Jaden Ivey Needs a Breakout 3rd Year, But What Can He Do to Achieve That?

Jaden Ivey hasn't built great habits; how can he fix them under a new front office and head coach?

Earlier in the offseason, the Pistons fired Monty Williams and hired JB Bickerstaff from Cleveland.

In 2023-24, the Pistons finished with the worst record in franchise history, surpassing the 1979-80 Pistons that won just 16 games. With that, the Pistons cleaned house after topping out at 23 wins over the last 5 seasons by firing Troy Weaver (GM) and Monty Williams (head coach) with over moves in between as well. But how will this affect young players like Jaden Ivey?

Background

Jaden Ivey was the 5th pick in 2022, and a controversial one at that. The year after drafting Cade Cunningham first overall, Ivey was the clear-cut best player available at 5, and there was a noticeable drop-off from Ivey to the next best prospect, but many insisted that he would not fit with Cunningham and even Killian Hayes, who the book was still out on, despite noticeable skepticism. In hindsight, adding someone like Bennedict Mathurin could have complemented Cunningham more, but he was drafted to a great situation whereas Ivey was not. Because of the poor fit, Ivey’s margin for error on how well he develops good vs bad habits was thin given the positional overlap with his fellow top pick. While motor wasn’t an issue for him individually, that became a common woe for the whole team that even impacted Ivey. Many of the players fell victim to the traditional bad habits of bottom-feeding teams: selfish ball, veterans only caring about finding a next contract instead of helping the young players, and constant complaining about other teammates’ actions on the court.

What Ivey Needs to Improve

A lot of Ivey’s awareness on both ends were issues when I went back and rewatched a couple of his games, ranging from games part of his losing streak I watched live to meaningless games at the end of the year, as well as a rare win that he played in. He still plays too fast, which goes hand-in-hand with his awareness woes.

Additionally, his shooting woes will limit his entire game, and goes hand-in-hand with the team’s overall spacing issues. Detroit was in the bottom 5 of 3P% and 3PA last season, which made their offense predictable and not worth chasing shooters around the perimeter. Ivey took 90 contested catch & shoot 3s to 164 uncontested catch & shoot 3s in 23-24, per Synergy, and the same story is told when watching off the dribbles shots. Teams go under him on screens, crowd the paint when he has the ball, and live with him taking a 3. If teams are willing to play higher on him, he can leverage his elite burst and better use his speed to attack the basket with more unpredictably.

Another area for improvement that ties much more closely to coaching is his habits away from the ball. Too often, he watches the play more than he tries to make himself involved. This passive off-ball mentality is why he had such a low volume of cuts this year (37 possessions ending in a cut for him), and could’ve helped him find a way to negate how teams sag off on him on the perimeter.

Defensively, Ivey plays handoffs and screens far too aggressively, making him easily susceptible to hard fake cuts, fake handoffs, and give & go’s. While his footspeed and overall athleticism theoretically allow him to be a good on-ball defender that won’t get beat easily off the first step, he still hasn’t learned how to effectively play good team defense. Oftentimes, Ivey is turned around and not able to quickly enough read & react to what is happening near him, especially off the perimeter. He is too quick to take his foot off the gas once the ball is out of his assignment’s hands, which gets him beat too often and too easily.

When defending against screens, his inability to play at multiple speeds becomes apparent. He sprints hard and bites on fakes out of handoffs, and still doesn’t seem to know how to calculate risk against the pick & roll, but rather guesses the next move or spot too often. The last blow to his defense is that he often overhelps on slashers, usually leaving an open shooter as he overcommits to a ball-handler that already has sufficient help near him.

It’s no surprise after seeing those concerns that he ranked in the 31st percentile defending against catch & shoot jumpers in the NBA this year. These are the awareness woes that worry me and other scouts, and this serves as an important lesson of how athleticism and physical tools can only take you so far on the defensive end.

The good news for Detroit is that JB Bickerstaff has a history of turning bad defenses around, which hopefully means Ivey gets strong defensive development along the way. Granted the Cavs didn’t have their same core they have now, they went from 30th in the year JB took over (he coached 11 games) to the following year-by-year DRTGs, with league ranking in parentheses:

2020-21: 113.5 (25th)

2021-22: 108.9 (5th, and this was Evan Mobley’s rookie year and Jarrett Allen’s first year in Cleveland)

2022-23: 109.9 (1)

2023-24: 112.1 (7th)

Now, not all of this is because of the work of Bickerstaff; Evan Mobley, Isaac Okoro, and Jarrett Allen play a large part in this. But to consistently be in the top 10 when he has talent, the Pistons have a clear path to improving their defense. The twist on this is, they likely have to follow the same course Cleveland went by swinging for the fences and trading for better players, especially on the defensive end while also drafting a defensive star. Maybe they get lucky and land Cooper Flagg, which could solve a lot of defensive woes. More likely is with how often players get moved, they land an unhappy big that can help turn their core around. Jalen Duren has too many flashes of poor motor to be relied upon until proven otherwise, but he is young enough to give a benefit of the doubt to.

However, if Bickerstaff can first improve the habits of the young Pistons’ core, the defensive rating can naturally climb out of the basement from their 25th ranking in 2023-24 under Monty Williams. Having Ausar Thompson, someone who makes everyone around him better defensively and was a premier defensive rookie, healthy for a full season will help Ivey as well, and pairing him with Bickerstaff will go a long way for all parties. The biggest ask for Ivey on the defensive end is to improve his awareness to better be able to read & react to what is happening around him. He can no longer afford to chalk up his mistakes to youth, as year 3 and 4 are when jumps are generally made and players get acclimated to NBA offenses. Knowing when a give & go is coming and is a threat, when to play extra hard on upcoming handoffs, and knowing where his blind spots are will go a long way in his development.

While this is a big ask for Ivey to take a defensive jump to help him realize his potential on that end of the floor, it is also an intriguing task for Bickerstaff. Having Ivey as a use case for his defensive player development could go a long way for Bickerstaff as he hopes to take Pistons back to the playoffs while furthering his coaching brand.