On July 2, 2014, the Pistons signed three-point shooter Jordi Meeks with a three-year contract worth $18.81 million, Meeks was a new high-quality shooter at the time, the 2009 second-round pick relied on his own efforts, he stayed in the NBA, and played a value in the 76ers and Lakers, Meeks accounted for more than 50% of his outside shots throughout his career, and he also had a 37.2% three-point shooting rate, and he shot more three-point shots accurately. Defensively contributing 1.5 steals per 36 minutes, but with little ability to create scoring opportunities for his teammates, Meeks is the ideal outside musket for Van Gundy.

On July 14, 2014, the Pistons signed DJ Augustin with a 2-year contract worth $6 million, Augustin is a guard with scoring ability, but because of his 183 cm stature is too short, his physical fitness is relatively average, and he has been repeatedly beaten by opponents on the defensive end, so he has not been able to serve as the main guard of a team, most of his career has been used as a substitute, and has been traded repeatedly, but Dafan fancy Augustin, there is no doubt that it is also a three-point shot, With Augustin shooting 46.5 percent from beyond the arc and an even better 40.5 percent three-point percentage last season with the Raptors and Bulls, it's clear that Van Gundy has found another musket for the Pistons.

On the same day that the Pistons signed Augustin, the Pistons finalized a two-year, $9 million contract with veteran star forward Caron Butler, who was originally a multi-faceted attacker, but the 33-year-old veteran transformed at the end of his career to become a qualified outside attacker, playing for the Thunder and Bucks last season, shooting 45.7% from the field and 40% from three-point range, Van Gundy found his third musket.

It is worth mentioning that in terms of draft, because the first-round pick was traded, they only had one 8th pick left in this round, and finally the Pistons used this pick to select Spencer Dinwiddie, a guard from the University of Colorado, who shined in the Nets this season. In exchange for Cameron Balsto, a center who is not yet capable of the NBA, the Bulls cut Dinwiddie, and then gave Dinwiddie a two-way contract, but was cut before the start of the season, and then the Nets signed Dinwiddie for 3 years and $2.9 million, and it happened that the Nets were reimbursed for the season by Jeremy Lin, and Dinwiddie got a chance, and in the end, the ill-fated second-round pick was able to shine in the NBA league through his own efforts.

Notice no, there was Middleton before, and Dinwiddie afterward, these two people you say are opportunities, hard work, and now they are both playing in the NBA league, but the Pistons are stunned and don't cultivate, and they put the treasure on signing free agents, which can't but be said to be a pity.

So the 2014-2015 season is the beginning, and it is also the first season to test the results of Dafan, Jennings played the No. 1 position, Pope played the starting No. 2 position with the balanced characteristics of being able to shoot three-pointers and defending, the No. 3 position is Schindler, the No. 4 position Smith, the fifth position Drummond, the main rotation on the bench is Meeks, Augustine, Butler, Jeblake and other musketeers, as for the previous vote of the old minister, Starkey, Villanueva, Bynum were all cleared out of the team, The longest serving time in the team turned out to be Greg Monroe, who had just turned five years.

By the way, this season Monroe and the Pistons because of the contract stalemate, in the end, no team gave Monroe a maximum salary contract, although Monroe has excellent offensive ability, but his defensive ability has always been a hidden danger, until September 7, 2018, finally Monroe accepted the Pistons' one-year qualification offer of $5.5 million, a year later, from a restricted free agent, to a full free agent, but everyone understands that with Monroe's continuous decline in tactical status, this is also Monroe's last season with the Pistons.

The season officially started on October 29, 2014, which is also the first official game after Dafan reorganized the Pistons, and finally the Pistons lost this game, the second game against the Timberwolves, defeated, the third game against the Nets, defeated, Dafan's Pistons suffered three consecutive defeats at the beginning of the season, ushered in a blow to the head, and then Monroe was adjusted to the starter, and the Pistons defeated the two weak teams in the league by a narrow margin of 3 points, the Knicks and the Bucks, ushering in two consecutive wins, but the good times did not last long, and another wave of three consecutive defeats hit......

