Are The Detroit Pistons At A Disadvantage With No Pre-Draft Process?

With the suspension of the NBA season due to the coronavirus crisis, not just the games have stopped. Just as importantly for teams well outside the playoff picture like the Detroit Pistons, the pre-draft process has been brought to a halt.

We’re still some time away from the NBA’s originally scheduled May 19th draft lottery which will finalize the selection slots for each team. The league may opt to go directly to the playoffs if and when the 2019-20 season resumes, which means that teams will remain in their current slots.

If this is the case, the Pistons will hold firm in the fifth slot which would give them a 10.5% shot at the top pick and a 42.1% shot at a top-four pick. This introduces quite a bit of uncertainty into their draft prep, to say nothing of the fact that there will be no draft combine in May.

There will be no opportunity for front offices or scouts to divine more information about their prospects. The opportunity for sharp organizations to work their magic may be diminished, but the best of the best may end up rising to the top of the heap by separating the wheat from the chaff of existing pre-draft data.

The draft is always a crap-shoot outside of the first couple picks, but without a clear front-runner in this class, the 2020 may appear to be more of a game of random chance than usual. However, it may also be the time when elite front offices really show what they can do in making savvy moves.

There are a handful of teams who can be counted on to draft well no matter where they pick. Teams like the Toronto Raptors, Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics seem to find winners wherever they pick whether in the first round or second, or in the case of the Raptors just picking undrafted free agents off the heap.

Other teams aren’t as well-regarded, and others still have no recent track record with premium picks by which to judge them. The Detroit Pistons fall into this final category.

While by any metric, the Pistons have made some clever moves during the draft under the administration of senior adviser Ed Stefanski, they haven’t had the opportunity to show what they can do with a top pick. Last season was the only time they’ve had a first round pick and they were delighted when Sekou Doumbouya fell to them at 15.

They also made the dubious choice to trade the 30th overall pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers for four second-round picks and cash. The Cavs promptly used that pick on former lottery-graded Kevin Porter Jr. who was in free-fall, and Porter has excelled over the course of the season.

Porter has averaged 13.1 points per game with shooting splits of .446/.388/.717 going into the coronavirus-induced hiatus amid unbelievable chaos with the Cavaliers this season, and the Pistons got $5 million and a European draft-and-stash in the form of Deividas Sirvydis.

We’ll see if he ever plays in the NBA, and it’s a mark against them at this point.

In 2018, Stefanski and Co.’s first draft, they snatched up Bruce Brown in the second round, and he’s been the team’s starting two-guard for much of the past two seasons. Mind you, it’s as much an indictment on the Detroit Pistons that a second-round non-scoring rookie was a starter as it is praise to Brown himself for forcing his way in, but Bruce Brown being Stefanski’s biggest draft win isn’t a huge mark in their favor.

To be fair, it’s true that they’ve done the best they could given their meager draft opportunities so far, but this is no indicator of future success with what may well be a high pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.

As for Stefanski’s track record with high picks, there isn’t much value to looking back at his past selections. He’s picked Evan Turner second overall, and he’s selected Jrue Holiday in the middle of the first round in the past. As with any executive, there are hits and misses, and before his Pistons tenure began he hadn’t made a draft pick since 2010.

The future will be what Ed Stefanski is judged on as the Detroit Pistons prepare to make their highest pick, most likely, since selecting Greg Monroe with the seventh overall pick in 2010. It’s their biggest draft opportunity in years, and this is a draft where the best set themselves apart.

We don’t know when the lottery and draft will take place, but when it does, we’ll have a much better idea of where Ed Stefanski sits in the hierarchy of NBA decision-makers.