The Detroit Pistons' shooting woes are well-documented.
The Pistons have been a poor shooting team all season, and the lack of spacing could end up being their Achilles heel in the playoffs. Considering that they lost Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway Jr. in the offseason, this shouldn't be too surprising.
Duncan Robinson has done well as a replacement, but the Pistons are not getting as much from Caris LeVert and other perimeter players on the roster.
This highlights one key mistake the Pistons made over the summer. Hardaway signed a one-year minimum contract with the Denver Nuggets. Detroit could and should have easily beaten that offer, and the 33-year-old shooting guard has been proving why all season.
Tim Hardaway Jr. Could've Given Pistons What They Lack
Hardaway is in the midst of the best season of his career, making a career-high 41.0% of his threes for Denver. Despite increasing his usage rate from 15.5% his last season with the Pistons to 18.4% this season, his efficiency has skyrocketed.
With 63.1% True Shooting, Hardaway is having the most efficient campaign of his career by far, all while averaging the lowest turnover rate with 4.9%.
Obviously, a large part of Hardaway's success can be attributed to the Nuggets' offensive ecosystem and playing next to Nikola Jokic.
Denver has the best offensive rating in the NBA, and Jokic can get Hardaway a ton of easy shots every game. Yet, even firing off 6.8 threes in only 27 minutes per game is not easy. Hardaway deserves credit for his off-ball movement, ability to get open, and overall accuracy from behind the arc.
Defensive concerns remain for Hardaway. He could end up being a liability on that end of the floor for the Nuggets. For a player on a veteran minimum deal, however, that is not a big concern. Hardaway has already done more than enough to provide significantly more value than his contract.
If he continues to hit some shots and provide spacing for the Nuggets in a limited role off the bench, he would go down as an excellent free-agent signing.
If the Pistons had re-signed Hardaway, he would have done wonders for Cade Cunningham and the offense. Among Detroit's regular rotation players, only Robinson is shooting over 40%. Detroit takes the fourth-fewest and makes the third-fewest threes in the league.
This makes things difficult for Cunningham and Jalen Duren, who need as much space as possible to operate inside the arc. If Hardaway is still around instead of, say, LeVert, Pistons fans could have felt better about their chances of a deep postseason run.
Let's hope that this decision doesn't come back to bite them in the spring.