Pistons off to a Hot Start

So far, it appears Stan Van Gundy has the Detroit Pistons primed for a playoff push.

I am not a guy who likes to blow my own trumpet, but I was high on the Detroit Pistons coming into the year. Stan Van Gundy made a brave decision to offload Josh Smith in the middle of last year and he let the offensive guru Greg Monroe leave in free agency. Both were moves that freed up space for Stan to build his famed ‘four out one in’ type of roster. They may well cool off, but for now it is abundantly obvious that they are one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference.

This team is built defensively around Andre Drummond and he has been truly monstrous so far as he is averaging 19 rebounds per game. This number will go down, but Drummond has stepped into the role of being the most monstrous defensive center in the NBA. The team has a defensive rating of 85.7 when he is on the floor and he can make up for the defensive deficiencies of the stretch fours in the system such as Ersan Ilyasova and Marcus Morris. Van Gundy is a hard coach and without even using analytics you can see this team looks more motivated and more assured on the defensive end of the court without Greg Monroe who is frankly a defensive liability.

It is clear the removal of Monroe is helping Drummond defensively, his defensive rating has skyrocketed from 105.5 to 85.7 and although this is a small sample size, it is quite telling if you look at the bigger picture. He is a beast of a defender but he was often drawn out of space to cover Greg Monroe who was a turnstile on the court, Ilyasova isn’t great but there is at least a hustle to his game which means he doesn’t get breezed by with ease. This allows Drummond to stay in the paint and defend the lane, something which is helping Detroit register a defensive efficiency total of 93.8 which leaves them fifth in the NBA. It is early days, but they have played good teams and systems don’t usually die out over the course of a system, this should be a feature for the rest of the season. To show the stark difference Drummond makes, the opponents’ offensive rating is 85.7 when he is on the court, this goes up to a stunning 115.7 when he is sitting on the bench. The downfall for this team could be a lack of defensive depth.

The offense is what you would expect from a Van Gundy team, they take a lot of threes, 22.5 per game to be exact, and they run a lot high pick and roll with a big center and a fast point guard with great handles in Reggie Jackson. This duo have looked excellent so far and the way they play naturally creates open looks on the perimeter for guys like Marcus Morris and the vastly underrated Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. This team has won three of their first four games by stretching the floor and creating looks inside for Andre Drummond who will be grateful for the service he is getting, he has averaged 20 points thus far and there is little reason as to why this should drop.

The one worry so far is that the team remarkably are not being that efficient, they seem to miss a lot of open looks which is a bit strange. Their offensive efficiency is in the bottom third of the league which Van Gundy won’t be too happy with. The silver lining here is to say ‘at least they are creating the looks’, you have more of an issue if you aren’t creating shots, especially in the half court.

Overall this team seems to have it all, they have a great point guard, a top center and a lot of role players who can both shoot, pass and drive to the basket. Marcus Morris’ personal revival has somewhat symbolised that there is something fresh in the air around Motor City. There is a sense of professionalism and this team can genuinely make their residents proud to be Pistons fans.