A little talk about the Pistons hovering around .500 and lots of chatter about the present and future for Stanley Johnson head the menu for this week's edition of Pistons Mailbag.
Lee (Los Angeles): Half the games, the Pistons looks like they should be in the Eastern Conference finals and the other half they look like they should be in the lottery. Is this discrepancy because they are a young, growing team still incorporating all their missing pieces (Reggie Jackson) or is this just who the Pistons always will be as long as these are the players they have? If your answer is “it's too early to tell,” which side would you bet on if you had to place a bet?
Langlois: There's a pretty big gap between “conference finals” and “lottery” and, by definition, that's where 40 percent of the league ultimately finishes every year. So it's not much of a copout to say a 44-win team that returned the core of its roster intact has a greater chance to finish somewhere between those extremes than at either end. But once Reggie Jackson hits his stride – and, no, he hasn't yet and it might still be a few weeks off – then I think the Pistons are going to get some traction. They've gone .500 despite some obvious hardships, Jackson's absence and a game-heavy schedule among them. If you're compiling a short list of NBA teams with greatest in-season growth potential, I'd put the Pistons on it.
Taylor (@dt2phillips): How can the Pistons recover from Sunday night?
Langlois: By beating Dallas tonight. It's really that straightforward. Beat Dallas and keep rolling. They let their guard down against Philadelphia, plain and simple. It happens a few times each year to pretty much everyone. (Anybody catch Chicago lose to Minnesota at home Tuesday night after leading 26-6?) Every coach understands that on an intellectual level and every coach fights like crazy to prevent it from becoming accepted by his players. I don't think there is a shred of evidence to suggest performances like Sunday will become a pattern for a Stan Van Gundy-coached team.
Paul (Phoenix): Once again, it's becoming clear, the Pistons can win without Reggie Jackson. He must not have watched the team during the winning streaks – team basketball. And for all the “trade KCP” complainers, see how many games this team wins if he is gone. No backcourt defense and minimal assists with Jackson manning the point.
Langlois: The Pistons won 11 of the 21 games he missed, so your contention that they can win without him will draw no argument from them. If you're contending the Pistons have a better outlook without Jackson than with him, I would suggest that is an utterly foolish stance. The guy was out for about two months. And due to the nature of his injury, there was only so much he could do to maintain a certain level of conditioning. It should surprise no one – it certainly isn't coming as a surprise to Stan Van Gundy and his staffs – that it's going to take a minute for Jackson to get up to speed and for the Pistons and him to get as completely on the same page as they were over the stretch drive last season. It's a tendency of fandom to react (to overreact, more accurately) to whatever you've last seen. So the Pistons lose to Philadelphia on a night Jackson struggles and a night Caldwell-Pope sits out due to a knee injury and you intimate they'd be better off with Jackson sitting and are helpless without Caldwell-Pope. I'd tap the brakes on both assessments. The Pistons need everyone – certainly all of their rotation players – to contribute to get where they want to go. And they have very little chance of meeting the high end of expectations without Reggie Jackson playing like the guy we know he can be.
Travis (@TravisWade): Do you see SVG making any deals this year or do you think he'll stand pat?
Langlois: He likes his roster and there aren't the obvious holes in it that you could have pointed to a year or two ago and said, “If somebody offers them an upgrade at position X, I can see them doing something.” Van Gundy has players at all five positions – more than one at most – that he considers part of a young core now. There's also the fact that with Reggie Jackson only having recently returned, Van Gundy has said he probably won't have a real clear handle on the team's identity – and from that, its needs – until the end of December or so. Once he has a better idea on that score, then it will depend on how aggressively they might pursue a trade and what he'd be willing to deal. If he feels the Pistons are on the verge of taking another step in their progression, would he consider dipping into that young core to perhaps address a shorter-term need? Maybe. The situation at backup shooting guard right now is unstable. Reggie Bullock won't be back for another month or so and both Darrun Hilliard and Stanley Johnson have struggled with consistency. The Pistons have been a much better team with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on the floor than with him on the bench. (He leads the team in plus/minus at 4.6 and he's the only player on the roster whose off-court number is a negative – meaning the Pistons at least break even when anyone else is resting.) Of players who've been in the rotation at some point, the two worst plus/minus figures on the team belong to Hilliard and Johnson. If the Pistons were to make a move, finding someone who doesn't cause a big dropoff from Caldwell-Pope would be the logical move. But Van Gundy won't easily give up on two second-year players with the upside he feels both possess.
Weston (@westonhnielsen): What kind of value or situation do you think could sway the Pistons' mind on trading Stanley Johnson?
