The Pistons can’t seem to understand the error in their ways. Effort is something you either have or you don’t. It’s in your spirit, or it’s not. You’re hard wired for it, or you’re lazy. Simple. It’s Nature.

As a player, a lot of things are out of your control. The one thing that is, yup you guessed it, effort.

The Detroit Pistons seem to be the most inconsistent team in the NBA. Losers of 10 of their last 15. Here’s a closer look of the last month worth of games:

 

What do you take away from the above graphic?

The Pistons lost to the Utah Jazz last night. By 33 points. 110-77.  Both teams coming off of back-to-backs. With Detroit getting blown out by the Warriors and Utah beating the defending NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers.  So there were no excuses, for either team.

Effort (there’s that word again).

Both teams spent the entire first half feeling each other out, and the game was close up to the Halftime. 45-43 Utah.

As you can see, only player in double figures for Detroit was Tobias Harris who had 11 points.  However, no where near efficient play collectively.

Utah on the other hand, 

Stark contrast.

Second half came, and the Jazz came out swinging — and the Pistons went Piston:

The video above, is the Pistons season in a nutshell. If you look closely, after the bad pass by Marcus Morris,  Andre Drummond hangs his head, and Reggie Jackson fails to hustle after the ball. But, who does coach Stan Van Gundy pull out the game? Marcus Morris.

 

What’s been hard to watch all season is the lack of effort and basketball I.Q. Because pictures speak louder than words, I’ll illustrate a few points visually:

Here you see Andre Drummond with great position down low. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has the bigger Klay Thompson guarding him. Clearly Andre has the better match up with the smaller Draymond Green on him.

If you’re the type of person to only watch the ball during a game, you may not recognize when a big man has a mismatch and should get the ball immediately. But if you do watch all aspects of the game the following should piss you off:

Yes that is KCP shooting a contested three-point shot. And yes he missed it.

You would be correct in your assessment, of Andre Drummond being limited to just a couple of offensive moves. However a mismatch and good position is something I’d rather gamble on, than contested shots that as a team — are terrible. 34% should make one feel uncomfortable in taking such shots.

No, not the Pistons. They’re not quitters.

Plays like the one above have happened all to often this season, and a roster shake up is in order. There are too many of the same type of player. If the organization wants to stop the bleeding, it’s time to make a move.

According to reports, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Andre Drummond are the only “untouchables.” Meaning everyone else on the roster is available. I’m not advocating a fire sale, but if you want to right the ship, or even bring player and fan morale up, Stan needs to make a move. Like yesterday.

You can no longer stand to watch players blow fast breaks with numbers:

 

With the Pistons moving to downtown Detroit next season, you have to give the fans something to be excited about. Right now, overall morale is down — for the fans and the team. Something needs to give, and someone needs to give — some effort. ✌🏿