Brandon Jennings OK with bench role with Detroit Pistons

Brandon Jennings, who is still recovering from an injury that ended his season last year, is stating that he’s fine with a bench role when he returns to the Detroit Pistons line-up in the upcoming NBA season.

When the Pistons brought in Reggie Jackson in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder mid-season last year, one of the purported issues within the team was that he’d clash with previous starting point guard in Jennings.

In a recent interview, Jennings described his team’s move to acquire Jackson as “smart” and that he’s just looking forward to playing basketball again.

"Bringing in Reggie Jackson was smart. I'm supposed to be out, really, for nine months, and they need a point guard." Jennings said via The Detroit Free Press. " "My main thing is just to get healthy. Hey, if I have to come off the bench and be the sixth man or whatever, I'm fine with that. Man, I just want to play basketball again. I just want to get back on the court and have fun."

Jennings ruptured his left Achilles in January and Jackson was acquired in a trade deadline deal a few weeks later. Jeff Van Gundy, the Pistons head coach, said after the season that he thinks a Jennings-Jackson combo can work in Detroit.

"I think it can work," Van Gundy said to MLive.com back in May. “I think that we've seen a vision of it already with [Russell] Westbrook and Reggie in Oklahoma City. They were certainly able to find minutes for both of them. So yeah, I've certainly thought about it. But that would be jumping the gun a little bit. The main thing is to get him back."

Jennings also stated in the interview that the time off gave him a chance to study other player’s games.

"I actually had time to sit back, and I really started studying other players' games," Jennings added. "I got this highlight tape on Kenny Anderson, Tim Hardaway, and I've been studying a lot on James Harden lately, how he just gets to the free throw line easily."

Before suffering from the season-ending injury, Jennings averaged 15.4 points and 6.6 assists in 41 games in his second year with the Pistons.

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