.


Caldwell-Pope is a good shooter with range and a reputation for stout defense. There are some holes in that profile -- he's better off the dribble than in catch-and-shoot situations, and in general is used to the ball in his hands way more often than he's going to in Detroit. Alongside Knight, Caldwell-Pope seemed a curious fit, but Dumars selected him because of talent, not fit. Even Dumars couldn't know it at the time, but Caldwell-Pope would turn out to be a pretty good fit by summer's end.


The next step was the headliner: Dumars won the bidding for Smith, the most sought-after unrestricted free agent to actually hit the market, with the notable exception of Dwight Howard. Smith signed a four-year, $58 million deal with the Pistons. Concerns about fit and floor spacing and shot selection and personalities are all valid, but talent wins in the NBA. When you have a chance to land a top-20 talent -- and Smith is that -- you sign him and work out the rest later. If it doesn't work out, Dumars will be lambasted, but let's not forget that plenty of so-called "smart" teams had Smith on their radar as well.



INSIDER'S PLAYER PROFILES



Dumars also pulled off a nice move by signing Italian league MVP Gigi Datome, who at the very least will give Cheeks another shooter on a roster that will need them. You can say the same thing about the almost-concurrent signing of Chauncey Billups, but in Detroit that transaction means so much more.

Billups' return accomplishes a number of things. First, he can fit in any lineup, playing alongside Jennings, or running the attack with him off the floor. He can space the floor and hit big shots at crunch time. Billups' size and strength will give a boost to Detroit's perimeter defense, which can compensate for his diminished lateral quickness with a bevy of shot-blockers playing behind him. Billups also provides a bridge back to the Pistons' glory days and can help re-establish the defensive mentality that has marked the best teams in Detroit basketball.


At that point, Detroit had already pulled off one of the league's most notable offseasons, but in early August, Dumars capped his maneuvering by sending Knight to Milwaukee in a sign-and-trade deal for restricted free agent Brandon Jennings. The move upgrades Detroit's raw level of talent, and Jennings joins Drummond and Monroe to give Dumars a trio of players with All-Star potential on the upswing. Potential is the operative word, but again ? the talent is there.


This whirlwind of maneuvering almost overshadowed perhaps the most exciting development of Detroit's summer: The rapid development of Drummond into what may be the next great NBA center. Drummond's rookie-level performance was off the charts, and he built upon that with a dominant showing in the Orlando summer league. Sure, there are qualifications that have to be made regarding the level of competition, but as preseason gets going, Drummond looks every bit as dominant as he did in July. Ironically, given the unrealized franchise-player ceilings of Monroe, Smith and Jennings, it's Drummond, at age 20, who could turn out to be the rarefied talent that brings it all together.





2013-14 OUTLOOK



Andre DrummondJ. Dennis/NBAE/Getty ImagesWith increased minutes, will Andre Drummond take his game to new heights in 2013-14?


Dumars said over the summer that his philosophy is that if you put truly talented players on the floor together, they're going to find a way to make it work. Fans of last year's Lakers might disagree, but the players on L.A. last season were all established superstars. These Pistons are a group of highly talented players who have for various reasons been unable to reach their ceilings, and that includes Smith. Most of these players are still, in theory, on the upswing, and in that way it's reminiscent of the group Dumars put together when Billups joined Prince, Rip Hamilton, Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace.


On paper, SCHOENE thinks it's going to work out swimmingly: 49 wins, neck-and-neck with Chicago, Brooklyn and Indiana in the race for seeds 2-through-5 in the East, a top-10 finish in efficiency on both ends of the floor. The ESPN summer forecast, meanwhile, agrees that the Pistons will be better, just not to that degree. The forecast's baseline for Detroit was 38 wins and ninth-place finish in the East. The analytics have been dead right about Detroit the last two years, but of course this new group is a lot harder to figure.

The Denver Nuggets proved last season that you can field a highly efficient offense without a glut of floor spacers. The antidote is to attack the rim and get your looks near the basket. That's the formula the Pistons will need to follow this year and beyond. Smith and Jennings both have reputations for shooting teams out of games, while Monroe joins them as a prolific midrange bricklayer. If Cheeks can instill the same kind of attacking mentality that George Karl brought to last season's Nuggets, the Pistons should up the ante on the offensive end. All of those players are good passers, and a decentralized offense that features attacking, cutting, ball movement and an emphasis on offensive rebounding should work given the talent on hand.

It'll all depend on shot selection. No team can forgo midrange jumpers, but all teams can de-emphasize them. For the Pistons, that will be the biggest factor in their ability to reach the ceiling the metrics have established. Not only will a spate of midrange Js by low-percentage shooters wreck their offensive efficiency, but because such an attack will by necessity rely on second-chance points, floor balance could be compromised. Teams are already planning to attack Detroit's big lineup in transition, and Cheeks can't have Jennings and Smith aiding that cause with ill-conceived long 2s.



PELTON'S 2013-14 PROJECTIONS

Projected Offensive Rating: 109.2 (10th)
Projected Defensive Rating: 106.9 (8th)
Effective (weighted) age: 25.8 (24th)


The Pistons seem to have enough shooting on the roster to make it work. Kyle Singler has potential as a premier deep threat, as does Datome. Jonas Jerebko has dormant skills as a stretch-4, and Jennings is actually pretty good in catch-and-shoot situations when he's open. Billups is one of the most consistent catch-and-shoot players around, though given his age and recent injury history, you don't want to overextend his role. Caldwell-Pope was drafted to eventually be a 3-and-defense starter.

One name not on that list is Stuckey, whom Cheeks seems to have taken a shine to as the starting 2. It's a bad idea. Stuckey is one of the poorest-shooting guards in the league, and his track record is long enough to make you doubt it's going to change. In the past, he's had just that attacking mentality to which we've alluded, but there is a plenty of that in Detroit's first unit. Inserting another non-shooter in that group is a potential disaster. Stuckey, whose luck through random chance and poor judgment hasn't always been the greatest, broke his right thumb by getting it stuck in a car door jamb not long after preseason started. It's cruel to say it, but the injury might have saved Cheeks from himself.

Whatever happens in terms of offensive fit, the Pistons can make their mark from the outset by fielding one of the league's most dynamic defenses. Monroe is an agile, beefy defender who has solid metrics stepping out onto the floor on that end. However, he can also defend the post, and with Drummond's amazing athleticism, Cheeks will have the luxury of mixing and matching his big men. Smith will team with Drummond to give Detroit one of the most dynamic shot-blocking tandems in the league. He might be a fish out of water at 3 when the likes of LeBron James come to town, but he'll have the support behind him to at least go out and body up top-scoring wings.

In the backcourt, Jennings was a solid contributor to some good Scott Skiles-coached defenses in Milwaukee, and can work the passing lanes with the huge frontline behind him. At the 2, whoever gets the nod really only needs to shoot deep balls on one end, and contest shots at the other. While it's doubtful any NBA team could field an elite defense and rebounding team by playing zone as its base defense, these Pistons seem ripe for an experiment at playing a lot of Jim Boeheim-like zone.

Are there a lot of variables in this equation? Sure. The Pistons will be asking a number of frontline players to alter their games in ways they haven't had to before. The risk of implosion is very real. However, it's a gamble worth taking. Talent is always worth the gamble.


SCHOENE Projection: 49-33, 3rd in Central, 5th in Eastern Conference