Marvin Bagley III missed more than seven weeks — 20 games — with two metacarpal fractures in his right hand.
It was hard to tell on Saturday, when he made his long-awaited return.
He led the Detroit Pistons with 21 points and 18 rebounds, both season-highs, in a 95-91 home loss to the Toronto Raptors. Eleven of his rebounds were offensive. Bagley came off of the bench midway through the first quarter and secured a double-double before the first half with 13 in each category. It was his most productive game in the midst of an uneven season.
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Players often need time to get back into rhythm after extended absences. The Pistons, at the recommendation of their medical staff, played Bagley in short stints to keep him fresh. He ended up playing the most minutes out of all of Detroit’s big men, as Jalen Duren sat out of the game with sore ankles, Isaiah Stewart exited the game in the third quarter with hip soreness and James Wiseman fouled out midway through the fourth. Bagley appeared to be in great shape.
“My legs were still working, so I tried to keep that in my mind and stay in condition,” Bagley said in the locker room after the game. “Just staying locked in, man, just staying present with the team and everything they were doing. Every rep was staying locked in. I think it paid off.”
Now in his fifth season, Bagley is a known commodity. He’s a bouncy athlete at 6 feet 11 with great touch around the rim. He has tools to make a difference defensively but the effort isn’t always there. His value largely comes on the offensive end, as he is one of the most skilled scorers on the roster. Bagley boosted the Pistons with his post presence on Saturday when most of the roster struggled to hit shots.
The next step for Bagley is sustaining his strong play. Consistency has been a weakness for him since he was drafted second overall in 2018. He has had stretches as a go-to scorer, and stretches where he’s disappeared. Pistons coach Dwane Casey wants Saturday to be closer to Bagley’s norm.
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“He told on himself when he got 18 rebounds,” Casey said after practice on Sunday. “So now we’re looking for 18 rebounds tomorrow night, the next night, the next night, or close to it. Let’s be consistent. I love the way he approached the game. He had 13 rebounds in the first half. As his game conditioning gets better, you look for that type of productivity from him.”
Bagley’s consistency has also been a product of his availability. A sprained right MCL and bone bruise cost him the first 13 games this season, and he has only been active for 26 of Detroit’s 61 games thus far. Injuries have limited his career since he was drafted, and set him back in the first year of a three-year, $37.5 million contract. Knee injuries limited him to a 62 career-high games as a rookie with the Sacramento Kings, and he only played 13 games in 2019-20 due to a thumb injury and other maladies.
He will have to figure out how to navigating a roster that’s changed since his hand injury against the Portland Trail Blazers on Jan. 2. Wiseman is now in the fold, and the third-year big man shares many of Bagley’s strengths and weaknesses on offense. They’re both gifted post players with touch from midrange, and don’t take many 3-pointers. They’re both left-handed. They even had identical plays Saturday night, spinning on the left block and hitting left-handed hooks.
The similarities were clear when the Pistons traded for Wiseman almost three weeks ago. They were pronounced against the Raptors. Bagley isn’t new to playing alongside another post-oriented big — he played with Orlando Magic big man Wendell Carter Jr. at Duke. He’s eager to play with Wiseman, but it’s a question mark the team will have to figure out with 21 games remaining.
“I feel like it won’t take long for me to figure out how to play with James,” Bagley said on Saturday. “I played with another big before in college with Wendell in college, a lot of high low action, a lot of different things that we picked up about each other’s games. It’s just about talking to each other and I think it’ll come naturally for us.”
With Duren and Stewart also vying for minutes, Casey has acknowledged he’ll likely have to utilize more two big-man lineups to accommodate everyone as the season winds down. Bagley’s game may overlap with his teammates, but his experience will help him.
There’s value in having a player who’s always ready. The Pistons are committed to giving Wiseman opportunities after trading for him at the deadline, but Bagley has something to prove as well.
“Bagley’s a little bit more experienced on knowing what the defense is trying to do,” Casey said. “I would say the experience factor. They’re a lot alike. James is a little bit bigger and taller. I would say Marvin has an edge as far as the experience, the know how, what to do in certain situations, what the defense is giving him. That’s the reps that James needs to get at the center position.”
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Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarisankofa.
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