Matey (@woahmatey): What are the chances the Pistons actually trade Stanley Johnson?
Langlois: The odds of the Pistons dealing Stanley Johnson are slim and none. You don't deal a 20-year-old guy drafted in the lottery unless you discover he's nothing like the player you scouted – and, to be clear, the Pistons are nowhere near that determination with Johnson. I'd crack the door ever so slightly based on the scenario I advanced in response to Travis' question above. If we get to mid-February and the backup shooting guard situation hasn't stabilized and the Pistons are offered a chance to get someone who could help both this season and beyond, then … yeah, it's still a long shot that anyone the Pistons would be offered would be tantalizing enough for them to step away from seeing where Johnson's career is headed. Not impossible, but wholly unlikely.
Benjamin (Struer, Denmark): Why did Stanley Johnson go to the D-League? Is it to get his feet wet or maybe back to last year's form or is it because he's now on the same level as the rookies this year, Henry Ellenson and Michael Gbinije?
Langlois: The first part, Benjamin. He needs to play. Really, he needs to rediscover the confidence that marked his rookie-season play. Johnson shoots down any suggestion his confidence is suffering and I'll buy that to the extent that I believe he's still fully confident that he's going to eventually become an All-Star-level player. But I don't think he's playing now with the confidence that he's going to make something good happen for his team at both ends on every possession. There's a chance he got a boost against Philadelphia the other night. His second-half play was the best we've seen him in a while. But he's looked tentative and indecisive with the ball in his hands more often than not since the early going and those are traits I can't help but link to lack of confidence. The Sunday outing – in which he still shot just 2 of 8, but at least looked more decisive – came the day after his 28-point game for the Grand Rapids Drive. Probably not a coincidence.
Ian (Westland, Mich.): I feel like Stan Van Gundy is disrespecting the process of developing a championship-winning team. The Pistons' time isn't now. Now is worthless if it costs us a championship down the road. The Cavs and Warriors have the NBA locked up for at least this year and next. Stanley Johnson needs to be and should be getting close to 30 minutes a game so that he can develop within the next couple of years along with his younger starting cohorts so that when it is time for them to win, they will. By playing the wrong people big minutes (Marcus Morris), we are taking the wrong route that's led us to 13-13 – the worst place for an NBA team, the fringes of the playoffs.
Langlois: Well, that's an … interesting perspective. Van Gundy talked at length last week about how he feels quite to the contrary. It's his experience that teams that give young players playing time they haven't earned aren't hastening but, in fact, stalling their development. And – just my opinion here – you're undermining your argument by citing Marcus Morris as someone whose minutes should be cut. He brings them toughness – can't overstate that one – very solid perimeter defense and versatility of scoring. And the whole “their time isn't now” thing doesn't resonate with me. As team president, Van Gundy understands where the Pistons are in their cycle. It's why he's been vigilant about not sacrificing any part of the future up to this point to benefit the present. But Van Gundy the coach is going to do everything he can to win games with the roster he and GM Jeff Bower have built. And he'll do that because it's not only a coach's every instinct but also because it's his firm belief that the only way to build a championship mentality is to instill the priority of team success – read: winning – over everything else, especially a notion he finds as dubious as spurring a young player's development by handing them the most precious commodity, playing time, they've yet to earn.
Oliver (Tartu, Estonia): Do you have any clue if Stan Van Gundy projects Stanley Johnson to be a forward in the future? Right now, Stanley's best chance to get playing time is at the shooting guard position. How do you see the future of Stanley?
Langlois: Van Gundy doesn't get too caught up in positions, other than center and point guard. Everything in between is mostly about your ability to defend the variety of players who come between those two extremes and finding the right mix of offensive skills among that group. Van Gundy did muse about Johnson's future a few weeks ago when he made the call to take him out of the rotation. Would Johnson become a big shooting guard or a small forward in the mold of Jae Crowder who swings to power forward frequently? He's a wing player and they comprise a continuum that runs from smaller, quick players (think Boston's Avery Bradley) to Crowder types to players like Johnson's teammates, Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris, who fit just as easily at power forward as at small forward. The Pistons are pretty confident Johnson will be able to defend a wide variety of those players, a major reason he was drafted eighth as a 19-year-old. The question of what he becomes really depends on how his offensive skills develop.
Sham (@shamshamgod): With the Paul George rumor floating around, what would the Pistons be willing to give up to get a player of his caliber?
Jaime (@JaySosa300): What's the update on the Paul George trade rumor?
