- Sidelined with a torn meniscus since November 23, Reggie Bullock has returned to practice for the Pistons, tweets Rod Beard of The Detroit News.
- The ankle injury sustained by Aron Baynes isn’t as bad as it appeared, writes Beard in an article for The Detroit News. Though Baynes exited the game in a walking boot, he isn’t expected to miss significant time for the Pistons.
Here are Wednesday’s D-League assignments and recalls from around the NBA:
4:25pm:
- The Lakers have re-assigned rookie big man Ivica Zubac to the D-League (Twitter link). Zubac will be in uniform for the L.A. D-Fenders tomorrow night for the team’s game against Iowa.
- The Pistons officially announced in a press release this afternoon that they’ve sent Henry Ellenson to the Grand Rapids Drive. As Keith Langlois of Pistons.com tweets, fellow rookie Michael Gbinije likely would’ve joined him, but he’s battling a forearm injury.
- Forward Troy Williams has been recalled by the Grizzlies from his assignment with the Iowa Energy, per a team release. Williams averaged 24.3 PPG in three games during his D-League stint, including 32 in 28 minutes on December 27.
2:28pm:
- Richaun Holmes, who has completed and passed all the elements of the NBA’s concussion protocol, has been assigned to the D-League by the Sixers, the team announced today in a press release. While some NBADL rehab assignments don’t include game action, the Sixers suggest that Holmes is expected to suit up tonight for the Delaware 87ers.
12:55pm:
- A pair of Nuggets rookies, Malik Beasley and Juan Hernangomez, have been assigned to the D-League, according to a press release. Despite having a fairly young roster, Denver hasn’t used the D-League much this season, since the team doesn’t have its own affiliate. Beasley and Hernangomez will join the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Miami’s NBADL squad.
- The Raptors have sent Bruno Caboclo and Fred VanVleet back to the D-League, the team announced today (via Twitter). The duo has bounced back and forth between the NBA and NBADL all season — it’s the 13th D-League assignment for Caboclo and the ninth for VanVleet.
- Maurice Ndour is headed to the D-League, having been assigned to Westchester today by the Knicks (Twitter link). New York’s D-League affiliate is in action tonight against Grand Rapids, and Ndour is expected to suit up for the game.
- The Suns have assigned rookie forward Derrick Jones to the D-League, the team announced today (Twitter link). It’s the fourth NBADL assignment of the season for Jones, who has averaged 14.0 PPG and 6.1 RPG in 14 games for Northern Arizona.
The Pistons have lost seven of their last nine games, having slipped from 14-13 in mid-December to 16-20 now. However, the team’s second-half performance on Sunday in a win over the Heat was a strong one. As Keith Langlois of Pistons.com details, head coach Stan Van Gundy says his club can be “two totally different teams” depending on the night, and the team that showed up in the second half on Sunday is the one that he wants to see more regularly. Langlois points to a few encouraging signs for the team, including Reggie Jackson‘s improved play, and identifies a few other areas that still need to be addressed.
Here’s more from out of Detroit:
- The Pistons may be without their backup center for the next little while, after Aron Baynes left Sunday’s game with a sprained ankle, per Aaron McMann of MLive.com. It remains to be seen how serious the injury is, but if Baynes has to miss time, Detroit will likely either use Jon Leuer at center or insert Boban Marjanovic into the rotation.
- Stanley Johnson, who has returned to the Pistons’ rotation after falling out of it earlier in the season, is seeing his patience and extra work paying off, McMann writes in a separate MLive.com piece. Last month, a report suggested that the team had resisted trade overtures for 2015’s eighth overall pick.
- With the season nearing its halfway point and the Pistons currently in 11th in the Eastern Conference, the team needs a quick fix to get back in contention, writes Rod Beard of The Detroit News. While Van Gundy has said he isn’t looking at the trade market at the moment, that might change if the club doesn’t start showing more signs of life in the coming weeks, Beard writes.
Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy is promising another change in the starting lineup tonight, relays Rod Beard of The Detroit News. Van Gundy made the announcement after this morning’s shootaround, although he refused to say what the change will be. He shook up the rotation a week ago by making Jon Leuer a starter, and Leuer has joined Reggie Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris and Andre Drummond in the starting five during Detroit’s past three games.
