Stan Van Gundy: Detroit Pistons won’t use 3 bigs as primary lineup
By Phil Watson
The Detroit Pistons tried to combine Josh Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond into their primary frontcourt unit last season under former team president Joe Dumars and former coach Maurice Cheeks.
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The new man in charge of the franchise, Stan Van Gundy, says that group will not be the primary lineup.
In a Q&A with The Detroit News, Van Gundy admits the combination worked at times last season, but not nearly as often as the team needed it to.
"“Maybe what emerges is those three guys start at 3-4-5,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t anticipate that would be the case but even if they do, that won’t be the lineup that gets the most minutes. It can be effective against some teams and some lineups.”"
Smith, in particular, seemed empowered to do really bad things with that lineup. Forced to play the small forward, Smith led his jump shot fly—often with poor results. He shot a career-worst 41.9 percent from the floor while hoisting a career-high 265 3-point attempts.
He made 70—a 26.4 percent accuracy rate. But at least his rebounding, assists and blocked shots were all down from his final season with the Atlanta Hawks … so there was that.
Van Gundy says that who starts isn’t nearly as big a deal for coaches as it is for players and it’s one of those things that has to be handled with care.
"“Starting isn’t important to me or other coaches,” Van Gundy said. “But it’s really important to players. As a coach you’re looking at, you have to have a balance of, your best offensive players, you have to know what you’re doing in your second unit. Maybe you need a go-to guy in your second unit. I don’t think on most teams the five best guys are starting.”"
The Pistons stumbled through a 29-53 season in 2013-14, missing the playoffs for the fifth straight year.
Part of the problem was an offense that ranked 14th in the league in scoring, but was just 29th in 3-point shooting,30th in free throw accuracy and—despite shot blockers in Drummond and Smith—27th in scoring defense.
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