Yes, the Detroit Pistons are rebuilding.
Yes, this is only the second season of the planned “restoring.”
And sure, the early schedule has been arduous.
But the Pistons (3-10) have played ugly basketball and looked disjointed, specifically on offense, far too often 13 games into the season.
They authored another disturbing chapter Monday at Little Caesars Arena in a 129-107 loss to the Sacramento Kings. The Kings (6-8) entered on a four-game losing streak and were the more urgent team on the day a report broke of coach Luke Walton being in danger of losing his job if more losses piled up.
Now, six of Detroit’s defeats have come by 15 points or more, most in the league.
Pistons coach Dwane Casey took responsibility for his team’s rough performance in which they fell behind 31-12.
“That was one of the worst of the season and I’ll take the blame for it,” Casey, in his fourth year with the Pistons, said bluntly. “Just didn’t get the guys ready coming off of a good win (127-121 Saturday in Toronto).”
It’s rare to hear boos at this stage of a rebuild — 85 games into general manager Troy Weaver’s tenure — with a city and fanbase seemingly accepting of the dirty work that was needed, after years of failed quick fixes under owner Tom Gores. The franchise holds a 14-game playoff losing streak, the NBA’s longest ever, dating to 2008, and losing is necessary to add top talent in a nonglamour market.
But losing in ugly blowout fashion, against a fellow lowly franchise (Sacramento’s last postseason appearance was 2006) ticked a nerve for some in the crowd Monday night.
The Pistons turned a 10-7 lead into a 31-12 deficit after the first quarter, scoring two points in the final 8:55. They gave up a 24-2 run in which they failed to score on 15 straight possessions (including offensive rebounds), closing the quarter missing an unthinkable 18 of 19 shots.
It was a new level of bad basketball, a sight so ghastly, patient fans put long-term rationale aside and finally booed after Trey Lyles airballed a wide-open 3-pointer with 27 seconds left.
“Our first group, we came out too lax,” said Cade Cunningham, a bright spot after scoring a career-high 25 points and passing LeBron James as the youngest player in NBA history with 25-8-8 and five 3s. “We didn’t set the tone the right way, and that kind of carried on throughout that whole first quarter.”
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The Pistons, as they showed often last year despite a 20-52 record, fought back to cut the deficit to 14 in the second quarter. But Sacramento continued its assault and pace, overpowering the Pistons in the paint 30-16 in the half, and outshooting them from 3-point range (9-for-16 vs. 6-for-27) for a 68-44 advantage at the break.
“By the time we woke up, the game was over,” Casey said. “Our starts, our professionalism coming out ready to compete no matter what you did last quarter, last possession, last game doesn’t matter — that next team is coming in trying to hit you upside your head. It wasn’t from a lack of effort, it was from lack of (being) locked in, loaded, focused, understanding what we’re doing defensively, understanding what we’re doing offensively, all those things.”
Most concerning: the offense, which ranks 28th in efficiency, and last in the NBA in points per game (98.3), overall shooting (40.7%) and 3-point shooting (29.5%).
Shooting is down across the league to open the season, but the Pistons shouldn’t be this bad of a shooting team (they ranked 22nd in 3-point percentage last season). Of course, a few regulars will get hot (right?) and the percentages will bump up, but how much?
“We’re not as bad as we played tonight and we’re not as good as we played in Toronto, so it’s somewhere in between,” Casey said. “But we’ve got to learn from it, continue to grow, continue to develop and that’s on myself and our staff to make sure that we’re ready to compete from the first quarter to that last buzzer goes.”
The 2021-22 season is all about developing the youth — four of the five starters are rookies and sophomores, and the other, Jerami Grant, is posing as a No. 1 option while best suited as a souped-up complementary starter. More specifically, it’s about putting the ball in the hands of Cunningham, the No. 1 pick this summer, and watching him grow.
Cunningham has already shown multiple times he can be a closer in the NBA, after leading college basketball in clutch points last season. His development and play is by far the most important storyline of the season.
Yet, all three first-round picks from a season ago — Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart and Saddiq Bey — have had droughts of poor play to begin the season. And adding insult to injury Monday was the play of Tyrese Haliburton, the man picked five spots after Hayes a year ago in the draft. The matchup was a KO: Haliburton cooked for 17 points and 10 assists; Hayes was barely noticeable, scoreless on five attempts with three assists.
Chronicling young players growth in a rebuild is supposed to be fun because expectation and stresses are low, and hope and the NBA draft is the currency. We saw it a season ago.
But far too often in this young season, the Pistons have been out of the game by the third quarter. Even the most loyal diehard fans (hello #PistonsTwitter) are losing a touch of exuberance and turning the channel early in games. (Though they’re surely turning it back on not long after. Fan is short for fanatic after all.)
The worst outcome this season would be playing a team that doesn’t complement its top young talents and cloaks their potential. So far, that has been the case at times, and it’s worth wondering if this continues, whether a move will be made in the starting lineup or perhaps from Weaver bringing in a piece to better accentuate the top of the roster. He has shown quick-strike aggression in 17 months on the job, and the Pistons will have a clean cap sheet beginning next summer as the albatross contract of Blake Griffin finally dissipates.
But back to the present, where four more games on the homestand await. The task continues with dates every other day beginning with Indiana on Wednesday, Golden State, the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami.
A close eye will be kept on how the rest of this stretch goes, ahead of a four-game trip out West.
Wins aren’t expected each night. But competitive basketball surely is in this state.
“We’re in the wrong profession if we don’t have that (bounce back) attitude,” Casey said. “If we don’t have the attitude to say, ‘We’ve got to be ready from when the referee throws up the first jump ball,’ we can’t ease our way in. That’s my message until I don’t have a message.”
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