Detroit Pistons: Regular Season Grades – Stan Van Gundy

Welcome to the final installment of my six-part series, your Detroit Pistons Regular Season Grades. We’ll go through all five positions and also Stan Van Gundy’s performance as head coach and president of the Pistons (that one is kind of a two-for-one deal).

For this special final segment, I’ll first look at Van Gundy’s performance as a coach for the season, and then take a look at how he did running the basketball operations for the Pistons. At first glance it would seem as though he wouldn’t receive favorable grades because of where Detroit finished the year, but I’m going to take the roster and injuries into account here.

Let’s get started, and look at how Stan Van Gundy performed in his first season coaching since 2012.

Coach Van Gundy – B

This is a tough one to truly figure. Based on the Pistons’ record you would think Stan Van Gundy deserves lower than a B for this season, but nobody expected Detroit to contend for a title this season. It was more about development. And I think that went well under SVG.

Brandon Jennings was finally beginning to flourish under Van Gundy, but then unfortunately tore his Achilles and we were robbed of the chance to see him continue his growth in the second half of the season. Still though, that first half for Jennings was excellent, and you can’t blame SVG for random injuries.

Andre Drummond also showed signs of growth under Van Gundy, especially in the second half of the season where he clearly started to feel more comfortable with his new head coach. He had his best scoring and rebounding per game numbers in March (the last true full month of the NBA season), despite not playing the most minutes per game that month compared to earlier in the season.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is another young Piston who seemed to improve, if slightly, with Van Gundy’s tutelage. His offensive rating and plus-minus both were better in the latter portion of the season, as were his points and assists per game.

KCP is the most important Detroit player to keep an eye on in my opinion; if Van Gundy can develop him into a solid starting shooting guard the Pistons will be set for the future at three positions already, with an extra point guard and a draft pick waiting to bolster the rest of the roster.

I doubt he will ever be great, but Van Gundy’s success in Detroit may end up hinging on how much game he can coax out of his young shooting guard.

The aspect of SVG’s coaching season that really spoke volumes to me was the performance he got out of new addition Reggie Jackson. Jackson has been far better than anyone (except Reggie himself) could have expected, and should only improve in his time with the Pistons.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/5/2015.

This table shows the difference in Jackson’s per 100 possessions statistics in his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder and his tenure in Detroit so far. Clearly, things have been better for Reggie with the Pistons for the most part.

Although his steals, blocks, turnovers, and fouls per 100 possessions have worsened as has his defensive rating, those things are not surprising coming from a point guard who finally has gotten an extended opportunity to run a team. His points and rebounds per 100 both made nice jumps, as did his shooting percentages, but that’s not the reason I’m so high on Jackson as a point guard.

I’m far more excited about Reggie’s massive leap in terms of assists per 100 possessions. Going from a team stacked with offensive weapons like Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and (for a time) James Harden to a less talented team like Detroit and more than doubling his assists per 100 is a clear-cut sign that Jackson isn’t an incapable passer, but that he just didn’t fit in OKC.

He’s been able to do less with more with the Pistons, and it shows he’s got the potential to make all of his teammates better as well as be able to score himself, which is what makes great point guards.

So Stan Van Gundy accomplished most of his developmental goals in Detroit. But how did he do as the man calling the shots for the Pistons in terms of personnel? Let’s take a look.

President Van Gundy – A

The Detroit Pistons named Stan Van Gundy their president of basketball operations in May 2014. To assess why I’ve given him a lofty A ranking in his first year on the job, I’ll go through some key moves SVG made since then that earned him his grade.

The Jodie Meeks signing was one of the first big moves Van Gundy made, and although Meeks didn’t really impress anyone he wasn’t bad by any means. He regressed a little from a career year with the Los Angeles Lakers last season, but by and large was what he was billed as, a bench scorer.

With the cap going up and Detroit not poised to spend that money anytime soon anyway, his three-year, $19 million contract is an OK value.

Placing Josh Smith on waivers was one of my favorite moves of the season Van Gundy made. It cost the Pistons some money, but showed that Detroit was not OK with wallowing in mediocrity and was more focused on development than making the playoffs just to get destroyed by an actual contender.

It also showed that SVG wasn’t afraid to take chances, which is usually a good thing for GMs. The risk paid off too, as the Pistons played some of their best basketball in the first few weeks of the post-Smith era.

Finally, the real reason Van Gundy deserves an A for his work as the president of the Pistons this season has to be the Reggie Jackson trade. Getting Jackson, a potential franchise point guard, for Kyle Singler, D.J. Augustin and two second-round picks is highway robbery.

I wrote more about that particular trade here if you’d like to know more, but the main point is that SVG dealt a pair of veterans who were worth far more to a contender like OKC than they were to him anyway and managed to snag an electric point guard out of the deal.

That’s the kind of great, off-the-wall deal I want my GM making in crunch time during the trade deadline, and Van Gundy deserves credit for simply grabbing the best deals and players he possibly could this season. So overall in his first season in Detroit, Stan Van Gundy has been excellent. He should only improve as he leaves more of a mark on this franchise. Pistons fans, get excited.

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