The toothpaste, as they say, is out of the tube when it comes to Daniss Jenkins and the Detroit Pistons.
After another big game — 26 points and 8 assists — against the Indiana Pacers on Monday night, I’m
not sure you can take the second-year guard out of the rotation. Normally, that’s a great thing. It means a nobody has become a somebody, and that’s exactly what Jenkins has done.
He’s taken advantage of a huge opportunity and he’s run away with it. In my meaningless opinion, he’s earned a fully, guaranteed NBA deal.
However, just sticking him permanently into the rotation isn’t that simple. Jaden Ivey is set to make his long-awaited regular season return in the next few weeks.
My question is, how does this net out?
Don’t get it twisted, this a good problem for head coach J.B. Bickerstaff.
Ivey and Jenkins are different players. Jenkins is more point than shooting guard. He’s not a pure point guard, but he runs the offense and can score when he has the opportunity. I think he fits perfectly off the bench and should fill a role similar to what Dennis Schroder occupied last season.
Ivey is different. I always chuckle when folks say he can just slide in as a point guard.
That’s not him, at least not in the traditional sense. He isn’t a guy who will run your offense. He’s an aggressor, an attacking guard who can score. He showed great improvement as a shooter in his 30 games last season, and was playing the best ball of his career before the injury.
But he wasn’t a particularly strong scorer outside of his spot ups. He hadn’t yet figured out how to take his elite speed and athleticism and use it to score inside the arc at a high rate. Maybe that was the focus this summer and he comes back looking like a complete, three-level scorer.
That doesn’t make this rotation any easier to figure out in the meantime.
Let’s start at the top. The opening night starters — Cade Cunningham, Duncan Robinson, Ausar Thompson, Tobias Harris and Jalen Duren — have been bad, boasting a -11.9 net rating in 59 minutes together. Due to all of the injuries, it remains the Pistons’ most-used lineup, but when you replace Tobias with Isaiah Stewart it yields their best lineup with a 16.6 net rating in 41 minutes.
It’s hard to see Bickerstaff breaking that up when it’s helped fuel Detroit’s 12-2 start to the season.
Dive a little deeper and nearly every three-man lineup that’s excelled has had Robinson and Cade in it.
Having one of the best pure shooters on the floor with one of the best players in the NBA is #good. I don’t see how you can break up that backcourt.
Jenkins is going back to the bench once the Pistons are healthy. That’s his best role anyway.
So, do you start Ivey? Can you?
Removing Robinson and his gravity as a volume three-point shooter will create issues of its own. Stewart and Ausar represent the Pistons best defensive pairing and I don’t think you break that up. Duren and Cade aren’t going anywhere, which brings us back to Ivey.
He probably gets eased in off the bench, but I’m not sure how he gets back with the starters when everyone is healthy. I’m sure that isn’t what his reps want leading up to restricted free agency, but the Pistons are too good to shake things up like that right now. Even if Ivey has made his own Duren-like jump and we just haven’t seen it yet, he still may be best suited off the bench.
Remember, James Harden came off the bench for some great Thunder teams. Now he’s a future Hall of Famer.
This isn’t a shot at Ivey, it’s a credit to the success the Pistons have had.
Maybe the solution is bring Jenkins and Ivey off the bench together and removing Caris LeVert from the rotation for now? Bickerstaff has historically been a coach with a 9-man rotation. He deviates when the team struggles, but by and large, he’s not going to play more.
That’s probably not fair to LeVert, who is quietly playing well right now and making $15 million as the Pistons big offseason add, but that’s show biz, babyyyy.
It’s an interesting problem for a team with the best record in the Eastern Conference.
The Pistons’ vibes are immaculate, and Jenkins has earned a chance to play.
Ivey hasn’t done anything to lose minutes and is too good to not utilize in a big way.
I’m excited to watch it all unfold.