- The Pistons didn’t get the boost they expected when point guard Reggie Jackson returned from a battle with knee tendinitis that sidelined him for six weeks, notes Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post. After going .500 without Jackson, the team has had difficulty adjusting to having him back on the court. “When I came back, I think I had one practice in general, so I didn’t have a lot of time to really get footing with my teammates and myself and know where I was at,” Jackson said. “So these games have been my practice and I’m just trying to get better daily.”
Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy is the latest NBA figure to criticize the Last Two Minute Report regarding officiating in close games, according to Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press.
Warriors forward Kevin Durant and Cavaliers forward LeBron James were both critical this week of the NBA’s practice of publicly reviewing officiating calls in the last two minutes of close games. Van Gundy has now joined the chorus.
In Cleveland’s one-point win over Golden State on Christmas Day, Durant felt he was tripped up on the final play of the game. But when the officiating report confirmed that, Durant felt it was unfair for the officials to be subject to additional scrutiny, claiming it makes them more tentative to do their jobs.
“The refs didn’t lose us that game,” Durant said. “We lost that game. I think it’s (terrible) the NBA throws the refs under the bus like that.”
Van Gundy agrees with that assessment, as he told Ellis and other reporters on Thursday.
“I understand Kevin Durant’s comments because the referee could have had a great game and, when they grade them out, he could have been great, but he makes one crucial bad call at the end of the game, and that’s all the public knows about,” Van Gundy said.
The report on the Cavs’ win also indicated that a technical should have been called against James for hanging on the rim. That prompted him to say the NBA should cut the officials some slack.
“I think it discredits what the referees are doing for 48 minutes,” he told the assembled media. “If that’s the case, you might as well do a 48-minute report.”
During the offseason, the referees’ union called on the league to stop releasing the report publicly. At the time, commisssioner Adam Silver defended the practice, saying transparency was the best policy.
“It’s our hope that you take the Last Two Minute Reports together with using a certain amount of replay that we’re building to build trust and integrity in the league,” he said. “People are going to recognize that we are going to make mistakes, the officials are going to make mistakes. Human error is going to be part of this game, just as it is with players. … I’d say largely what these Last Two Minute Reports are showing is that the referees get it right about 90 percent of the time.”
How do you feel in this hot button issue? Should the Two Minute Report stay or go? Weigh in on the comments section below.
After a solid home win against Cleveland earlier this week, the Pistons appeared to be on their way toward righting the ship, but Detroit suffered another bad home loss on Wednesday night, falling 119-94 to Milwaukee. It was the club’s sixth loss in seven games, prompting head coach Stan Van Gundy to point out that the mounting losses are jeopardizing the Pistons’ playoff chances (link via Rod Beard of The Detroit News).
“[We’re] certainly not out of it by any means,” Van Gundy said of his team, which is currently tied for 11th in the East with a 15-19 record. “But every loss puts you in more jeopardy, especially when you’re losing at home like we are. There’s no question that you have to understand that. You can’t run from the fact that all those losses are putting you in jeopardy.”
Van Gundy has already made some changes to the Pistons’ lineup and rotation in an effort to pull the team out of its funk, and with the losses piling up, he says that “everything is on the table” as a potential solution (Twitter link via Beard).
However, with nearly two months to go before February’s trade deadline, it sounds like Van Gundy still isn’t ready to seriously explore making a trade that would shake up the roster. According to Beard (via Twitter), Van Gundy said today that he hasn’t heard about teams calling Detroit with trade proposals. The Pistons’ president of basketball operations would rather work with what he has than blow things up.
“I’m focused on getting this group to play better and to try to figure this out,” Van Gundy said (link via Beard). “My focus is not on changing everything. I’ve seen this group win; I know this group can win. I know this group can be good; I know this group should be better than it is. I’m approaching it as a coaching issue. I’ve got a team that is underachieving where they should be, from a coaching standpoint. That’s how my thought process is right now: How do we get this team playing better, bringing more consistent energy?”
While Van Gundy may still have confidence in his current group, the team’s results over the next month or month and a half will go a long way toward determining whether another deadline deal will be required. The Pistons weren’t necessarily expected to be as active on the trade market at the 2017 deadline after making major moves in each of the past two Februarys.
The Pistons’ next opportunity to get back into the win column will come on Friday night in Atlanta.
