Marvin Bagley Season Preview

We continue with Season Previews. Today is Marvin Bagley.

You gonna talk about the reddit situation?

Not right now. It’s exceptionally stupid, equating this substack having a paid subscriber option to someone trying to sell t-shirts on the subreddit (I can’t link to the substack since I am “marketing a product” is the literal language used by the mods) meaning that ad-supported content is fine but if the ad is for yourself then it’s not? Regardless, it mostly makes me sad, because I like to shoot the shit with the reddit folk. But for now the mods can answer people when it’s questioned why I stopped posting stuff because they decided to have some weird, petty, powertrip.

About Last Season:

Bagley arrived in Detroit via trade at the deadline. The Pistons sent Josh Jackson, Trey Lyles, and a pair of second-round picks for Bagley. The Pistons’ interest in Bagley had been very public for some time so it was no surprise to see the move made. Bagley played in 18 games for the Pistons, starting 8 of them, and playing 27 minutes per game. Putting up a line of: 14.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game.

After the season the Pistons signed Bagley to a three-year $37.5 million contract.

Bagley’s arrival showed just how lacking the Pistons had been for an inside presence on the offensive end and thrived playing alongside Cade Cunningham, the issues from Sacramento didn’t go away though, he remained a black-hole with the ball, a disaster defensively, and shot just 22% from deep.

It’s pointed out regularly, but it is also worth remembering that Marvin Bagley is still just 23.

Offense:

This is where the good is. The former second overall pick came into the league, and now remains, a talented offensive player. He isn’t an otherworldly athlete but is tall and bouncy. His best asset are his soft hands, capable of catching passes in traffic and lofting in hooks and flips around the hoop. His finishing is the perfect craft of ferocious and graceful, capable of slithering around players for layups or forcefully removing them from his path before a thunderous dunk. Leaning into this strong suit was a huge reason for his apparent success after arriving in Detroit.

After spending much of his time in Sacramento playing as a 4, usually next to a non-shooting center, he spent most of his time in Detroit playing the 5. Even when Bagley was the nominal 4 it was often next to Isaiah Stewart who started to occasionally pop out for 3s by the later stages of the season.

As such, the Pistons basically forced him closer to the hoop where he was most effective. He went from taking nearly a quarter of his shots (25.2%) to taking just 17% from deep, and almost all of those shots swapped the long-line for the restricted area, which jumped from 29% of his shots to 37.5%. His free throw rate also jumped from 19% to 27%.

This is all good news as it provided a pretty solid proof of concept that Bagley can be used effectively. The bad news is that this feeds into the idea that Bagley is not at all a different player from before, the Pistons just pushed him into his strong area.

He remains a terrible passer, untactful as a screener, and a terrible shooter. Bagley may be genuinely strong as an inside scorer, both as a finisher of looks others create and creating for himself, but he is actively bad at everything else offensively. Trying to change that remains the key.

Defense:

Disaster. No other way to put it. It’s worth saying that Bagley is not bad on defense for lack of effort which is a credit to him. He isn’t exactly Dennis Rodman but he plays hard, he’s just lacking in lateral movement and is constantly lost. Constantly being lost combines with his inability to pass or generally read the floor to point to the main issue being a severe lack of basketball IQ/spatial awareness.

On one hand, you want to put faith in the improvement in a player who seems to genuinely care. On the other hand, after 4 seasons it seems increasingly clear that no amount of effort will allow him to realize where he needs to be on the floor.

For all the talk of adding a shot or learning the basics of passing, this remains the biggest hurdle to Bagley becoming a genuinely valuable contributor to a winning team. His defensive failings are so bad that it’s hard to imagine him getting regular minutes for nearly any team that is even semi-contending.

This is made worse by his offensive limitations. He is so bad at anything away from the hoop that he pretty much has to play center on offense, but it’s infinitely more difficult to hide such an atrocious defender when they are your center.

Where does he fit into the rotation?

