Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris aren’t carbon copies of each other, but they share enough in common that opposing coaches are sometimes stumped deciding which defender – power forward or small forward? – to assign to one or the other.

Stan Van Gundy especially appreciates one less obvious trait they share.

“The thing I like with actually more and more of our guys now, but I’d put maybe Marcus and Tobias at the head of the list with that is the willingness to look in the mirror and be realistic about it,” Van Gundy said of his incumbent starting forwards. “Still with great confidence in themselves, but, ‘I need to be better here and I need to be better here.’ There’s no excuses. Those guys are not excuse makers. They’re looking into themselves instead of for other reasons that explain away what happened. It’s a maturity thing where they’re not afraid of that. I’ve got great appreciation for it and for them.”

Van Gundy recently traveled to New York to visit with Harris and to Philadelphia to check in on Morris. He’s expecting both players – each approaching his sixth NBA season – to emerge in leadership roles for a team that won’t have a player older than Aron Baynes, 29.

Morris, who turns 27 early next month, will be the oldest starter. He’s quickly become one of Van Gundy’s favorite players for his blunt honestly and no-excuses mentality.

“That’s exactly who he is,” said Van Gundy, who understood that Morris was an unhappy camper in Phoenix and was upset that the Suns split him from his twin brother, Markieff, with their July 2015 trade with the Pistons.

“The first phone call with him after the trade, he was basically just grunting into the phone. They were so upset about he and his brother being split up. I just remember saying to him, ‘I understand. I do. But this is going to be a good basketball situation for you.’ I think it did work out to be a good basketball situation for him.”

Morris was the season-long starter at small forward, averaging 14.1 points and 5.1 rebounds a game while logging the fifth-most total minutes of any NBA player. He proved himself a willing and able passer and a hard-nosed defender. After underperforming his career norms from the perimeter early, Morris closed the season on an uptick -- .444 from the 3-point arc after the All-Star break.

He voluntarily traveled to Orlando for several days to show kinship with the Summer League Pistons and Van Gundy jokingly reminded him of that year-ago phone conversation on the first day of free agency. Then they talked about Morris filling some of the leadership vacuum created by the departures of the most senior members of last year’s team: Joel Anthony, Steve Blake and Anthony Tolliver.

“Some of the perceptions people had about him in previous places, it certainly wouldn’t be our perception,” Van Gundy said. “This guy’s one of the most professional guys I’ve been around, one of the best competitors I’ve been around and one of the best teammates I’ve been around. He’s really about all the right things. He’s about winning and helping his teammates. He won’t back down from anybody. He’s a coachable guy. I don’t have a negative on him.”

Van Gundy knows his team well enough to know that’s how teammates see Morris, too. Now it’s time to leverage that respect into leadership.

“He’s universally respected on his team. You talk to our guys and ask ’em about leaders and guys they look up to and his name will come up as the first name from a lot of ’em. One of the things I’ve said to him is that he needs to use that and take on more of a leadership role. He’s already earned the respect and that’s step one. But he’s not a naturally vocal guy – and that’s fine; there’s other ways to do it – but he needs to really embrace that role. He’s got a lot of respect from guys and he got a big opportunity to play a lot more minutes and he stepped up and played very well.”

Harris has the stuff to be part of that leadership team, too, though this will be his first Pistons training camp after coming to the franchise in February from Orlando. Leadership comes easier the more prominent your role, of course, and Harris will be front and center for the Pistons this season as perhaps the most likely go-to scorer outside the Andre Drummond-Reggie Jackson pick-and-roll play that constitutes the backbone of Van Gundy’s offense.

Van Gundy sees high-end scoring potential in Harris, who though also entering his sixth season just turned 24 in mid-July.

“He’s capable of really getting the ball in the basket and he’s worked extremely hard” – Van Gundy emphasized “extremely” – “in the off-season to be able to go both ways a little bit better off the dribble, to shoot the three better, to shoot his pull-up. He’s just really put in a lot of time.”

Dale Ellis, one of the NBA’s all-time great shooters who shares University of Tennessee roots with Harris, spent time working with him this summer. Longtime NBA coach Brendan Malone, though he won’t return to Van Gundy’s bench this season in semi-retirement, has helped oversee Harris’ summer workouts, as well, making the commute from Queens to Long Island to see Harris frequently.

“So Tobias has put in a lot of time,” Van Gundy said. “He’s one of those guys who’s now been around long enough that you forget how young he is. At both ends of the floor, I think he can take a jump. I think he’s preparing himself to take a jump and I’ve got good confidence that he could do that.”

As Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris climb the career ladder, flexing their muscles as leaders and expanding the scope of their games, opposing coaches are likely to find them an even more vexing Pistons pair.