Langlois: The update is the same as it was when it “broke” last week: still nothing. Most trade rumors are either laughably obsolete by the time they surface or contain mere shards of reality. This one didn't even rise to those standards. George is, by most accounts, a top 10 or 12 player. The price to get them is steep. On Stan Van Gundy's watch with Jeff Bower as general manager, the Pistons have swiftly and unerringly restocked their assets drawer – to the point that it's no longer inconceivable that they could cobble together a sufficient trade package for such a player without gutting the roster.
Sasa (@ozmo_sasa): Will Bobi get any meaningful minutes this season?
Deus (@deusProxy): Did SVG pay Boban all those millions to be on the bench?
Langlois: To Sasa's question, unlikely barring injury to Andre Drummond or Aron Baynes. It was never Stan Van Gundy's expectation that Marjanovic would jump Baynes in the rotation. He was signed in anticipation of Baynes opting out of his contract and getting contract offers beyond the Pistons' ability, as set forward in the collective bargaining agreement, to match a restricted free agent offer sheet. That gets to Deus' part of the answer. He was paid to provide enviable depth this season but mostly to slide into Baynes' role as Drummond's backup for the two seasons after that. Why didn't the Pistons simply wait until the 2017 off-season to sign a backup center? Because they knew they would not have cap space after signing Andre Drummond's new contract last summer.
Sade (Hamtramck, Mich.): Do you think John Wall should be traded to another team that is able to contend for the playoffs? He is a talented player who doesn't get all the credit he should be receiving. I was wondering, what if he was traded to Denver or Houston?
Langlois: Washington is a team that should be able to contend for the playoffs. There's enough talent on that roster to be right there with the Pistons, Charlotte, Atlanta, Boston and what's perceived as a thick middle class in the Eastern Conference. If Washington were to make him available, I would expect a robust market given his level of play combined with his contract – signed before the salary escalation of the last two off-seasons and calling him for to earn about $37 million over the next two seasons. So a team trading for Wall would get three chances at a playoff run with him. The thing that might give some teams pause is his injury history; I doubt it would scare anyone away. Denver has a bevy of young players it could package. I don't know if any of them move the needle enough for Washington to part ways with their franchise cornerstone less than a third of a season into the first year for Scott Brooks, signed to a deal that's paying him $7 million a season to do something other, I'm guessing, than launch a rebuild.
Joanie (Caledonia, Mich.): While watching a recent game, I noticed Reggie Jackson is wearing jersey No. 1. I was at the game when Chauncey Billups' jersey was retired. Why is Reggie still wearing the No. 1? It seems disrespectful to Chauncey and the fans!
Langlois: Standard practice when a team retires a player's jersey to allow a player currently wearing his number to keep it. There are several cases where the player volunteers to give it up, as Stanley Johnson did this season with No. 3 after it was retired for Ben Wallace. It means enough to Jackson that he chose not to follow suit. I can't speak for Billups, but I wouldn't interpret it as a sign of disrespect. And I've never grasped why fans would take it that way. It's a number. The jerseys are in the rafters for the name on the back, not for the number. Nothing Chauncey Billups did during his run with the Pistons is diminished in the least by the fact someone else is wearing the same number he wore.
Bob (Albany, Oregon): The Pistons are best served when five to seven guys score in double figures, keeping the ball moving. Practices must be fun. I can see the third string pushing those ahead of them. I hope Stanley can see the abundance of talent around him. Injuries, especially the nagging ones, occur and resting those guys will provide some opportunities. SVG has them in real good shape moving forward. What do you think their record will be at the end of December?
Langlois: The way the Pistons are built, yeah, I'd wager that when they get five-plus players in double figures they're going to win more than they lose. It might not be the very best formula for all teams, but it's a pretty good one for everybody. They'll have played 35 games by the end of the month, Bob. I'll go with above .500. Best I can do until we see Reggie Jackson playing like Reggie Jackson.
Deviaire (Pontiac): Can we possibly see KCP more with the second unit? I noticed on fast breaks that Ish Smith is always looking behind him to find somebody to pass to. KCP could change that.
Langlois: It's possible we see more of him in general, Deviaire. He's playing a little more than 33 minutes a game this season, down about four per game from last season. Given the struggles of the players behind him at shooting guard, it's not at all unlikely that Stan Van Gundy starts ramping up his minutes incrementally. I don't know that any increase in minutes will mean more time with the bench, necessarily. It depends on how Van Gundy staggers the rotation. He's more inclined to use one of Marcus Morris or Tobias Harris with the core bench unit to give that group a scoring anchor. But as he develops more trust in Caldwell-Pope's scoring and decision making on offense, he could be another option to play with that unit.
