EDITOR’S NOTE: With his first training camp as Pistons coach approaching, reigning NBA Coach of the Year Dwane Casey sat down with Pistons.com editor Keith Langlois to share his perspective on the Pistons and the 2018-19 season. Here’s Part III of a three-part Q&A.

KEITH LANGLOIS: If it’s fair to assume that Blake Griffin, Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond are three starters, for the other two spots is it open competition or do you have an idea which way you’ll go?

DWANE CASEY: We have an idea of what we want to do. It’s not going to be given to anyone but we have a good idea of what we want to do as far as who the other two starters are, what we need in those two roles. Stanley (Johnson) has played really well, Glenn Robinson has played really well, Luke has been hurt since Summer League but before that he was playing really well. We’ve got a lot of different options at the two and three positions.

KL: You said of Stanley back in June that you’ve been an admirer from afar with him. I guess the consideration is Stanley’s probably best equipped to guard opposition starters and yet Glenn Robinson is a 40 percent 3-point shooter. How do you weigh what each brings to the mix with Blake, Andre and Reggie?

DC: We have to have a balance with that. There’s different rotations we can do and different things we can do with those two guys, but like you said, both guys in my mind are starters. Whether one of them comes off the bench and comes in with the second unit, for me, it’s not who starts the game it’s who finishes the game. That’s the most important thing. But we want to establish an identity with our second unit and make sure they’re very productive and a cohesive group when they play on the floor. To me, both Stanley and Glenn are starters. Reggie (Bullock) is a starter in my mind and Luke is getting there. Luke has been hurt and it’s unfair to him right now because those other guys have worked all summer, they’ve gone through the system all summer and Reggie (Jackson) and Luke are kind of playing catchup from being injured all summer.

KL: With the shooting guards, Reggie Bullock and Luke, Reggie had a real compatibility with Blake with his cutting and Blake’s passing being a good mix. And it seems like with Luke, with him coming off the bench maybe you can put the ball in his hands a little more than you could if he were on the first unit. Is that something you’re weighing?

DC: With both, either with Luke with the first unit or second unit. He brings that to the table with the first unit and also with the second. He can go either way. We’ll just have to figure out who those two guys are and who fits best with the second unit, who fits best with the first unit. Any of the four of them, you can plug them in to the starting unit and make it work but does that take away from the second unit and what they bring to the table to keep the scoreboard moving or to get stops with the second unit? You want the second unit to be a game changer when they come in. You want to change the game. You want to bring energy. If we’re having trouble scoring, you want to do that or if we’re having trouble getting stops you want those guys to be able to do that, too. We’ll get an identity with both of those groups.

KL: I know in Toronto sometimes you’d go to an all-bench unit. Is that your preference here?

DC: We did but we usually would keep one starter on the court whether it was DeRozan or Lowry. Whether it was three guards or not – sometimes we’d play three point guards together – that’s the mix with the second unit that you want to keep to keep the energy, the ball moving, the scoring ability on the floor. I’d rather keep maybe one starter with the second unit if possible. If we have enough with the second unit then that group can go without that starter, we’ll do that, too.

KL: Have you decided if you’ll try to stagger Andre and Blake’s minutes to have one or the other on the floor in most instances?

DC: We’d like to do that. We’ll figure that rotation out. Blake is so important to our team, we want to make sure we keep either he or Andre on the floor at some point. But it could come to a point where Henry’s playing so well that he’s out there. There’s another guy we haven’t even talked about. He’s played well all summer long. He’s really played well. It’s unfortunate he didn’t get to play in more G League games. That’s something that we want to make sure we utilize to the fullest, keeping guys down there on days we’re not practicing hard or having meaningful practices, we want them down there. There’s no disrespect in playing in the G League.

KL: Do you see Blake spending some minutes at the five?

DC: Oh, yeah. No question. No question at all. Also, Henry’s got an opportunity to play at the five. We’ve got Zaza Pachulia, who’s a veteran, winner, won two championships, still has a lot of juice left in the tank. We have a good mix of guys we can play at the five.

KL: Is Jon Leuer ready to go or will he be for training camp?

DC: He’s not yet. He may be for training camp but I don’t think so. I’ll have to talk to the medical people before I can speak on that, but he hasn’t done anything since his surgery.

KL: You didn’t have a lot to work with in free agency, yet you wound up satisfying some critical needs. Glenn Robinson, it looks like, will be in the rotation at minimum and the two veterans, Jose Calderon and Zaza, are the kind of guys who find ways to help even if they’re not playing. How critical was it for you to add those two for what they might mean for leadership and presence as much as for what they can still contribute as players?

