Reggie Jackson has returned, but the Detroit Pistons are far from better. While Jackson may be part of the problem, too many fingers are pointing in his direction.
Stan Van Gundy says the Pistons have gotten worse sense Reggie Jackson’s return. That’s fair. It’s also painfully obvious and to be expected. After all, the Pistons did have to learn how to play without Jackson while he was getting healthy.
The players held a player’s only meeting where they talked about needing to pass more and how ball movement lead to defense. This player’s only meeting seems like an indirect (or direct depending on if they used names) way of telling Jackson he needed to pass the ball more.
It doesn’t seem like anybody has Jackson’s back. In fairness to Van Gundy’s comments, he went on to say that the problems stemmed further than Jackson–and I really don’t think he meant it as any slight to Jackson, but rather, he was just stating the facts.
That said, it seems that everyone forgets just how mediocre the Pistons were before the team started clicking the three games prior to Jackson’s return. The paint was clogged with defenders due to Ish Smith’s reluctance to fire from deep and Andre Drummond’s play was suffering.
It wasn’t until Van Gundy altered the offense to include more pick-and-rolls for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Tobias Harris that the offense really started seeing strides of improvement–and that was 20 games into the season.
Now we’re here, nine games with Reggie Jackson, and all the fingers are pointed at him.
I get it. Jackson’s teammates liked playing with Smith more because he is less ball dominant. To a larger degree, they just would like to see the ball when they are open, which is certainly reasonable.
And Jackson hasn’t had the best attitude in regards to the criticism either, which certainly adds to the “Jackson is the bad guy” narrative.
But Jackson’s teammates need to remember the point in this hole thing–winning a championship.
Simply put, Jackson’s ability can take the Pistons further than Smith’s can.
The Pistons need to ride this thing out until the ship inevitably corrects itself.
Lineup changes are coming. I hope Van Gundy doesn’t create an even larger, potentially insurmountable rift by benching Jackson, though he’s the easy scapegoat.
I also hope Jackson’s teammates focus on themselves and what they need to do better–giving great defensive effort on each possession. After all, that is their job, regardless of how much they get the ball.
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