The Regular Season
Detroit came into the regular season optimistic based on the construction of the roster. Livingston should take a big jump in the engine, Bam should be a monster rebounder, Murray should explode into a 30 ppg scorer, and SJJ will just continue to do SJJ thing. And lets not forget that Gates can now lock down any offensive player on the opposing team with the new engine. Everything is awesome!
Well, even with the preseason extended, the Pistons still started off a little rough and were falling well behind the Indiana Pacers in the standings. All of the old tricks didn't work anymore for the Pistons and it was looking more and more like the Pistons were pretty dumb for trading their pick this year knowing the engine was a completely new variable. What is worse is that most of those projections of optimism I had to start the season quickly showed were not going to happen in this engine either, however, other new bright spots proved to be a big part of the team and the GM decided to make massive strategy and playing time changes to try to shake things up. Lets look at those positives.
Emmanuel Mudiay
Mudiay was by far the biggest surprise for us this season. I'd venture as much to say that without him, we definitely wouldn't have been the top seed and would be out of the playoffs by now. I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the biggest Mudiay fan. I thought he was overpaid and didn't really provide much of anything that my team needed, but figured it was worth a flyer last year when he was traded for Jordan Adams.
Turns out, this guy finally found his light in the new engine and was the spark plug we needed off the bench. His per36 averages of 20 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.8 steals per game to go along with his 45% shooting from the field should make him a starter on pretty much any team, but with Murray and Gates holding down the SG and SF spots, that just wasn't going to happen. He played big minutes off the bench this season for us and he would wreck opposing teams when he got the ball in his hands. This was something we have missed big time in years past and were hoping other players would do.
Kaiser Gates
Gates isn't going to ever put up 15-20 ppg, but Gates proved that defense is crucial in this engine still. The ability to lock him on the opposing teams best player is the lone reason we got to where we did in the regular season. He was out for a handful of games and if you dove into what the opposing team did to us in those games you would see how clear it is that he is our true MVP. He is the literal glue that holds this team together and even if one of our offensive guys were out, we would be okay because Gates cancels every other player in the league out when he's locked into them. This ability to do so in this engine alone makes him one of the most valuable assets we have on this team. It doesn't hurt that he led the league in steals and should continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Stanley Johnson
I'm not going to lie, I bought low on SJJ in DDS3 because it seemed that big men who could score were very valuable in DDS19. Turns out I knew nothing at all about the inter workings of DDS19 at the time of the trade, but it still worked out in a big way. SJJ showed that he can still dominate in this engine and what's more is that he has kept the foul drawing ability that I was sure he would lose in the engine switch.
SJJ is our emotional leader on the court and will dominate down low by scoring and grabbing rebounds at will. He isn't the most efficient big man, but with how many fouls he draws a game he is fouling out the opposing teams front court almost every game. Additionally, he has went beast mode in the playoffs so far as nobody has been able to cage him. He is the offensive power we have always needed and its nice to finally have a player on my team who can consistently put up 20+PPG in our system as we have never had that in my entire career here.
Now, there were some not so positive things, but I wouldn't call them negatives since our season to date has been much better than expected, but here are some things I'd like to see improve next season.
Where's the Handles Bump?
For all the talk of players with a good PAS rating really stepping up in this engine, I'm still waiting for that to happen to Livingston (who is a God in that area) and Jamal Murray. Now don't get me wrong, I love both players but I expected Livingston to put up better scoring numbers and take more shots overall. Same thing goes for Murray as both players looked exactly the same as they did in DDS3.
Jokes aside, I think its good that most players looked the same but I did expect Murray to also go off with his unique set of ratings. I will say that he is looking great in the playoffs as another guy who gets that playoff boost like SJJ.
Bam Bam
My bud here just didn't love the engine switch and his offensive production took a bump because of it. He still plays great defense, but he's not the player he once was of past. This is concerning to me since he was another guy I thought would dominate the new engine, but we are going to have to pivot and lower those expectations and understand what role he plays for this team. Still a young talent, but we can't rely on him for anything more than blocks and rebounds which will serve its purpose.
The Other Problem
There is one problem this team has that I'm not sure I'm willing to share at this point, but it will need to get corrected at some point. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it hasn't held the team back much to this point and seems to have gone away in the playoffs for now. It will need to be addressed some in the off-season, but I can talk to this more once the ride has ended for us.
The Future
With lotto luck landing us at pick 3 for the draft, we are excited to bring in another player who should help us long term and allow us to shed some salary potentially in the short term. We aren't sure who we are going with at this point, but do feel like there are some very good options at the top of the draft that should help us out a lot in some of these areas we need to address.
As for Free Agency, this is a big year for us with SJJ, Livingston, and Rabb all hitting FA. SJJ won't touch another team for the rest of his career, but we will have some interesting decisions with the other two players and the draft might play into that decision. Both Livi and Rabb are RFA and have played great for us, but are they worth the overpay they will require to resign? That's the big question, but we will see how the rest of the playoffs shakes out before even thinking about those things.
Here's to the rest of the season...
