The Pistons spent the offseason attacking one clear weakness: their shooting from deep. Detroit brought in four players who hit better than 40 percent from 3-point range in John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Taurean Prince and Gary Harris, and they also brought back Kevin Huerter with the hope that he can bounce back as an above-average shooter from long range.
That should help the percentage. But for Detroit, the bigger swing may come from a different number entirely: attempts.
Last season, the Pistons finished 17th in the league in 3-point percentage, but they were far worse when it came to volume. They ranked 29th in 3-point attempts per game and 29th in made 3’s per game.
Detroit managed to stay productive by leaning on points in the paint, getting to the free-throw line and feeding off its defense to pile up fast break points. That formula worked during the regular season.
In the playoffs, it got exposed.
Orlando and Cleveland loaded up the paint and challenged the Pistons to beat them from outside. Detroit didn’t shoot enough 3s, and it didn’t make enough of them, to make that gamble costly.
That’s where the new faces matter most. Collins is a better corner shooter than Tobias Harris, but he’ll need to put those chances up more often, especially since he actually took fewer attempts per game last season than Harris.
The clearest path to a real jump, though, comes from Isaiah Joe. Detroit didn’t have a high-volume 3-point shooter coming off the bench a year ago, and Joe has averaged six or more attempts over the last two seasons.
With more minutes in Detroit, that number could climb.
Even with those additions, the Pistons still won’t be close to the teams setting the pace from deep. The Thunder and Spurs were only middle of the pack in attempts, but they still got up seven more 3s per game than Detroit.
And that’s the point: 3-point shooting is about more than just accuracy. If defenses don’t think the shot is coming often enough, they won’t react to it.
That was the problem for Detroit in the playoffs. Teams knew Duncan Robinson wasn’t going to get enough attempts for it to really matter, and they weren’t worried about anyone else.
The Pistons can change that, but only if the volume rises enough for the shot to become a real threat. Accuracy matters.
Volume matters too. And for Detroit, the second number may be the one that tells the real story.
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If the situation is still unresolved by then, Durens absence would be impossible to ignore and could become the dominant topic around the locker room, even before training camp begins. The expectation is that it gets sorted out before the real work starts, but until there is a resolution, it remains the kind of distraction a young team would rather not carry into September. [Read more 🡒]