Detroit Pistons: 3 players who are already expendable

3. Langston Galloway

Galloway is doing a weird basketball Benjamin Button thing with his pro career. As the 26-year-old guard’s salary goes up, his production goes down.

In his rookie season with the New York Knicks, the undrafted Galloway earned a minimum salary (about $235,000) while scoring 11.8 points in 32.4 minutes per game. Those numbers have turned out to be his career-bests in points and minutes, and his career-low income.

Last season, after joining the Pistons as a free agent, Galloway averaged 6.2 points in 14.9 minutes per game while earning $6.6 million. Those numbers represented his career-high in salary, and his career-worsts in points and minutes.

Galloway has two years remaining on his contract, with his salary increasing each year: $7 million this season, then $7.3 million in 2019-20. Will his output on the court continue to decrease as his paycheck increases? Or will he rediscover the form that made him a valued starter during his rookie year?

Working in Galloway’s favor is that Casey traditionally runs a guard-oriented system in which outside shooting is in demand. Galloway is a 36.1-percent 3-point shooter for his career. Among Detroit’s returning players from last season, only Reggie Bullock and Luke Kennard made more 3-pointers than Galloway, who knocked down 75 triples in 58 games.

Working against Galloway is the fact that the Pistons have a deep backcourt in which he doesn’t appear to have a defined role.

Reggie Jackson is the starting point guard, backed up by Ish Smith and Jose Calderon. Bullock and Kennard are expected to compete for the starting 2-guard spot. Then there’s rookie Bruce Brown Jr., who played shooting guard in college but may be better at point guard in the pros; and rookie Khyri Thomas, who can play either guard spot and maybe even some small forward.

Where does Galloway fit into the picture?

He is what they used to call a “tweener guard,” and what is now called a “combo guard.” He’s a natural shooting guard who isn’t really big enough for the position (6’2″), but he’s not a true point guard. Being a tweener/combo guard isn’t the career death sentence it used to be, but for Galloway, his lack of a true position makes it hard to place him on Detroit’s depth chart.

Given that, plus the fact that Galloway is the team’s fifth-highest paid player, and the fact that he wasn’t brought in by the Stefanski/Casey regime, and it seems likely that the Pistons would be exploring trade options.