FanPost

SVG and the Haters: can lightning strike twice?

Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

So it is that time of the year when the Pistons' offseason plans under Stan Van Gundy and the rest of the Pistons' staff are becoming clear. We might well still make an opportunistic trade, and otherwise we will almost certainly sign or trade for an inexpensive player to fill in our third C spot, and the same with third PG (unless perhaps those players end up being Joel Anthony and Lorenzo Brown). But the main moves appear to be drafting Henry Ellenson and Michael Gbinije, trading Spencer Dinwiddie and Jodie Meeks for cap space and then signing Jon Leuer and Ish Smith.

You Spent $55 million on what now?

And as usual, there is a healthy debate about whether SVG and his team are being smart, or are completely blowing it. Broadly speaking, the various criticisms are similar to what we have seen before: the team did not add enough talent, the players are the wrong kind of players, it's too much money considering what you could seemingly spend less on better guys, other teams in the East improved more.

So as that debate rages on, I think it is worth doing a quick retrospective on how this played out last year.

Last year, SVG and staff were primarily focused on rebuilding the starting lineup. As discussed below, they did not entirely neglect the bench, but starting with the proceeding pre-deadline trades through their trades and signings during the offseason, their most significant moves were to acquire Reggie Jackson and then sign him to a large extension, and make trades for Ersan Ilyasova and Marcus Morris to join Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the starting lineup. Along the way, they traded or let go many decent, good, or very good players, including Greg Monroe, D.J. Augustin, Jonas Jerebko, and Kyle Singler.

The SVG Formula

And many of the criticisms were the same: they had not added enough talent (indeed, perhaps had lost more talent than they gained), they were getting the wrong players, they were spending too much and could be getting better guys for less, other teams in the East were improving themselves more, and so on. There was really only one obvious counterpoint, and it was that with Drummond, Ilyasova, Morris, KCP, and Jackson, SVG finally had the sort of starting lineup that fit his plans for how to build around Drummond. And for some, that was not a strong enough argument to credit.

So how did that work out? Well, it quickly emerged that SVG and his team had managed to build one of the better starting units in the league. The bench, unfortunately, ended up a dumpster fire. Because of the strength of their starting lineup, however, the Pistons were a .500-ish team and competing for a playoff spot. Then SVG and his team doubled down by trading Ilyasova and Jennings (who was not playing great, but better than any of the Pistons' other backup PGs) for Tobias Harris, a player SVG liked even better than Ilyasova for his system. There were serious concerns about whether that move might knock them out of playoff contention, but the Pistons instead started winning more than they lost and closed out the regular season by decisively grabbing the last playoff spot. Then, thanks largely to their starters, they went toe to toe with the eventual champions, getting swept but impressing the league with all the progress they had made.

And with all that in mind, it becomes pretty obvious that SVG and his team are basically just trying to do it all again, this time with their bench. They haven't entirely been neglecting the bench, so some of the key pieces are already on the team: they picked up Aron Baynes last year, who is a traditional center playing a Drummond-type role for the bench (note all of these comparisons are intended to be somewhat loose and not imply equal quality). Stanley is in development as a Morris-type player: a multi-position defender, spot-up shooter, and secondary isolation scorer. Reggie Bullock and Darrun Hilliard are in the KCP slot: guys with decent size to defend the SG position and the ability to play off the ball in the offense.

So now SVG and his staff have added Leuer to play the Ilyasova "stretch 4" role (if you like, you can even see Ellenson as a sort of Harris waiting in the wings). And they have added Ish to be the Jackson-type playmaker. And that is now a complete bench in the SVG-style.

Will it Work?

And so here is my question for this post: what if it actually works again? What if getting SVG the sort of bench lineup that he wants actually produces an average, or perhaps even better than average, bench unit? Combine that with our very good (and hopefully improving) starting lineup--how many games could we win this year? How far could that take us in the playoffs (at least if we can do better than the 8th seed)?

Can lightning strike twice? Or is it maybe that SVG and his staff actually know what they are doing?

We'll find out.

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