Detroit Pistons: Luke Kennard will need to play more

Detroit Pistons shooting guard Luke Kennard has played sparingly so far. When he returns from his injury, that should change.

The Detroit Pistons drafted Luke Kennard to be their sharp-shooting guard of the future. He’s  currently dealing with a shoulder injury, but when he returns, he needs to be in the game more.

In the three games that he’s played, he was only on the court for a total of 43 minutes while putting up just 12 shots. Though it’s a limited sample size, he’s shooting 66.7 percent from the field. For whatever reason, he hasn’t played the minutes expected of him, which needs to change.

Kennard is the team’s best shooter, and while the Pistons have been content to do the majority of their damage in the paint, they could use a boost from outside. The team is shooting just 33.3 percent from 3-point range. While that number isn’t terrible, it can be improved with more touches for Kennard. In addition to that, players such as Blake Griffin and Reggie Jackson are shooting well above their career average, so regression to the mean is due to occur.

3-point shooting is a feature that some teams rely completely on to generate their offense. While the Pistons clearly won’t be one of those teams, they need to get Kennard in the game to help space the floor. The added spacing will help out the rest of the team so much, and it’s those little adjustments that make the difference at the end of games.