Point guard Daniss Jenkins signed a new two-way deal to officially return to the Detroit Pistons organization, according to the official transaction log on NBA.com, and first reported by Keith Smith.
Jenkins played sparingly for the Pistons as an undrafted free agent on a two-way deal last season, but he played well in 47 games with the Motor City Cruise. He averaged 18.5 points, 6.4 assists, 2.9 turnovers, and 1.4 steals in 35.7 minutes per game for the Cruise. He appeared in just seven games, totaling
23 minutes, for the Pistons last season.
He showed some encouraging signs in the NBA Summer League in July. Yes, you should take a lot about Summer League with a grain of salt, but you could see some of the fruits of Jenkins’ offseason labors.
Jenkins routinely looked like one of the best players on the floor in five Summer League contests, including a big matchup against last year’s No. 3 overall pick Reed Shephard of the Houston Rockets.
Jenkins averaged 14 points in 22 minutes per game, but most importantly, his shot looked much more fluid, and the results matched. He shot just under 45% from the field and 42% from deep in Summer League. He also rarely turned the ball over (1.6 per game), which counts as a minor miracle in the chaos ball known as Las Vegas Summer League.
The Pistons still have two open roster spots, and it is not out of the realm of possibility that they would be interested in converting Jenkins’ deal to a fully guaranteed NBA contract.
The Pistons could use a traditional point guard as a depth piece in a crowded guard rotation. The Pistons will obviously lean on Cade Cunningham extensively, and Jaden Ivey is nearly assured the lion’s share of the backup point guard minutes. Detroit also signed Caris LeVert as another secondary passer this offseason and has talked up the idea of putting the ball in Ausar Thompson’s hands more in bench lineups.
All of that is to say that the Pistons have plenty of people they want to give the ball to but no actual point guards outside of Cunningham. It feels like Marcus Sasser will forever be an undersized scoring two-guard, and that’s fine. But that means if Cunningham goes down for any stretch, the point guard issues could become an acute pain point for the Pistons.
There are certainly better players than Jenkins who are still available on the free agent market, but I’m sure all of those players would want to be guaranteed some playing time that the Pistons cannot necessarily provide.
The free agent page on HoopsHype shows a who’s who of ghosts of Pistons point guard past. The current “top 15” point guards include Monte Morris, Delon Wright, Cory Joseph, and Reggie Jackson.
Jenkins, either on a standard NBA deal or on a current two-way deal at least provides Detroit an option should an injury force the Pistons’ hand. And he won’t be requiring regular playing time, just the opportunity to keep trying to grow his game to a level where he can have an actual NBA career.
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