Snakebites wrote:vege wrote:Snakebites wrote:As I said in another thread:
Number of players in the last quarter century drafted by the Pistons to become high quality, long term starters with the team: 3.
Hill
Tayshaun
Drummond
And the list doesn't really get all that much longer if you include guys who became quality starting players for a number of years with other teams either. I think that adds:
Ratliff
Middleton
Okur
And none of those really developed into starter level guys with us. They all blossomed after they left.
There's no two ways about it. Our draft and player development record is absolutely abysmal, and it goes back a long, long time. It's been particularly bad recently though. We can talk about a lot of other things, but this is the REAL reason we've been awful for 10 years. Other teams give out bad contracts and recover if the talent is there. Plus, we probably wouldn't have signed Josh Smith or traded for Blake Griffin if we'd done a better job getting talent via the draft.
The list is a lot longer........
- Lindsay Hunter and Allan Houston - drafted by us in 1993 - don't think I need to say anything about them.
- Jerome Williams - was an above average started for Toronto - drafted by us in 1996
- Amir Johnson - started in a few good teams and did/is doing fine - drafted by us late in 2005
- Arron Afflalo - was a very good starter especially for Orlando and did great for Denver as well - drafted by us in 2007 and was given away so we could overpay the freaking Chris Willcox
- Greg Monroe drafted by us in 2010 - he is coming off the bench, but he was a good started for a few years
- Spencer Dinwiddie drafted by us in 2014 is doing amazing starting for Brooklyn
Greg Monroe, Arron Afflalo, and Amir arentvreally what is call long term starters. Both Afflalo and Monroe put up nice volume numbers but didn’t ultimately actually help their teams. Front offices realized that which is why those careers took the turn they did.
I already addressed Dinwiddie- bad efficiency and volume stats in an awful team. Houston and Hunter were pre-cutoff. Jerome Williams was an energy guy off the bench, not a quality starter.
Jerome Williams was a starter at his prime. 28-29-30 YO he started for Toronto and did really well there. At 31 YO he was retired tho, so maybe you can't call him a long term starter, since early in his career he was a bench player, still he was a great pick and we developed him just fine.
I'll strongly disagree with you about Afflalo. He was a good defender and a very efficient player in Denver and later in Orlando. He was a starter at the age of 24 untill the age of 29 in Orlando.
09-10 He shot 46.5% from the Field and 43.4% from 3 57.6% TS. With 0.8 OBPM -0.5 DBPM 0.3BPM and 1.3 VORP, that on a new team, new system and his first time ever starting. That's pretty impressive for a #27 pick. And from there he only went up.
The next season he had an insane 62% TS and 2.1 BPM. Then 58.4% TS with a 2.5 OBPM and 1.5 VORP (his DBPM was terrible and started to decline from this point)
But still during his prime he was a starter and a well above average one, and a very efficient one.
Greg Monroe has started for most of his career, recently he became a scorer off the bench, which is the only way his skill set can be utilized nowadays, but while he was a starter Since he was a 20 YO rookie untill he was 25 YO in Milwaukee, his offensive advanced numbers are impressive. His defense has always been a joke, and I will always hate him for those lame And1 screams.
I wouldn't say Amir is a great started, however we drafted him out of the High School, and we did a decent job developing him, he had his moments coming off the bench for us, and he has been starting since he left us in free agency, and he is doing fine.
If you're going to say Monroe and Afflalo put good (empty) stats in bad teams, use the same logic to Amir Johnson then, he has been starting for some really solid teams (Toronto, then Boston and now Philladelphia).
During the Dumars era, we usually drafted really late, and honestly, he did some amazing job finding players late in the first round and in the second round. (Maxiell, Amir, Jerebko, Middleton, Afflalo were all great picks)
Yes he **** up a lot too. Stuckey, Daye, Monroe, KCP, Knight, were terrible choices. We could easily have Paul George and Kemba Walker.
The guys picked after Daye make me want to cry. James Johnson, who is solid. Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague, Darren Collison all had their moments and we needed a PG badly back there.
in 2009-2010/2010-2011/2011-2012 our only SF was Prince (Daye and Summers were laughable), and he was hurting us more than helping at that point, being a ball hogger. Paul George would have done wonders for us. We should've drafted him.
We **** up even harder when we took Knight over Kemba, Knight was the worst player we drafted in a while. He was never a PG, hell, several years later he is still clueless as PG and failed everywhere he went. He was a TO machine. Terrible decisions all the time on the court.
So yes, there are a lot of bad things to talk about our draft choices, but they're not as bad as your painting here.
The two moves I will never forgive our GMs, like EVER, are giving away Afflalo and Middleton. I am very salty about those moves they were so stupid back there, and years later looking at what those two players became piss me off even more. We gave Afflalo away, so we could outbid ourselves, and give more money to Chris Wilcox, who was a joke of a player. And we decided to send Middleton instead of Kyle Singler to Milwaukee to acquire Brandon Jennings (who at least played great for us).
They were both talented, hard workers two way players, we took a chance on them, we found them later in the draft, we developed them and then we gave them away. That set us back, not bad drafting or poor player development. Losing players like Monroe and KCP for nothing didn't help either. Yes I would hate to see us overpay for them, but trade them away for assets before the situation get to that point. FFS.
Anyways I'm just frustrated, and write this was way better than watch our **** team probably get destroyed again.
