Darrun Hilliard was expected to have the opportunity to break out this season, and he never really got on track. He suffered a stress fracture in his lower back in offseason workouts and didn’t get the chance to be the feature on offense for the Detroit Pistons in the Orlando Summer League.
Things didn’t get much better for him from there. He was ready for training camp, but he didn’t stand out in preseason and didn’t do much to impress early in the regular season. Hilliard didn’t play more than two minutes in any game until the seventh game of the season against the Los Angeles Clippers in mostly mop-up duty.