Pistons Off to a 5-1 Start, but Holland, Huerter and Collins Are Trending the Wrong Way

The Pistons have picked up right where they left off last season. At 5-1, they're playing the kind of team basketball that made them one of the league's better stories a year ago, and the record is hard to argue with. But a hot start can hide problems, and Detroit has a few. Three players are trending the wrong way, and the reasons go beyond one bad week.

Championship contenders need every part of the machine running cleanly. Right now, a few gears are grinding. Here's where I'd look first.

Ron Holland: the defense is real, the offense isn't there yet

Holland had his best game of the season against the Brooklyn Nets, and that's the kind of performance that makes you want to believe the third-year small forward is about to break out. Let's hope it's the start of something. But one good night doesn't erase the broader picture.

The defensive case for Holland is still strong. The 21-year-old is forcing turnovers, protecting the rim and guarding multiple positions, which is exactly the versatility that gets a young wing minutes. He has real building blocks. The issue is everything else. He's still very mistake-prone, his offensive game hasn't taken a step forward, and his shooting percentages from all over the floor have dipped compared with last season. The result is 15.7 minutes per game, a role that doesn't match the hype that surrounded him coming into this year.

This is where the roster construction question starts to bite. Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren are both players who need the floor spaced to function, and another non-shooting perimeter player is a difficult fit alongside them. Against elite playoff competition, that fit gets even tighter. Teams in this spot usually have to decide whether a young player's defense is worth the offensive drag, and that decision tends to come into focus around the trade deadline. Unless Holland's shot starts falling and his decision-making tightens, justifying a bigger role will be hard.

Kevin Huerter: the numbers are the problem

Huerter has the worst on/off rating on the team. Per Cleaning the Glass, Detroit is 21.2 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor than when he sits. That's a steep gap, and it's early enough that some noise is expected. Still, it's hard to wave away a number that big.

The 28-year-old shooting guard is struggling on both ends. He's a defensive liability, and the offense isn't covering for it. He's hitting 37.1% from the field and 33.3% from three, and he's 2-for-4 at the free throw line. Those aren't numbers that justify the minutes of a player the team expects to be a dependable rotation piece.

That context matters because of the contract. Detroit gave Huerter a three-year, $27 million deal in the offseason, so the expectation was clearly more than what he's delivered so far. If the production doesn't improve, the question of whether he sees out that deal in Detroit becomes a real one. Teams often find that a player on a middling role with poor efficiency numbers gets squeezed out of the rotation first, and Huerter's minutes are the thing to track over the next several weeks.

John Collins: a role that's gotten too small

Every time a new player gets slotted into a well-oiled machine, there are growing pains. That's what John Collins is going through in Detroit right now. To be fair to him, he hasn't been bad. He's been solid defensively, and that counts for something on a team that needs stops.

The offensive picture is the problem. Collins' usage rate of 16.4% is the lowest of his career, and his true shooting of 48.8% is the least efficient mark of his career. Some of that efficiency dip is tied to the smaller role, which is the usual pattern when a player's touches shrink. But the finishing is also slipping. He's shooting a career-low 47.2% on two-point attempts, and he has taken only three free throws all season. Those are the kinds of shots a big man should be getting, and they're the ones that disappear when a player is no longer finding rhythm.

The spacing question is part of the story here. The Pistons don't have elite floor spacing, and that may be making life harder for Collins around the basket and inside the arc. He's still hitting threes, which gives you something to build on. But the three-year, $51 million investment Detroit made in him was built on the idea that he'd be a steady scoring presence, and that hasn't shown up yet.

What to watch next

The good news is that none of these problems looks permanent. Holland's defense gives him a path to minutes if the offense catches up, Huerter's on/off gap could narrow as the sample grows, and Collins has the skill set to bounce back once his role and finishing settle. Still, the margin for error shrinks once the schedule tightens and playoff-caliber defenses start game-planning around the weak spots.

My read is that Detroit's 5-1 start buys time, but not unlimited time. The next few weeks will show whether these three players can close the gap between what the team expects and what they're giving. If they can't, the trade deadline conversation gets a lot louder, and the Pistons will have to decide how much of a bench-level problem they can afford to carry into the spring.