The Pistons, who at one point held only the No. 7 pick in the Wednesday night’s draft, came away with three of the top 19 selections after a series of trades that saw them secure Killian Hayes (No. 7), Isaiah Stewart (No. 16), and Saddiq Bey (No. 19). For good measure, they also picked up the 38th overall pick in another deal and drafted Saben Lee.
The moves were a reflection of the aggressiveness that new general manager Troy Weaver hopes to bring to the job, as Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press writes.
“We’re going to attack the draft, we’re going to attack free agency, we’re going to attack everything,” Weaver said. “I said coming in, this was going to be a restoring of two interactions of the great Pistons teams. That was their mentality. They were aggressive, they were on the attack and we want to follow suit. That’s the mantra and we’ll hopefully continue to be aggressive. But we wanted to set the tone.”
Here’s more on the Pistons:
- The Pistons view Killian Hayes as having the most upside of anyone in this draft class, according to James Edwards III of The Athletic. While it’s easy to make that claim after drafting him, it sounds like Hayes was aware that the team was high on him. “I was confident (that Detroit would pick me), but you never know until it happens,” he said after the draft, per Edwards.
- Although the Pistons liked Luke Kennard, they felt as if his timeline didn’t match up with theirs, according to Edwards. The club viewed him as a productive role player on a team further down the road than Detroit is now.
- The Pistons had a first-round grade on No. 38 pick Saben Lee, sources tell Edwards. Lee is reportedly signing a two-way deal.
- The Pistons are receiving $1.5MM in cash from the Nets in the deal that will send Bruce Brown to Brooklyn, Edwards reports (via Twitter).
As a Pistons fan, better days will be here again soon. This draft was an excellent start. Weaver was doing 2K Franchise Mode-type stuff this draft. Future is looking bright.
I’m surprised the Pistons would give up on Luke Kennard. From what I’ve seen which isn’t a ton, he looks like a fantastic player. Could it be his injury concerns? I guess tendonitis in both knees caused him to miss time this year. Plus what they say above makes sense he’s on a different timeline. 3 years goes by and you kind of wasted his productivity for a rebuild. May as well send him off and get more then what he provides in two players?
Pistons were supposed to build on young players. So off goes Kennard and Bruce Brown, probably Wood too.
It’s a Troy Weaver team. People think SVG took on too much, now this guy.
That “attack… attack…” paragraph lacked coherence. IDK who or what he was talking about. “a restoring of two interactions”??? There was no more in the link. New boss, same as the old, just less literate.
The players drafted have fatal flaws and were taken ahead of consensus predictions. They cannot claim value, only adherence to Weaver’s confused principles. Hayes is one-handed, Stewart has no role on defense, Saddiq is not athletic, but they do project as attackers.
Weaver’s quote was an obvious reference to the two Championship era teams that we had in Detroit (the Bad Boys of the late 80s/early 90s and the new Bad Boys of the early 2000s).
Who knows, at least he’s trying to do something.