Brandon Jennings admits to pouting after Mo Cheeks was fired

It was supposed to be your standard positive preseason piece. You see them every year.

It's Charlie Villanueva transforming himself through boxing, Michael Curry bringing a new sense of accountability, and everyone's in the best shape of their lives.

In an interview with Vince Goodwill where Brandon Jennings talks up how he's added weight and is primed for a bounce-back season, buried at the end is the key point.

"Did I pout? I think I did and a lot of it came from everybody. You see someone doing it, then you pout."

After talking about he holds himself accountable and the team needs to act like adults, Jennings admits to pouting and blames his teammates for it.

And just like that, Jennings shows why after five years in the NBA, he has failed to take a single step forward as a player.

It's great that he spent the summer working to get stronger, increasing his weight to around 185 or 190 pounds. But the problem with Brandon Jennings' game has never been a physical one. It wasn't last year.

Before the All Star break, Jennings was putting up 18 points per game on 50 percent true shooting and 8 assists before plummeting to 12 points on 46 percent true shooting and 7 assists after the break. If Jennings doesn't spend the final 30 games of the season throwing a hissy fit, he would have joined Chauncey Billups and Isiah Thomas as the only Pistons to ever surpass 17 points per game and 8 assists for a season.

To Goodwill, Jennings blames things like breaking his jaw, losing weight, and missing the preseason for last year being the worst season of his career. But clearly those things didn't impact his play, as he was on pace for a career year.

But his conclusion wasn't incorrect. It was the worst season of his career, and he was a horribly inefficient and disinterested player when the Pistons most needed him. After Maurice Cheeks was fired, Jennings checked out and the Pistons finished the season 8-24.

Jennings talked big before last season too, saying "You're going to see a whole different player. The things that I was doing in Milwaukee, I won't have to do here, take all the bad shots. Now, I can just actually be myself and be who I was five years ago when I was in high school, playing AAU basketball."

Uh, Brandon? Your shot selection actually got worse last year (click image to make it bigger):

Fortunately for the Pistons, for the first time in his career Jennings will face legitimate competition for his starting job from D.J. Augustin and possibly eventually Spencer Dinwiddie.

Jennings has the talent to win the job and be an asset for the Pistons, but his lack of mental toughness could very well see him losing the job to one of Stan Van Gundy's new additions.