Detroit Pistons Taking Huge Leap of Faith with Reggie Jackson's Max Contract
Reggie Jackson has never been less of a sure thing for the Detroit Pistons.
When he first arrived midway through the 2014-15 campaign, still on his rookie deal, he was risky enough. He didn't fit the ideal mold for a point guard in Pistons coach/president Stan Van Gundy's offense, with just 49 starts on his resume.
A relatively strong showing to end the season inspired some hope about the future and his ability to be a productive part of it. But now, after Jackson agreed to a five-year, $80 million contract to remain in Detroit, the extent of the Pistons' dice roll is beginning to sink in.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports first reported the news, and the move immediately met different levels of confusion and apprehension.
With rumors of other potential suitors wearing thin, Grantland's Zach Lowe wondered who, if anyone, competed with the Pistons for Jackson's services:
That $80 million looked even steeper once Chris Broussard of ESPN.com reported Cory Joseph's four-year, $30 million deal with the Toronto Raptors. Jackson has nearly doubled Joseph's total playing time since 2012, but as the Commercial Appeal's Peter Edmiston pointed out, their statistical splits aren't that much different:
At just $5 million less than Draymond Green, Jackson's price tag puts him in distinguished company—that which Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes says he'll never match in on-court significance:
Funneling max-level deals into point men in general isn't the no-brainer it can be at other positions. Point guard is the NBA's deepest slot, and quality contributors can be had at cheaper rates.
Not even Goran Dragic, this summer's top available offensive pilot, signed a max contract. The Miami Heat handed him $90 million over the next five years, slightly below the max-deal apron.
Unless it's Chris Paul or Stephen Curry, among a few others, on the open market, the decision to tie so much cap space to a point guard is curious. And Jackson isn't Paul or Curry, nor is he among the select few others.
As Matt Moore opined for CBS Sports:
"It's also just a simple overpay for a mediocre talent relative to his position. Jackson can be very good, but you can't grade him in the top ten, maybe not even top 15 as a point guard. Why would you assign your largest contract value to a player who not only does not grade in the top 15 at his position, and had no bargaining leverage, but plays a position at which there seems to be a never-ending fountain of good options?
"
Like every other long-term deal signed this offseason, Jackson's contract will look drastically different as the league's salary cap balloons to $89 million in 2016-17 and $107 million in 2017-18.
But that doesn't change what's happening here: The Pistons are devoting max money to a player who, as of now, isn't the ideal fit for the system they're implementing.
Van Gundy prefers to deploy one-in, four-out lineups that rely heavily on accurate three-point shooting. The lone big on the floor is the only one permitted to be an outside liability.
Jackson, however, has never even put in 34 percent of his long balls over the course of an entire campaign. He shot 29.9 percent from deep while splitting time with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Pistons last season, and his 34.7 percent clip outside 10 feet won't win him any games of H.O.R.S.E.
It's not as if Jackson has ever been the first-string quarterback for a top-flight offense, either. During his 13-game stay at the helm in Oklahoma City, the Thunder went 3-10 and ranked 29th in offensive efficiency, pumping in a pitiful 95.1 points per 100 possessions.
Both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were battling injuries at the time, so a dearth of talent didn't help Jackson. But from his first game in Detroit on, the Pistons went 10-17 and ranked just 15th in offensive efficiency.
Jackson is equally untested, if not irretrievably underwhelming, on defense. He's quick and explosive, which implies potential. But he's a serial ball-gazer and easily picked off.
Opponents shot at above-average clips when he defended them last season, and he ranked in just the 40th percentile of pick-and-roll prevention when guarding the ball-handler.
And yet, the Pistons seem so sure about him.
"We're committed to him," Van Gundy said of Jackson in March, per the Detroit Free Press' Vince Ellis. "It's a long-term thing. This isn't a tryout."
Jackson is now the proud owner of the richest contract in franchise history, according to Ellis—a deal he hasn't even come close to earning and one the Pistons are issuing based solely on potential and the second half of last season.
Jackson drilled 36.4 percent of his long balls between March and season's end and converted 45.2 percent of his spot-up threes through 27 appearances with Detroit. That's shooting with which Van Gundy's space-dependent offense can work.
Ditching Greg Monroe will help even further. Monroe and Andre Drummond only succeeded in clogging driving lanes when sharing the floor together. And attacking the rim is a pivotal part of Jackson's game. He averaged 7.3 points per contest off drives in Detroit, the fifth most in the league.
Now that the Pistons have restocked their frontcourt rotation with more perimeter-friendly bodies—from Stanley Johnson and Ersan Ilyasova to Marcus Morris and Danny Granger, per Wojnarowski—Jackson won't have to pine for room to blitz the middle. That freedom should open up his game considerably.
He's also a solid pick-and-roll partner for Drummond. He nearly ranked in the 75th percentile of points scored per pick-and-roll possession as the ball-handler with the Pistons, and he was in the 86th percentile during his time with the Thunder.
Although Jackson's turnover rate can be a tad high in those situations, he has a high IQ as the pick-and-roll catalyst. Defenses are forced to collapse on his drives to the basket, but he has the pinpoint coordination to elude double-teams and roving rim protectors and finish at the rim:
The extra attention he commands when barreling into the lane—especially off screens—renders him a dual-playmaking threat.
He has the smarts to bait the defenses just long enough for them to help off orbiting shooters, whom he will hit quickly, sometimes before he even reaches the block:
That calculated hesitation aids in the development of offensive plays. Jackson likes to make quick decisions, but he's patient enough to wait out his roll man if the layup and kick-out aren't an option.
This works well for someone like Drummond, who tends to wait until the paint is absolutely clear before making a beeline for the hoop after setting a screen:
There are feasible scenarios in which Jackson could end up being the right guy in Detroit—the burgeoning franchise floor general whose ball-dominating strengths blossom with extra space and whose off-ball shooting is good enough to maximize Detroit's offensive model.
But Jackson isn't that guy right now. Not yet.
And the Pistons, like the rest of us, know it.
This, then, isn't an $80 million reward.
It's an $80 million leap of faith—an investment in Jackson becoming a player he isn't.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
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