Pistons shooting guard Jodie Meeks out 8 weeks with ‘stress reaction’ in lower back
Another day, another important wing player hitting the injured list. He might not have the name recognition of reigning MVP Kevin Durant or the rising-star hype of Washington Wizards young gun Bradley Beal, but Stan Van Gundy paid Jodie Meeks handsomely this summer to be an important piece of the puzzle for the Detroit Pistons, and for the next two months, he’ll be unable to be much more than a missing piece.
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The Pistons announced Tuesday that the 27-year-old shooting guard will miss “approximately eight weeks due to a stress reaction of the lower back.” Meeks had previously been diagnosed with back spasms, but a CAT scan conducted Monday revealed the extent of the injury, which will keep the former Kentucky standout on the shelf through the balance of the Pistons’ preseason slate and the start of the regular season.
“It wasn’t a matter of him getting hit or anything,” Van Gundy said, according to Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press. “After the first exhibition game [against the Chicago Bulls on Oct. 7], he said there was some tightness. We were going to start him the second game that night and, after a nap, he said he had some tightness in his back. He did the MRI and found out the problem. […] He doesn’t have any idea how he did it. He didn’t take a fall on the floor. It wasn’t even a part of my four-hour practice. We have no idea what happened.”
I wouldn’t be too thrilled about that level of mystery if I were Meeks, but he seems to have chosen to adopt a positive mindset about the whole thing:
… which is nice to hear, all things considered.
The eight-week timeline would place Meeks’ return at about Dec. 9, meaning Detroit would be without a player expected to vie for a starting two-guard role for about 22 games, or more than a quarter of the season. That, clearly, is not ideal, especially considering Meeks — who averaged career-highs in scoring (15.7 points per game), field-goal percentage (46.3 percent) and 3-point percentage (40.1 percent) for the woeful Los Angeles Lakers last season — was being counted on to provide floor-spacing and long-range shooting punch to a Pistons offense that tied for 19th among 30 NBA teams in points scored per possession last season and posted the league’s second-worst team 3-point shooting mark (32.1 percent, ahead of only the Philadelphia 76ers).
Creating space on the offensive end was a persistent problem for Detroit last year, as coaches Maurice Cheeks and John Loyer largely failed to find any answers for how to generate room to maneuver in a frontcourt clogged by the troika of Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Josh Smith. Van Gundy, one of the game’s premier tacticians, figured to have a greater chance of success than his predecessors, and indeed has already shown some clever means of resuscitating Smith’s offensive value after a dismal first season in Detroit. But losing a shooter to whom opponents must pay attention — a player who drilled 43.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot triples last season, according to the NBA’s SportVU optical tracking data, and who’s dangerous as a spot-up option in the half-court, a sprint-ahead scorer in transition and a trailer on the secondary break — sure won’t help smooth out the rough edges in what promises to be a brick-by-brick offensive rebuilding project.
Making matters worse: second-year man Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Meeks’ main competition for the starting shooting guard spot, is ailing, too. His strained left knee doesn’t look to be as serious as initially feared, which means he should be available to (hopefully) play a breakout role in Year 2 come the start of the season. But he’s also sidelined for the next few preseason contests, meaning Van Gundy’s going to have to try to mix and match with bigger, bulkier backcourt options — Kyle Singler, Caron Butler, Cartier Martin — at the off-guard spot, and probably return Smith to the three for stretches, which could once again muck up Detroit’s offensive flow.
“It gives other guys a chance to play,” Van Gundy said, according to Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News. “It’s not ideal when you’re putting things together, not by any means. But even in things you don’t like there’s silver linings.”
It seems to me that we’re a long way from considering “putting Josh Smith back at small forward” a silver lining, but then, maybe head coach and president of basketball operations aren’t SVG’s only job titles; maybe Tom Gores hired him to be the Pistons’ resident appalling optimist, too. Let’s all join Stan in whistling a happy tune and wishing Meeks well as he sets about healing that balky back.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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