Omari Sankofa II | Detroit Free Press
The shortened NBA schedule this season is 72 games, and divides into neat thirds of 24 games.
The Detroit Pistons played the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday for Game 23, and their 24th game will come Tuesday when they host the Brooklyn Nets.
Let’s look at three big trends in the Pistons’ season at the one-third mark.
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Note: All stats entering Saturday’s late game against the Lakers
Jerami Grant’s 3-point shooting, foul drawing has made him a top scoring threat
Grant, 26, has indisputably been Detroit’s best player this season, on both ends of the floor. And his breakout season is being noticed. The NBA released its first batch of All-Star fan votes Thursday, and Grant is 10th among frontcourt players.
Through Friday, Grant averaged 23.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.2 blocks while shooting 45% overall, 39.9% from 3 and 86.5% at the foul line. He has the highest usage rate of his career and is averaging career-highs across the board. He has doubled his scoring average from last season, and maintained his above-average efficiency — a tough feat.
According to oddsshark.com, he has the second-highest chances of winning the NBA’s Most Improved Award (behind former Piston Christian Wood, who’s having a breakout season with the Houston Rockets). After a strong season as a role player with the Denver Nuggets, Grant is establishing himself as one of the NBA’s best two-way players.
[ Jerami Grant has blossomed for Pistons. Here’s why his best is still to come ]
“Usually when a guy goes from a glue-type player that he was in Denver to a high usage player, his efficiency goes down,” Casey said Thursday. “But his efficiency has stayed up as his usage rate has gone up. That’s a tribute to him, to fitting in, to understanding what he can do and guys around him allowing him to do what he does. Not having a big drop off defensively, because that’s one of his calling cards too, that is huge too, is his two-way ability. It’s good to see his hard work pay off, if he is fortunate enough to be voted in. I think he should be.”
Grant’s 3-point shooting and ability to get to the line are the biggest drivers behind his efficiency. He’s one of 22 players in the league taking at least six 3s per game and hitting at least 39%, a rare mix of volume and accuracy. Grant’s 3-point attempts per game (6.3) and accuracy are both career-highs.
Among those 22 players, Grant is the only one averaging more than six free-throw attempts per game. He has attempted 141 free throws this season, tied for ninth in the NBA. According to Cleaning The Glass, he’s drawing fouls on 14.6% of his shot attempts, which ranks in the 98th percentile across the league. He hasn’t had many off-shooting nights this season, but his foul-drawing makes him a threat to score when his shot isn’t falling.
Grant has also emerged as a threat in isolation. According to NBA.com, 11.2% of his offense this season has come in isolation, nearly triple last season’s mark of 4%. He’s scoring a career-high 1.08 points per possession in isolation, which ranks in the 76.1 percentile.
[ If Jerami Grant is this good, what else does Troy Weaver have up his sleeve? ]
Blake Griffin’s comeback season has eluded him
Before the season started, the word on Griffin was that he was back to being the Blake of old. After his 2019-20 season ended in January due to knee surgery, he spent nearly a year rehabbing at the Henry Ford Pistons Performance Center and in Los Angeles.
A third of the way into the season, he’s working to find his rhythm. He’s averaging 12.2 points on 36.4% overall shooting and 31.8% from 3. He’s taking a career-high 51% of his shots from behind the arc, and career-low 22% of his shots at the rim, according to Cleaning The Glass.
While Griffin, 31, was known as an athletic high-flyer earlier in his career, his game has drifted toward the arc as he has aged. This season, he looks more like a 3-point specialist than ever.
A key to his efficiency improving could be him getting to the rim more. During his All-NBA season in 2018-19, he took 40% of the shots at the rim and hit them at an above-average 67% clip. This season, he’s shooting 67% at the rim, but attempting roughly half the shots at the rim he averaged two years ago. His shot distribution isn’t doing him any favors, given his 3-point accuracy hasn’t justified the volume.
His 3-point percentage is more than four points lower than it was two years ago, when he shot 36.2% from 3. He has had games this season where he looked more aggressive in getting to the rim, and that could be his path back to becoming one of the NBA’s better scorers again.
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Bad in first halves, average in second halves
Even though the 5-17 Pistons have the worst record in the NBA, they’ve been more competitive than their record suggests. Their net rating is minus-4.8, 24th in the NBA and higher than two teams — the Sacramento Kings and Cleveland Cavaliers — who have each won 10 games. Given the first half of Detroit’s schedule is one of the hardest in the NBA, there’s reason to believe that as it mellows over the course of the season, the Pistons will pick up more wins.
One reason for Detroit’s early struggles is cold starts. During first halves this season, the Pistons have been outscored by 111 points — the fourth-highest total in the league. In second halves, they’ve outscored their opponents by eight points (16th). Despite the tough schedule, the Pistons have been hanging with their opponents late. Some of that can be chalked up to the Pistons typically entering second halves facing a deficit, but it also illustrates why Detroit believes there’s room for growth.
“It’s a product, some, of who we’re playing,” coach Dwane Casey said Friday, after the Pistons suffered a 109-92 loss to the Phoenix Suns, outscored by 13 points in the first half and four in the second half. “Phoenix is a fast-paced team, try to get up and down shooting the 3, get the ball up the floor. We’ve had that issue all year with different lineups. It’s something we will figure out eventually, the slow starts. … I’d rather have a slow start in the first and come back and finish up strong. And that’s kind of our identity as we go forward.”
Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarisankofa. Read more on the Detroit Pistons and sign up for our Pistons newsletter.