Blake Griffin is done for the season. They surgically removed his knees and are patiently waiting for them to grow back. Until then, he’s not picking up a basketball, walking, or even leaving his hospital bed. That means there’s a bunch of minutes in Detroit that need to be filled by somebody, and I don’t want that somebody to be Markieff Morris.
You might have already figured out where I’m going with this, but I’ll lay it out nice and simple for anybody who’s fallen behind. I want Christian Wood to be the full-time power forward for the Pistons from now until the end of the season. And I want him to handle the ball as much as possible while doing it, because I think Reggie Jackson is dead and nobody’s told us about it, so there’s a void there too.
In fact, I have come up with the full starting lineup I want to see going forward:
PG: Bruce Brown (Derrick Rose is getting traded soon)
SG: Luke Kennard (When he comes back from injury)
SF: Sekou Doumbouya (Trade Tony Snell to the Bucks please)
PF: Christian Wood (Obviously)
C: More Christian Wood (Andre Drummond is getting traded too)
This starting lineup is optimized for maximum entertainment value. By playing all these guys forty minutes per game, the Pistons can maybe still sell some tickets and not play in an empty Little Caesars Pizza-splosion Palace Arena. Wood will average an easy 20/10/3 in this scenario because he is playing two positions at once (three if you count point guard). However, to make this work, somebody is going to have to abduct Dwane Casey and keep him tied up in the trunk of a car for the next four months, because, if left to his own devices, he’ll give Langston Galloway and Markieff Morris all the minutes.