FanPost

Eastern Conference Point Guards - Year-End Numbers

The year is over. There are no Pistons games to keep up on, which I enjoy doing for the most part even though they are always disappointing. So, what is a boy to do? Make charts looking at year-end numbers, of course!

Below is a chart I made comparing the starting point guards in the Eastern Conference with our guys Reggie Jackson and Ish Smith. For this exercise, I use nothing but rate stats so it is easier to compare players that played different numbers of minutes. I'm also largely going to focus on offensive numbers, because I think they're much more useful. We'll also see the offensive numbers are pretty meh-to-bad across the board for our Pistons.

I plan on doing this for all five positions. Obviously basketball is somewhat position-less these days, so these comparisons will never be perfect, but I think they give a good jumping off point.

The main column in this chart is Player Impact Plus-Minus, which is a stat I found on Twitter/Nylon Calculus to combines box score stats with plus-minus stats. You can read more about it here if you'd like. I'm sure some of you don't care for any of these plus-minus stats. But I do. And it's my post. So that's that. Not sure if it's much better or has more predictive value than ESPN's Real Plus-Minus. But I do know that it's a million times more user friendly so that's a large part of why I'm using it. It also passes the Crosseyed Smell Test, which you can all choose to trust or not trust as you see fit.

Besides that, I only included offensive numbers so these posts will be much more of an overview of how the players stack up offensively to the competition in the East. The stats I used straight from basketball-reference (glossary here), except for adjusted True Shooting Percentage, which attempts to adjust a bit for usage.

That's a lot of preface, but I'm just putting it here and won't put it in future posts. Here's the chart (EDIT - forgot to include when first posted):

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Here's a more manageable chart showing where the Pistons' players rank compared to the entire group of 16 listed above:

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And now, my thoughts on the Pistons listed plus random thoughts on other dudes on this list.

Reggie Jackson

The Pistons record was obviously much, much better with Reggie Jackson in the lineup than not. How much of that is because Reggie Jackson is good? How much of that is because Dwight Buycks and Jameer Nelson are bad? How much of that is because Ish is good as a backup and bad as a starter? How much of it is random? I think where you come down on this plays a big part on your optimism level going into next year.

Jackson's individual numbers leave a lot to be desired this year. He didn't score efficiently himself. The team's offensive rating with him on the court was middling and comparable to it with Ish on the court. His offensive rebounding was good compared to his peers, but that's not a huge thing at his position. He had a decent-ish AST% and sub-decent-ish TOV%.

I think it's worth noting that Jackson's hot start was sort of broken up into two parts. A very hot October and November (58.2% TS, 115 ORTG) followed by a very cold December (47.6% TS; 94 ORTG). For a guy that is alleged to have knee/conditioning issues, wearing down fits the narrative and makes this fan a little nervous.

As a wrap, the number I always come back to with Jackson is his FGA/game inside the restricted area. This number has dropped every year, from 5.4 in limited-time in 2014-15, to 4.7, then 3.3 last year and 2.6 this year. It screams a drop in burst/athleticism that matches my eye test. Burst/athleticism is not something I'm expecting to come back next year for Jackson, so something is going to have to take its place for him to be effective. If the three point shot doesn't come back (30.8% this year), Pistons are in trouble.

For what it's worth, PIPM has never been high on Jackson overall and certainly not on his defense. That said, while his offensive PIPM has dipped badly the last two years, the defense has just stayed at "very bad" instead of dropping further off. Maybe he's improving at the mental parts of playing defense.

Ish Smith

Ish put up better individual offensive number than he ever has. Obviously, we have to remember that Ish is still not a good offensive player. He actually had a higher True Shooting percentage than Jackson, but on much lower usage. Ish had his best ORTG ever in 2016-17, then bested it significantly this year. Some of this is due to Ish shooting 43% from 3 on 3+ attempts per game to end the season, but he also shot above 50% on his 2s for the first time and lowered his turnovers.

All this said, it did feel to a lot of people that Ish was the biggest problem with the offense when Blake got here. His lack of 3-point game probably isn't ideal next to Andre Drummond, Griffin, and Stanley Johnson. In hindsight and looking at the numbers, that doesn't seem fair to Ish, but he's certainly a limited offensive player even at his best.

Ish Smith makes $6M to be the backup point guard. He's always seemingly healthy. He's always seemingly playing hard. His numbers put him as slightly below average compared to other starting point guards in the East. I don't think the Pistons can hope to find an upgrade at his salary this offseason, so I would think he would be back. I also think he'd be attractive to other teams in a trade (or at the very least not unattractive as most other Pistons contracts are), so if he were moved as part of a larger deal I wouldn't be surprised.

Pistons 3rd Point Guard

I didn't include the third point guards in this chart, but as you all know that the Pistons flat-out stunk without Reggie Jackson and Ish on the court (-5.7/100 possessions per Cleaning the Glass; 8th percentile offense). If Galloway was supposed to be an answer for this, he wasn't. Buycks wasn't very good. Jameer Nelson was beyond terrible in his limited minutes. The Pistons need to have a better plan for the third point guard spot going into next year.

Opposition Thoughts from Someone Who Doesn't Get to Watch a Ton of Other Teams

  • The numbers love Kemba.
  • Darren Collison? Darren Collison!
  • If you believe that Eric Bledsoe is good, and Khris Middleton is good, and Giannis is VERY GOOD, the rest of the Bucks must be VERY BAD.
  • Not a banner year for John Wall. That's a scary contract.
  • It's funny that going to Warm Body George Hill was a big upgrade for the Cavs, but it probably was compared to 2018 Isaiah Thomas.
  • Augustin's numbers next to Ish are worth looking at for Pistons fans as I know that someone on here has brought up swapping them. Augustin definitely is the better shooter, but Ish seems better at pushing an offense. Maybe that's a skill that isn't needed with Blake. I'd rather have Ish but I understand the argument.
Next week, I'll take a look at how Reggie Bullock and Luke Kennard's numbers stack up compared to Eastern Conference shooting guards.

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