Detroit Pistons: Why Blake Griffin shouldn’t be a point forward next season

Blake Grifin shouldn’t be a point forward next season because the Detroit Pistons haven’t put the right pieces in place for him to lead the team towards success 

Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl once said, “when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” This is the story of Detroit Pistons head coach Dwane Casey who initially took the job prior to last season intending to use Blake Griffin as a point forward.

In fact, Casey told Michael Pina of Vice Sports that he wanted to help Blake become the best passing forward in the league during an interview in July of last year:

"“My goal for him is to be the best passing power forward in the league, which he can do. People look at Draymond Green, they look at all these other guys—point fives and point fours.”"

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Casey did his best to try to accomplish this goal as Blake would either bring the basketball up the court or receive it when the team got past half court. A prime example of this was early in the first quarter of their 2019 playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks when he dribbled the ball to the 3-point line.

Once this happened, Luke Kennard came up to set a screen for Blake to cause a defensive switch where Sterling Brown would be forced to guard Griffin. Unfortunately, Blake Griffin’s original defender, Giannis Antetokounmpo, went underneath the screen, eliminating the possibility of a switch.

The elimination of the switch forced Blake Griffin to take a couple of dribbles towards the basket. During this process, he decided to turn his back to the basket to establish post position on the mid-block. Once this happened, he saw that Sterling Brown was near him trying to provide some help defense. Consequently, he passed the ball to Luke Kennard who missed a mid-range jumper to end the possession.

The point forward role contributed to a significant uptick in Blake’s touches as he averaged 88.5 per game last season. This was 9.26 percent increase from his touches over the previous five seasons as he averaged 81.96 per game.

The increase in touches led to a boost in drives per game as he averaged eight per game last season. This was an increase of 4.32 drives per game from his drives over the previous five seasons as he averaged 3.78 per game. Blake proceeded to average 6.3 points and 0.5 assists on these drives. This was an increase of 3.7 points and 0.22 assists per game from his averages of the previous five seasons ( 2.6 points and 0.28 assists).

The combination of these factors helped him average 24.5 points and 5.4 assists per game. This was an increase of 2.5 points 0.5 assists from his averages of the previous five seasons ( 22.3 points and 4.9 assists).

Although Blake posted his best offensive numbers of the past six seasons, it would have been significantly better if the Pistons surrounded him with more 3-point shooters. Detroit was only able to keep a maximum of two above-average shooters (Luke Kennard and Reggie Bullock/ Wayne Ellington) on the roster for the whole season.

Furthermore, only one of those shooters was in the starting lineup during the regular season as Reggie Bullock started 44 games before being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers and Wayne Ellington started 26 games after signing as a free agent.

Consequently, opponents constantly clogged the paint against the Pistons. A prime example of this was midway through the first quarter of a home game against the Washington Wizards when Reggie Jackson passed the ball to Blake Griffin who had established post position on the right mid-block.

When Blake received it, he immediately got double teamed by Trevor Ariza and Thomas Bryant forcing him to pass the ball to Andre Drummond. Bradley Beal and Jeff Green surrounded Andre as he received the pass to end the possession with a dunk.

The clogged paint forced Blake Griffin to lead the league in heavily contested shot attempts as he averaged 3.5 field goal attempts per game. This was an increase of 1.1 field goal attempts per game from the previous season as he averaged 2.4 heavily contested shot attempts. Blake would go on to convert 50.2 percent of those shots last season which was a 9.5 percent decline from the prior year.

Blake’s inability to get open shots played a vital role in the Pistons being ranked fifth in heavily contested shot attempts as they averaged 11.3 per game. This was an increase of 1.3 shot attempts per game as they averaged 10 heavily contested shots in 2017-18.

Detroit only managed to make 41.9 percent of these field goal attempts causing them to rank 24th in this category. This was a 12.3 percent decrease from the previous season as they converted 54.2 percent of those shots.

The only way to lower the amount of heavily contested shots was if Detroit gave Blake Griffin more than two above-average shooters. Adding more shooters would open up floor as defenders are likely to stay close to their assignments because they do not want to give up an open 3-pointer.

Unfortunately, the Detroit Pistons weren’t able to acquire more shooting as they just swapped out Wayne Ellington for Tony Snell during this summer. Consequently, the team would be in a similar situation to last season where opponents are going to clog the paint due to the lack of shooting around Blake Griffin.

Therefore, Dwane Casey should use Blake Griffin in an off the ball role next season as it will increase the likelihood of the team having better floor spacing. This is because the move would increase the offensive effectiveness of Reggie Jackson next season.

Jackson spent the majority of his time last season in the role of 3-point shooter as he averaged a career-high 5.7 attempts per game. Reggie converted 36.9 percent of those shots last season. Sadly, due to his history of only shooting 32 percent from behind the arc over the previous eight seasons, he was left open on 94.74 percent of those shots.

Reggie is a player who loves to run a pick and roll set. Before the arrival of Dwane Casey, he averaged 9.63 pick and roll possessions per game. The pick and roll possessions generated 8.63 points per game for Reggie Jackson.

The 8.63 points accounted for 52.3 percent of his total points as he averaged 16.5 per game from 2015-16 to 2017-18. An increased pick and roll presence would increase the likelihood that a defender has to stay close to him because of his ability to thrive in this particular play type.

A potential counter-argument to this would be that Blake Griffin will be relegated to a 3-point shooter because Andre Drummond has to be the roll man on most possessions due to his limited offensive skill set. Although this would indeed be the case, Blake is slightly best suited to thrive in the role because he has a better career shooting percentage from behind the arc than Reggie.

Blake has a career shooting percentage of 34.2 percent, which 0.9 percent better than Reggie. Consequently, defenders paid more attention to Blake Griffin as a 3-point shooter because he was only left open 91.43 percent of the time last season. This is 3.31 percent less than the amount of time Reggie Jackson was left open.

In conclusion, unless the Detroit Pistons can acquire some more above average shooters, Dwane Casey would be better served using Blake Griffin off the ball next season.