Third-year Pistons guard R.J. Hampton is slowly finding his place within his new team, writes Mike Curtis of The Detroit News (subscription required).
Hampton has earned significant playing time since arriving in Detroit last month following injuries to guards Killian Hayes and Alec Burks. He got off to a slow start, but with a bump in minutes over the past four contests, he is averaging 10.0 PPG on 48% field goal shooting, 2.3 RPG, 1.5 APG, and 1.3 SPG.
“I always tell myself, ‘When you put a pizza in the oven, you don’t like what it looks like after 20 seconds,'” Hampton told Curtis. “You gotta let it cook for a minute. You take it out the oven once it cooks and then you eat your pizza… I’m finding my footing here and kind of understanding my role, what I want it to be.”
There’s more out of the Central Division:
- New Pistons addition James Wiseman is stringing together the best basketball in his NBA career thus far, Curtis writes in a subscriber-only mailbag for The Detroit News. Curtis also addresses questions on the free agency of Hamidou Diallo and the exact extent of Detroit’s player injuries.
- Bulls starting point guard Patrick Beverley, an unrestricted free agent this summer, would like to remain with his hometown team beyond the 2022/23 season, writes Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. “Thinking about staying in a place long term, stuff like that, that’s not really up to your control,” Beverley noted. “I’d like to think that I did all the right things when I was in Minnesota, and I was traded the next summer. So you can’t get caught up in what you can’t control.”
- Bucks team general manager Jon Horst recently reflected on how the team has made subtle roster enhancements since injuries and depth issues hampered their title defense in 2022, according to Jim Owczarski of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “As proud as I was, or we were, of our team last year – that’s sincere and genuine – it’s hard, it’s hard to defend a championship,” Horst told Owczarski. “We were right there. We had a chance. And that’s all you ask for every year… And we went into the summer, the offseason, like ‘we’ve got to get better… These teams are good, we’re like ‘we’ve got to get better, we’ve got to load up.’ So, really what we did is we loaded up.”
Wiseman as a Piston ….. 8 gms
in 25.6 mins a gm. 11.9 pts, 7.8 reb, 1 blk.
He’s 21 yrs old. He didn’t play in college. So he needs PT. Needs mins to learn.
Warriors would have been smart to play him in G-league for a yr. But ………. What does small ball know about true Centers. You’d think a Guy who played with Robinson and Duncan. Would appreciate what a true big brings.
Oh Well !!!!
K …. Gotta say it. Then you give him away. I can’t believe 10 other teams didn’t want him. Then you give him away for a guy you could have signed. So both should be playing for you.
Then you’re ok with waiting a month for Payton to heal. I doubt Warriors even shopped Wiseman. I sure would have ……
Go get it young man ……
Definitely pulling for the young man to get it done. He was a solid citizen in San Francisco even though things did not go his way. Never once complained, never once stopped working.
Probably disagree about sticking him in the G league and letting him play the whole year because at this point in his career and with the free agency staring at you in the face, you have to see if he can compete against the Major Leaguers. 10 million dollar decision hinges upon it.
I guess there’s something missing between the ears on where to be and when to be there, especially on defense. Everyone can see the physical tools are top level and NBA ready. Run jump shoot and willingness to work. But as I said, definitely pulling for the young man to succeed either in Detroit or wherever he winds up this summer.
Warriors should have done that is what I said. Hasn’t played since HS. As a rookie in GS. His Rookie yr should have been in G-league. Would have helped, trust me. I think Detroit got a great deal.
I Like all their bigs. Duren, Wiseman, Stewart…..
Yes if he was healthy but basically the first two years were spent on the injured list. Warriors hands were tied.., almost a no-win situation.
After reading that quote I’m now an RJ Hampton fan
“Third-year Pistons guard R.J. Hampton is slowly developing his place within the team, writes Mike Curtis of The Detroit News.” Also the reference to Curtis’ linked mailbag article.
Alex, the Detroit News is behind a paywall. You should note this in your article, like Luke and Arthur and other Hoopsrumors writers do.
Any writer who aggregates needs to be aware that their readers may not want to subscribe to all the media sites that you pull material from. All you have to do is to note that these sites are paywalled in your articles, and then give us more quoted or derived information from these sites.
Hoopsrumors.com needs to develop a policy about this that all its writers follow.
This is our policy, but once you’re signed into a given site, not all of them make it obvious which articles are subscriber-only and which aren’t.
The biggest loss for the bucks was letting PJ Tucker slip away. They weren’t the same after that.
Patrick Beverly thinking about staying in a place long-term, LOL. Not at this age, not with this skill level, and not with this abrasive “great when it’s good and disruptive when it’s bad” personality.
He’s a fantastic spark plug to insert where needed such as the youth in Minnesota who didn’t play defense. Perfect there. But a struggling team like Chicago is not a place for a shot in the arm to get over the hump. They’re still finding their way.
Is R.J. Hampton dyslexic?
He truly lost me on the Pizza analogy, and comparison
Did R.J. just learn how to prepare, and cook pizza or something?
Holy Cow if this is this kids intelligence