Then, the Pistons relied on Jennings' excellent play to defeat the Thunder without Durant and Westbrook, and then, the point came, the Pistons lost 13 in a row like silver, out of control! The fifth consecutive defeat against the Bucks, in the case of the Bucks' rising star Antetokounmpo only 1 of 13 shots and only 2 points, relying on the excellent performance of the Pistons veteran Brandon Knight, 12 shots 7 of 4 three-pointers 3 of 4, scored 20 points, 8 assists and 2 steals and still led the Bucks to defeat the Pistons, the loss of this game hit the morale of the Pistons hard! Jennings did not play in this game because of injury, four days later, the Pistons played the Bucks at home, the Bucks' five starters scored 15 of 38 shots in the game, no one scored the last double, and no one scored the rebounds and assists in the last double, but relied on the excellent play of the bench to beat the Pistons again, Ilyasova scored 22 points and 8 rebounds on 9 of 14 shots, which is simply a flower abuse of the Pistons!

In the first 28 games, the Pistons only had a 5-23 record!

The team's record is so poor, it is natural to find someone to take the blame, at this time, Da Fan once again showed his iron-fisted side and announced that he directly cut Josh Smith!

Smith is averaging 13.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game this season while shooting 39.1 percent from the field, 24.3 percent from three-point range and 46.8 percent from the free throw line. In fact, Dafan has a long-standing grudge against Smith, he is not Dafan's ideal No. 3 position, his ideal No. 3 position can refer to Turkoglou during the Magic, can pass, can advance, three-point accuracy can cross and cooperate, but Smith has not been an excellent three-point shooter, and his personal characteristics are seriously contrary to the Pistons' team building ideas, Dafan wanted to transform Smith at the beginning of the season, but the result is obvious, Dafan failed, Smith is still that Smith, so Dafan wants to trade Smith, But Smith's poor offensive efficiency discouraged other teams, and in the end, Dafan decided not to break or stand and cut directly!

In fact, in order to cater to the Pistons, Smith has also made changes in his style of play, the biggest change is that this season in the Pistons, Smith's outside shooting rate has dropped to less than 10%, which is the lowest value in the last four seasons, that is to say, although Smith's three-point shooting is not accurate, but he did not shoot more, so that it will bring less damage to the team, in other aspects, convert the data in Smith to every 36 minutes compared with last season, Smith has improved significantly on the defensive end, Although the average increased by 0.27 turnovers per game, it also increased the average of 0.04 steals, 0.5 blocks, 0.7 frontcourt rebounds and 0.4 backcourt rebounds per game, the overall average increased by 1 rebound per game, and the average assists per game also increased from 3.345 per game last season to 5.270, on the offensive end, the average goals per game decreased from 6.79 to 6.16, the average shots per game decreased from 16.22 to 15.70, and the shooting percentage decreased from 41.9% to 39.1%. Although the average number of goals per game is 0.5 less, but considering the state of the players, this point difference is basically negligible, not to mention that Smith has also greatly reduced his unreliable three-point shots, last season he averaged 3.44 three-pointers per game, hitting 0.91 times, and this season he averaged 1.450 three-pointers per game and hitting 0.336 shots, and more shots were chosen on the relatively more reliable interior offense, so the average free throws per game increased from 3.95 per game last season to 4.46 per game this season, so in fact, Smith's efficiency on the offensive end is about the same as last season. From the data, it can be found that Smith took the initiative to weaken his role on the offensive end this season, especially the shot outside the three-point line, and instead paid more attention to defense and strategy, but Smith's adjustment is also not satisfactory to Dafan, the most basic skill he needs is to have three-point shooting ability, which is the most basic threshold, from this aspect, Smith is not satisfied with Dafan There is a reason, but it is very far-fetched to let Smith pay for the Pistons' poor record this season.

