Detroit Pistons: 3 goals for Bruce Brown in the 2020-21 season

2. Find a role

Brown was an emergency point guard at times, but he’s also more frequently used as a shooting guard who doesn’t shoot often or especially well. He might even be better suited as a small ball wing than a guard, but thanks to the roster turmoil that he’s been surrounded by, it’s hard to tell even after two years in the NBA.

He’s not a dynamic playmaker and his decisions can be questionable at times, but being a part-time point guard might be an even harder role to grow into than full-time for a young second-round pick like Brown. There are a number of things you can do with a guard that doesn’t make particularly sound decisions with the ball, or a guard that doesn’t shoot especially well, but it’s a bit trickier to utilize one that checks off both ignominious boxes.

On the plus side, his tenacious defense makes it hard to take him off the floor. He’s still a guy who has put the clamps on Trae Young and Kyrie Irving, outscoring both of them head-to-head. Not that these are necessarily replicable events, but you do see the potential based entirely on his defense and effort if he can get that shot to fall, or even the confidence in his shot that will cause him to fire away more.