The Detroit Pistons bounced back from their first loss of the season and took care of business at home against the Charlotte Hornets. Despite being on the second leg of a back-to-back and falling behind early, the Pistons took control of the game in the second half to improve to 4-1 for the season.
As nice as the win was, it wasn't the most convincing showing from the Pistons, especially offensively. There were a few too many underwhelming individual performances. One of them belonged to Ron Holland.
This has been the continuation of a disturbing trend for the third-year player. Holland, who has been off to a poor start, hit a new low on Wednesday.
Ron Holland's brutal start to the season should force JB Bickerstaff to make tough decision
In the first half, Holland played eight minutes. In this limited span, he managed to commit four turnovers, foul Brandon Miller on a three-point jumper 40 feet from the basket, and airball a wide-open three. He had multiple poor decisions involving drives that didn't go anywhere and ended in bad passes.
Holland tends to get in his head, which leads to more mistakes. This hurts his confidence. By the end of Holland's stint in this game, he was barely looking at the rim. Every time he touched the ball, he looked for Cade Cunningham or Daniss Jenkins to dump the ball to.
This has negative trickle-down effects for the Pistons. Holland simply doesn't get guarded out there. The Hornets put their center, Ryan Kalkbrenner, on Holland. He stood near the rim whenever Holland was on the floor, mucking things up for the Pistons.
This is also why JB Bickerstaff never plays Holland next to Ausar Thompson. The spacing issues created by Holland would be impossible to overcome if Ausar were also on the court.
Holland is 6/21 from the field and 0/6 from downtown for the season. He is averaging less than three points per game.
At this point, it's difficult to justify his spot in the rotation. It's not like the Pistons need his defensive intensity. Plus, Detroit has one of the deepest rosters in the league.
Can anyone, including Bickerstaff, really argue that Ebuka Okorie wouldn't help the Pistons more right now? If Okorie isn't ready to contribute, how about Taurean Prince? Or how about just distributing Holland's minutes to contributing veterans off the bench?
The Pistons may not want to give up on Holland just yet. But a team with title aspirations shouldn't be giving any third-year player undeserved developmental minutes. Unless Holland starts looking the part of a rotation player on a good team, the Pistons should stop giving him regular minutes.
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