Detroit Pistons: 3 goals for Zaza Pachulia in 2018-19
1. Maintain his health
Luckily for Pachulia, health has never been a major issue for the Georgian big man. He has played at least 52 games in every season of his career. While this isn’t an elite level of healthy, his availability is a skill in itself. A coach needs players to be available to put them in the game. Pachulia has brought that thus far in his career. While he won’t be expected to start, he will be the only true center behind Drummond.
Pachulia likely won’t play into the 25-minute range or anything crazy, but he could easily hit 15-20 minutes per game this season. He needs to be available to enter the game for Dwane Casey. He’ll likely fall out of the rotation come postseason time, but regular season bodies are always needed. The San Antonio Spurs showed how important healthy rotations are for long-term success. Pachulia could help alleviate some of the oft-injured Griffin’s load over the course of the year.
A backup bench center doesn’t have a high ceiling, but his floor is pretty well known. He’s good for 60-70 games every year, and he needs to keep that going this year. The Pistons are extremely shallow in the frontcourt, and Pachulia could be in for a major minutes increase with just a single injury. If he went down, Casey would have to get much more creative with his bench lineups until he returned.