Dafan's iron-fisted means have also brought immeasurable losses to the Pistons, here is a popularization of what is a layoff in the NBA, what is an amnesty, what is the difference between the two, simply put, the salary of a player is cut to occupy the team's salary cap, and the amnesty is not included in the salary cap, the calculation method is the total salary of the player divided by the remaining years multiplied by 2 plus 1 year, and whether it is amnesty or cut, the player's salary team must be paid in full, taking Smith as an example, Smith's total contract also saves 2 years worth $26 million, The calculation formula is 2600/(2*2+1)=5.2 million, which means that starting this season, the Pistons must pay Smith $5.2 million a year for the next five years, even if Smith is not playing for the Pistons.

What is the difference between a cut and an amnesty, if it is cut, Smith's $5.2 million occupies the team's salary space, which will affect the team's recruitment to a certain extent, and the pardon is not included in the salary cap, but the amnesty was only available after the signing of the new collective bargaining agreement in 2011, and he is aimed at players who signed contracts before July 1, 2011, and Smith's big contract was signed in 2013, so his contract cannot be pardoned.

Cutting a high-paid player is very rare in NBA history, which is equivalent to disposing of Smith's contract in installments, and his stakes are also two-sided, on the one hand, Smith, who originally had a record of 13 million salary space this season, only accounted for $5.2 million of the team's space after being cut, which is equivalent to saving $7.8 million in salary space, which is conducive to the signing of the team this season and the renewal of the current player, on the other hand, Smith's $5.2 million will occupy the Pistons' salary space every year and will continue into the 2019-2020 season, seriously affecting the team's future development.

Later, Smith went to the Rockets and helped the team reach the Western Conference semifinals.

This is really like a dog back then, and now the suspect is ugly......

After Smith left, Kyle Schindler, who had stronger projection ability, came to the starter, and it is strange to say that after Smith left, the Pistons immediately came to a wave of 7 consecutive wins! During this period, Jennings, who let go of the fight, played exceptionally well!

won the first game against the Pacers by 10 points, Drummond and Monroe combined to blow up Hibbert and West, the former combination of 23 shots and 16 of 39 points, 21 rebounds, 6 steals and 2 blocks, the latter combination of 22 shots only 8 of 22, scored 25 points and 16 rebounds, the second game Pistons 23 points slaughtered the Cavaliers, this season's overall performance is pretty good Jennings scored 25 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists on 10 of 18 shots, completely breaking up Dellavedova who takes defense as a survival skill (only 3 points, 6 assists and 2 turnovers on 1 of 5 shots), 23 points in the third game slaughtered the Magic, Drummond scored 17 points, 22 rebounds, 2 steals and 3 blocks on 6-of-11 shooting, Meeks hit 9 three-pointers to score 34 points, 16 points in the fourth game beat the Knicks, Jennings scored 29 points on 11-of-17 shooting, defeated the Kings with 29 points in the fifth game, Jennings scored 35 points on 14-of-21 shooting, and when the Pistons trailed by 16 points in the sixth game, Jennings hit the board and threw a small throw to kill the Spurs, and the Pistons scored 23 points in the seventh game to capture the Mavericks, Monroe scored 27 points, 18 rebounds and 6 assists on 11-of-16 shooting, Augustin scored 26 points, and in the following 9 games, the Pistons won 5 games.

On January 2, 2015, the Pistons were hit hard again in the last 16 games with a 12-4 loss, in this game against the Bucks, 1 minute and 20 seconds in the third quarter, Jennings against Knight, when Jennings was trying to accelerate with his left foot, he suddenly fell to the ground and wailed in pain, and his tragic condition was palpitating, and the season was diagnosed with a torn Achilles tendon in his left foot, and the season was reimbursed......

During the period when the Pistons returned to normal, Jennings played an indelible role, and consecutive victories gave the Pistons hope for recovery, but Jennings suddenly reimbursed, completely disrupting the team's direction and plan for this season, and also considering Dafan's on-the-spot adaptability, next, what changes will the Pistons have this season? Where can we go?