{"id":680156,"date":"2026-03-26T13:54:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680156\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T13:54:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T13:54:36","slug":"kevin-huerter-winning-surprise-role-with-one-crucial-skill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/680156\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Huerter winning surprise role with one crucial skill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Huerter played 20 minutes last night against the Hawks, most of any\u00a0Pistons\u00a0bench player, a trend we may see continue, at least until Isaiah Stewart returns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huerter has been quietly playing\u00a0better of\u00a0late after a rough start that led to a\u00a0long stretch when he\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0playing at all. Huerter has played at least 20 minutes in the last four games and is looking more like a guy JB Bickerstaff will trust in the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once Stewart returns,\u00a0he\u2019ll\u00a0be leading the Pistons in bench minutes, but Huerter is now the leading candidate for wing minutes, as\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0shown he can at least hold his own defensively and that he has a couple of skills the Pistons need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one point, it looked as if Huerter\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0going to provide much<\/a>, but he is playing\u00a0himself into\u00a0a key role for the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kevin Huerter is a shot maker who takes care of the ball\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huerter\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0found his lost 3-point shot since joining the Pistons and is shooting just 19 percent from long range, but\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0been great from everywhere else, as he has hit over 65 percent of his 2-point shots for Detroit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I have no idea what is going on with the 3-ball, but Huerter is still a guy defenses have to respect, as he has\u00a0hit 66.7 of his mid-range jumpers this season.\u00a0He may not be able to hit a 3-pointer, but when he takes a few steps in,\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve\u00a0written about this before, but Huerter is also steady with the ball<\/a>, makes good reads\u00a0and\u00a0passes and most importantly,\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0cough it up much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s\u00a0committed just seven turnovers to 31 assists as a Piston, a better than 4:1\u00a0assist\u00a0to turnover ratio.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a small sample size, but compare it to Caris LeVert, who has 141 assists to 73 turnovers, not even a 2:1\u00a0assist\u00a0to turnover ratio, which is horrible for a guy who was supposed to be a secondary playmaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The turnovers alone could be enough to get Huerter more run than LeVert in the\u00a0playoffs, when\u00a0every possession is\u00a0crucial,\u00a0and turnovers will be a key metric for the Pistons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Cade Cunningham is back and everyone returns to their roles, we could see Daniss Jenkins and Kevin Huerter as the first guys off the bench along with Beef Stew, as the Pistons look to keep some shooting and ball movement in the second unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huerter had been all but written\u00a0off,\u00a0and he certainly\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0been amazing, but he may be able to carve out\u00a0a big role\u00a0for himself in the playoffs just by being steady.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Huerter played 20 minutes last night against the Hawks, most of any\u00a0Pistons\u00a0bench player, a trend we may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,6,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-680156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroitpistons","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pistons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}