Injuries have not been kind to the Detroit Pistons to start the 2019-20 NBA season. The Pistons are still without All-Star forward Blake Griffin, who started the season on the sideline due to left knee soreness, and now they will also be without point guard Reggie Jackson for an extended amount of time. 

On Saturday, the Pistons officially announced that Jackson would be sidelined for a minimum of a month with a stress reaction in his lower back. Jackson, who has missed Detroit’s last four games after suiting up for the first two games of the season, will begin a treatment and rehabilitation process and be re-evaluated in four weeks. In the two games that he played for the Pistons, he averaged 5.0 points, 4.0 assists, and 2.5 rebounds in 18 minutes per game. He also started both contests. 

Unfortunately for Jackson, injury issues are nothing new for him, as he played in just 52 games during the 2016-17 season, and only 45 the following season due to various ailments. He even considered retirement at one point in time due to the toll that the consistent injuries were taking on him. 

“A few years back, I thought (my future) was retirement after this season,” Jackson said over the offseason. “… I was just getting injured too much and I had hit basketball depression and it was a point in time that I really didn’t want to deal with the game anymore. It was more the injuries that started to have that (retirement) thought creep in my head.”   

Jackson bounced back last season and appeared in all 82 regular season games for the Pistons, and he averaged 15.4 points and 4.2 assists per performance, while also shooting a career-high 37 percent from 3-point range.  While he may have hoped that his injury issues were in the rearview, that’s clearly not the case. 

With Jackson out, the Pistons will likely turn to veteran guard — and former NBA MVP — Derrick Rose to serve as the starting point guard.