Coach/executive Stan Van Gundy moved Tobias Harris to the bench last week and the small forward is embracing his new role, as Keith Langlois of NBA.com relays. “One thing I’ve learned throughout my career is, certain decisions as a player, you shut up and put your big-boy pants on and just be ready to play,” Harris said. “That’s the bottom line. Do what you can to help your team. That’s what I tried to do.”
Here’s more from Detroit:
- Reggie Jackson hasn’t looked sharp since returning to the lineup and his play has hurt the Pistons in the standings, as Rod Beard of The Detroit News details. The team is 4-8 with Jackson in the lineup this season.
- Van Gundy’s job remains safe as long as the Pistons get back in the playoffs, Beard contends in the same piece. Beard argues that because Van Gundy is both the team’s president and its coach, it’s unlikely he’ll take the fall for the franchise’s failures this season.
- The Pistons have multiple issues to work out if they are going to remain in the playoff hunt, Beard writes in a separate piece. “Regardless of lineup changes or anything else, we have to play a lot better,” Van Gundy said. “That’s one thing we did, but I’m focused on our defense being better, the pace and energy of our offense. That’s only one piece of it.”
- Tobias Harris and Marcus Morris may alternate starts for the Pistons depending on the opponent, writes Keith Langlois of NBA.com. Coach Stan Van Gundy has designated Jon Leuer as one starter at forward because of his defensive capabilities. Van Gundy apparently plans to use Morris as a starter when he needs better defense and Harris when he needs more offense. The coach had a talk with Harris after telling him he was coming off the bench just before shootaround Friday. “Tobias is a good man,” Van Gundy said. “He’s only 24; he seems older. He’s a mature man you can have honest conversations with and he’ll evaluate what you’re saying. There’s not a lot of excuses or anything. If you say something, he’s the kind of guy who’s going to think about it. May not always agree with you, but going to think about it and look in the mirror and try to get better. I appreciate that and I thought his character showed in his play.”
- Although Pistons head coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy believes his team should be better than it is, he doesn’t think that making a trade is the way to fix things, tweets Rod Beard of The Detroit News.
- The Pistons‘ slide has coincided with Reggie Jackson‘s return from an early-season injury, so Brett Koremenos of RealGM.com takes a deep dive to try to determine how Jackson’s presence may be contributing to the club taking a step back.
Cavaliers shooting guard J.R. Smith may not have thumb surgery until after Christmas, reports Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. The team is still deciding which doctor will perform the operation, and no timetable for a return will be set until the procedure is complete. The Cavs are taking a patient approach to Smith’s status and about finding a replacement, as coach Tyronn Lue instructed GM David Griffin to “take his time” in adjusting the roster. “We want to make sure that we have the right piece that we bring in here that could help us win a championship,” Lue said. “That’s our goal. I mean, with Griff at the helm I know he’ll get something done. He always pulls out something magical, so let him to his thing and I just gotta to continue to coach the team with what I’ve got.” Even with the injury to Smith, the team’s first priority is finding an experienced point guard to back up Kyrie Irving.
There’s more tonight from the Central Division:
- Smith’s injury will mean more playing time for DeAndre Liggins, according to Jason Lloyd of The Akron Beacon Journal. Iman Shumpert will probably remain in a reserve role because he has been handling the backup point guard duties, so that creates an opportunity for Liggins to start. He has played in 18 games this season, averaging 2.9 points and 1.2 assists in 13.9 minutes per night.
- Stan Van Gundy’s promised lineup changes would have begun tonight with forward Jon Leuer getting a start, but a traffic accident this morning caused him to miss the team’s shootaround, writes Rod Beard of The Detroit News. Leuer was able to play tonight, but he requested to be used off the bench after meeting with doctors. Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris remained the starting forwards, and Van Gundy didn’t say which player he had planned to bench for Leuer. “He would’ve started tonight but he got in a car wreck at about 45 mph and the airbags deployed and everything,” the coach said. “He was pretty banged up.”
- Pacers guard Monta Ellis might be out another week, which will give Glenn Robinson III more time to prove he should be a starter, according to Jordan J. Wilson of The Indianapolis Star. Robinson has impressed his coaches while filling in for Ellis, who is suffering from a right groin sprain. “I think when another role guy goes down, this opportunity that I’m given, I’m really trying to keep it,” Robinson said. “That’s my job [to] come in competitive and to come in wanting to keep that spot. Like I said from the beginning of the season, I’ve been on the bench way too long [and I’m] trying to get back [in the starting lineup].”