I may have been premature in anointing/appointing Luke Kennard as the savior of the Pistons. But can you blame me? Whenever I ask that question, the answer is no, you can not blame me. Because the facts were this: he scored 30 points in the Pistons’ opener and led his team to victory. Those are the facts, and there is no amount of manipulation that will stop those facts from being 100 percent factual. I merely made the most logical conclusions possible from those facts. The fact that the conclusion was wrong has no bearing on how logical the conclusion was.
It turns out that Derrick Rose is the savior of Pistons. Who could’ve seen that coming? Even the most ardent Rose-stans probably didn’t think he’d be their best or second-best player, much less the average NBA fan.
But back to Kennard. He’s still been decent for the Pistons even if he isn’t scoring 30 points per game anymore, finishing in the mid-teens in most of his games. But he’s not taking over games like I know he can. In that first game, he was calling his own number and successfully connecting. Where did that aggression go? Dwane Casey might have a part to play in this as well.
With Reggie Jackson’s back mangled into an S-shape, Derrick Rose getting his load managed (they say hamstring but who believes them), and even Tim Frazier too injured to play, the burden of the ball fell on Luke Kennard and Bruce Brown. It worked out for both players, and now I get to make highlight vids for everyone’s favorite NBA backcourt.