There were precious few roster and rotation questions looming for Stan Van Gundy when Pistons training camp opened, but precious few answers were yielded as it dwindles to its conclusion.
The six preseason games and more than three times that many practices over the past four weeks have left Van Gundy with no clear leader having emerged in the battle to win what became the backup point guard role with Reggie Jackson’s injury elevating Ish Smith to the starting lineup or a pecking order in the wing rotation.
After the Pistons finished preseason with Wednesday’s loss to Toronto, leaving them 3-3, Van Gundy polled his staff and inner circle. Of eight ballots returned, all four players in the running to get minutes at shooting guard and small forward – Stanley Johnson, Reggie Bullock, Darrun Hilliard and Michael Gbinije – drew votes. And the vote was split down the middle between Lorenzo Brown and Ray McCallum Jr. at point guard.
“As I told ’em today, they were absolutely no help whatsoever,” Van Gundy joked. “It was all over the place. So they didn’t help me even a little. But, to be honest, everything they said in their evaluations was right on. So I think at both spots, it’s more what you think you’re going to need the most than somebody emerging ahead of somebody else.”
The NBA calendar makes the issue at point guard as most urgent. The Pistons have to make the decision by the end of Saturday’s practice. Rosters need to be set by the close of NBA business on Monday, 5 p.m., which means players need to be placed on waivers by 5 p.m. Saturday to allow for the 48-hour waiver process to play out.
“That’s going to be a very difficult decision and whoever one of those guys I have to call in and tell him he got cut is going to be really, really difficult for me,” Van Gundy said.
The decision became much more weighty with Jackson’s injury, too. A team’s third point guard rarely plays unless injury strikes. With Jackson perhaps missing 20 games – Van Gundy said there’s no real update yet on the initially stated timetable of six to eight weeks from his Oct. 10 platelet-rich plasma injection in his left knee – either Brown or McCallum is going to play more than 300 minutes that could prove critical to the Pistons’ season.
The Pistons will have an eye on the waiver wire to see what else might come available, but Van Gundy expects to open the season with one of Brown or McCallum on the roster. The intel general manager Jeff Bower has gleaned via conversations with peers around the league leads the Pistons to believe there won’t be someone they’d find intriguing available.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Van Gundy said, “but they don’t expect that there’s going to be anything there that would get us to make a move. But we’ll see. You always pay attention.”
Aron Baynes, after undergoing surgery for a broken nose suffered in Tuesday’s practice, was not at practice on Friday. He is scheduled to start non-contact work on Sunday and Van Gundy said the Pistons hope he’ll practice on Tuesday, the day before the regular-season opener at Toronto. “We’ve had a lot of (broken noses),” Van Gundy said. “We must have either guys with big noses or, the positive side of that, we have guys who really stick their nose in and work. We’ve had four this year (Baynes, Tobias Harris, Michael Gbinije and Darrun Hilliard) already. None of these guys are good looking, anyway, so we’re not going to have any problems in that regard.” Marcus Morris, who returned to the lineup on Wednesday after sitting a week with a case of left knee tendinitis, came out of the game feeling OK and was able to practice on Friday, Van Gundy said.
“We’ve had a lot of (broken noses),” Van Gundy said. “We must have either guys with big noses or, the positive side of that, we have guys who really stick their nose in and work. We’ve had four this year (Baynes, Tobias Harris, Michael Gbinije and Darrun Hilliard) already. None of these guys are good looking, anyway, so we’re not going to have any problems in that regard.”
Marcus Morris, who returned to the lineup on Wednesday after sitting a week with a case of left knee tendinitis, came out of the game feeling OK and was able to practice on Friday, Van Gundy said.
