Detroit Pistons: Much Optimism After Acquisition Of Brandon Jennings; Is It Justified?

Detroit Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars was vehement in his denial there were no talks ongoing between the Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks regarding restricted free-agent guard Brandon Jennings.

That is, until there was a deal in place to acquire restricted free-agent guard Brandon Jennings from the Bucks in a sign-and-trade that sent Brandon Knight, Khris Middleton and Viacheslav Kravtsov across Lake Michigan.

Economically speaking, it’s not an egregious contract—three years, $24 million, which is far less than Jennings turned down from Milwaukee before last season.

Reaction in the Detroit press was predictable optimistic. Detroit News columnist Vincent Goodwill called the Jennings deal a “roll of the dice worth taking” and in another piece declared: “Offseason moves thrust Pistons into the playoff picture.”

Detroit Free Press blogger Dan Feldman said the team was “wise to move on from the Brandon Knight experiment.”  Shawn Windsor of the Free Press said the rap against Jennings wasn’t “entirely fair.”

The rap, of course, is that Jennings is too small, that he doesn’t play defense, that he’s selfish, that he can’t finish at the rim, he can’t shoot from 3 and takes too many long 2s.

That is quite a rap sheet. The problem for Jennings is this: A lot of it is true.

The Case Against (and For) Brandon Jennings

The Size and Can’t Finish at the Rim Raps

This one is undeniable. Jennings is small. Tiny. Itty-bitty. Little. Not big.

At 6’1” and just 169 pounds, Jennings’ game is built much more on quickness than it is power, which is fine … except for the fact that he likes to take the ball into the land of the giants under the basket. And that is where he runs into problems.

New Pistons assistant coach Rasheed Wallace is fond of declaring that “ball don’t lie.” Well, neither do shot charts. And this one tells a pretty damning story about Jennings’ prowess around the cup.

In 2012-13, Jennings took 313 shots in the restricted area, according to NBA.com, and shot just 47.3 percent. In the paint outside the restricted area, he was a dismal 34.8 percent shooter on 158 attempts.

Per the shot chart, Jennings took 404 shots in and around the rim and made 172 of them. I’m going to go way out on a limb and declare that 42.6 percent from inside of eight feet is not good. Of those attempts, 47 of them were blocked, more than one in every nine attempts. This is also … not good.

So on the counts of being small and not a strong finisher at the rim, Brandon Jennings is guilty as charged.

The Doesn’t Play Defense Rap

Among the 85 guards who played enough minutes to qualify for the per-game leadership statistics according to Basketball-Reference.com, Jennings falls just below the middle of the pack with a defensive rating of 108 (points per 100 possessions) in 2012-13. On the positive side, he wasn’t Isaiah Thomas of the Sacramento Kings with an unsightly 115 rating. On the other hand, he wasn’t Mike Conley of the Memphis Grizzlies with a rating of 100, either.

Jennings averaged 1.6 steals per game and was credited with 2.2 defensive win shares.

And according to synergysports.com, Jennings is, well, pretty bad. He was 78th against the handoff with 1.00 point per possession (PPP). He was 93rd against post-up plays at 0.78 PPP. He was 138th against the ball handler on the pick-and-roll with 0.81 PPP. He was 140th off the screen at 0.99 PPP.

Those were the good parts.

Against isolation, Jennings surrendered 0.89 PPP, good for 234th-best in the league and he was 286th against spot-up shooters with a 1.06 PPP. Overall, his 0.9 PPP was 279th in the league.

So, it’s not as if Jennings doesn’t play defense. So that part of the rap is, to quote Windsor, not “entirely fair.”

But it’s more than fair to say the guy doesn’t play defense well.

The Selfish Rap

Jennings’ assist percentage was a career-high 29.1 in 2012-13, while his usage rate dropped to a career-low 23.7 percent. His offensive rating of 106 (points/100 possessions) matched the career high he set in 2011-12.

But (and you knew there would be a but, right?) his player efficiency rating declined from the career-best 18.4 he had in 2011-12 to a just-slightly-above-average 16.1 (average is 15.0) in 2012-13. Part of that would be the ever-increasing defensive rating and part of it was that his shooting, at least overall, took a step back last season.

In four full NBA seasons, Jennings has only shot better than 40 percent from the floor once. He hit 41.8 percent of his shots in 2011-12. Last year, that figure dropped to 39.9 percent, although his 3-point percentage was a career-best 37.5 last year on a career-high number of attempts (173-for-461). He also added a full assist per game to his average, improving to 6.5 helpers per game.

The downside with Jennings is that in four years, his ability to hold onto the basketball hasn’t seemed to get much better. He averaged 2.4 turnovers per game as a rookie and 2.5 last year. His turnover percentage as a rookie was 13. It was 12.9 percent in 2012-13.

So Jennings might not be as selfish as the reputation might imply, but on the other hand, it’s not as if the Pistons are bringing in a ball-handling wizard, either.

The Long 2s, Bad 3s Raps

As I mentioned earlier, Jennings improved his 3-point accuracy to 37.5 percent. It’s not great, but it’s a significant improvement from the 33.2 percent mark from 2011-12.

Back to the shot chart for a minute to address the long 2s. According to NBA.com, Jennings attempted 235 shots that would be considered “long” 2-pointers (15 feet out to inside the 3-point line) and he connected on 92 of them (39.1 percent). Considering Jennings attempted 1,247 shots last season, that means 18.8 percent of them were from that long-range 2 area (the least efficient shooting area in basketball, according to many).

That’s almost one in every five shot attempts, which is far too high a percentage to take from an area on the court that has fallen into disfavor with the increased usage of the 3-pointer. I mean, if you’re going to fire it up from 21 feet, it’s better to step back and get behind the line to try and grab that extra point.

So he’s not as bad a 3-point shooter as advertised. But Jennings does jack up way too many long-range 2s for comfort.

The Whole ‘Thrust into the Playoff Picture’ Thing

Yes, the Detroit Pistons have to be considered a serious contender for a playoff berth in 2013-14, but that has a lot less to do with the addition of Brandon Jennings and Josh Smith as it does some key external factors.

Those external factors? The fact that several teams in the East are openly entering Tankapalooza 2013-14 in an attempt to secure as high a position in the talent-rich 2014 NBA Draft as possible.

The Boston Celtics traded everyone but John Havlicek and Bill Russell and brought in a coach who was in the Horizon League two years ago.

The Toronto Raptors are still the Toronto Raptors, but at least they brought in Austin Daye … the same Austin Daye who couldn’t get consistent minutes on the bad Pistons teams of the last two years.

The Philadelphia 76ers dealt away an All-Star point guard to get a rookie center with a bad wheel who likely can’t play until December. The Orlando Magic drafted a pure wing player at No. 2 overall and want to turn the point guard responsibilities over to him. The Milwaukee Bucks … wait, no one has any idea what the Milwaukee Bucks are doing, up to and including their own general manager.

Throw in the fact the Charlotte Bobcats are, in fact, still the Charlotte Bobcats and that’s six Eastern Conference teams that can pretty much be eliminated from playoff contention. That leaves nine teams for eight spots.

Yeah, I like Detroit’s odds, too.

But it still doesn’t have as much to do with the additions in Motown as it does the subtractions from elsewhere in the conference.