This is Ish Smith’s time. The starting point guard (Reggie Jackson) is injured, and now he gets to come in and put up big numbers by pretending that he’s prime Chris Paul. The best periods of Smith’s career have been in similar circumstances: injuries on a mediocre team turn it from a mediocre team into a straight-up bad team, then Ish comes in and gets his stats, has a few 20/10 games, and generates a lot of highlight videos while the losses pile up.
It’s too early to say that the Pistons will implode with Ish at the helm, but it’s a possibility, and they didn’t start off the post-Jackson era off very well at all by losing to the terrible Magic. But Ish got a season-high in points and started revving his assist engines, so I’m hopeful that him and Tobes can accumulate tons of stats while the Pistons try to stay in the playoff picture.
Underrated aspect of Ish’s success: every other game he plays in is a revenge game because he’s been on at least a third of the teams in the league.