Good question. I have almost no feel for where he ends up. The Pistons certainly realize that he needs to play closer to the hoop but drafting Jalen Duren and bringing Nerlens Noel into the squad, while also shipping off Jerami Grant, means that the center spot is log-jammed but there is a gaping hole at the 4.

I do wonder if this is actually a bigger part of the whole “Isaiah Stewart can play the 4” talk than Duren. For Bagley to survive without having some sort of epiphany he needs to play the 5 on offense and the 4 on defense. If Stew could actually become a genuine stretch-big then the Pistons have a path to that.

As it stands, I would guess that early on the Pistons try to get him as the nominal 5 as much as they can, once again this is likely where the Stewart 3-point shot experiment will be primarily used, but he’s undoubtedly going to spend real time as the 4 next to a non-shooting big.

It seems most likely he is off the bench to start, the trouble is finding lineups where he makes sense to find him enough minutes.

With his numbers? We really think it’s going to be an issue to find him minutes?

Well. The Pistons roster seems to point to a severe lack of shooting, while the youth everywhere suggests that they will also have struggles with regards to defensive cohesion. Adding Bagley to that mix is like prescribing Mountain Dew for a diabetes patient.

Where he fits on the floor:

Close to the hoop. Dunking lobs from the ball handlers and bullying fools for easy buckets.

Biggest Question for the season?

Can he find any defensive stability? Even if Bagley can find a consistent outside shot it is hard to see him as more than a back-end rotation guy with how miserable his defense has been. If he can at least tip-toe towards competency it changes things dramatically.

Worst Case Scenario:

No epiphany has happened and if anything some of the energy is gone after getting paid. Bagley scuffs his way early in the season and it’s clear the team is worse when he’s on the floor. Bagley falls out of the rotation, and not because Livers and Duren are setting the world on fire. By the end of the season he appears a total lost cause.

Also, I haven’t brought it up yet but do remember that injuries have plagued this man for his entire career. His games played by season are 62, 13, 43, and 48. This remains the scariest thing about making a real financial commitment here.

Best Case Scenario:

The second wind of escaping Sacramento carries him to Jesus (in a metaphorical, basketball sense). He arrives in camp as a dedicated, if still often unfocused, defender and also is hitting at least some jumpers. Isaiah Stewart is a genuine stretch-4 and it becomes clear within a couple of months that the Pistons have something special brewing with their front-court pairing. Bagley is scoring in bunches while Stewart spaces the floor, and Stewart anchors the defense while Bagley isn’t ruining it.

Bagley becomes a poster-boy for “taking a flyer on a talented player” that other teams point to when they do so. “Look I know Stanley Johnson failed everywhere he’s been but look at what Detroit did with Marvin Bagley!”

Official Prediction:

Bagley is somewhat improved but fundamentally the same player. He regresses largely due to the roster construction forcing him into more time away from the hoop and he becomes a real part of a dilemma for Detroit: the fact that they have 3 young centers they would like to play but only minutes for two of them. Bagley still has his moments, perhaps when Nerlens Noel is injured he gets more time as a true 5 and we see what we saw last season.

Basically, he continues to fill the role as a big-man who can actually do stuff inside, which makes him valuable. But with the new-toy shine and less favorable roster conditions, he regresses a bit. Also misses like 25 games to various knocks.

What do you think about the contract?

I can, and probably will at some point, do a whole post on it but it’s too much. Not fatally so, but still, more than it should be. The main issue is that there isn’t really an upside for Detroit. They didn’t get him to take a team option or anything that could mean if he hits they have a great deal. It’s a deal that would suggest that he has proven a track record of being a viable NBA rotational player, which he hasn’t.

In the end, though, the Pistons will probably still be bad for the next couple of seasons and even if it’s too much money it isn’t prohibitively large. Even if it isn’t clear who the Pistons were bidding against, it is not a big deal to pay him more than needed. At this stage of rebuilding the most important thing is to make sure Bagley comes back.