The Detroit Pistons’ recent slide that has seen them drop from seventh place in the Eastern Conference to tenth, and has them on the verge of missing the playoffs. However, one of the team’s key components may be done playing before the season is officially over.
Pistons point guard Reggie Jackson has been hampered by a lingering left knee injury that sidelined him for the first quarter of the season, and he hasn’t shown the same explosiveness or willingness to attack the basket as he had last season.
His struggles have branched out to the rest of the team, and following Detroit’s latest embarrassing loss to the New York Knicks, Pistons coach-President Stan Van Gundy admitted that the team is considering shutting him down the rest of the season.
“We’ve been thinking about this, actually for a long time,” Van Gundy said. “He’s probably been playing at 80 percent, When you get into this stretch of games in March, where we’re playing at, the fatigue is just making it worse.”
Jackson didn’t play during Detroit’s loss to New York at Madison Square Garden. Should Jackson not be able to play tonight’s game against Miami at The Palace, Beno Udrih will step in at point guard. Van Gundy didn’t elaborate on any future plans regarding Jackson’s availability should the Pistons be able to somehow turn things around and qualify for the postseason
He tried to stay positive about his status following the game, saying “Hey, sometimes you gotta go down to go up.”
The Pistons were reportedly in talks to trade Jackson earlier this season, but nothing ever came to fruition.
The season that should have been a springboard to bigger things following last year’s playoff appearance has turned sour, and unfortunately, Reggie Jackson has been one of the central characters in the Pistons collapse. Shut down or not, the mere mention of the possibility likely spells the end of the Reggie Jackson/Pistons experiment.
