Photo Courtesy: Keith Allison
By Craig Fields
Inconsistency, thy name is Brandon Jennings. Needless to say there has been God awful play this season from the veteran guard, but there have also been moments of brilliance. True there haven’t been many moments of those, but you can definitely see the talent level in the young man. Brandon Jennings, let’s break you down.
This season has seen a Jennings that has only shot 38.4% from the floor and average his lowest point output per contest since joining the league at 13.1 points per game. You would think that a point guard who is struggling to shoot the rock would maybe look for his teammates more, but this player is only averaging 6.5 assists a game.
Last year Jennings averaged 7.6 assists per game and much to the Pistons delight he looked as if he was turning into a true point guard. He had one of the worst shooting percentages for any starting guard last year at 37.3% and has continued that trend this year.
The Detroit Pistons have been known to give big contracts to players who did not pan out. Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon come to mind as the most notable of the bad contracts. You might as well put Jennings on that list as well. He is a player that will never be more than he is right now. And that is a player who can make a couple of good passes, shoot a terrible percentage, take way too many shots, shoot a horrible percentage, be a pedestrian point guard, and did I mention shoot a paltry percentage?
Enough bagging on the young man. How about we talk about a recent trend of good play. In the past two Detroit Pistons games, both wins, Brandon Jennings has averaged about 20 points and eight assists. One of those games include a 25 point, six assist, five rebound effort that came in a blowout of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
If Jennings could find his stroke a little more consistently, he might be considered one of the better point guards in the league. But he takes too many wild jump shots and doesn’t drive to the basket nearly enough. With former Piston forward Josh Smith joining the Houston Rockets, the Pistons will need Jennings to be as productive if not more productive than he was last year.
He will need to find his stroke and quickly for the Pistons to have even a decent chance of making the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. We will see if the Cavalier win is a jumping off point for a new and improved Jennings or just another chapter in his book of inconsistency.