Both directly and indirectly, new Detroit Pistons head coach Monty Williams has been forthcoming with what he’s looking for this season from a group that was the worst in the NBA last season.
Defense, first and foremost, appears to be at the forefront of every decision that will be made. Development will be considered. With that, though, minutes will be earned. The Pistons are only 1.5 days into training camp, but Williams has revealed some of his line of thinking already as it pertains to his potential rotation when basketball starts to matter.
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Let’s start with the most obvious: Following Tuesday’s morning practice, Williams said that it’s “a work in progress right now” figuring out if James Wiseman or Marvin Bagley will be the “more-than-likely” backup big. If you’ve been following along here over the last few months, Williams’ comments fall in line with my beliefs this summer, which is that there’s only room for one more “traditional” big man behind Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart.
Despite collecting young big men over the last two seasons, it always felt like general manager Troy Weaver was searching for talent, and not necessarily constructing a perfect rotation, which makes sense for a rebuilding franchise that had no significant assets to kick off its fresh start.
Detroit had to start from ground zero as Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson had little-to-no value around the league in 2020 when the Pistons pivoted. They were depleted of talent. But before the Pistons could start to become more cohesive, they needed to land young, talented players.
Now, three years into the rebuild, it’s time to make the pieces fit. The frontcourt, more than any other position, needs the most sorting out.
“That’s a tough spot because both guys … I wouldn’t say deserve it, but they have the talent,” Williams said. “Bagley has a body of work. Wiseman is learning and still young. They both have enough ability to command that spot.
“We’re just going to wait and see who steps up and takes it.”
With the forthcoming decision on Wiseman and Bagley, their battle leads to another inference: Stewart is the clubhouse leader as the starting power forward. If Wiseman or Bagley are duking it out for the backup big spot, that says that Williams plans on using Stewart alongside Duren, who seems to be the starting center on Day 1.
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The emphasis on defense and the belief in Stewart as an adequate floor spacer moving forward pencils him into the starting lineup. Stewart is, arguably, one of the team’s best two or three defenders and has the versatility that, surely, Williams covets.
Further, along those lines, the stressing of defense makes predicting the starting lineup a bit harder. Naturally, most would have assumed that the starting group on Day 1 would be as follows: Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Bojan Bogdanović, Stewart and Duren. However, after being around Williams the last three days, hearing him talk about what holds the utmost importance, I’m not as confident today that will be the starting group, though I still tend to lean that way.
Defensively, you feel good about Cunningham, Stewart and Duren if there is another solid, ball-stopping defender alongside them. It’s Ivey and Bogdanović who raise the most questions defensively and are the two most likely, in my opinion, to be overtaken if there is a surprise change of direction with the starters. Rookie Ausar Thompson might already be the team’s best defender and could be tapped on Day 1 to be the starter. However, taking Bogdanović out of that group depletes it of proven shooting. Taking Ivey out removes the threat of a diverse scorer.
But, again, defense is the No. 1 priority.
“I think we can guard the ball better than we’ve shown,” Williams said on Tuesday. “One of our rules is if you can’t guard two dribbles, you probably can’t play. That’s just the way it is. You have to be able to be in a stick-pick-wall, which, for us, is stick hand, pick a spot and wall up. If you’re a blow-by guy on defense, you’re just going to have a tough time playing because we have to play great defense. For me, the best offense is a defensive stop. The more stops we can get, the more we can play free.”
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Moving on, it sounds like Isaiah Livers was primed for a rotation spot until he suffered a recent ankle sprain. Williams said the third-year forward had a “great summer” before the injury and is looking forward to getting him back.
“He’s a two-way guy, smart,” Williams said of Livers. “He can play with the ball a bit better than I thought, watching him play pickup, before we started training camp. He can make a pocket pass, he knows how to play in .5 and he does a number of things well. He’s smart. He talks on defense.
“It’s unfortunate that he had an injury because he was just having a great summer. He was working on his body. We can’t wait to get him back because he’s going to add some value to both sides of the ball.”
Originally, I had Livers slotted in as the backup power forward. It sounds like Williams had a similar line of thinking. Now, I’m very curious about what that rotation looks like to begin the season. Could Williams ask Bogdanović to come off the bench and play backup 4 until Livers returns to add Thompson to the starting group? Possibly, but it still feels unlikely. Maybe the Pistons stagger Stewart and Duren early on so that Stewart plays with the winner of the Wiseman-Bagley duel and then Bogdanović plays the 4 more alongside Duren while Thompson plays the 3 alongside the starters. I’m just spitballing here, but all seem like legitimate outcomes.
Then there’s the possibility of Detroit going small in the second unit. It sounds like Williams has an interest in using Joe Harris, who has long been one of the league’s top 3-point shooters. He said as much on Wednesday. Could the all-bench unit look like this with Livers out: Monte Morris, Alec Burks, Harris, Thompson and Wiseman/Bagley? I think it’s more likely that Stewart rotates out of the starting group early and joins the second unit to play the 4 and Thompson spends some time with the starters, assuming he doesn’t start off the rip. Certainly, though, Livers’ injury complicates things a little bit.
The second unit will sort itself out. My biggest question over the next few weeks: Is the starting lineup as chalk as most people believe? I keep going back to the rightful obsession with improving defensively and the glowing marks Thompson has received from the coaches, front office and every player on the roster.
We’ll learn more in time, but the picture is getting a little bit more clearer each day.
(Photo of James Wiseman: Logan Riely / NBAE via Getty Images)
