Anonymous NBA Scout: Luke Kennard will succeed, Pistons will not

Before every NBA season Sports Illustrated talks to anonymous NBA scouts about each NBA team. It’s not exactly anything new, but it’s a pretty fun exercise nonetheless. Though, you know what they say about anonymous sources scouts?

Here’s some of what an anonymous scout told Sports Illustrated about the 2017-18 Detroit Pistons:

Detroit Pistons: Luke Kennard will succeed

People look at the roster and say they’re trying to replicate what Stan Van Gundy had in Orlando, but that doesn’t take into account how good Hedo Turkoglu was. The Pistons don’t have a frontcourt player like that who can initiate offense and shoot around 40% from three. Jon Leuer’s not that caliber of player. Tobias Harris is more of a scorer and shooter than a playmaker. . . . So much is going to depend on Reggie Jackson. If he’s healthy and they’ve let bygones be bygones, the team can be good. . . . Andre Drummond has potential to be a two-way player—he’s not a zero. If he can get to 50% free throw shooting, continue to be a leading rebounder and be more of a shot blocker, that’s great, because he can move his feet on the perimeter and guard pick-and-rolls. Just don’t throw him the ball on a post up. He’s got to be a roll guy and feast on the offensive glass. . . .

In other words, this team isn’t going anywhere with its current cast. Fine. Most of us are fully aware of this already. And we are ever so patiently waiting until the powers that be also realize this. There’s going to be a big party among local DBBers (Sauce’s house?) when they finally do.

As I’ve been fairly optimistic about this team (it’s quickly wearing off) in the past couple of seasons, I’ll leave you with some relative optimism and creativity from Mr. Anonymous scout about rookie shooting guard Luke Kennard. After all, I did tease you with a semi-positive title, didn’t I? So, it’s the very least I can do.

He’s not strictly a spot-up shooter; he’s a playmaker. They can play him with Langston Galloway, get Galloway running off the ball and let Kennard handle it.

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Someone pointed out in the comments recently that Kennard does have somewhat of a Ginobili-type vibe to his skill set. What do you guys think? Any other players Kennard reminds you of?