Detroit Pistons: 3 goals for Tony Snell in the 2020-21 season

The Detroit Pistons will expect Tony Snell to pick up his player option this offseason. Considering he’s not going anywhere, let’s look at his goals.

The Detroit Pistons tend to make their trades in the shadows, with no buzz or forewarning for the general public. One such deal was the one that brought Tony Snell from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Pistons in exchange for Jon Leuer’s contract.

The Pistons have long been plagued with ineffective and unremarkable wings, and Snell made for a player who could at least reliably start and provide some shooting. Considering the plan was to just run out the clock on Leuer’s contract, getting some kind of value out of the deal seemed like a boon for then-de facto general manager Ed Stefanski.

Snell has a $12.2 million player option this offseason, and with no possibility that he could recoup that in free agency, he’s a lock to pick that up and return next season. In fact, he’s been among the Pistons who reported to their in-market bubble camp, so you can bet he’s going nowhere.

With his return being fait accompli, let’s take a look at three goals for Tony Snell going into next season.

No more disappearing acts

In spite of the fact that he’s a skilled 3-point shooter, he simply doesn’t take enough shots. He took 6.5 field goal attempts and 4.3 3-point attempts per game this past season in spite of being a dead-eye shooter.

Snell has had four scoreless games and had 19 other games for the Pistons in which he scored six points or fewer. It’s not enough.

When he doesn’t score, he doesn’t fill the box in other ways either. In the four scoreless games, he totaled seven rebounds, three assists and one steal. These aren’t minuscule samples either, he played 68 combined minutes in these four games. Between Snell and head coach Dwane Casey, they need to find a way to get him more involved if his role remains the same next season.

Work in the lob game

In spite of the fact that Snell has some major disappearances, he’s actually got a pretty good lob game, especially when paired with Christian Wood.

Aside from his shooting, he can be a useful playmaker with athletic bigs like Wood, and that needs to be something they implement more next season. He averaged a career-high 2.2 assists per game this past season, and it’s progress over previous seasons. This needs to go up next season as well because his passing skills were mostly squandered last season.

Shoot the ball

Snell shot 40.2 percent from long range last season, and he’s shot that same success rate since the 2016-17 season.

He could be a potent weapon but too often passes up good shots and can simply disappear far too often for a player who started 57 of a possible 59 games for the Pistons. It’s not as though there are too many mouths to feed on the offensive end on this team, so Snell needs to step up his shooting volume and production.

Between the disappearing acts, the missed playmaking opportunities and the minimal shot attempts Snell took last season, increasing his volume in all of these ways could have a beneficial impact for the Detroit Pistons next season.