Detroit Pistons Rivaling Philadelphia 76ers for NBA's Most Daunting Rebuild
Call it what it is: The Philadelphia 76ers are a laughingstock. From the painfully unproven personnel to the risky naivety of general manager Sam Hinkie (once a wunderkind, now merely maligned), Philly’s travails are like the basketball equivalent of Jonathan Swift—laughter, sure, but that which is had in self-defense.
Still, you can say this about the Sixers: At least that’s the plan.
The Detroit Pistons? Not so much. And yet here stands Stan Van Gundy’s clan, a trifle game ahead of Philly in the win column, a roster in toxic shambles, plans for the future more up in the air than a wayward weather balloon.
Philadelphia deserves every bit of flak that’s coming to it. But as Detroit is quickly proving, it’s the unintentional comedy that’s so often funniest—even if a master plan is theoretically in place.
Following a shaky-but-salvageable 3-6 start, the Pistons have dropped 12 straight, two games shy of the franchise record. They boast the second-worst offense in the league, have cracked the century mark twice in regulation and field a floor general who has registered above 40 percent from the floor in a season once in his five-year career.
And those are just the low-hanging laughs.
Josh Smith: one of the most overpaid players in the league, even given the occasional glimpse of brilliance. Greg Monroe: all but bolted following failed contract negotiations this past summer. The assets: few. The talent: far between.
Not that Detroit’s shortcomings are lost on its mustachioed maestro.
"I think we took a lot of tough shots with people open," Van Gundy grumbled after a recent home loss to the lowly Los Angeles Lakers, per The Detroit News' Vincent Goodwill Jr. "We have to show them those things. I have to do my job better. I'm not gonna say I have a selfish team or lazy team. We have a messed up team."
So what, exactly, would’ve compelled Van Gundy—tasked with double duty as the team’s coach as well as its general manager—to take on such a seemingly hopeless cause?
Two words: Andre Drummond.
Outside of Anthony Davis and Giannis Antetokounmpo, few players fit the 21-and-under building-block bill better than Detroit’s superb 7-footer. He is, for lack of a better term, as close to a Dwight Howard analog as exists in the league.
The connection isn’t a difficult one to make. With Howard as their towering centerpiece, the Van Gundy-led Orlando Magic managed to rattle off five straight playoff appearances between 2008 and 2012, including two trips to the Eastern Conference Finals and one ill-fated NBA Finals foray in 2009.
Stan Van’s strategy was simple: surround Howard with a bevy of shooters and bank on his potent post presence yielding clean looks aplenty from deep.
Needless to say, that plan has proven far from fruition. From a recent piece by Grantland’s Zach Lowe:
"Except Detroit’s offense isn’t functional. It’s 24th in points per possession, and Drummond is a horrid 13-of-36 on those post-ups, per Synergy. He’s turnover-prone down there, he doesn’t draw fouls, and he is about as far away as possible from being a competent inside-out NBA passer. Drummond’s post-ups have produced just .628 points per possession, a mark that would have ranked 116th out of 117 players who recorded at least 50 post-ups last season, per Synergy. The Pistons haven’t made the playoffs since 2009, but they’re playing a long game with Drummond.
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More fundamental still, the Pistons rank 20th in the league in three-point shooting (33.5 percent, per NBA.com), while hoisting an 11th-most 23 per game—an early indication that, at the very least, Van Gundy’s emphasis on taking is holding, even if the making part continues to lag behind.
That tensions—between expectation and performance, strategy and execution—is already taking its toll.
"Other guys are noticing it within guys," Van Gundy recently told the Detroit Free Press’ Vince Ellis. "I don't think there's really any dispute. It's a thing with players where nobody's going to admit that they're playing tight, but yet they see it in everybody else."
Sadly, it’ll likely take years before Drummond can round himself into something resembling a reliable offensive player. In the meantime, Van Gundy must suffer through what promises to be a painful rebuild.
Perhaps he knew it would break this way all along. That would certainly explain the dual front office role, imbued as it is with some semblance of built-in immunity. Perhaps, like the Sixers, there’s a plan in place that—though noxiously nascent in the now—could, with a bit of patience and prudence, yield something solid and sustainable.
Just don’t expect the sailing to get smoother anytime soon. Particularly if Van Gundy fails to either transform Smith into a reasonably productive player or, more hopeful still, part with him completely. Ditto Brandon Jennings, although the nature of the contract might make for an easier deadline sell.
Rocky though the road has been, Detroit’s disaster isn’t without its silver lining: With next year’s draft class looking better by the week, Van Gundy stands to have quite the asset on his hands—be it draft-day redeemable or as part of a package to ship Smith, Jennings or any one of the team’s myriad other headaches out of town.
Whatever the long-term course, it promises to be a needle’s eye-thin one for Van Gundy. Even with one of the league’s foremost cornerstones at his disposal, rounding out the roster is a process that could take years—if it happens at all.
Philly faces the same slippery slope, of course, the key difference being one of pure politics: Sooner rather than later, Hinkie's master plan—to stockpile assets as a matter of course, in hopes that a handful have hardwood greatness hardwired within them—will have to start bearing fruit. If not, it'll be another man's ruins to resurrect.
Van Gundy, by contrast, knows that being judge, jury and executioner means the most perilous punishment lies in angry mobs at a distance rather than doorsteps, and less in gallows than guffaws.
Which, so long as the last laugh belongs to him, is all in the plan for the man they call Stan Van.
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