Detroit Pistons: Does Reggie Jackson Fit?

Things haven’t been perfect in the Motor City this year for the Detroit Pistons, yet the team continues to make moves and find stability within the organization.

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Stan Van Gundy is trying to push his rebuilding project as forward as possible, first by getting rid of Josh Smith and now by acquiring point guard Reggie Jackson from the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Pistons didn’t give up a ton for Jackson directly, but a lot of pieces were moved at the NBA trade deadline in which he was gotten.

Guards D.J. Augustin and Kyle Singler as well as forwards Jonas Jerebko and Luigi Datome all were traded away from Detroit essentially in exchange for Jackson and forward Tayshaun Prince, who has returned to the team since being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies and then to the Boston Celtics.

Bringing Prince back to the Pistons may seem as a little bit of a head scratcher for fans, but not a lot of people know quite what to make of the Jackson move, and for good reason.

Jackson never really got a chance to prove if he could be a full-time starting point guard during his time with the Thunder at all really.

Sure, there were times when he got minutes in the playoffs or was able to fill in when starting guard Russell Westbrook was injured, but those ended up being such small sample sizes that no one has really gotten a good look at him in a starting NBA role.

When Jackson has gotten a chance to play, he has certainly had his ups and downs as both a scorer and a floor general. When you look at Jackson’s career numbers and watch him play, there’s a few trends that should be concerning for Pistons fans to pay attention to.

The first is that despite how athletic of a player Jackson is, he tends to not attempt a lot of shots at the rim. In fact, only 23.6 percent of his attempts this season have been shots within three feet of the basket.

This is also reflected by the fact that he rarely attempts any free throws, only getting to the line about once per game on the season which equates out to about 2.3 total free throw shots attempted per game.

A player with the kind of quickness and explosiveness that Jackson possesses should be finding more ways to get easy shots, whether it be at the rim finishing or finding a way to draw fouls and get to the free throw line.

There’s no reason why Jackson should even be intimidated trying to get to the charity stripe either, as he is a career 87.2 percent shooter from there, meaning that when he gets the chance to hit those shots, he does so without question.

Another alarming trend regarding Jackson’s play is that with him not getting a lot of shots close to the basket or at the free throw line, he doesn’t attempt a lot of three-point shots either. Only 27.4 percent of his total field goal attempts come from beyond the three-point line, which doesn’t help his case as an efficient scorer either.

What this means is that 49 percent of his shots are out-of-control floaters or long two-point attempts, which are not exactly the best shots to take in a basketball game because they tend to be shots that do not fall in the flow of the offense.

Offensive rhythm and flow is an important part of the game, as the better looks a player can get and make, the more likely he is to get on a roll and keep hitting those shots.

If Jackson is taking a lot of crazy shots or getting looks that he won’t be attempting time after time within the span of his time on the floor, then he isn’t making an attempt to build a rhythm on offense, which adds up to the fact that he is putting himself in position to be a streaky shooter, and in today’s game, coaches don’t like to deal with streaky shooters because they tend to take away more from the team’s offense than what they put in.

The final real knock on Jackson’s offense is that he’s never been a great passer throughout his career. Jackson has only averaged 3.0 assists per game during his time in the league, a number that is really low for any point guard.

Jackson tends to look for his own shot more times than not, and with the kinds of shots he ends up taking as evidenced by the numbers, that is not the kind of point guard one would want to have running the offense.

Now the good news for Jackson is that he hasn’t been given the reigns of an offense for a large sample size, so we really can’t say how he will react and what he will ultimately do when he’s given more time on the floor.

Plus Van Gundy has a different coaching style than the Thunder’s Scott Brooks in terms of what he wants to see out of an offense. Oklahoma City tends to run a lot more isolation offense than Van Gundy does. Van Gundy wants the ball to keep moving in and out of the post and into the hands of quality perimeter shooters.

Jackson will likely have to act as a distributor for the Pistons more than he’s ever been asked before, and that could be good or bad for him. The numbers suggest that Detroit’s players may be in a little bit of trouble, but no one knows for sure.

Jackson has never been a problem on defense, so at the very least he shouldn’t be a real liability on that end of the floor.

Even if he’s not making the most spectacular plays on that end of the floor stealing the ball or blocking shots, he gives an effort most of the time, something that can’t be said about a lot of the current players on the Pistons’ roster at this moment in time.

It will be interesting to see what Jackson does as the starting guard of the Pistons.

With Brandon Jennings out for the rest of the season, Jackson should be looking to really impress the Pistons’ brass into giving him a sizable contract and forcing the team’s hand into trading Jennings for some more assets or pieces that can help the team win.

Jennings was playing great before he got hurt, so Jackson will have to really step his game up if he wants to get those memories out of everyone’s minds.

Will Jackson be successful as a starting point guard? It’s simply too early to tell, but as long as he can use his physical talents to his advantage, listen to his head coach and try to put the team’s success before his own, he should be able to do just fine as the floor general of the Pistons.

You got the opportunity you wanted Jackson, now let’s see what you’re made of.

*Statistics courtesy of Basketball-Reference.

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