Detroit Pistons: 3 players to avoid selecting in 2020 NBA draft
The 2020 NBA Draft is tonight, and the Detroit Pistons have the 7th overall pick where they will have plenty of options.
Even though the Detroit Pistons have struggled in recent years, this is actually the highest pick they have had since they last picked 7th in 2010 when they selected Greg Monroe. First-year General Manager (GM) Troy Weaver will be making the decisions for the Pistons tonight.
He already made a move that caused a lot of Pistons’ fans to react both good and bad by trading Bruce Brown. Weaver comes from Oklahoma City, where he was the Vice President of Basketball Operations.
The exciting part with Weaver is he comes from a team that has managed to keep relevant in the NBA by building its team through the draft. That will be crucial for the Pistons to return to relevance in the NBA finally.
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Typically, the NBA Draft is a toss-up. One thing we know for sure because it’s true in every NBA Draft, great players will be picked after the 7th pick, and busts will be picked before the 7th pick.
However, Weaver’s job is to pick the right player, and after the 2020 NBA Draft Lottery, he was excited to pick seventh given all of the options that will still be available.
Here are three players that the Pistons need to avoid if they are on the board when the Pistons are on the clock:
1) LaMelo Ball – PG, Illawarra Hawks (Australia)
LaMelo Ball might not even be on the board when the Detroit Pistons pick, but rumors are floating around about the Pistons trading up to the second pick. The Golden State Warriors currently hold that pick, so I figured I would include him in the event that they trade up.
Ball went right from high school and played professional basketball. It’s tough to really know how good he is because no one knows what level of competition he played against in Australia. Even looking at his stats last year, they were mediocre at best.
His field goal percentage was 37.5%, and his three-point shot was 25%. He did, however, average 6.8 assists a game, which is good. Lastly, no one wants to listen to Lavar Ball on ESPN rip the Pistons when they do not give his son the ball enough.
2) Obi Toppin – PF, Dayton
Obi Toppin is a great story and one that everyone wants to root for. He was a 0-star recruit coming out of high school, and now he will be a top ten pick in the NBA draft. If you look him up on YouTube, the man is a human highlight reel.
He can jump out of the gym and make dunking the ball look effortless. That being said, there is one reason why the Detroit Pistons should steer clear of him; he is older than most players in the draft. He is 22 and will turn 23 in March.
Maybe for some people, this doesn’t matter, but the Pistons are not close to winning the way I look at it. They have to build a team, and it will take some time. Many great young players have already been in the league for 3-4 years by the time they turn 23.
If the Pistons build this team around someone older, once they are ready to win, the window will be smaller as opposed to if they draft someone who is 19 or 20 years old instead.
3) Tyrese Maxey – SG, Kentucky
While I will admit I do not believe Tyrese Maxey will be a top ten pick, I absolutely do not want the Detroit Pistons to take him. He was a nice player as a freshman at Kentucky, but he is still very raw and honestly could have used another year in college.
However, it’s hard to turn down an opportunity to play in the NBA. He was just too inconsistent to justify selecting him with the Pistons’ seventh overall selection. The beauty of the NBA draft is that in four years, someone could read this article and think, “has this guy ever watched basketball.” No one really knows who will be a steal and who will be a bust.
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All that fans can hope for is that Detroit Pistons GM, Troy Weaver, is the right man for the job, and as long as he is right, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.