DC: Huge. Big time. I see both of them contributing because of Jose’s 3-point shooting. He did a great job in Cleveland last year and to get those guys, Ed and his staff did a great job of what we had to work with as far as our cap is concerned. They did a great job of plucking those guys off and getting the guys who are really going to help us. The other kid we haven’t talked about is Bruce Brown and Khyri Thomas. Those two kids, so that group together, the free agents, the rookies, that’s an infusion of a lot of good pieces to the way we want to try to play. Bruce Brown could play point, two, three – he definitely can guard all three positions. That young man has a bright future, as does Khyri. Khyri was off and on with injuries this summer so Bruce had a great summer of working, nose to the grind, but I expect a lot of the same things from Khyri.

KL: We’ve talked a lot about the offensive end, but really the bedrock for you in Toronto was your defense was highly ranked every year. With the personnel you have here, how do you envision this defense coming together?

DC: Very well. We have a lot of good athletes, quick feet, we have length, we have the toughness, we have the physicality that’s there. We’ve got to use it properly, playing without fouling, but I like our defense. I think we have the opportunity to switch. You put your hat on backwards. When you think about defense, what you want to do offensively, you want to take away that defensively. We have a lot of physical skills that can switch, guard multiple positions. You can put Blake out there, he can guard twos and threes and fours and some fives. That’s a luxury we have, some guys who can play multiple positions defensively.

KL: You were a fan of switching pretty much everything in Toronto. Is that something you anticipate continuing with this roster?

DC: There’s no question. We can switch. We definitely will switch one through four and there are some situations where we’ll switch one through five, which Andre can do, Blake can do in those situations. That gives you a lot of tools in the tool kit. It starts with the fundamentals – getting down in a stance, staying in a stance, using your length, showing your length, getting your hands on balls, closing out with high hands. All those fundamental things are non-negotiable as far as what we want to defensively, whether we’re switching or bluing or weaking or stronging – whatever it is. If you don’t do those fundamentals, none of those other things will work. That’s the same with offense. We can want to be a 3-point shooting team, but it’s going to take work. That’s why we spend so many hours on shooting, whether it’s the morning before practice or nighttime, coming back into the gym. That’s where you make yourself a 3-point shooter and not just talk about it. Nothing replaces that hard work.

KL: In Toronto, you weren’t shy about playing unconventional lineups – three point guards with DeRozan at the four sometimes – and you weren’t shy about giving young players a chance. It’s easy to play young guys when the stakes aren’t high, but you were a 59-win team playing young guys. When you stand before your guys when you open training camp, they know those things. Do you think that empowers players to know your track record is you’ll play the five best guys and position or status doesn’t matter as much?

DC: No question. I’m a firm believer in young, old, tall, short, doesn’t matter. Basketball is basketball. It’s the way you approach it. My thing is you play hard, you play your role, you do what’s right, you stay within the system, believe in the system and you work your butt off with your 3-point shooting, you work your butt off on the defensive end, we’ll find a place to utilize you on the court. The only way young players learn how to get better is by playing or get the experience is by playing and getting out there and doing it. One is utilizing our G League team. Two is throwing them out there into the fire and producing in the fire. Knock on wood, my experience is those guys are ready to go in the fire and it’s just us as a coaching staff, as an organization, as a fan base to believe in them and give them the opportunity.

KL: A lot of coaches will talk about that as we sit here before training camp starts – it’s a meritocracy, we’ll play our best players – and then when the bullets start flying for real they’re going to fall back on the veterans and the guys that are known quantities. You’ve obviously broken through that. Was there a point in your career where you became comfortable with living with the mistakes they might make at first?

DC: Yes. When I first became a head coach, even back in Minnesota, I’m going to go with the known and leave the unknown alone. But as you get confident in coaching and you’ve been a head coach, you see what works, I grew to the fact that it doesn’t matter. Young players bring something to the table and we have young players here that definitely bring something to the table. Bruce Brown has impressed me the entire summer with his play. Believe it or not, I still consider Andre Drummond a young player. He’s still a young player in this league. Henry Ellenson – he’s shown me his work this summer. Luke Kennard. Those guys bring something big time to the table and we want to make sure we utilize it and find out what they can do.

KL: Also at your press conference, you said “our time is now.” I’m extrapolating from that, but I’m guessing you’re not going to tell your team that “we’re scrapping to get into the playoff field” and leave it at that. Without giving away your message when you gather for training camp, what is your big-picture view of what you have here?

DC: That we’re a good team. We’re better than what people are saying – that we’re right there hanging around the eighth spot. No, no, no. We’re a better team than that. But it’s up to us to go out on the floor and show everybody and proving it by going out on the floor and doing it and working and being a tough-minded team on the floor. It’s up to us to do it, but I envision us – and I know we’re better than what people have us ranked because of the talent of a Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond, Stanley Johnson, Reggie Jackson, the guys we have, the young players we have to infuse with them, it’s just too much there for us not to be better than just scratching into the eighth spot of the playoffs.