Detroit Pistons: Player grades at the one-month mark of the season

The Detroit Pistons were built to be a feisty and hard-working team, and one that is capable of losing plenty of games while making their opponents sweat it out from start to finish. It hasn’t been a pretty display at times, but the Pistons sit at 3-13 with the worst record in the NBA, and while they lose a lot, they are also no fun for their foes to play against.

With a month of action under their belt, we’ve seen plenty of surprises from this team, both good and bad. We’ll take a look back at the season so far at this early point and grade all the significant contributors.

Grading the Detroit Pistons players at the one-month mark

The Pistons had an odd offseason and many of the decisions that new general manager Troy Weaver made were widely panned and criticized. Those criticisms were surely warranted at the moment and may turn out to be completely accurate, but with some of the players he acquired, you can see why he was willing to overspend in some strange ways.

Mind you, not in EVERY case, but several.

There are a handful of players that jump out off the page when you think of the Detroit Pistons. The first one is probably Blake Griffin, but it should be Jerami Grant. We’re going to start off our grades with one of the best stories across the NBA so far this season and put Grant under the player grading microscope first.

Jerami Grant – Grade: A

Jerami Grant wanted an expanded role and bet on his ability to be able to make the most of it, and that gamble has paid off. With the Denver Nuggets last season, it was clear that the pecking order was set and he was never going to be more than third in line behind Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.

Grant wanted the opportunity to show that he could be more than the third-best player on a good team, and he chose to prove that he could be the cornerstone of a rebuilding once-proud franchise in the Detroit Pistons. So far he’s been absolutely justified in his own belief in himself.

At the one-month mark of the season, it would be almost impossible for Grant to have done more than he has thus far. He’s averaging 24.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game to go with 1.3 blocks and 0.9 steals, and he’s shooting 44.3 percent from the floor and 38.2 percent from 3-point range.

His efficiency has largely stayed the same as last season with a huge boost in usage, and he’s continued to be a reliably stout defender all the while. The signing of Jerami Grant was widely panned when it happened, but I’ll be the first to admit I got this one wrong in the offseason.

He’s a star, and he was right to believe in his own ability to be just that.